disorienting at first, all these people and all these things; my whole universe for the past few days had been limited to Randal and our small and perfect world. All of this outside, it seemed so noisy and foreign. And unwelcome.
But inhaling deeply, I steadied myself. From a nearby rack, I took two glass jugs of milk to help myself blend in. I was already, thankfully, in plain dress that easily passed for a servant’s, and nobody gave me a second glance. As the servants and people passed me, I heard snatches of hurried conversations.
The king is dying. His bastard will take the crown.
I rounded a corner, searching for an exit.
The king’s bastard is an animal — have you ever seen him? A monstrosity. An abomination. A curse on the land.
These words were familiar to me. The King’s bastard was the favorite boogeyman of Aramoor.
Since I was a child, I had heard horror stories about him, about his deformities and terrible temper. Some said he had two heads, some that there was a second set of eyes in the back of his head. There were tales of fang teeth and long, sharp talons like his father had taken up with a dragon.
Children who stayed out past dusk were told by their parents that the bastard would come for them. When sheep were found dead, there was always talk that the bastard had killed them. He was a shapeshifting sort of monster, something uniquely horrible to every person—a bespoke nightmare. My own father had threatened me with the bastard, when I was younger and had such difficulty waking up before dawn to milk the cows.
“He’ll come for you, girl. They say he likes little blondes best.” I shuddered at the memory.
I had heard time and again that the bastard son of the king had to wear a mask so that all those who saw him didn’t go mad upon the sight of his awful, horrible face. They said that just looking into his eyes was enough to turn a man to stone. How much of that was true, I had my doubts. But rumors of the bastard always hung around Aramoor. The poison fog of gossip.
But all at once, my thoughts of the bastard son of the king vanished from my mind. Because through the halls, I heard the firm, clear, beautiful voice of the love of my life. Randal. He was somewhere close.
I followed the sound of his words, “Lords and ladies. By now, you have heard the news of my father’s illness…”
It was definitely him. He had told me himself that his father was unwell. Where is he? And why is he speaking that way about his father, like he’s someone everyone should know? I hurried through the hallways, moving with the flow of servants, following the sound of his voice.
Randal’s voice boomed, “…I saw him just this morning. He asked me to come to address you…”
Address them? Why would Randal need to address anyone? Why was his father’s illness so important as that? My mind turned with the new information bombarding me from all sides, itching with some new insight that I couldn’t quite see.
I turned left, and found myself in a great, vast hallway, lined with gleaming suits of armor affixed to the sandstone walls. In front of me was a huge hall, with cathedral-high ceilings, packed with women and men in the finest, most elegant clothes I had ever seen. All of their heads were turned to a man who stood before them, addressing them. He was masked, but his body was undeniably Randal’s, and it was his voice, it was him.
I froze, with my jugs of milk in my hands, staring, trying to marry the image before me to the world that made sense. I knew his body, I knew his voice, but he was masked. Why in the world would he be…
“And so it is time that I show myself to you. Not as the bastard prince,” he said, now lifting his mask. “But as your future king.”
The crowd gasped, all at once, like a flock of ravens taking wing together. But the face that was beneath the mask wasn’t the horrible face of the bastard prince. It was no monster. It was Randal. It was him. So, where in the world was the bastard?
Unless… could it be?
All at once, every lord and lady went to their knees and knelt before him. As they dropped in unison, I clapped my hands to my mouth,