Page 1 of Noble Charms

PROLOGUE: FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES

NOBLE

The loud weeping that echoed through the Great Hall rubbed against Noble’s nerves like a knit sweater fastened too tightly around his neck. One woman’s bellows paused, and he took a breath in relief. Relief that was interrupted when she blew her nose into a handkerchief as loud as a horn. He shot a look over his shoulder and saw her—wet-faced, white-haired, being comforted with many solemn members of the congregation. Countess… Something.

“You’re staring,” said Noble’s father, quietly, out the side of his mouth.

Noble huffed and flopped back into his seat properly. “She’s making a ruckus,” said Noble, keeping his voice down, crossing his little arms over his chest. “It’s like she wants people to look.” He was only age six, but he had more manners than her at age, what—twenty? She was terribly old and terribly rude.

His dad blew out a quiet chuckle and placed a hand atop Noble’s fluffy brown curls. “She’s in mourning.”

Noble peered up at Dad, at his pale freckled face and round spectacles perched on the arch of his nose. “She didn’t even know him.”

“Everyone knew him. He was our king.”

“Yeah, but he was my grandfather. I’m not crying loud enough to stop the elf priest.”

At the front of the hall, the priest in question bowed solemnly, waiting for the many rows of quiet chatter—and the crying—to settle again. He’d been in the midst of reading the final rites given to mortals from his god: Rosint, the elven God of Death.

The priest’s long black hair swept over the shoulders of his tunic—a special dress with glowing stitches on the hem. Like all elves, he had magic, and he filled the air with light as he spoke, and Noble would have been content to watch him all day.

Well, maybe not all day. He spared a glance out the nearest sunny window, and saw birds twittering about, and butterflies dancing on a breeze, and hoped he’d get a chance to roll down the big hill before the day was done. They didn’t come to King’s Castle that often. That hill was his favorite part.

His father’s fingers drummed along the top of his head, pulling his attention back to the matter at hand.

The King’s funeral.

The elf priest continued now that the blubbering settled. Noble could still hear the countess boohooing behind him, but at least it had been muffled. After a moment or two, when Noble’s dad still had not yet removed his hand, Noble looked over to him again. He was being obedient and didn’t need to be held onto like a pup on a leash.

Noble’s shock hit him deeply, somewhere between his heart and his soul, when he realized his dad was crying. Silently, but unmistakably, with tears trailing down his face and into his short, dark beard.

Why was Dad crying? Noble was big for his age, but his father was still much larger, and it took all ten of Noble’s fingers to properly wrap around his hand, pulling it off his head and into his lap instead. He squeezed. “Dad?”

His dad wouldn’t look at him. He instead whispered, “It’s okay.”

The elf priest raised his voice, words like a song. “And now, we say, to the Great Eighth Son Child of the Sun God: hasitan.”

All those in attendance chorused back, “Hasitan.”

Noble scrambled to say, “Hasitan,” at the tail end of everyone else. The elven word for goodbye.

A band of musicians began to play slow, gentle tunes. Some people milled about, rising from the long wooden pews that made up the Great Hall. Quiet chit-chat filled any spaces that music did not. None approached the front pew where Noble and his father sat, giving him distance with which to mourn.

Noble sat with Dad for some time, holding his hand. After the song ended, and the performers began to pack up, Noble said, “Don’t be sad. The elf priest said it. Grandfather is with Rosint now. You can speak with him whenever you like, can’t you?”

His dad exhaled and pulled his hand away to fish out a handkerchief and wipe his face. “It’s not that simple, Yves.”

Noble’s confusion nearly made him ask why, but he didn’t want to make his father any more upset than he already was.

His dad tucked away the hankie and then shifted on the seat to face Noble. “None have heard from the gods in seven years.”

Noble squinted.

His dad continued, “We used to speak to them. All the time. They would leave their plane and come to ours. I met Sumas once before, when I was a young man. He came to a family dinner and met all of us Agoldes and St. Clairs.”

Noble said, slowly, recounting his lessons at home, “I thought, when we spoke to the gods, we did so in here.” He pointed at his chest, at his heart. That’s what he had been taught.

“We do. And that’s good. You should do that. But I used to do that at your age, and sometimes, I’d hear a reply back. We all would. Us mortal folk.”