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“I cannot figure out where to begin this analysis,” I said, gesturing to the blank parchment.
It wasn’t entirely true. I knew where to begin. I just hadn’t been able to scribble a single, actual thought.
Her features lifted. She moved to grab a stool from beside the fire. “Would you like my help?”
“I’m tired,” I said, halting her motions. “Maybe tomorrow?”
That hopeful expression faltered. “I see. Very well, then. Tomorrow,” she conceded. “Don’t forget—”
“To blow out the candles,” I finished.
We traded awkward smiles. She reached out, her fingers smoothing my hair and adjusting my bun. I swore, the contact felt like waking up and falling asleep, like protection and loneliness.
A castle was such a formal, ceremonial place. But with her, it softened into a home, with comforting bits and pieces strewn about.
Pillows and quilts. Steam from a pot of tea. A hairbrush.
I wondered what she would do if I grabbed a handkerchief from the table and used it to mirthfully smack her wrist, or if I stuck out my tongue and then teased her, or if I uncapped my pot of lip balm and smeared it across her chin, or if I grabbed my quill and wrote my secrets on the parchment for her to see—actions I would have played at years ago.
Instead, Mother left. And I let her go.
A Spring breeze whisked through the window cracks, the fragrances of nightfall and nature flooding my nostrils. Rising, I shuffled toward the glass and opened the casement, inhaling a vista’s worth of flora.
Each kingdom had its Crown, its court, its warriors, its servants, its peasants, and its harvesters. But the kingdoms also had different landscapes, mindsets, and specialties.
Humble, charitable Autumn. The land of practicality and tranquility. Our castle, presiding over fields of corn and wheat, and orchards dripping with pears.
The aromas of soil and damp wool. The crunch of leaves. Builders, farmers, and millers.
Introspective, stoic Winter. The glacial land of wisdom. A white world with a blade-like stronghold surrounded by a frozen lake, the placid surface flipping the world upside down.
The sunken dens, the libraries and universities, and the medical halls. Scholars, scribes, and hunters.
Tireless and temperamental Summer. The wrathful land of flames, relentless oceans, and briny air. A fortress chiseled into a cliff beside the waves. The cavernous call of peacocks, aquarium-lined corridors, and indoor waterfalls.
Fishermen and women. Makers of nets, ropes, and sails. And sand drifters, explorers who traveled the kingdom’s uncharted seas.
Then there was artful, sinful Spring, with its palace of ivy-covered walls and stained glass murals. Domed ceilings, circular turrets, and round chambers. The numerous gardens, including the one where I clashed with Poet, the blooming ruins where I met Eliot, a coiling labyrinth, an expanse of wisteria arbors, lotus ponds, and too many others to list.
Keepers of flora and fauna. All manner of artists and courtesans.
Each nation possessed its own natural cycle. Seasons within the Seasons.
Winter went through different stages in a year. Months of frost, then snow, then ice.
Summer intensified from sunshine to a heat that glared down on people.
In Autumn, the trees burst with color for part of the year. During later months, the leaves dried up. After that, they fell, cracked and brittle.
Then it started over. The land shed its coat and eventually grew it back.
Spring had its rain and clouds, then blue skies, then growth as the environment blossomed, and then another chill and an onslaught of weeds.
Presently, it was blooming season in Spring.
The sensuous gaiety of life. The wild, unpredictable full moon. The spiraling free fall.
A time to lose control. A time to be bold.
