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“And we could be uncles.”
“Hmm,” Ollie said. He adored his sister Em’s kids, when they visited. He pictured Tir with a half-fairy baby in those arms. He pictured them formally adopting a niece or nephew into the succession; not splitting up a family, but simply as an acknowledged heir.
He wanted to draw that scene: Tir holding a baby with fairy-moonstone hair and human-hazel eyes, in the library, maybe, reading aloud.
He said, again, “Hmm.”
“You like my idea.”
“And you’ve been reading awful melodramatic romances again. Dinner?”
“If we have to.” Tir made a face, but sat up when nudged, and let Ollie pull him to his feet. “Your mother, my mother, half the Fairy High Court, and orchids deciding to bloom out of the banquet table…”
“At least life with you isn’t boring,” Ollie told him, and held his hand on the way up winding old stone stairs.
Dinner did not prove to be an awful melodramatic romance, but only barely.
Rae and Cedric sat next to each other—Tir sent him a meaningful glance; Ollie rolled his eyes—and dove into increasingly elaborate plans for the upcoming wedding-day with ominous passion. Both mothers had insisted on a grand ceremony; Tir was an only child, and they were both Crown Princes, and the Queens had given their sons matching stares and observed that this would be a state occasion to be remembered for all time. At least magic could help with color-changing draperies, Ollie reflected, and generally kept away from the planning.
Tir mostly smiled innocently, made a few decisions about cake flavors and sugar-roses when asked, and then avoided any more by pleading exhaustion. This would’ve been unfair, except that Ollie also consistently benefited, being instantly ordered to go take care of him every time.
His sisters were on the way. Louisa had had to arrange a leave from medical-student duties, though she’d also said she’d never pass up the chance to meet a kingdom full of fairies; Ollie had briefly pondered again that passing idea about hospital expansion and founding a branch of fairy-physiology study and his sister’s upcoming degree. Em and her husband would arrive from Stratsburg, with the miniature horde of nieces and nephews in tow, within the next two days. They’d all stay for the wedding, of course.
Oliver and Tirian had, in the end, had a few requirements for that wedding. Open reception. Inviting and welcoming anyone in the kingdom who turned up. Guests from provinces and port cities, northern farmers and impoverished university students. The brewer who supplied Ollie’s favorite pub would be bringing kegs. They’d hold the party on the Great Lawn and throw the castle’s arms wide for fairy-folk and courtiers of all types and humans of every shape and size and age, mingling.
Mingling, Ollie thought; and scowled at the sylph on his betrothed True Love’s other side. She had violet eyes and blue-tipped hair and long eyelashes that fluttered like sea-grass underwater; she was pleasant enough in a fluttery admiring way, and she wanted to admire her prince with her whole heart.
And that was the problem. In a legend-shaped nutshell.
Of course Tir was a hero. Ollie hadn’t realized; Tir hadn’t either, and neither of them had expected it.
And the hero-worship made perfect sense. To his mother’s people, Tirian was the Crown Prince who’d left home at twelve years old to do what the land asked of him, to willingly give himself over to a human, to love a human and die for a human and give up most of his magic in the process. He was a story. A romantic myth. A protector who’d sacrificed himself for them. And they didn’t know him.
They knew that story. It’d been told and retold for over a decade.
The pretty sylph said, “If some of us wanted to put on a concert—an informal evening, of course, no pressure—and a performance of, oh, ‘Song of the Prince Who Walked South,’ or ‘The Hero and the Prophecy,’ would you come?” and batted her eyes.
“I’d really rather hear something else,” Tir said, politely.
“You’re so brave,” she said dreamily. “It’d be an honor just to sit beside you…”
“Aren’t you right now?” Ollie put in, which earned him a small smile from Tir, which made him feel about ten feet tall.
The sylph gave him a lovely but confused stare: the non-magic awkward weight at her prince’s side shouldn’t be witty. “I only meant at a concert, or a performance…surely you must know how deeply we honor him, he’s an inspiration, you understand, a true heir to Fairy…” She stopped. Her eyes rounded: well-meaning, tactless, aware of it. “I’m so sorry, Highness.”
“It’s fine,” Tir said, still polite; but Ollie could see tension at the corners of his eyes, could feel it in their knees, touching under the dinner table. His mother’s castle wasn’t that big, because Bellemare wasn’t a big kingdom; the banquet hall barely held visiting ambassadors plus family, and the Fairy Court was straining the room’s limits.
Ollie didn’t mind being close enough to touch Tir, of course. Especially now.
Their mothers, seated together at the head—there’d been some maneuvering regarding that one—looked at them both, inexplicably managed to see through the table to Ollie’s hand on Tir’s thigh, and beamed. The pride of parents. Misty-eyed and thrilled at children in love. And, because they were both Queens, satisfaction at kingdoms peacefully uniting.
“But I’m so sorry,” the sylph said again, plaintive and genuinely distressed; and a few other heads turned. “I would never remind you of your loss—not that being human means you’re less than—I’d never think—” She glanced at Ollie, back at Tir, and gave up, bewildered by loyalty and devotion, and dropped her gaze to her wine.
Tir said, “It truly is fine, Gwenneth, I’m not that fragile, and I don’t think it’s a loss,” though his fingers found Oliver’s and held on too tightly. He hadn’t touched the venison in plum and cinnamon sauce, or the opening stylized swan-sculpture of imported pineapple and orange and spun sugar; he hadn’t eaten more than a bite or two of candied ginger and butternut bisque. The palace chefs were outdoing themselves out of professional pride; Oliver was getting concerned about his soon-to-be-husband.
Who went on, nothing but flawless royal kindness evident, “If you would, though—if any of the younger Court are planning any sort of tribute, what I’d love would be some of the older music, songs that were popular before I went away, everything I’ve not heard in years, could you do that? I know you can; you know every Court trend for the last century.” Stronger humans and fairies would’ve melted at that smile; Ollie had the immediate desire to run out and learn fifteen-year-old fairy melodies himself. Gwenneth, wide-eyed at this trust, nodded.
“Thank you,” Tir concluded. “Oliver, can we…I’m not feeling…I think I’d like to go lie down, actually, I’m sorry.”
