Arc 6: Chapter 6: A Son of House Hunting
It took every ounce of my self control not to react. It was harder than when I’d walked in on Hyperia sitting barely more than an arm’s reach from my queen. This felt more sudden, more intimate.
But I remembered who I pretended to be, and said nothing while the surrounding tourney knights chatted about the Cymrinorean’s brash display. I folded my arms as though in contemplation, mostly to keep my clenched fist from being too obvious.
The narrowed vision of my helm made it so I didn’t see the prince out of the corner of my eye, but I knew he watched me. I could feel his eyes, hard and focused, like a pressure against the side of my skull.
“You’re the one who fought in that melee earlier,” he muttered. “I watched that fight. You didn’t belong with those riff-raff.”
I tilted my head to look at him again and shrugged one shoulder, playing the mute. This let me get a better look at him. The prince, who was twin to his sister and couldn’t have been older than twenty, did not have a young man’s voice. It rasped like a veteran who’d inhaled too much smoke from alchemical weapons, or a lifetime smoker. Neither was he particularly tall. His face, which bore an uncanny resemblance with Hyperia’s, also held an unhealthier complexion, like he was recovering from a long illness.
His armor wasn’t princely. As I’d noted before, it looked dingy and old, holding a rust-brown hue. There were intricate designs on the metal, but they’d been so marred by time and violence I couldn’t make them out. His visored helm hugged tight to his skull, with only a black plume of hair for decorative.
His eyes were like his sister’s in color, but they held none of her low cunning or cruel mirth. They would have been an ordinary brown, but something about them made my teeth itch. There was death in those eyes. When they narrowed as though trying to see through my mask, a bead of cold sweat formed on my temple.
Fear. I’d faced demons and tyrants, and this boy made me feel cold with just a look.
“Where do I know you from?” He asked.
My muscles tightened beneath layers of steel. Could he see through the glamour on my helm? We’d only encountered one another a handful of times, and never spoken.
Still playing casual, I gestured down to the field. Calerus wasn't amused.