Helios

 

The night air was warm but damp as I trudged my way through the gardens, being careful to avoid falling into any beds of flowers or over any low railings. There was barely any moonlight to see where I was going, but it was enough. The stars were strangely bright and allowed me to adjust.

When the party had transitioned to the dance I couldn’t stand to be inside any longer. I’d left the hall without a word, not even bothering to look back to see if anyone was following me – I just wanted to be alone. I’d never liked dancing and I could feel the pressure building up inside me until I wanted to explode. Instead, I ran.

I had no plan in mind – no idea where I was going or what I would do once I got there – I just allowed my feet to carry me wherever they would. It felt liberating to be out in the open air without all of the judgmental eyes or crushing expectations being placed upon me. I could just be myself – whoever that was.

As I rounded a beautiful floral display, I spotted the wood and stone enclosure that had been hastily erected to house my gift from the Surisian King from earlier in the day. It was a plain, wood-panelled structure with solid iron bars – not at all suitable for the palace gardens but we didn’t have anything else suitable just yet.

As I approached, I was struggling to see into its interior spaces. It was just too dark for me to see, but I knew that the wyvern would be sleeping within. We hadn’t had much of an opportunity to bond with one another yet and I just hoped that she wasn’t in as foul a mood as I was.

I unfastened my cape and spread it out on the ground next to the bars, then settled down cross-legged. At this point, I didn’t care about the state of my tunic but the dewing grass would leave me cold and uncomfortable without something to sit on.

In the stillness of the night, I heard the clanking of metal chains and the scraping of claws on the hard, dry ground within the pen. There was nothing sudden about the movements and I felt completely at ease, even though they were drawing closer to where I was sitting. I turned to peer over my shoulder and noticed the dark shape of the young wyvern slowly emerge into the astral light, its eyes seeming to twinkle with curiosity as it watched me.

“Good evening,” I uttered towards her in a low tone. “Did I disturb you?”

She didn’t reply, of course, and instead just kept watching me with her bright, reptilian eyes.

“I really should give you a name. I can’t just call you ‘Wyvern’. What do you think about the idea of me naming you?”

Even in this day and age, there was still conflicting wisdom on whether wyverns were intelligent enough to understand human speech, but I decided to assume that she could. It was the respectful thing to do.

Her response came in the form of a wide, gaping yawn, revealing rows of tiny sharp teeth. I couldn’t help but break into a smile, watching her curl up next to the bars and sigh.

Although they had been far more common in the past, Wyverns were almost unheard of these days, primarily being seen in the mountains south of Surisia. I’d never heard of them being taken as pets before – she was most certainly an odd gift.

“How about… Shadow? Do you like that one?” I enquired, peering at her closely. She was still awake and my question caused her to open her eyes, snort once in my direction and then close them again.

“Shadow? That is a terrible name for such a majestic creature,” a feminine voice said from the darkness and I turned sharply to see who it was. Even though her face was hidden in the dim light of night, there was no mistaking her gown and the tail that it accommodated.

“Iara? What are you doing here?” I asked a little too rudely and caught myself before I said any more. “Sorry. I just thought you were enjoying dancing with everyone else.”

I could see her shrug her shoulders as she stepped closer, “I did not feel like remaining after you made your escape. The others are so boring.”

She used her long, delicate fingers to hike the hem of her dress to keep from tripping while she lowered herself down onto her knees alongside me. Remembering my manners, I shifted a little to the side and offered a spot on my cape for her to use as a blanket, which she accepted.

“So, if not Shadow, what do you think I should call her?” I asked as she settled herself and brushed at the skirts of her dress. It felt a little awkward to be so close to her but she didn’t seem to mind.

Iara hummed softly and lifted her gaze skyward as she contemplated the question. If there had actually been some light to see her by then I would likely have been staring by now, captivated by her exotic beauty, but instead, I waited for her to answer. Finally, after what felt like a minute or two, I saw her turn back towards me, “Well, we are in Aeidia, so why not something like… umm... Astradea?”

I blinked – that was actually pretty good. The Wyvern seemed to agree as she opened her eyes and shuffled slightly closer to the bars.

“Astradea? That’s a pretty name,” I answered back, turning towards the dark shape inside the enclosure behind us. “What do you think?”

Her scaled reptilian snout poked out through the bars towards us and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Perhaps just ‘Astra’ for short, though.”

I gently patted her muzzle and she whined in reply, dropping back down onto the ground with a huff.

 

The three of us sat together for a while longer, with Iara and I discussing what had happened that evening while Astra snored quietly behind us. I turned my gaze skywards, taking in the view of the twinkling stars and the narrow crescents of the twin moons as they passed close to each other. The tides must be pretty high right now.

“So, dancing is not something you enjoy?” Iara asked me, cutting through a half-minute of silence.

Her question startled me, drawing me back to the moment. I blinked and twisted on the cape to face her, even though dread caused my stomach to flutter at the direction that this conversation was headed.

“Well, not exactly. Dancing can be enjoyable, but…” I answered back, pausing to think of how I was going to phrase it. “I… hate how we do it here. Why do men and women have to do different things? There are plenty of countries where dancing is far less formal.”

She was silent for a while and I was glad that the darkness was hiding the blush that had risen in my cheeks. I wasn’t sure why I was finding her so easy to talk to now when she’d seemed so aloof when we’d first met. Would I end up admitting my secret to her?

“As a little girl, it was considered my duty to my family and to my tribe to find harmony between who I was and who I was expected to be,” she began, leaning back into the bars like I was.

“My people believe that children should be allowed to find themselves before they take on the expectations of the tribe. Only then can they find their place as adults,” she went on, turning her head to look back at me, “All children are given the chance to become who they feel that they are, but even then some never succeed and refuse their responsibilities to the tribe. My people would say that those children are lost and must be helped and guided to their rightful place.”

I stared at her as I attempted to wrap my head around the sudden shift in direction that the conversation had taken.

“If you do not mind me saying so, I believe that you struggle because you do not know who you are,” she went on, turning more fully towards me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, “I know who I am.” I was fighting hard to keep the uncertainty from my voice.

She didn’t immediately reply this time and I had to stop myself from fidgeting at how awkward the discussion was making me feel, but after a while she sighed and leaned back, brushing some hair from her twitching ear.

“I have a small confession to make to you,” she uttered quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I saw you earlier today, while you were changing your clothes.”

I felt myself go pale as horror flooded through my system. She’d seen me? Why was she telling me? Who had she already told? Oh crap, what do I say?

“O-oh? You saw me?” I asked, doing my utmost to keep the rising panic that was rushing through me from affecting my voice. Maybe she didn’t mean what I thought she did. Instead of responding, she reached out and placed a reassuring hand on my leg. That caught me off guard and I swallowed a lump that had formed in my throat.

I wasn’t sure if my family knew what I got up to in Selene’s room, but if they did they certainly didn’t want anyone outside of the family to find out.

“Yes, but do not worry. I am certain that a skilled alchemist would be able to help you. They are capable of some truly wonderful elixirs these days and they are re-discovering new formulae all the time.”

My mind was struggling to work out what she was talking about. What did she mean? By the light, was she suggesting what I thought she was?

“W-why would I need such a potion?” I asked, unsuccessfully doing my best to sound curious rather than guilty. At least the night prevented her from seeing the furious blush that was burning at my cheeks. I tried to brush it aside with a quick laugh, but it sounded strained and utterly guilty.

Iara sighed and squeezed before pulling her hand away again and I thought she was dropping the subject. Instead, she answered, “To become the person that you are.”

“But they are illegal!” I snapped back instinctively, drawing a tilt of the head from the princess. Oops.

I only knew of their illegality because I’d asked our royal alchemist a lot of questions several years ago. He’d insisted that while it was certainly possible to create a potion to change one’s physical appearance, unless a powerful mage activated it then the effects would only be temporary.

A potion to change one’s appearance is any criminal’s dream – they’d do anything to get their thieving hands on one. If you could pretend to be anyone or even a fake person for a period of time, then you could get away with any crime you wanted. As such, any alchemist discovered to be brewing them would find themselves arrested and thrown in jail.

Mother had found out that I’d been asking odd questions and she’d taken me aside one day to demand to know why. I couldn’t just tell her the truth – that I’d never felt right in who I was – so I had to make up some silly excuse that it was just curiosity. It took me several weeks to convince her that I wasn’t doing secret and illicit alchemy without her knowledge.

It was when Iara giggled at the sudden outburst that I knew that I’d put my foot in it.

“Oh? You have looked into them before?” she asked with a hint of teasing.

“Well… I was… it… oh whatever!”

Her giggle turned into a laugh and I wished that the ground would swallow me up to hide me from my embarrassment. Was she going to tease me now? Would she run off and let everyone know that I was the Prince that liked to dress in his sister’s clothing?

Instead, she surprised me by gently touching her fingers to my cheek. I could feel the warmth on my skin and I lifted a hand to touch the back of hers. My body moved of its own volition – I was far too shocked to think clearly.

“You make a beautiful girl,” she said.

My muscles all tensed at once and I felt like a rabbit in the path of a stampeding horse, trapped and unable to move before an impending demise.

 

~*~*~

 

Iara’s fingers gently soothed my taut jaw as I sat in stunned silence. She’d just delivered me a metaphorical slap to the face and I wasn’t sure how I should reply. I could feel my panic begin to lessen, though, my body once again able to move.

“I am sorry,” the princess repeated for the third time, her voice a whisper, filled with remorse.

“It’s alright,” I managed to mumble, dropping my hand back down to my lap and dipping my chin. This was just so surreal. I’d often thought about talking about this with Gaius or Mother but I’d never been able to find the strength.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asked softly, pulling back.

I could feel the battle raging within as I tried to decide whether I should discuss everything with her. She certainly knew more than most people did about my secret life, but she was also a foreign princess and a relative stranger.

Still.

I sighed and stretched out my legs in front of me. The ground was starting to grow a little colder and damper but I was in no hurry to head back indoors. My family would no doubt be furious with me storming out in front of so many nobles, but they would just have to wait until I was ready to speak to them.

“You know, I’ve never spoken to anyone about it before? At least outside of my family, I mean,” I confessed, still uncertain what her reaction would be.

“So they are aware that you… sneak into a room to try on dresses?” she asked, her voice more curious that accusative but I still couldn’t stop my cheeks from reddening again. Gaius would be having the time of his life if he were here to see me squirm under all of these innocent but awkward questions.

I nodded my head, though I expected it was just a vague movement in the darkness to her. Come to think of it, could she see better in the dark than I can?

“I think so,” I said, deciding that a nod didn’t quite convey enough. “At least, I was caught once when I was much younger sneaking into Selene’s room and trying on her clothes. They probably expect me to still be doing it.”

There was a moment of silence and I could feel the wind starting to pick up a little, rustling the trees and flowers nearby and making Iara shiver.

“Selene?”

Oh right. Not many people knew about my sister – it wasn’t generally something that my family wanted to be widely known.

I hesitated but didn’t see the point in not continuing on, now, “My twin sister. She… was stolen when we were both babies. She’s still missing.”

She gasped audibly and I could see her lift a hand to cover her mouth in shock,  “Oh my Goddess, this is terrible! I had not heard of this! I am so sorry.”

Reflexively, I shrugged my shoulders but I felt the deep well of loneliness that always rose up whenever I thought of my missing twin out there somewhere in the world. At least I hoped that she was still alive – it had been a long time and there were still no clues as to where she was.

“It’s fine. We didn’t know each other,” I replied, truthfully. It did still hurt, though.

“Still, I am sorry that it happened. And no-one knows where she is? That is the worst kind of terrible,” she muttered quickly. “Is she a marked mage, too?”

While it was true that a twin of a marked mage was also more likely to be one themselves, it wasn’t a guarantee. That is, except in the case of identical twins. Then it was far more common – if you could really call marked mages common.

“I think so,” I answered back. In fact, I was almost certain that she was.

She breathed out a sigh – some strange half-whistle and it took me a moment to realise that this was exactly what she was trying to do, “Wow. Two marked mages within Aeidia. That is a lot of power for such a small country.”

“While that would be the case if it were true… people refuse to believe me when I tell them that I don’t have the full range of Facets that I should,” I clarified, taking in a deep breath as I admitted something truly controversial. “Honestly, I don’t seem to be able to use healing or protective abilities at all.”

There was a moment of silence, then she shifted onto her knees to face directly face me, “What do you mean? You are marked, are you not?”

I nodded again but decided to show her instead of having her take my word for it. She drew closer as I reached up to pull down my collar on my tunic, allowing her to see the faintly glowing mark that I’d been born with. It was a series of interweaving curves that formed a circle, with branches radiating outwards in a corona – effectively, it was the Sun, hence my name.

She stared at it up close, making me feel self-conscious enough that I squirmed for only a few seconds before covering myself up again.

“That is truly amazing,” Iara gushed in complete awe, pulling back to rest on her knees again. “But, you say that you cannot use the Facets that you should? How is this possible?”

I knew where this was going.

“Well, it has happened before with twins. They each receive half of the powers that a single mage would.”

She considered my words only briefly before she shook her head, “That is only for when the twins are identical. Two girls or two boys. It has never happened when they are a girl and a boy.”

“I… know…” I answered. “But, here we are.”

“It makes no sense,” she whispered, rocking back and pulling at her shawl.

I could hear the chattering of her teeth and the shivering I’d noticed earlier seemed to be becoming more pronounced. Her homeland of Surisia was a much hotter nation than Aeidia was, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise that she’d find our warm nights quite cool in comparison. When the wind blew in from the mountains it could get pretty chilly.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, rising to my feet and offering out a hand to her. She accepted, reaching to place her hand in my own and I bent down to pick up my cape with the other.

There was a gasp of surprise as I slipped the garment around her shoulders, but then she thanked me with a soft laugh.

“Oh– thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” I answered, a grin forming on my lips.

It had been a heavy night and I had some emotions that I needed to deal with sooner or later, but I was feeling a little better for now.