11. They walked briskly.

Didrika, the servant assigned to look after Bernard, watched him discreetly as she led him to his room. She had ample opportunities to gawk with the awkward way she had to walk behind a high-ranking nobleman like him. She was told that he had already tried to refuse his title and all the deferential treatment it came with, but Earl Kaspar had been extremely clear with his instructions; they were to treat Bernard like the Prince he was. His only concession was to allow Bernard to be addressed by name alone.

While passing others in the corridor, Didrika noticed Bernard didn’t look at people quite right. He’d glance at someone’s face, then look past them for a moment before he met their eyes properly. It reminded her of her uncle. He’d been blessed with fairy sight. She’d heard Bernard had been to meet the fairy. She thought it was a baseless rumour. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She glanced down at the tiny horse that followed the boy like a puppy. He was different, and he was definitely keeping strange company. He seemed like the sort of person a fairy might like to talk to. She opened the door to the guest room to let Bernard in. As he passed through, she noticed his clothes were torn in at least two places.

Bernard put his bag down on the armchair, looking around the small, windowless, but richly furnished room. Fine white candles in a heavy brass candelabra illuminated the space. The bed and desk were ornately decorated, and a gold-framed mirror hung on one wall. Bernard knew forts like these weren’t built for luxury, so he was a little surprised. Agatha gently prodded him with her foreleg, drawing his attention back to the servant at the door. She was staring at the tear in the side of his jacket. Poking it, he said;

‘I see you’ve noticed my terrible wound.’

Didrika quickly averted her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, my Lord. I didn’t mean to stare.’

Bernard laughed.

‘No harm done at all. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t the faintest clue how to repair it.’

‘If you give it to me, I can have it mended while you are eating dinner.’

‘I would be much obliged.’

Another servant arrived with a selection of clothes for Bernard to try. She left as soon as he accepted them. He stepped behind the dressing screen to change, holding the damaged shirt and jacket out once he’d removed them. Didrika took them, examining them closely. She said;

‘These are very neat tears. It doesn’t look like you were caught on a branch.’

Bernard said;

‘No, I was shot at by bandits.’

Didrika’s eyes widened in shock. It didn’t take a medical expert to know an arrow to the centre of the back should kill someone. The last lingering vestiges of doubt in her mind vanished abruptly. Bernard was blessed by the fairy. The fairy didn’t bless people who didn’t deserve it. That meant he was good. She didn’t need to be afraid of him. Folding the shirt and jacket neatly over her arm, she bent down to scratch the tiny horse behind its ears. It nuzzled her wrist affectionately. Curiosity overpowered her sense of decorum. She asked;

‘Do you have the sight?’

‘The sight?’

‘I noticed how you look past people. Like you’re looking at something around them, not just their faces. It reminds me of someone I knew. He could see what people were feeling by a cloud of colour around their heads. Red for anger, blue for sadness, that sort of thing.’

Bernard stopped. This was the first hint of an explanation he’d heard. Her description didn’t match perfectly, but it felt close. Throwing caution to the wind, he said;

‘I have something like that. I see colours, but not in a cloud, and they’re not current emotions. It’s, ah, it’s hard to explain. I don’t really understand it.’

Bernard finished buttoning the new jacket and stepped out from behind the screen. Didrika asked;

‘What colour do you see around me?’

Bernard looked at her shoulders. All he could see from the front was a little bit of the icy blue. He said;

‘A little bit of blue on your shoulders. There’s more, but it’s mostly behind you.’

She turned around so he could get a better look. The thing was shaped like the back of a narrow tabard. From her shoulders to her elbows, the strip of imaginary fabric was mottled blue. Partly ice blue and partly a deeper sky blue, broken by stray threads of grey and yellow. Further down, more colours tangled together in a chaotic mix that made it difficult to focus his eyes. Bernard said;

‘If blue is sadness… are you sad working here at the fort?’

Didrika thought about it, a little puzzled.

‘I suppose I am, in a way. I miss my parents, and that makes me a bit sad. I wouldn’t say that’s the thing I feel the most, though.’ She peeked over her shoulder, ‘Is it pretty?’

Bernard hadn’t really thought about whether any of it was pretty. It didn’t feel right to assign values like that to something described as ‘pain’. He considered it. If Didrika’s tabard were a real garment, he’d assume the weaver who made the fabric was losing their eyesight. He decided, reluctantly, that it was ugly. He couldn’t tell her that. He didn’t want to insult her, or give her a complex over something that was invisible. It was too cruel.

‘I think so. It’s strange and hard to look directly at, but it’s still pretty. If it were real, it might even become fashionable.’

The woman turned around, catching Barnard’s troubled expression.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m just confused. I don’t know why I was given sight like this. I can see all this stuff, but I don’t know what it means, or what I’m supposed to do with it. I don’t even know where to start.’

Bernard stopped himself before he said that it made him feel stupid.

Didrika thought back on the interactions she’d had with her uncle when he was alive. Did he ever tell her how he learned to understand it? She didn’t think so. She remembered something else, though. Something her mother had said. She said;

‘When you look at the colours, what do you feel?’

‘Confused.’

‘No, I mean… looking at the colours not just with your eyes. Pick one, and try to feel the colour when you look at it.’

Didrika turned around again so he could look. He stared. He was still confused. He still felt stupid. Now he felt pressured to do something impossible. He tried to squash those feelings. She was doing her best to help him. He couldn’t let his personal feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness get in the way.

Then he spotted it.

There was a grey thread that felt exactly like his own hopelessness. Beside it, he recognised the sorrow of feeling unwanted. He saw a twin of his own fear of failure. He saw the hollow grief of losing a parent you weren’t close to, and the much stronger guilt that came with it. He saw the indignance of being treated unfairly. He saw a distrust for people that was much deeper and more expansive than his own. He saw things that he had never felt before. The trauma that comes from barely surviving starvation. The pervasive fear that comes from being powerless.

Agatha bumped his shin with her head. As he lowered his eyes to see what she wanted, he realised he was crying. He quickly wiped his face with the scratchy sleeve of the borrowed jacket. Voice shaking, he said;

‘I think I have it now.’

Didrika turned, startled at the change in his tone.

‘I’ve upset you.’

He shook his head, ashamed of his tears.

‘I wasn’t expecting it to be that intense, that’s all.’

‘What did you see?’

Bernard wasn’t sure he should tell her. He hadn’t told her his fairy sight showed him pain. She might not have let him look if he had. All those feelings were private. He shouldn’t have looked. He shouldn’t have looked. He took a deep breath.

‘I saw pain.’

Didrika frowned, worried. She wasn’t in pain. She’d bumped her knee while doing laundry that morning, but it only hurt when she touched it. She couldn’t think of any recent injury she’d sustained that would bring a man to tears. She hadn’t cried for any of them… though he did say he didn’t think he was seeing ‘current emotions.’ She had thought the important part of that statement was the word ‘emotions,’ not the word ‘current.’ Was he seeing a distant memory of pain?

Bernard put his hand to his forehead, feigning a headache. He really just wanted to hide his eyes. He said;

‘I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.’

‘I’ll go, then. Someone will be by to collect you when dinner is ready. I’ll bring this back when it’s done. I’m sorry I upset you.’

‘You did nothing wrong.’

Once the door was shut, Agatha demanded;

‘What’s going on?’

‘Those coloured threads. I think they’re… emotional scars. The description in the book - she called it ‘the pain humans carry with them.’ She wasn’t exaggerating. They hurt. I really wish she had been more specific.’

Bernard wondered if his discomfort at seeing the various shapes of shawl and cape was because he unconsciously knew this was how he’d feel when he looked at them properly. A sort of mental safeguard to protect him from unnecessary harm. He sat down on the bed.

‘What am I supposed to do with an ability like this? Is this why she sent me out unarmed? She wants me to use people’s emotional vulnerabilities against them - That’s my weapon?’

Then there was the other kind of fairy sight he could have been given. Seeing someone’s present emotional state. The existence of other types of sight should have occurred to him earlier. She explicitly said this was only an aspect of fairy sight. What did a fairy see when they looked at a person? Did anything remain hidden?

Agatha watched silently, feeling awkward. She didn’t know how to comfort Bernard. She didn’t know the fairy’s intentions - she could only guess. By her guess, he might’ve been right. An ability like that would be a potent weapon in the hands of someone with a talent for manipulation. Bernard wasn’t much of a schemer, though. He’d already been chased out of the capital. If he were naturally wily, he’d have persuaded his brother that the fairy hunt was necessary. He wouldn’t have put himself in so much unnecessary danger. Agatha didn’t think someone as sincere and straightforward as Bernard would be able to use the crown’s sight to its maximum potential.

Perhaps that was the point of giving it to him. She said;

‘She probably doesn’t want you to use it that way. If it were the case, I think she would have shaped the thing she gave you into a recognisable weapon… like your father’s sword. In my experience, she likes symbolism too much to hand out weaponized hats.’

‘If its shape is a symbol of its purpose… Then she does want me to take the throne.’

Agatha shook her head. She didn’t understand how a boy who was born and raised a Prince could be so opposed to his heritage. Normal humans spent their lives trying to gain rank and power, and when they had it, they fought tooth and nail to keep it. She had never seen them do the reverse. Bernard was an anomaly.

‘No, your kingdom already has a crown. She gave you a new one.’

Bernard took the thing off and examined it, hoping to find deeper meaning hidden in its structure. It hadn’t been inscribed with any words or other markings, nor had it been set with any symbolic stones. Even the shape was fairly standard. The most unusual things about it were its unexpected lightness, and the way it was constructed. Up close, it looked almost like it had grown from the roots of a golden plant; the delicate arches branching down into finer wires that interlinked, giving the impression of a solid gold band. He didn’t think that detail was the important part - it was just a flourish of fairy craftsmanship.

To his knowledge, crowns by themselves didn’t symbolise much other than royalty. Very few families were permitted to use a crown in their heraldry, and they were all directly related to the King. Those without royal blood who carried the symbol were people given authority by the King. They were wielding his power by his command. Tax collectors, justiciers, royal messengers. Sometimes knights he appointed to perform special tasks. The symbol didn’t expand to represent those people - it was still just a stand in for the King himself.

He put the crown back on. He didn’t have time to waste on useless speculation. It wouldn’t be long until he was summoned for dinner. He said;

‘I think Earl Kaspar might be expecting me to do what my Father did. If this whole invitation and dinner thing isn’t a trap, he’ll be disappointed when he realises I’m not interested in fighting Lothar.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s probably planning on playing all sides until he can see a clear winner among the three Princes and any other nobles who look likely to challenge. It’s the way of politicians. Even if he doesn’t want you specifically to win, supporting you a little bit might help him destabilise King Lothar so his favourite, or he himself, can gain power.’

‘I don’t remember him ever visiting Father’s court.’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s not a politician. It just means he’s quiet about it.’

‘What do I do? Anything I say is just as likely to push him over the edge into outright revolt, as it is to make him throw me in a dungeon.’

‘I don’t think it matters what you say; he’ll come to his own conclusions. If he throws you in a dungeon, it might make it easier for you to get to Lothar.’