The prince who hears the wind

The young man peers down from the castle's tower. He grips the rough stone of the windowsill, leaning carelessly, dangerously. His hands brush aside the curtain that strokes his shoulder.

It was the breeze that called him. It always is, even on warm summer nights like this, when the valley's folk slumber to forget their hunger and the whole world holds its breath.

The raw, electric shiver starts from the base of his spine. Despite the crackling torches and the damp, sticky steam climbing from the moat, that cold touch snakes up, yet so softly and sweetly like only an imagined thing can, to curl in the warmth of his chest.

Smiling, the young man shakes his head and pulls himself away. Because he is a prince, like the proud tilt of his chin and the gold thread woven into his collar and cuffs attest to, and because of his father, because he mustn't give even his shadow a reason to suspect him mad, he shakes away the impossible and knocks on the old mahogany door.

“Your Highness,” whispers the General, who opened it, “It would cause great embarrassment if you were to see the king in the state he is in presently.”

“He cannot be much worse than during last night's visit.”

“If you say so, then.” The older man bows as if inviting him to check for himself.

Among a pile of cushions, the king leafs through a voluminous tome. Scrolls, inkpots and quills litter the bed, and his nightclothes are stained black.

For a moment, his eyes dart across the room and its tapestries as he absentmindedly curls his grey beard between two fingers. The prince coughs and, as if only then perceiving him, his father points to the center of a great map.

“Here.” His voice is rough. A cup of water, still full, lies on the nearby desk. The servants have bemoaned that he refuses the drink, that it is their loyalty he doubts by fearing poison. “There is danger in these woods, Erik. The fey-”

“Are but a folk tale.”

“No, no. To think so is to bring us to ruin. They are plotting vengeance for the fate that we inflicted on them, and they have spies in the palace already.”

Erik's throat knots. Shyly, he places a hand on his father's shoulder.

“This is where they will come from. I must go. I must stop them.”

“That you must certainly not, Your Majesty,” the General objects. He is a short, bald man with spectacles that magnify the stern ridges of his face.

“How dare you! It is my royal command!“

“Your visions are but a passing illusion that we must combat at all costs.”

“Oh, but then why do the crops grow out of season? Tell me why the children grow ill when the wild wind touches them and why the rivers swallow whoever sails them. Why is there misery and confusion where once there was order and peace?”

“Father,” the prince said, and the room fell still. “Father, I shall go tomorrow. I had already promised I would go hunting with the General and the woods are not out of the way.”

The king nods and breaks into a childlike smile. “Yes, yes, yes. My boy, it makes me truly proud to see you stand up for your kingdom and its people.”

“Thank you, father.” The prince swallows.

–

Across the grasslands, Erik spurs his dark steed onwards. He lets the beast pick its path, jumping hedges and fences, kicking up clouds of dust and clumps of dirt.

The General follows at a gallop and adjusts the crossbow strap across his chest. A limp rabbit's paw swings from the saddlebag, but the hunt yields little more, and the afternoon is already on its way to evening as they reach the woods’ edge.

From the branches, an unseen bird caws as the prince dismounts. The General gestures to an old oak strangled by a gnarled thornbush.

“Look, it is a white raven!” he exclaims. The creature cocks its head, its all-black eyes blinking once before it resumes pecking at a patch of blackberries. It is as large as a cat, and its beak gleams with a reddish tint. “Shoot it, your Highness, lest it bring ill luck.”

“Is it now your turn to believe in folk tales?”

“It is merely my hunter's instinct. Such a beast is bound to scare away game.”

In one swift motion, Erik raises his bow. The breeze carries the smell of dew and grass. He corrects for the pull of the wind, cursing the sunbeam that falls over his vision.

When he again faces the white raven, it is looking straight into him. The feathers on its neck ruffle, its chest rises and falls with its breath, and yet it doesn't fly, doesn't escape.

Erik pulls back the arrow. He trembles only slightly - which is unlike him, and would earn chuckles among his knightly companions - as he plants his feet firmly in the uneven ground, careful not to trip on its exposed roots.

A chirp quivers in the raven's throat. Despite its talons, despite the blade's edge of its beak, it is such a fragile thing, this bird.

Erik pictures its wings unfurled, carrying it aloft, high above the failing kingdom and its mad king. The wildness of it, the simplicity, it makes him long to belong to nature and nature alone.

As a shiver runs up his spine, he knows he will miss the shot even before the arrowhead sinks into the oak's bark. He willed it so, but appearances are to be kept.

“It is quite a challenge to keep one's aim straight after such a tiring day,” he says. “Let us return to the castle.”

The General inspects Erik for a too-long heartbeat before he turns to leave.

–

“There is a woman at the gate, Your Majesty,” a servant announces.

Glancing through the great hall's window, Erik can make out each individual strand of her hair, so pale it might be white instead of blond. Rags cover her lean, bony frame, but a silvery chain of feathers hangs from her neck.

One second, she stands tall and straight among the guards towering over her. The next, she turns her head to the castle's façade, to its windows, one by one, until…

She looks straight into him. Erik steps back, his heart hammering in his chest. The torches flicker, the trees rustle in the courtyard, but it is probably just the wind. Only the wind.

The king shifts in his throne and mutters under his breath. “A fae assassin, no doubt.”

“What does she want?” Erik cuts in, and the servant's gaze falls.

“Even the General couldn't get it out of her, sir. She claims she must speak with the rightful ruler of our land.”

“Bring her in,” the prince commands. “Either way, I will not have a woman wandering outside at this late hour.”

“An assassin!” The king nearly shrieks, but nobody heeds him. Every time, it hurts Erik that it must be so.

Between panting pages and shouting chambermaids, a room in the southern wing is furnished for the visitor. The nameless woman is content to follow, as if blind to the history in the tiles on which she steps and the carved vaults over which she lets her fingers trail. She blinks towards Erik, thanks the General softly when he holds the door open for her, and glides inside like something from a dream.

While she is left to braid her hair and dress in more proper attire, the General calls the prince into the adjacent chamber, where they can speak unheard.

“I am a practical man, I would say and therefore not particularly prone to paranoia. This girl's silence, however, has troubled me. It is rather worrying that I can't read the intentions behind her disarming grace. You must watch her until she is safely away from our gates.”

Erik agreed. “I will go to her immediately.”

–

When Erik finds her, the nameless woman is by the open window, her contours blurry under the moonlight. It takes him a few moments to realise the song that fills the room comes from her red-tinted lips.

Its melody dips and swells, without order or rhythm and yet whole, and wholly pleasant, like nothing he has ever heard before. It might be a mother's lullaby or a lovers’ hymn - he doesn't recognise the words and yet he completes her verses, and a smile dawns on the pale mask of her face.

“You are talented," she says, once she is done, and sits next to him on the bed.

“I haven't sung since my childhood days.”

“We can never really forget the things that make up what we are.”

Strange: her eyes are so dark where the rest of her is fair. They mirror both the candlelight and the jagged shadows that it draws from the ancient furniture. The tiny pearls in her feather necklace click together as she leans into him.

She tugs at one of the feathers until it is released. He grasps her wrist, because it's a white raven's feather. She tenses, tilting her head like a question, but he only sighs and lets her place it just over his ear, secured into his hair.

Then, the moment is over. She shrinks back, blushing and breaking into a quivering giggle. Erik can't guess her age.

“You'd make for such a good king to our people. I knew it the moment I first saw you. Come, sing with me once again.”

Somehow, impossibly, he does. He lets her take the lead and is happy to follow. At first her pace is tentative, testing, but it speeds as he finds his place inside it.

A gust of air whirls around them, lifting the curtains, shuffling the parchments on a corner shelf, toying with the bedsheets. This is flying, this is how he can unfurl his wings.

“Has it always been only the two of you?” She asks, at one point, in her birdsong voice. “You and your father, I mean?”

He nods. “I've never known my mother, while my relatives, the few that remain… They may be a power-hungry bunch, but they have no true notion of their responsibilities, and were quite content to retire with some border town as a parting gift.”

“It must have been quite lonely.”

“Not really, no.” He pauses, reflecting. She frowns. “Well, I suppose I've never felt a sense of connection to the people around me, but it has never affected me greatly. Ours is the business of ruling a declining land, not of friendship. Each has an impossible future they want to bring about, and it is my duty to ensure they don't come to a clash.”

“Doesn't it dishearten you to see them only look forward?” Her pain surprises him, though only because he initially mistakes it for harshness. “They forget their roots and their legends and care little for those to whom they owe their greatness.”

If it does, he mustn't show it. This is to be a century of reason, not of fear, not of prejudice. Not of whatever unreal things his father sees in the corner of his vision.

Sighing, he holds her hand, and when she sings once again, she sings alone. Soon the first rays of the sun are poking through the curtains.

Only then does she stop. The spell - God, was it a spell? - fades, and a cold tendril coils in Erik's chest. He can already imagine the moment in which he will crave this night. With it, the nameless woman carved a hollow in him - yes, it couldn't be that it was already there.

“I will go now.” She rises and walks to the door. “My job here is done.”

He nods, because a part of him dreams still. Only when she is gone does he ask himself: what job? Outside, he hears the flap of a bird's wings.

–

Erik rushes up the tower's steps. Blood rushes in his ears, and he doesn't wait for a response when he knocks on the mahogany door.

His father is sitting by his desk, in his nightclothes but still occupied, tracing a difficult passage with a shaky finger. Alive. He is alive, even if the muscles of his face are strained, his eyes vague, his shoulders slumped. That he is alive is enough.

When the king looks at Erik, however, he starts. He rises, staggering backwards and knocking down his chair. His arms jitter frenetically.

“Guards, guards! Come, come, the fae have come to take my soul!”

“Calm down,” Erik says, as if to a frightened animal. “All is well. I was only worried about you.”

Erik takes a step forward, holding out his hands appeasingly. He makes sure to show the empty spot on his belt where his sword might have been.

“Get back, creature. I'll not let your kind take my kingdom for itself.”

“Father! Father, it's me.”

For a moment, the king blinks in confusion. “Erik? Erik, where are you?”

“I am here. I will not leave you.”

“Here. Son, don't…” The king raises a hand to his chest. He is as pale as death. “...don't tell me you are their spy. My son, my son!...”

A single tear flows down his cheek. Then, a tremor runs through his body. Erik catches him before he hits the ground. The king's corpulent body felt terrifyingly weightless in his arms.

If it weren't too late, the king would have fought him, scrambled away, reached for a sword, anything but this miserable attempt to release himself, squirming and scratching, before finally losing his strength.

Erik lowers his gaze. His hands feel odd in the room's half-light. The king envelops them with his own.

“I didn't want to believe it was true,” he whispers, and his unsteady heart finally halts in his chest. His outstretched arm falls limp and motionless.

Suddenly, Erik realises he cannot cry. A cold air current chills him. He remains kneeling on the floor.

At one point, guards flood the room. A wrinkled hand settles on the prince's shoulder as the General's voice proclaims, distant and dulled, “The king is dead, long live the king!”

–

After the condolences and congratulations, after the speeches, the reassurances and the despair, after sneaking from hysterical servants and grim, stricken knights, Erik is alone in his room. He walks to his mirror, but doesn't dare to look.

The nameless woman's song rings in his ears. It perhaps already did before he had heard it.

Finally, he looks up. His eyes are baggy and puffy, but his face is his own. Whose would it be, if not his? The fae aren't real. He is his father's son and not stricken with the same deadly madness. He mustn't be.

Only the white feather remains, stuck into his hair. He pulls it out, and a jolt of pain runs through him. When he touches the spot where it had been, his fingers come warm with blood.

A good king for their people, the nameless woman had said. The General awaits him in the corridor, for there is a coronation to plan, after all, but Erik calls him inside.

“If you treasure our friendship,” Erik says, “then tell me: what… who was my mother?”

The older man clears his throat, uncertain. “I couldn't say. The queen didn't show herself often, but, when she did, she was confident and wise, surely, and the king was never the same after the day she vanished.”

“Vanished?” He can feel the breeze prickle his scalp. The windows are closed.

“Yes - one day, while she was out picking flowers by the woods. It must have been around the time you were first shown to the court.”

“Shown to the court…” he repeats. Was nobody there for the birth, nothing to show for it? Or is this just an unruly murmur of his feverish mind?

“Now, let's not linger in such dark thoughts.” The General motions towards the door. “The ministers are waiting, Your Majesty.”

“What if I am not what they expect of me? What if I only bring us further into the ruin that my father feared? What if I am a tool of someone else's plan?”

“Well, are you?” The General sounds so earnest that Erik winces.

“I don't want to be.” The truth is, it would be better if he were mad. The realisation leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “But I'm not sure I can help it. I already surrendered myself to them once.”

Them… A shadow falls over the old man's face, like a personal defeat. It is the face he wore when he stood watch by the old king. “Forgive me, it was a silly question. Whatever secrets you carry, I've seen your nature develop since you were a boy, so I trust I only need to tell you this once: you would never surrender to the fae.”

The fae aren't real, his mind screams, doubts, and twists. A defeat indeed. “Thank you,” he forces himself to say.

“Come, there is much yet to be done.”

Before he follows, the new king steals one final glance at the mirror, holding a palm to his face as if expecting feathers to burst from within.