The Fae King's Ruin

Use

Aislin could not believe that she was beginning to miss Alfheim's cold weather. Here in Mhoryga, she felt as if her usefulness was outweighed by how much she was sweating in this sweltering heat. She had been forced to wear a lighter, looser blouse and her riding pants in exchange for her usual dresses during the day for want of more mobility as they moved the command control from Aelthrys’ war room in the manor in Cetha, to the rear of the fighting in the northern front.

Day in and out, she strived to make herself useful. She attended strategy meetings after having stayed up most of the night reading previous reports so she would be prepared to give her suggestions and insight. She took managing the supply chains off of Aelthrys’ plate and made sure that all camps stationed on the borders they had were provided with ample rations. Aislin also took care of the evacuation site she had personally stationed just outside Cetha Manor for all those who were displaced.

To be honest, she had never known true exhaustion up until this point in her life. She was constantly on her feet, her mind constantly at work; Aislin barely even had enough time to eat before something would come up and take her undivided attention. But she supposed it was a blessing. She was busy and occupied which meant that there was very little room to be wondering about how Avery was doing back in Alfheim.

It had once been a mystery to her how the two of them would be able to manage two kingdoms at the same time. Only now did she realize that would mean being apart for days, weeks, or even months at a time. She did not know how to feel about that, even if the right answer would have been to say that there was nothing to do but endure it. One of them would always be pulled away by work or duty and neither of them would be able to say close their ears off to its call.

Surely this… ache got better in time, right? She would learn how to deal with missing Avery whenever they were apart. Anyway, she should give herself some credit for this was the first time that they have been apart for this long.

Although she would be lying if she said that she was not counting down the days until she could see him again. It was one of the primary forces that drove her to work as hard as she did, other than the obvious negative effects of a prolonged civil war. In fact, aside from her other duties, she had begun coordinating with the staff of the castle at the Capital to prepare for the King of Alfheim's arrival. The major renovations were already done weeks ago and she had met with the Master of Chambers to let him know of their guests’ preferences.

It was a good thing that most of the staff from her brother’s reign had remained. She knew them since she was a child and so working with them was no problem at all. They were eager to finally receive orders from her as they have been running the castle as they usually have been on their own in her absence; eager to please as well, that the rooms and the entire castle were only waiting for her and her guests to arrive.

With the continued successes that they have been earning through Aelthrys’ expert leadership, they have managed to cut the rebels back to the very outskirts of Cetha. Considering that they have only been back for three days, she was optimistic that they would be able to push the line farther into the bay area territories where their fleets would be able to force a surrender.

Aelthrys entered their tent, his hair sticking to his forehead due to his sweat. His boots were caked with a thick crust of mud while his sword hung on a belt around his waist. He had been outside inspecting the fighting but not joining the fray just yet. Aislin could tell that he was itching to involve himself in the action, except the very war council that he had established voted against his participation.

She gave him a tight smile as he unwound his sword and tossed it aside while he heaved a sigh. Dropping to the wooden, high-backed chair behind his desk, his silver-ringed eyes finally looked up at her.

"Did you have better luck than I did?” he asked, something he had been greeting her with whenever they saw each other as of late.

Aislin steepled her fingers together and shrugged. "Just the same,” she replied as she always did. “How is it looking out there?”

“Better,” he muttered. “We shall be out of here right on schedule."

She raised a brow. “Your words are optimistic, cousin, and yet your entire face says the exact opposite. Unless being ‘right on schedule’ means something different to you.”

Aelthrys rubbed his hand over his face tiredly. “I got into it with the lieutenant-general all over again. He threatened to chain me with iron to a tree just so I would not draw my sword and defend the eastern flank myself.” Like a viper striking, he picked up the elephant paperweight on his desk and threw it across the tent. The paperweight ripped through the thick fabric and sailed outside, letting in the late-afternoon glare into their small space. “We could have taken Somners in fifteen minutes if I was there! I would have saved us effort and time!”

He breathed heavily, holding his head in between his hands. Aislin wanted to reach out and hold her cousin together, to try and lessen the guilt he was feeling. Being out on the field was no easy thing. Death was a real scene and not only an abstract as the twin of war. Just days ago, she could hardly keep the contents of her stomach in as she saw all those who were wounded in the med bay. Some had lost limbs. Most would never be the same ever again. She even heard some of the soldiers literally crying for Death to take them.

But the graves were a different matter altogether. While Aelthrys and the other officials assured her that the number of casualties was small, seeing the sheet-covered bodies laid on the ground side by side in neat rows was the final straw for her. She vomited as she cried, not even feeling the slightest bit embarrassed by her lack of control. Aelthrys had to take her back to the manor to calm down but she had spent the rest of the day and the entire evening mourning for all those who’d been lost.

If that kind of guilt was enough to reduce her to that sick feeling, then it must have been a thousand times worse for Aelthrys. Some of those soldiers laying with a sheet over them had been ones he had trained since they were cadets. He had formed a bond with them that Aislin could never have because she was no soldier. They died fighting without the General by their side and it must be killing her cousin slowly to be aware of that fact every waking moment.

So, she said nothing. There were no words to ease his pain, anyway. Nothing could be said that would magically make things better because Death was permanent. There was no bargaining with it, no reprieve or a way to come back from its clutches. But even though Aislin could utter no words to make her cousin feel better, she did offer her presence. She sat on her chair, behind her own desk, and turned to the letters and other reports she had not been able to go through yet and worked silently.

Once the sun was fully set, she saw Aelthrys stand from the corner of her eyes. His movements were slow, his shoulders hunched, but she did not comment on it. Instead, he silently took her hand and she let him lead her out of the tent and into the cold night.

Mhoryga’s evening sky was very different from those one would see on Earth. The stars, for one, had different constellations. Some planets were also visible and the moon they had was bigger. But even though it was night and it was supposed to be dark, the evening looked more like December twilights from all of the stars and the moon shining above them.

Aelthrys handed her the green cloak that she had brought early this morning and silently opened a portal. On the other side, she could clearly see the details of the manor’s red foyer and hear the faint crackling of the main hearth in the distance.

She stepped through and Jilt was there in an instant to greet them. The steward glanced at the morose expression on the General’s face and looked questioningly at her, but she only shook her head. Shaking his head a little, Jilt fixed a bright smile on his face.

“Good evening, Your Majesty. Your Grace. Dinner is ready in the family dining hall whenever you are.”

“I’ll follow,” Aelthrys muttered, handing the steward his own cloak. “I just need to wash up.”

He turned and left without a word, taking the stairs two steps at a time. Both Jilt and Aislin watched him disappear up into the second floor and listened for his footsteps to become softer still before letting go of her own tired sigh.

“He will be okay, miss,” Jilt said all of a sudden, smiling at her encouragingly. “The General only takes his responsibilities so seriously that he often holds himself to high standards.”

“Oh, Jilt, I know that,” she softly replied. “I just don’t like it when he keeps having one bad day after the other.”

Jilt chuckled. “Should I ask the cook for a helping of cobbler pie, then?”

Aislin felt her own smile brighten. Aelthrys’ favorite dessert was cobbler pie, and the staff and his parents often had it on hand just in case the General was in a foul mood.

“That sounds lovely, Jilt, thank you. I guess I should wash up as well. Have there been any messages for me while I was away?”

The steward shook his head. “None, miss.”

Her smile sagged again. She would have thought that by now, Avery would have sent a message for her. She nodded to Jilt and hurried up to her room, only a few doors down from Aelthrys’ own and decided that she could make the first move. 

She grabbed some stationery and a fresh pot of ink before taking her glass quill out of its case. She kept her note short and succinct, but not lacking in feeling. Aislin blushed as she tried her hand over and over again in writing Avery a love letter that would not be half as cringey should a footman or any nosy staff decide to poke their nose into it. She only wrote that she missed him, that things were doing well, and that she could not wait to see him again in two days’ time.

Before she could think the better of it and chicken out, she flagged a butler and handed him the note with explicit instructions on how to get it to the Seelie palace swiftly before closing her door and pushing all thoughts of the missive en route out of her mind.

As she soaked in her bath tub, however, Aislin could not help but giggle. For the first time in her life, she had written someone a love note, and there was something positively hilarious and riveting within that small fact that she felt normal and herself for at least a few minutes.