My Dear Traitor

Episode 7

In my flustered state, I hadn’t heard the hushed whispers passing over the assembled crowd as gradually as the shifting breeze stirs the grasses across the open field between the walls of the city and the beach in springtime. I hadn’t realized that something important was happening or heard the footsteps of the approaching visitors. I hadn’t been paying attention. I should have been.

As I stepped away from the growing crowd of assembled people to exit, my shoulder collided with another person’s and I immediately turned my head with an apology on my lips. But it died there as my gaze was sucked into a dizzying iridescent pit.

This person had impossibly light-colored eyes. They almost looked like pearls I sometimes found nestled in oysters I snacked on at the beach with Elwin. They were so light that it would be easy to assume the person was constantly in a frosty mood. To me, someone who was constantly surrounded by the colorful eyes of my people, they seemed soulless in a way. Like this person was a ghost- only a shadow of someone who once was corporeal. However, large-very alive- hands caught me by the shoulders to steady me so that I didn’t bounce away and fall to the floor, and I gripped his thick forearms automatically.

“Steady, girl.” He said in a low voice to me almost conspiratorially as he let me go. His voice was so deep that I could almost feel it reverberate in my bones. Over my shoulder he said, “I enter your palace with the promise that no harm will come to me or my men, and yet, here I am attacked immediately after entering your receiving hall.” He gave a wry smile, still not looking away from me.

A few anxious chuckles rang through the room from the courtiers, but I still could have cut the tension filling the hall with the decorated dagger at his hip.

“Pardon the girl…” My King started.

“King Dante.” The man finished, spreading his hands a little to the sides.

I gasped though I still could not make my body move into the appropriate curtsy for royalty in an apology. I found that I could not look away from him though I was finally able to break away from those bone-chilling eyes to see that this mountain of a person had long, honey blonde hair that waved over his broad-shoulders. He was dressed in very regal battle gear and I could see a large-handled sword protruding over his right shoulder.

“Ellowyn, what are you doing?” My brother’s angry voice snapped me from my inspection, and I remembered myself.

“Forgive me, sir.” I said as I bobbed my head slightly, taking advantage of the tilt to examine the entire length of his body. I oddly felt that if I curtsied to him it would be a betrayal to our royal family. When I lifted my head and raised my eyes back to his face, I could see humor warming those cold eyes. I blushed slightly, realizing that he noticed where my gaze had lingered briefly.

My brother shoved himself between us, pulling me away to the side closer to the onlookers, so King Dante could address our King and Prince.