Alegria

In a Dream

i.





“Your Highness?”





Christophe blinks, and in an instant he’s done whirling around the air and over the green fields of Oranbega, towards the tower peeking over distant tree-tops. “Ah…I’m sorry,” he says, easing back into his plush chair, back into the office with its white walls and ornate rugs, a room so spotless it sets his teeth on edge.





“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Lord Oranbega smiles as he turns back to Christophe, placing a glass of wine in front of him. “That happens to me, as well – I’ll stand here looking over this beautiful land, praying to Sol in thanks for this land, and I won’t even hear the servants knocking on the door.”





Christophe says nothing, but he resists the urge to purse his lips as Lord Oranbega takes a sip of his own wine. Francis keeps his arms crossed.





“I trust the journey here was not difficult?” Lord Oranbega asks, and Christophe watches the wrinkles melt off his face as he smiles, his black eyes twinkling along with his wine.





Christophe thinks of the lush, fertile fields, all the greens and browns of the earth. The scent of apple blossoms and roses still linger in his nostrils along with the hum of bees and the twitter of birds.





But what he remembers best is the land’s silence – of the way the few peasants he saw on the way here worked with their heads down and eyes averted, of the buildings filled with suspicious eyes peeking around curtains. 





“No,” he says, tightening his arms and feeling the papers he tucked inside his shirt. “No, it was no trouble at all. And it’s a good thing, too. I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”





Lord Oranbega settles back into his own chair, his thumb and forefinger coming up to rub the bridge of his nose. “It’s about my daughter, isn’t it?” he asks, and Christophe thinks of a bagpipe emptied of almost all its wind.





Christophe blinks, somehow keeping the frown off his face. Something sparks in his mind and burns away what he wanted to say in a wisp of smoke. “Your daughter is cursed?” he asks instead.





Lord Oranbega doesn’t answer for a moment; he just sighs, looks away, and draws circles on the desk with his fingertip. “My dear daughter,” he whispers, his brow peaking up into a sad slope, “my darling Alice. A demon touched her soul when she was sixteen years old, and though we caught and killed it, its darkness still stains my daughter.”





Something tickles along Christophe’s spine.





“And now she is touched by madness. She claws her own skin and shrieks; she killed one of the suitors who tried to save her soul. It’s so bad now that we must keep her in the tower until someone breaks the spell.”





Christophe feels the tickle turn into a full-out chill and tries to tell himself he’s imagining the mad spark glittering in Lord Oranbega’s eyes. “And how would one do that?” Christophe asks, his eyes flicking over that wrinkled, benign face.





“The spark of life within her,” Lord Oranbega says. “A priestess communed with Sol and told us that if she became with child, then Death’s madness would leave her heart.”





Christophe sees Lord Oranbega catch himself as the edge of his mouth twitches. He wonders if his eyes are playing tricks on him until he looks back into Oranbega’s black eyes, bright and eager and waiting.





Christophe feels the parchment pressing against his skin. Forgive me, Father, he thinks, and steels himself.





“Tell me more.”


___





“So,” Gilbert mutters in his ear as they make their way up the dirt path to that distant tower. “I, uh, thought we had a plan, Chris – ow!”





“But you know better than to address His Highness like that!” Alphonse shoots back.





“f*** you, I’m too cool to grovel.”





“Gilbert, it’s not nice to –”





“Alphonse, it’s all right,” Christophe says, and turns a smile towards Antonio’s green eyes and pouting lips. “Both of you risk your lives for me on a daily basis. The least I can let you do in turn is use my name when we’re in private.”