ARIA RAVENSWOOD

Aria Ravenswood had never been one for crowds and feasts. It was not like she hated them, but as she could not always seem to remember names no matter how hard she tried, so she could not just get herself to enjoy the presence of a large gathering filled with echoing murmurs of words and noisy munching of foods, it did nothing but displease her and distort her tongue with a pungent taste.

As soon as she had espied the grand savant taking his leave of the Great Hall, she blessed the ravens for giving her a good enough excuse to escape the presence of this overwhelming crowd, and a good chance to do what she had promised her mother. She asked leave from her mother and pushed back herself from the table gracefully, her body gowned in a ruby velvet, waddling after the grand savant and her cousin, the new Kingsknight, as they left the hall, her guard bestowed to man her for the night not too far behind her steps.

The man had never come once, her mother’s nephew, and she wondered why. The tourney was the first she had ever seen him, and her mother never spoke of him, not once, not ever. She had been in her mother’s chambers with her when a letter had brought word of her nephew’s arrival to the city. A grimace stormed her face then, Aria had seen it, a sour one her mother wore when she read the letter. “A Kingsknight? Father sent you?” Aria had heard her mother mutter bitterly as she ruined the paper with a squeeze and flung it into the burning hearth warming her room. Aria thought to ask what was wrong from where she lay sprawled on the bed, but when she did ask, her mother chuckled the question to pass with the wind, leaving it utterly forgotten… until now.

She found the library after a while thanks to the light her guard gave her path with the torch he held. A thanks almost escaped her lips, but with that had to come his name and she could not seem to recall, the only guard’s name that dared not leave her head was the one of Brynden. It still soured her every night, what she had caused. Her exploits had led to the suffering of others, he and the serving maid of that night, she had caused them both pain. Aria wished they could find it in their hearts to forgive her, she had never known the great cost of her actions, but now she did. The workings of power, Aria recalled her mother’s words. Was what she was about to do now part of such workings? She had not understood Damon’s and her mother’s discussions of why they were speaking on such topics of war and death, but it seemed like what she was about to do would help her mother’s cause, it might please her if she did it right, so maybe this was one of the workings of power. She had to do it a great deal well then.

They found each other at the oaken doorway, her mother’s nephew making his way out and away from the golden-yellow flames brightening the library. “Cousin,” Aria greeted, she did not know what else to do or say, and she had forgotten his name as well.

The door shut and the man smiled. “You must be… uhm, Aria. Lia always made mention of how much you both looked alike. Now that I’ve seen you up close, I can attest to the truth of that claim.”

Aria was confused. “Lia? And how did you know who I am?”

The man laughed, his teeth so white it shone in the dark. “You called me cousin, only Lia’s children would do that in this castle.”

“Oh.” Aria nodded, taking her head up in beats to look up at the dark sky. She brought it back down sharply. “Lia? Is it my mother you call Lia?”

“O…phe…lia,” her cousin dragged it out in a rhyme. “I took out the first two, Lia makes it easier… and it rolls off the tongue better, don’t you think?”

“I see.” Aria rubbed her cheeks gently. “It certainly does. You did not come to see mother, why?” Aria asked him, hoping to quell the curiosity that had followed her since the letter had arrived at her mother’s chambers.

“Well, it won’t be long till I see her now, will it?” The man smiled. He had a pleasing smile, Aria saw, it looked just like her mother’s. A dark skin he had and her mother a fair one, but she had slowly begun to see the similarities between the two, the smile the first.

“Still, why did you not come into the castle before?” Aria carried on with her questions, but her cousin did not seem bothered.

“I preferred the city, and in truth I still do.” His smile was at rest on his face.

Aria smacked her lips. “Mother threw your letter into the fire, I don’t think she was happy you did not come.” She was afraid the first part of her words would hurt him, but it seemed to not, her fears disappeared with his chuckle, a lively one.

“Oh, little one, I’m sure she was happy I stayed in the city.”

Aria drew her breath. “Little flower,” she corrected.

“What?” Her cousin did not understand.

“It’s little flower mother calls me. Call me that too.” He had a charm she noticed, she had begun to grow comfortable with him, only if she could remember his name then it would have been far better.

Her cousin laughed and leaned over. He teased her cheeks with his forefinger. “Then, little flower it is. And, I’m Maurin, not cousin.” A smile came after his talk.

Aria’s shoulders dropped. “I’m bad with names, I’ll forget it. Will you pardon me if I do?”

“Why, we are alike. I forget names too.” He leaned closer to Aria and whispered, “I forgot your mother’s a lot when I was a boy.”

“That’s a lie.” Aria gasped with furrowed eyebrows.

“It’s the truth I tell you.”

She laughed then, heartily. “But you remember it now,” she said.

Her cousin raised a finger. “And I’ll teach you a method.” Aria’s eyes widened in concentration. “Give each person their own calling name.”

“Calling name?”

“Yes. You take the name and pick a shorter version from within it, the same as I did for your mother. Ophelia and then Lia. You see?”

Aria sucked in air through her teeth happily, but she still had just a little bit of scepticism left. “Will it work?” She asked.

“Well it worked for me, did it not?” Her cousin straightened. “Try mine. Give me a calling name, if you remember it on the morrow then I’ll keep calling you little flower, if not then it’s little one you shall be to me.”

Aria had a pout. What a shrivelling scheme. “Alright.” She was up for the challenge. “Uhm… the name?” She reddened as she asked, she felt a tad sheepish.

“Maurin,” her cousin told her again, his arms folded across his gilded breastplate as he awaited the name she would give him. “Be snappy now,” he added with a smile.

Aria cleared her throat. Mau…Rin… she dragged the name out in her mind and chose a calling one for her cousin. “Uhm… Rin?” It sounded okay to her, but she wondered if he would be fine with it. Would he be okay with being called: Rin?

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Rin it is.” He brushed her silky hair with his hand, and at the same time brushed away the doubts she had of the calling name she had chosen. “See you on the morrow, little flower, I have somewhere to be.” He strolled past her and went on his way, the sound of armour singing a clang.

Aria turned her face up to look at her guard all covered in metal from head to feet. She had taken a lot of his time, she knew. She was about to apologise but then she recalled her mother’s words. The workings of power. No apology would come from her. “Wait outside.” She commanded the guard as she turned forward and entered the library.

The smell of books fell upon her nose as quickly as she saw them, and they did not come to her alone, they were deftly accompanied by the one of melting wax from the candle beams that hung with a solemn ambience on the walls. It seemed to have no change from the last time she had been here, the library. The arched pillar that hovered atop her head remained the same as it had always been with its drawings of books, scrolls, inkwells, and… the monocled raven she fancied. She smiled at that.

The book shelves stood facing one another at the edge of the room, brightened fairly by whatever bits of light made it to them, and shadowed with the black of night where those lights seemed not to reach. She remembered the arched one-windowed alcove that made its home to the far end of the library beyond the chairs littered about, it had a small candle hanging from the centre of its wall beneath the small high window within it, brightening it dimly and causing a flicker of dance between light and dark at the edges of the alcove. It had always been her favourite place for her reading, silent and placid it was, and she loved it for that.

But she was not here for reading now, she was here for something else. Her eyes found the grand savant before his found her. He was sitting where she knew he would be, behind the wide ornate table he took for his workspace, a lamplight placed before him along with some parchments he scribbled upon.

She cleared her throat delicately as a call to him, and the old man answered. He looked up from his table, his eyes saggy and tired, and weak. One of them monocled while the other wasn’t. He squinted his eyes as if to see her clearly, and after a while it seemed he noticed her at last.

“Oh, my. My lady,” he harrumphed. “What brings you here at this hour?”

Aria wondered if she should go straight to the point. But was that a way to start a conversation? Would it prove fruitful? Those questions made her think against it. If she was to get some answers from the grand savant, one her mother would praise her for, then she knew she had ought to put a foot before the other one at a time. “I hate feasts,” she blurted. The truth it was, she indeed hated feasts, but at the same time it was a lie, that was not what had brought her here. “I prefer books and rain. Do you have any picture books? I’d love to read some.” As it happens, she really did want to read some. Being herded in her chambers always bored her, that was why she always sooner found herself with her mother.

“I beg your pardon, my lady, but I have none for a child, and more or less a lady such as yourself,” the grand savant told her. “Oh my dear, pardon me once more. Please sit,” he stretched his hand in a gesture at the seat on the opposite of him, “and I should have risen to welcome you, if only my leg hadn’t grown weaker, and it seems my brain has joined the fray. If not I would have done that sooner.” He really was weak, she could see it clearly. He had ragged wrinkles ploughed all over his face, tiny eyes tired with age, a body with little flesh, and his hand underwent slight quivers at intervals. Aria wanted to wish him well, but she knew he might have little to no pleasure for that.

“Thank you.” She took her seat, accepting his offer. “But I do not think I should still be called a child. I’ve seen my fifteenth year, and soon I shall see my sixteenth.” It was not like she was sure herself, but still. “I think I’m old enough to read some things and know some things.”

“Oh, yes you are, my lady.” The grand savant looked up at her with a withered smile. “But the picture books I have are for those that have blossomed into adulthood. I’ll help you with such books when you have seen your seventeenth year, then you would no longer be a fledgling nor a little maiden.” The old man looked back at the parchment and began to roll it up, and Aria realised that the man might be harder than she had thought. She had not even asked him of what she wanted to know yet and he was already so defensive. His hands trembled as he picked up his stamp and dug it into a small bowl of melted red wax, opting next to seal the parchment with it.

“It’s past the moon’s hour, should you not be resting?” She was concerned for his health. “Parchments can wait, can they not?”

The grand savant gaped at her as he dug his stamp into the rolled up parchment to make a seal on it, the seal bearing a picture of a raven monocled like the one carved on the library’s arched pillar. He smiled next. “Oh, I have to get this done, my lady. I’ve put it on hold long enough, and it is for His Grace.”

Aria frowned. “Was he the one that put you to it? Will he mind if you do it later?” She had never interacted with her stepfamily, her mother would not have it, so she had little idea of how they were or what they would do, but if this was a guide to what their ideal behaviour was then maybe they were just as bad as her mother had made them out to be. The king should be able to see that this man was old and tired and in need of rest, not more slog.

“No one put me to it, my lady, not even the king. It is my job.” The old man rendered her thoughts false with a quick glance at her before he put his pinky to the seal on the parchment to check if it had hardened. When he felt it did, he pushed it to the side of the table and took off his monocle.

Aria shifted on her seat. “Tell me about them, tell me about him, my stepbrother, the king.” Yes, this was how she could learn of something for her mother, but in truth she had now grown genuinely curious about this her stepfamily, and her voice betrayed her if she ever thought to hide it.

The grand savant looked at her. “Why, they are your family. You should know more about them than I do.”

“That’s impossible,” Aria scoffed. “You were here when I was born, and I heard you were here to see us all born, there was no way I could know more than you.” Her shoulders dropped. “And besides, I’ve never once had a talk with any of them.”

“Then why don’t you?” The grand savant asked.

“Because…” Aria trailed off. Now that she thought about it, she had no reason. She had only been doing as her mother had told her to do. “They are bad people and they are not your family,” her mother had said, “keep away from them.” And so she had always done. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, not daring to bring up the words of her mother. It had no need here.

“If you have no reason, then you should. They are your family after all.”

Mother says they are not my family… Aria had a faint thought as she watched the grand savant. “Is he a bastard?” She asked sharply after her thoughts faded away, and the grand savant turned his eyes away from her off the back of the question, taking a peek just below the table.

“Who?” The old man questioned as his eyes tottled back up at her.

“The king. Is he? Brother says he is. He always says he is.” Aria was killing two birds with a stone, or so she thought. She would quell her curiosity and get something for her mother. She could learn about them later, now she just needed something to take back. Aria did not want to fail her.

“Why do you ask such?” The grand savant gave her nothing from his reply, only another question, but she would not let his overshadow hers.

“Is he?” Aria insisted on her own question.

The grand savant sighed as he interlocked his fingers, fixing his palms together atop the table. “Why ask me such a question, my lady?”

“Because you know… I think. You were here before us all, you would know.” True, he was here before them all, but did he really know? She was not sure, his weak eyes gave nothing to her as much as his lips. “Tell me the truth. I want to know.”

“I too do not know,” the grand savant said, but Aria would not have it.

“Liar,” she voiced. “You lie.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but even if I said anything, should you believe my words over your father’s?” The old man bumped her unfairly in her heart. “Your father said he’s his son, and if making him his crowned prince had not been enough for you to believe that what he said was true, then I fear you hold little value for the words of someone you hold dear to your heart. My words should never preside over your father’s, my lady, his words were the truth and should always be your truth.”

Aria’s head slumped. But mother said…

“Would you like to stay here longer? I plan to rest now.” The grand savant pointed at a small door behind him. “Just back this door is my own little bedchamber. If you will excuse me.” He sluggishly rose from his seat.

“No,” Aria brought forth a word after her sombre silence. “I will leave. Thank you.” She took to her feet too, and the grand savant bid her farewell with a bow as she made her way out of the library, thoughts echoing relentlessly up in her head. Her stone had wheezed past the two birds she had intended to kill, there was nothing for her mother.