Kites shaped like silver sea serpents had been twisting in the serene blue skies all day, dripping with gold tassels and navy flags. The air smelled of honey and summer berries, spiced wine and cool blossom tea, and music drifted through the city from sunup. It mingled with the continuous cooing of the glass tubular bells that caught the magical arias in the atmosphere and played their melodies for the masses. Children shrieked in the fountains and the shallows of the riverbanks in Veridia’s glorious streets, and mothers fanned their faces while anxious fathers scooped too-small toddlers away from the promise of the cool water. Everyone was wearing their best, faces painted, smiles aglow.
The royal palace, too, was decked out for the occasion in a way only the royal palace could ever be. Streamers of navy and silver trickled artfully down from tree branches and lantern posts, and bunting that shimmered in the summer sun played tricks on every onlooker’s eyes; the giant’s tulips were in full and magnificent bloom, placed along every walkway, and the Queen’s favourite sculptures were artfully recreated in ice, protected from the heat with glittering gold nets of weaver magic. In the pink coral marble, everything looked like it was plucked from a dream. Court had not met. Instead, the giant doors were closed, and the courtiers and their attendants and extended families were spending the holiday roaming the royal gardens, riding horses and hunting, or otherwise attending to the spectacle that was Queen Cressida Naga’s birthday.
For his part, Idris had done his best to stay out of the way. He was not particularly artfully minded and had little understanding of décor, so all of Cressida’s questions about napkins and tablecloths had fallen on deaf ears, as usual. Besides that, he was still officially indisposed. When the party preparations became tiresome, he feigned exhaustion or a headache and the Queen pouted at him and told him he was being rude and unfair. She, of course, knew he was trying out his new prosthetics at night, and she told him he would be less tired if he did as he was meant to and stayed in bed. None of this excused him from being at the party.
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Lila had dressed him immaculately, as was her wont, in a subtle green – a nod to his family colours that he was no longer permitted to claim – and fussed over his accessories.
“If you are insisting that you will make an appearance,” she said, affixing his cufflinks, “then you will at least look like you intended to be seen, sir.”
“It is all business,” he said.
“You are too sick for business.”
“I am well. Well enough,” he corrected, when she pursed her lips and gave him her hard look. “Well enough to stand in a corner and smile at the birthday girl. She will not forgive me if I do not go.”
“I think it’s too soon, sir,” said Lila, sighing and looking at her creation in the mirror. “How is the fit? Are you comfortable?”
“Most comfortable, Lila. Thank you.”
“Will you take your cane?”
“I will.”
“Please try to relax, Sir Idris.”
“I will drink one cup of wine, and eat a piece of cake, and come right back before the dancing has even begun,” he assured her.
He meant it, too. He did not dance, and he loathed being under the scrutiny of his noble counterparts. Everything to do with his official position was a show he was forced to perform in, his own comfort be damned. In a perfect world, he would shun court life without a care.
The world was not perfect. Idris knew that all too well.