Penthos: The Guardian Sea

Chapter Eleven: Recognition

Another day, another painful ceremony.

     Arielle stood to Iressa’s left, hands behind her back, swaying to and fro. Her formal gown was itchy, her budding breasts pressed painfully by the corset. She puffed a short breath of air, lifting her neat bangs off her forehead, as she tapped her booted foot and twitched her dark panther tail anxiously. She looked desperately toward her sisters, then to the corridors open to the outdoor world of sand and sea. She longed to run through the streets of the mainland with the people, to kick up the sand and water of the beach and roll in the mud of the grove in her panther form. Isn’t that what every thirteen-year-old demon wanted?

     Apparently not, considering the queen was her mother and she just had to be proper and ladylike, now that she was becoming a woman. No more boyish frolicking for her. “A princess,” Serapheme had told her on her thirteenth birthday, “must look her best to the public.” Which was a stupid rule, at least to the panther princess. Ari was the second youngest of the seven children, last in line for the throne. And she was least loved by her mother now more than ever.

     She glanced sidelong at Germaine, standing with his dark family that looked so out of place in the crowd of blonde and brown hair. He smiled at her, kitty-waving. She glared at him, earning a disapproving look from her sister, Anora. She stuck her tongue out at her oldest sister when she wasn’t looking.

     So, the princess stood by in her elegant gown, fidgeting to spite her proper mother and sister, watching boys become men as they took the Oath of the Guard.

The boy stood in the back of the line of the dozen or so thirteen-year-olds about to swear their lives away to serve the Realm. His palms were sweaty as one by anxious one, the boys knelt before the king and took the Oath, repeating his words.

     He snuck a glance at the youngest princess—Arielle Penthoseren. The Little Light. She was certainly beautiful. Light brown hair flowed to the middle of her back, silver chains of royalty woven through them. Her skin was pale and her lips rose-petal-pink. Her eyes were a rare, unique by his knowledge, teal-grey. They were clear and piercing and fathomless as they swept the room. She kept looking at a boy very near the front of the room—a Narientel by the looks of it. Black hair, purple eyes, purple and black attire. Yep, definitely dragonborn.

     He turned his gaze back to the princess. He remembered meeting her in person those three years ago on the mainland. Her day of meeting the people. He was so awestruck by her that he hadn’t been able to say a word. She had asked if he was a Banviete, and he’d stupidly run away instead of staying to talk.

     There wasn’t a day that those few moments, her voice and face wasn’t in his mind. She had changed only a little since them. She was a little shapelier, but she had a lot more maturing to go if she was anything like her sisters.

     If it weren’t for his father forcing him into the Guard by guilt, he would have asked for Arielle’s hand in marriage in the future. He knew their families were good friends, and he had been so enamored by Arielle at first sight he was sure they were destined for one another. But he was to be a Guard. At least he would be close to her.

     Finally, his turn was up. He knelt on his left knee before the king, placing his left hand across his breast. The king asked his name before he took the Oath. “Jarissein Banviete, my lord,” he said. And with that, he bowed his head and took the Oath, repeating every word solemnly after the king.

Arielle looked up from her game of counting tiles to face the last of today’s “volunteers”. He was a blonde-headed boy with emerald eyes. Blonde hair, especially the white-blonde like her mother’s and this boy’s, was common in the Realm, as the sun shone always. Never a storm had collided with the shores of the Sea of Penthos, though they sometimes could be seen offshore raging like outsiders wishing to get a glimpse at the mystery on land. Green eyes he had. A rarity. Like Arielle’s unique mixture of color.