Angharad of Llyr is heir to a matriarchy: a line of enchantress-queens that has ruled her island for centuries. Her destiny from birth: to rule as sole authority and ensure that her powerful bloodline endures for another generation. Devoted to her p...
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Midsummer feast was a gala occasion. The Great Hall was hung with sunburst banners, and long tables brought in to accommodate the royal house, the court, the priestesses, and important dignitaries from all over their territory. Minstrels played from the corners and the upstairs galleries. All guests were plied with the firstfruits of early crops and savory roast meats of young stock and game. Wine and ale flowed freely, bearing equally welcome tides of laughter and song upon their crimson and golden waves.
Angharad sat at the head table and gazed upon it all with numb distaste and no appetite. She crushed her bread into crumbs and apathetically pushed food about on her platter, like a child attempting to give the illusion of having mostly eaten some loathed but insisted-upon vegetable. The noise of the assembly, the flash and color of festive garments, all beat on her senses. She wanted to slide under the table and disappear.
At her right, Eilwen elbowed her. "You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"It won't do you any good to waste away while you wait, you know." Her sister waved her empty goblet at a handsome young servant, who hurried over to fill it and then backed away, red-faced. Angharad tried to ignore his expression, and her own guesses at whatever Eilwen had done to cause it.
"Behave yourself," she admonished her.
Eilwen twinkled at her over the rim of the cup. "Oh, I am, believe me. I wanted to pinch him." She set her wine down and bent her head nearer, speaking low. "Did you notice your new suitor there?"
Angharad could hardly have missed him; as round and bald as an egg, covered in jewelry, he glittered like mica in the torchlight. He had arrived the day before, and both her would-be husbands were now seated at a table below, an honorable but respectful distance from the royal family. The other man was dark-haired, with a nose like a hawk's beak, and somehow gave the impression of gauntness despite being tall and broad-shouldered. He was robed in black, and wafted a self-aware aura of ominous mystery like a priestess swinging an incense-burner. Angharad had hated them both on sight, and was thankful that Regat had insisted that they were to have no contact with her prior to their official presentation, to avoid any accusations of unfair advantage given.
"He's ridiculous," she muttered. "Look at that neckpiece he's wearing, and the trinkets sewn onto his robe. He looks like a walking dragon-hoard."
"But how he sparkles," Eilwen whispered. "Such lovely jewels. I daresay he leaves a trail of them wherever he goes."
"Like mouse droppings," Angharad snorted. "I suppose he wears diamond-encrusted nightshirts."
"You're the only one who could find out," Eilwen said wickedly. "But think what you might be missing. The other could be hiding even finer jewels under all that black."
"He looks like he sleeps in a shroud. Fancy wearing black to midsummer! I doubt he's seen the sun in the last six months. He'll likely burst into flames during the ceremony tonight," Angharad said, knocking breadcrumbs into her lap in agitation. "Am I really so undesirable that these were all that were interested?"
