A Kingdom Without Song

3 - Vesper

What a waste, to put one writing desk and one podium in the middle of such an extravagant room and leave the rest of it unfurnished, Vesper thought to herself as she broodingly spun her pen between her thumb and forefinger. The sun was about half way over the horizon now, but she had been stuck in this chamber since midday. It was vast—maybe thirty strides across—with a lofty ceiling, intricate trim, and excessively large windows. Over the past two years she had become intimately familiar with its quirks and blemishes. She knew which tiles were cracked, which windowpanes were smudged, and she had nearly memorized the images and text woven into the dusty tapestries that hung on the walls. The room was not cleaned frequently, which was unsurprising. The Nova had more space than it knew what to do with. Upon her ascension, she would find some charitable use for all the echoing chambers and musty storage rooms. A public series of orchestral performances in this one, perhaps. The acoustics were certainly fit for music.

Vesper spent every other afternoon confined to her lonely writing desk in front of Professor Spiro's lonely podium while she listened to him drone on about the nuances of Council leadership and its role in facilitating provincial unity, so she was well-aware of the way the room's terracotta floors and high ceilings amplified sound, especially her instructor's voice. She wondered, how might those reverberations be changed if the tapestries on the wall were made of silks instead of wool? That was a question for the silk-mistresses of the Commonwealth, or perhaps someone with expertise in Sonitics. She had tried channeling sound before with little success, which was not surprising considering that half the time she wove her silks, something (or someone) ended up burned or broken or otherwise damaged. Still, she was certain she would rather lose her hearing than listen to another word about which Chancellor was responsible for managing this or that.

Vesper touched the silks around her wrist in contemplation. They were inherited from her grandmother and namesake, the Lady Hesper, and despite their age they remained vividly white. Strands of glimmering silver threads shone throughout, matching her own very un-aristocratic pale skin and the shock of silver hair at her temple. Her family's complexion was said to be a sign of divine influence. Her father, her grandmother, and many of her other ancestors had all been "marked by the Cosmos," and if she had had any siblings, they might have been equally blessed. Unfortunately for her and the entire Empire of Astrella, she was Emperor Lucien's only progeny. Hence her current predicament. As future Empress, it was imperative that Vesper receive formal instruction in statesmanship.

Of course, she wasn't the only member of the Aristocracy who was studying politics. It was common practice for the Corstellan ruling class to send their children to the Academy to prepare them for service on the Novan Council, but while they sat shoulder-to-shoulder with their friends in a classroom stacked with musty books, Vesper sat alone. Her father had insisted that it was not appropriate for a future ruler to interact casually with citizens outside the Nova (not to mention the safety concerns). So, when she turned sixteen, Spiro was sent from the Academy to serve as her private tutor. It was clear from their first meeting that he had neither patience nor a sense of humor, and would rather be back at the Academy discussing political philosophy with other brilliant scholars than stuck at the Nova with a hopeless case who could barely formalize a statement or string a sentence together. She couldn't blame him. What was the first basic tenet of the Academy? Scholarship through discourse? Well, there it was. Her education was an absurdity to say the least.

Spiro cleared his throat and it was as if a hand had reached into her vortex of anxious thoughts and pulled her back to the surface. She became acutely aware that she had been holding her breath as she liberated it with a single exhalation.

"Ahem, the Lady Vesper will respond."

"Your pardon?" She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Spiro cleared his throat again and adjusted his spectacles. "We were evaluating the Sa-Firan occupation's impact on provincial unity and the structure of the Nova."