"I trust your grandmother explained that it's customary to accommodate you on the same floor as the bards."
Tomso had spoken between spoonfuls of the creamy, fragrant soup one of the all-male serving staff had placed before them, but Alori wasn't really listening.
Music was playing somewhere outside the conductor's private dining room. The bards were practicing. Were they composing? If she listened intently, would she be able to pick out his piano among the others?
"It's been found that the, ehm..." Tomso cleared his throat. "Closer you are to the source, as it were, the easier this process shall be." He held his hand in front of his mouth, obscuring a quiet burp. "Have you a favorite so far, Your Highness?"
Alori's eyes snapped up from her untouched meal. She'd half expected to find the old man leering at her, anxious for a juicy admission. Instead he blinked innocently, his eyes flitting between her guarded face and the marchioness.
What had he meant by getting close to the source? The bards were men, not inanimate power supplies for her magic.
She spun her spoon around in her soup. "I was a bit far away to form a complete decision on their individual marriageability."
Hamoni chuckled quietly into her wine goblet.
If Tomso knew Alori had a favorite composer, she wouldn't be the one to confirm it for the smarmy old man. An early advantage was not something she wanted any of the bards to expect. Like she'd told her grandmother, and as she'd reiterated to herself every few minutes since arriving, her decision would be based on more than talent. It had to be.
Before tackling her performance compatibility with the bards, she'd endeavor to learn their minds. Alori's mother had taught her many things, but this lesson was perhaps the most imperative. A marriage without deep love and healthy communication was destined to fail, no matter how beautiful the music or how potent the magic.
But then again, how could she deny the opportunity to be closer to his compositions for the rest of her life? They gave her such joy, and made a difficult job easier. There wasn't anything Alori longed to hear more than her favorite pieces played by the composer who had written them.
"I should point out that we don't endorse the wild colors some of these young men have taken up. Red and blue hair? Bah!" Tomso frowned, blotting his wet lips with his napkin. "We requested they rinse it out prior to your arrival but as you saw, it wasn't a great success. If you'd like, we can arrange to have their hair dyed. It would be my preference, but I shall leave it to you, princess."
Alori imagined the blue-haired bard changing his hair on her command, and smiled to herself. "That won't be necessary."
"Do you like all these loud colors, then?"
Tomso leaned back in his chair so a servant could take away his empty bowl. Alori tried not to stare at the rotund protuberance of his stomach.
What did she care about outlandish hair color, really? It wasn't her preference, but maybe that was for the best in this case.
"I'm not particularly interested in their looks," she said quietly. "I'm more concerned with what's underneath the surface."
Most of the men were fit and relatively handsome, which she knew was not a coincidence, so it felt a bit like cheating to claim appearance was a non-factor. But she hadn't been the one to decide who was invited to enroll at the academy and vie for her matrimonial collar.
"I see." Tomso nodded as if he understood, but the look on his face said otherwise. "Do you mean you're more interested in their intellectual capacity?"
"I mean their personality."
Hamoni grinned. "My granddaughter is a thoughtful woman, Tom."
Tom? How well did these two know each other?
"So it would seem," he agreed, folding his hands on the table. His eyes were too bright when they fell upon the widowed marchioness.
"I have no doubt she'll choose whichever bard has a disposition similar to her own. They say that opposites attract, but that's rubbish." Hamoni waved her embroidered napkin over the tablecloth like a flag, her short nose wrinkling with distaste. "Likeness attracts. You'll see."
Tomso hung on her words, his filmy brown eyes gleaming with what appeared to be an awful case of lovesickness.
When his foolish grin eventually shifted back to Alori, it lost some of its appalling sap.
"It will be my honor to guide you toward a decision, Your Highness. You have heard their music, so I think you will agree this group of young men has significant talent."
Alori nodded. "Indeed." Especially one of them. "I'm eager to make each of their acquaintances."
But Tomso wouldn't be guiding her toward anything. Alori was fully capable of making decisions on her own.
"Of course you are, and you will meet them." Tomso clapped his chubby hands, the silver rings on his fingers clanking together. "But first, how about a show?"
Yes, that sounded worlds better than hanging around any longer with a pair of shameless elderly flirts.
How was it that Alori was the one who had come to the Conservatory to find a match, but suddenly felt like the disruptive third wheel?
♫♫♫
After lunch they returned to the theater. Tomso helped Hamoni settle into a seat in the front row. The marchioness arranged her heavy skirts into a comfortable position and held her cane at an angle against her knees, tapping the back of Alori's leg.
"Up you go, my dear. Enjoy yourself." She pointed toward the stage with a short, painted fingernail and a glimmer in her wizened sea green gaze. "Don't forget to assess their marriageability."
Alori suppressed a grin. "Are you jealous, Hamoni? Are you in want of a young and handsome beau for yourself?"
"Of course I am!" Her grandmother's stately laughter drifted through the sun-drenched theater. "To be as young and beautiful again as you, my darling, now that would be a miracle."
Alori felt the weight of a stare on her back and turned, her breath hitching. The raven-haired bard was standing at the bottom of the stage steps a few feet away, a graceful white-clad arm outstretched toward her.
"Princess Alori." He bowed, then rose slowly, his silky hair slipping behind the curve of his ear. He'd seemed short onstage next to the other men but he had a few inches on her, so that she was looking up into thoughtful dark gray eyes the shape of the crescent moon. "The conductor asked that I offer my hand."
His slightly accented voice was deep and smooth, befitting of an artist.
Alori's heart fluttered again. Is it you?
"Thank you," she whispered, slipping her gloved hand around his elbow. As they ascended to the stage she looked around the theater, first at the silver curtains and valance framing the stage, then at the gleaming black piano to her left, anywhere to keep her eyes and racing mind off the bard on her arm who smelled like cinnamon and fresh winter air.
"Here we are." He stopped at a bench on the right side of the stage. Alori hastily withdrew her arm and stepped away from him, feeling like she might faint if she didn't sit down.
"I appreciate the hospitality...?"
"Taelan."
Alori might not have noticed the barest hint of a smile touching his lips, except she was sure she saw the start of a dimple puncturing the swell of his cheek. May the goddesses help her, but he was handsome.
Not like the blue-haired bard, whose good looks were as obvious as he was overbearing. This man was attractive in an understated way that required a closer proximity to appreciate. There was something about his serious, hooded gaze, and the way his pale complexion contrasted with his dark features, that made her stomach twist into a tight ball of nerves.
She drew in a deep breath, squelching the urge to call him back as he started to go. But she had to say something, didn't she? Lest he assume her silence indicated disinterest.
"Excuse me, Taelan?" She leaned forward, intending to brace her hands on either side of the bench, but she misjudged the distance and narrowly avoided falling onto the stage.
Her face was hot and itchy. Taelan was staring at her with those cool gray eyes. Nothing had ever been more awkward.
"Uh-um," she stuttered, melting into her clothes. "W-what instruments do you play?"
"Mandolin, oud, violin, a bit of harmonica, and piano, Your Highness."
Piano.
Alori squeezed loose handfuls of her long skirt between her fingers. "Did they tell you the piano is my favorite instrument?"
"Yes, they did." His full, dimpled smile transformed his face. All that dark intensity was gone, replaced with the kind of refreshing, guileless honesty that made her want to keep talking to him.
Taelan's smile was so different from the mischievous smirk of that lanky bard with blue hair.
Why did she continue thinking of him? Between the two men, there was no comparison.
Tomso yelled from somewhere in the shadows at the back of the stage, and Taelan's smile faded.
"I'm sorry, my lady, but that's my cue. I hope you enjoy this afternoon's performances."
My lady.
"I'm sure I will," Alori murmured weakly as Taelan bowed and jogged away.
Wrinkles, she thought, unclenching her fists from her skirt as a pleasant buzzing sensation filled her head. She'd end up with wrinkles in her gown if she didn't pull herself together.
A noise overhead pricked her ear, pulling her out of her rumination. She glanced up to see opaque panels slipping across the domed ceiling. The light throughout the theater dimmed, until the stage stood out in a soft amber spotlight. Tomso stepped from backstage, his boots clicking over the lacquered wood stage, and introduced the first performer without ceremony, rattling off his name, age, birthplace, and duration at the academy.
Alori schooled her expression in an attempt to hide her extreme displeasure over how rushed and impersonal this whole affair was turning out. From the tacky introductions earlier, to the uncomfortable meal she'd been forced to share with Tomso and Hamoni, to this moment which had her seated onstage, it all felt so fake and contrived.
Shouldn't she be the one asking the bards about themselves, in a more private setting than this? Of course, no one had asked Alori to do anything except to sit and listen. How was it that she was the most powerful mage on Eala, and yet here she was being treated as any other young unmarried woman, like a pawn?
Had it been this way for her mother when she'd met Papa? It seemed unlikely, considering how strong and confident the former queen had been, so different from Alori.
Mired in her gloomy thoughts once again, she hardly noticed when the first bard began his performance. He was a big blond mop-haired man who looked friendly enough and was a proficient musician, but there was no way he was the pianist she was waiting to hear. The piece he'd chosen wasn't even an original, it was a rearrangement of an old ballad written by one of the more famous bard princes.
Alori had fully intended to give each of the men a fair chance, but that was proving difficult already. By the time the blond bard finished his second song, she'd forgotten what Tomso had called him. Felix, maybe, or Phillip?
It was something like that...
The next dozen or more performances progressed in a similarly exhausting manner. Alori could pick the men out by their height or hair or the color of their tunic, but their names flitted in and out of her mind as aimlessly as fallen leaves.
The only one she remembered with any clarity was Taelan, and he had yet to step out onto the stage.
After an hour passed, she began to worry the raven-haired bard wasn't going to perform. Maybe Taelan and the blue-haired bard hadn't been on stage earlier as potential suitors, but as mentors or teachers for those who were. They both looked too young to be teachers, though, and Tomso hadn't distinguished them from the other bards, so her anxious hypothesis was unlikely.
Besides, Taelan wouldn't have indulged her question about which instruments he played if he'd only been present in the capacity of an instructor. Or so she hoped.
There were only a few performances left, and Alori was certain she hadn't heard him play yet– her composer. Those who had already performed were a talented group, but none of their songs had tugged at her like one of his pieces. Their playing hadn't stirred her magic and her soul, kindling an indescribable yearning. She was still waiting for that feeling.
When the seventeenth performer finally quit the stage, and Alori thought she might tear out a fingernail from impatience, Tomso reemerged from the shadows of the velvet curtains, rubbing his hands together.
"Your Highness, if it pleases you the final three performers have asked if they might play for you in a trio. They are our most decorated musicians, and I think you will enjoy the piece they have prepared for you."
That meant Taelan and the blue-haired bard were going to play together in a trio with another bard? But that could make it difficult to determine which of them was him.
Was that the point?
Alori squinted into the shadows. Were the three of them watching her from backstage, studying her reaction? She pressed her hands together, straightening her back. She might have expected such bamboozlement from the lanky bard, but Taelan?
Well, she didn't know him either, did she? Lesson learned.
Alori cleared her throat. "Very well," she said in a dry tone. "I'm intrigued."
Tomso clapped, appearing not to notice her attempt at sarcasm, while the bards stepped out of the darkness onto the lighted stage. Taelan came forward first, his intense gaze locking with Alori's. She gave nothing away, no sign of interest or disappointment, although she felt both keenly. A moment later the blue-haired bard sauntered out, gravitating toward the other end of the stage and grinning ear to ear. Alori did her best to ignore him entirely. Finally, a third man appeared between them, his smile timid beneath high cheekbones and a thatch of curly brown hair. His presence was so much less arresting than either Taelan's or the lanky bard's, that he might as well have been standing in their shadow.
While they prepped their instruments Tomso rolled off more of his awkward introductions, announcing that Taelan– who had picked up a mandolin and began tuning it with his head bent to the stage– was twenty-one. His surname was Lee, which was common in his home realm, Ville-You, the snow-capped mountainous region Alori often observed glimmering in the distance from her bedchamber windows at the palace. She felt embarrassed that she hadn't guessed Taelan's heritage. If the deep set of his eyes and his fair skin and dark hair hadn't given it away, his hint of an accent should have. But his presence had been so overwhelming that her thoughts hadn't made it that far.
According to Tomso, Taelan had joined the academy when he was eleven, which in itself was impressive. Most children that age were too busy throwing rocks in rivers and play-fighting as patrollers to concentrate on music, let alone devote their lives to it. But Alori's own experiences hadn't been so different. She'd started her training to become the Shieldmaker when she was five.
But... mandolin?
That was a shame.
The shy looking bard with chocolate curls was Reeve Kiyo. He was twenty-six, a full eight years older than Alori, although she'd never have guessed it. He was from the second smallest realm, Ville-Goem, another mountain region even farther to the north than Ville-You, and had been at the Conservatory since he was twenty. Tomso prattled on about Reeve's early accomplishments at smaller academies, while Reeve sat on a chair behind a polished cello, plucking at its strings with the instrument propped against his leg.
Curls, cheekbones, and honey brown skin. The man wasn't bad looking at all.
Because nothing about this could possibly be easy, could it? Alori sighed.
The lanky blue-haired bard was introduced last, which seemed only fitting for the most obnoxious of the bunch. Yuka Ellis. Twenty-three years old, he hailed from Dundenbirk, a coastal country near Cardosia, far outside the border of the Ville-Realms.
Tomso seemed especially proud of his foreign student, his chest puffing out like a happy rodent as he spoke about Yuka's induction into the academy five years ago.
A Dunden. Alori should have known. Yuka was as tall and willowy and as overconfident as any Dunden she'd met. But it was unusual that he would come to the Ville-Realms to study music. The Dundens were proud, bawdy seafarers, and to Alori's knowledge demons had never threatened their lands.
"To answer your question," Yuka said smugly, as if reading her mind, although such a feat was impossible (Dundens had no magic, and even if Yuka had, no one could read minds, not even the Shieldmaker), "I chose this path because I wanted to."
What was that supposed to mean?
Alori twined her fingers over her lap, for lack of a better place to put her hands. Across Yuka's insolent cheek, for example.
"Thank you for your dedication to the Ville-Realms, Mr. Ellis," she managed through gritted teeth.
"You are most welcome, my lady. Consider me at your service whenever and wherever you need me." He bowed at the waist, fixing her with another pretentious smirk, then pulled out the piano bench and sat down.
Why was this man so godsdamned uncouth, and why did it bother her so much?
It would be better if she could find it in herself to ignore him. But the piano...
Alori frowned. If Yuka was the bard whose music sang to her, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"This piece is entitled, 'Secret,'" he said with almost no inflection at all. "We hope you enjoy it, princess."
And with those casually stated words, Alori lost any doubt she'd harbored that this performance wasn't meant to confound her. It was, and what's more, the three of them wanted her to know it. Why?
Alori kept her trembling hands tightly clasped to prevent them from shaking off her arms as the music started, easing into a gentle, melodic rhythm. There was no reason that she should be anxious. There were ways she could chip away at this so-called secret of theirs, while teaching these boys a lesson about the Shieldmaker's power in the process. With a simple thought, she could enhance the emotional resonance of the song, strengthening her shield in the radius of the Conservatory. If she wanted to, she could conjure anything– a storm, a sword, a snake. But if she wasn't careful to siphon her magic to the bards slowly and methodically, her power might transfer to them in a dizzying burst. They'd lose their place and be humiliated, or worse, stunned for several minutes. Such was the intimate nature of Alori's magic, and the reason it was so important that she should choose the bard whose music best matched her own mind. There would be less collateral damage that way.
But she wouldn't resort to such tricks of power yet. The bards' performance was mesmerizing without the help of her magic, and as frustrated as she was by their hints of chicanery, she hated to interrupt.
This was one of his songs, she was certain of it.
For all Yuka's insufferable bravado, the man was an excellent pianist. His section during the first expository movement was full of light, airy arpeggios made even more beautiful by Taelan's gentle harmonic plucking on the mandolin. Reeve's cello echoed a deep, ancestral beat that carried the tempo and fused all three parts into a cohesive, transcendent experience.
The sounds swept Alori into a dreamscape, as his songs tended to do. Suddenly she wasn't sitting on a bench in the Conservatory's main theater, watching three bards play a piece of music, she was in a silvery moonlit forest in front of a crackling fire, stars twinkling overhead through a canopy of dark leafy trees.
If she was still enough, she could almost feel a gentle breeze caress her ears.
Too soon the second movement began and she was made to stand and run in her mind's eye, her hair trailing behind her like golden ribbons, loose and carefree as a child's.
The piano and mandolin transitioned into a playful counterpoint with the increased tempo, and Alori imagined herself barefoot in a game of tag with her siblings. She came to the forest's edge, where a vast beach extended toward the horizon. The gentle surf frothed at the glowing sand, like a whisper whose message was lost in the night.
"How are you enjoying the piece? They worked hard on it for you."
Tomso's voice in her ear was a cold, crashing wave knocking her back to reality.
"It's spectacular." Alori's eyes hadn't been closed, yet it felt like they'd just snapped open.
The piano naturally drew her ear. She rose to the surface of her consciousness long enough to analyze the dexterity of Yuka's fingering, and the spaces he chose to leave between beats. Was this the man whose arrangements had enchanted her so many a night? It was hard to say, with Taelin's masterful picking and effortless harmonics on the mandolin reawakening her love of the duet, and Reeve's more understated talent for tying all the parts together with a remarkable sense of timing.
Any one of them could have composed the piece, or the three of them together.
"Are they playing their best instrument?" she asked Tomso.
"Please, don't ask me to decide, princess!" Tomso's pride in his favorite students was palpable. "If you want that question answered, I must insist that you ask them yourself. All three are exceptional multi-instrumentalists, and I hesitate to grade their proficiency against one another."
Well, that wasn't much help. But at least she had a starting point of discussion.
By the end of the trio's raucous third movement Alori was more confused than ever, and even more convinced that she needed to meet with the bards one on one. How else would she manage to decide which of them she was most compatible with, and which one was him?