Chapter 28

Hollow:

“And now, the harlequin of Hylaya,” a guard announced, and not a damn person clapped. He didn’t even use her name, and no one clapped as she entered the room. Fine then.

I cheered loudly, and stood for applause so hard that it hurt my hands. It made my wife to be blush, but she somehow hid the smile as she eyed me. I kept yelling until she reached the center of the room, and gave me another look.

I bowed. “Good luck, love.”

Then she smiled.

I sat back down, and looked at the people who stared at me. Maybe half the invited villagers had showed up, and only to gawk at the girl they saw as a trapped servant to us. The room had been set up so that Farley stood in a circle. On either side of her and at the wall, the villagers stood. The people of importance got to sit at the large rows built for this occasion. Those had been placed on either side of my father and I, and at the front of the room. The guards lined the wall behind Farley, so she didn’t have anywhere she could look and not see people. They surrounded her, and I felt sorry for that.

Farley looked at her crowd, and I could only have imagined what she thought of. They all looked judgmental, and I found it irritating that these people felt so strongly against magic, would be there to watch the show. I suspected that they only wanted to see Farley fail.

I prepared to bail her out if needed, because I worried for what would have happened in this room stuffed with people who didn’t care about her. It would have only taken one insane person to do something to hurt her, and I might not have been fast enough to stop it. Then what would I have done? Father wouldn’t have mourned the loss, and I wouldn’t recover for having let Farley down. I had a weapon at the ready, and I had to assume Farley might have defended herself at this point. Like I had made the choice to live for her, I hoped she would have made the same choice for me if it came down to it. Otherwise, what had been the point?

She began, filling the room with the sound of music, belonging to instruments that had been set out beforehand. She started the harp, a violin, and the pipe organ. The music sounded disturbing, but not in a bad way. Only intense, setting teeth on edge all around us.

Farley looked up, and started swirling her hands in the air. Slowly, it looked like some kind of smoke materializing from out of nowhere. That smoke drifted up the high ceiling, and began forming clouds. Everyone watched in perfect silence as Farley somehow constructed a night sky above us. She made the clouds, and the moon, and did it all with the grace of a dancer. She moved in time with the music, and I might have fallen in love again.

With the sky nearly formed, Farley closed her eyes, and pretended to toss something in the air. Fireworks exploded, raining sparks down on her as a thousand starts lit up as little points in her sky. It looked stunning.

Once she had her atmosphere set up, Farley began. I had been under the impression that had been it, but what did I know? It started snowing inside, but she kept the frost off of the guests. When it fell, she began forming another scene. To match the sky, she added woods around her. Out of snow, Farley made trees, and bushes, and the ice started forming deer around her. The animals pranced in a circle, and Farley made obstacles for them. When they jumped, the snow exploded into powder that rained down on her. She smiled at it.

The crowd began to whisper, discussing what they saw. If I got even a hint of anyone twisting this into something to be afraid of, well I had my dagger ready. Most of them must have known about us by now. We’d not kissed in front of everyone, but word would have spread anyway. Her family had not shown up, and that didn’t surprise me. I would have thought her mother pushed for it, but if the father put his foot down, that was it for the family. Coming here with me involved, might have led to their death. I knew that rumor had spread.

My eyes went back to Farley, who had her animals all around. They pranced, and repeated the way they ceased to exist. Then she moved on to fire, letting it consume the ice that had once surrounded her. The room felt warmer, and the goosebumps on my arm went away. The fire took over the wooded scene as she changed it to a replica of the village. I watched her construct little people who walked around, going about their day. It made me grin, seeing the castle form behind it all. She made my tower last, and blue flames making it up. Farley winked at me, and I smiled like a dope.

“She’s magnificent,” I said to my father.

He looked at me, with no expression in particular. “Yes, she’s quite entertaining.”

I shook my head. “It’s everything, Father. Everything about her takes me over. I cannot explain it.”

The man looked me over, and then cast his gaze on the girl that would soon be my wife. “I suppose that happens to everyone eventually.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“None of us do.”

Farley concluded her show, wiping out all the light at once. The audience gasped, and a few people almost ruined it by screaming. But then the room exploded in colors before the candles lit up again, and we could see.

My girl bowed and once more, no one clapped. I stood up one last time, yelling for her. I nudged my father to do the same, and surprisingly, he did. Then the rest of the crowd joined in, and Farley’s eyes lit up in my direction.

I ran out to her while the others cheered her on, and I picked the girl up in my arms. I kissed her, hearing the people around me gasp. I didn’t even bother looking at my father, because I knew what his face would have looked like. I didn’t want this ruined.

“Did I do okay?” Farley asked, out of breath when I set her down.

I grinned, cupping her face. “You were wonderful. Everyone loved it.”

She looked around at the sea of faces, some still clapping and some gawking at the embrace. “My family isn’t here.”

“No. Are you upset?”

“No,” she said, but it almost sounded like a yes.

I thought of a way to make her feel better instantly. “It’s time for the feast. Every food you could possibly think of is waiting for you to go and eat. You should build up your strength, because I’ll be wearing you out later.”

Farley rolled her eyes at me. “Keep thinking that.”

I had her hand in mine, and felt the missing ring. While it saddened me to see the empty finger, it had been smarter of her to take it off. Tonight wouldn’t have been the night to risk my father’s wrath. But I felt a little burst of joy when I saw the chain around Farley’s neck.

“Is the ring on that?” I asked.

She looked down at her dress, and then she smiled up at me. “I didn’t want to be without it. We only just got it on my finger, and it would have been a shame to leave it behind.”

She got another kiss for that, and one not as chaste as the last. Farley let me have at her, right in front of everyone. I very nearly picked her up and brought her to our room, but I smelled chicken, and I would have been too distracted to take care of Farley properly.

“Bartholomew,” Father called. I looked over my shoulder to see him waving me over.

I sighed. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” she said, kissing my cheek.

I had to meet with my father so that we could go into the hall together. Everyone else got seated first, and there would be a head table for family and the higher up staffers. I always hated this kind of thing, because people stared at me. I would have been more than happy to take the food up to my room, and eat alone. But Farley had never been to one of these things before, and she might have enjoyed it. If not, then I would steal some food, and we could have our own party in our bedroom. To be honest, nothing felt more wonderful than the idea of us sitting on our bed, overeating until we fell asleep.

Father and I waited for our turn, and all I wanted to do was go fill a plate and stuff myself sick on food I could have had any time. My stomach growled, and it only put me in a mood.

For some reason, Mother popped into my head. She hadn’t liked these things much either, so I had been told. Father wouldn’t talk about her much, but he said that she only came to these for the food. While she had been raised as a royal, she didn’t agree with the lifestyle. She would rather have explored the woods than taken her etiquette lessons. She liked to eat with her hands, and laughed loudly. The world wouldn’t have considered anything about my mother proper, and I remembered that about her. Mother didn’t fit in, and neither did I. That might have been why Father had such a hard time with me. He looked at me, and saw that woman. The one that chose to leave us both, for reasons I never got to know. I had to live forever, never knowing why I hadn’t been enough for her to stay.

I sat at a counter, with the woman on my mind and unwilling to leave it. What would she have thought of all this? Her Hollow Prince finding himself a mate, and one that reminded me of her. They really would have gotten along well, and I imagined they would have teamed up on me a lot. Farley would have loved that. Getting to be the one to mess with me. Suddenly, I felt sorry that she wouldn’t get the chance. Mother took a lot more from us than I originally thought.

I couldn’t sit still anymore, and I kept fidgeting in my seat. Why did we have to be stuck waiting for so long? I needed to be somewhere else.

“Wait a couple more minutes,” Father said.

I glared at him. “I’ve waited long enough. Why do we have to do this? Do you think they don’t know we’re coming? I’m sure they do.”

Before he could clip me in the back of the head, someone announced us. We walked into the banquet hall together, and the smell of food overwhelmed me. Then I remembered that I had a wife to be, and I needed to find her as well as the dinner rolls.

She didn’t sit at the main table, though the other guests filled it up. I sat beside an empty seat that might have been accidentally placed for the advisor currently locked up. My eyes scanned the room.

“Why isn’t Farley here?” I asked. “She should be sitting with us.”

Father scoffed. “Why?”

My eyes narrowed. “Well if we ignore the fact that she and I are an item, this whole thing was to show her off. Shouldn’t she be sitting where the most eyes are?”

“She’s not family,” Father said.

“And that is?” I asked, pointing to the other advisor.

He threw his hands in the air. “I’ve been living in this castle for longer than you’ve been alive.”

I shrugged. “Means nothing to me. Excuse me while I go and sit with my person.”

I got up, and then went to the table of food. No reason to not get something to eat while I looked for Farley. It took me a few minutes, but I finally spotted her a few tables away. She sat alone, but little labels had been placed on the other seats. In the corner of the room, I saw a few people eating as they stood up, and another handful of people talked to others, standing beside their tables. I sighed, and went to join my wife.

I sat beside her, smiling as I made her squeak in surprise. “Those assholes upsetting you?”

“No,” she lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I lifted my eyebrow. “Did they even sit with you, or did they avoid the table altogether?”

She frowned. “They all left when I sat down.”

I nodded, and then pulled the dagger from my pocket. I stabbed the center of the table, and stood up. I patted Farley’s shoulder, and apologized for scaring her. Then I addressed the people in the room, making my voice boom.

“Listen!” I called, making everyone stop talking. Farley shrank in her seat, but I didn’t stop. “This,” I said, gesturing to her. “Is Farley. She’s a human being, and all of you are to show her respect. See this dagger?” I pointed to the blade. “If you don’t respect her, then I will jam this into your skull, and mount your body on a spike. Bear in mind that you are not the most powerful thing in this kingdom, so tread lightly.”

I sat back down, and Farley glared at me, her cheeks bright red. “Why…” she whispered.

“Because I love you.”

My father glowered at me from his seat, and he only shook his head. Interesting that he didn’t even bother addressing the people now. It better have been him agreeing with me.

I pulled my dagger from the table, and stabbed a piece of chicken before putting it on my mouth. Farley looked at me with horror, but that probably meant she loved me even more. Why wouldn’t she have?

While I shoveled food into my mouth like I would die the next day, Farley pushed hers around with her fork. Her eyes kept going to the other people in the room, and she would shift around uncomfortably.

I sighed, leaning so I could speak into her ear. “Do you want to be here?”

“I would rather be on fire.”

I suspected as much. “Would you like to eat in the tower? You can get out of that corset and put on your sleep clothes, and we can eat an entire cake by ourselves.”

She smiled so brightly at me that I felt it in my chest. “That sounds perfect.”

We rose, and I escorted her out of the room. We went into the kitchen first, and I pulled aside one of the cooks. I told him to bring up food for us, giving him everything Farley wanted. She told him a couple things too, and the man shot her a look that might have earned an amputation if I decided to be in a sour mood about it in the morning. Farley didn’t like it when I hurt people for her, so maybe holding off would’ve been a better idea.

We had to cut through several other rooms to get to the tower, and we held hands, taking our time while we crossed through a room we used for nothing but mounting heads of my father’s hunted animals. I didn’t like it in there, and Farley curled up to my side as we got to the murder room.

“Why are you bothering me, Lwyn?” I heard a man ask from the other room. “I have a full plate of food waiting for me, and Morec wants to discuss something with me later.”

Farley stopped us, ducking behind a wall so we couldn’t have been seen. She hushed me, and I went with it, because she requested.

“Don’t speak to me like that, Zant. Do you think you’re needed here? Do you think that if something happened, the king wouldn’t get a new advisor without hesitating?”

“What the hell has gotten into you? You realize you’re nothing more than a guard, right?”

I laughed quietly. “These people are mad if they think any of them matter. Father could replace anyone within a day.”

Farley frowned at me. “Your father is terrible, to be fair.”

“You’re not wrong. Can we go? I would like to not be wearing trousers anymore.”

The men still talked, and they took away Farley’s focus. “He has thirty people to replace you,” the advisor said.

“Yes, I realize that. But I happen to know something that you do not. Would you like to know what it is?”

“Not really. I would like to go eat my dinner before it gets cold. If you could move out of the way…”

“I’m more qualified for your job than you can even imagine. I am so sick of my talents going to waste. It’s time that the king recognizes what an asset I am. With one of his advisors dead and the other one locked away, I don’t see a reason for him to ignore me any longer.”

“Dead…” the other man said.

Well that sounded highly suspicious, so I dared to take a look around the corner. I looked in time to see that guard putting his hands on the advisor I had known all of my life. The man didn’t stand a single chance, and Farley looked along with me. We watched as we realized too late what would happen. Magic filled the man’s body, and I saw him stiffening. His eyes stayed wide, and I watched them turn to glass.