The Fool's Mask
Cassion raked his fingers through his hair. His gaze came to rest on the book Dayson had flung down — a book filled with things he already knew by heart.
Cassion was no fool. In truth, he belonged among the very clever: he seldom forgot anything he had seen even once, and he understood with remarkable speed. He had long since memorized the very book Dayson had brought him like a beggar's alms.
To stay alive, Cassion had pulled on the mask of an idiot — a meek little rabbit's mask. The true fools were Dayson and the Queen, both duped by his performance. At first, watching Dayson swallow the act had been entertaining. Now it only wearied him.
"It's already been three years of this."
Three years earlier, Violetta — the former Queen, and Cassion's mother by birth — had died. At the time, Cassion had been living outside the palace, for the former Queen had been stripped of her rank before Cassion was ever born.
"Enter the palace."
At the King's single word, Cassion had been forced through the palace gates. He had dug in his heels and refused — but the arrogant King Karman was never going to bend for the protests of a mere eight-year-old. Like an ox dragged to the slaughter, Cassion had been hauled into the royal palace and penned inside it.
Even then, he hadn't dared dream of his father's love. The most he had allowed himself to expect was the stray pity one offers a motherless animal. Yet in less than a week, even that small expectation had been trampled into the dirt. One week was all it took for Cassion to understand: the palace had thrown him away. At an age far too young, he had been made to grasp that the world turned on power alone — and that a father could be heartless enough to cast out his own mother.
Still, it has to be better than out there.
A deposed queen's life was no gentle thing, and neither was the life of a prince born only after her fall. With the mother who had shielded him now gone, staying out there alone might well have meant something far worse. So Cassion lived on, forcing his grip to hold fast to that faint hope. But bit by bit the hope faded, and every bright thought with it; the loneliness of his position gnawed at him without mercy. To survive, he taught himself to live like a plant — quietly, motionlessly, a way of being that consisted of nothing more than breathing.
Then one day, as he was holding his breath in the royal palace, Dayson came to call. His elder half brother — First Prince Dayson, born of a maid's body back when Violetta had still been Queen. Violetta, who had borne no child in all the years before Dayson's birth, had been driven from the palace because of that very child. Which was why, to Cassion, Dayson was a man so loathsome it made his skin crawl.
And yet he could neither fight him nor push him away. Behind Dayson stood Julia, the reigning Queen. She proclaimed Dayson the rightful and only heir to the throne, and most within the royal court agreed with her.
Rising against him would earn nothing but a dog's death.
Remembering his mother's dying wish — that he survive, whatever it took — Cassion had groveled flat before Dayson. The prince adored that fragile, simple-minded facade. He would set Cassion impossible tasks, then offer hollow comfort when he failed, all the while parading his own competence and grinding Cassion's pride to paste. He had swallowed it, every ounce of it, for exactly three years.
"You bastard."
Cassion's insides brimmed with a rage so complete that the faintest poke would send curses spilling out. At times it made his head swim.
"I won't let this go. I'll make certain he never knows salvation — not even from Helba, god of justice and ruin."
Ugly words poured out of him, one after another, and killing intent coiled thick in the air around him. Then a thought came to him.
What if I laced Dayson's drink with poison?
In the neglected garden, left to grow wild, poisonous weeds hid among the tangle of grass. If he put his mind to it, brewing poison would be no feat at all.
I made it just for you, brother.
Offered with a cringing smile and a servile bow, wouldn't the fool drink at least a swallow? If only he could stand above Dayson's body — collapsed and convulsing on the floor — and look down at him...
"Whatever happens, you must survive. Live, and be happy in my stead as well. For me, Cassion."
But his mother's last words caught at his ankles once more. Cassion abandoned the half-baked scheme and let his shoulders fall. He was too worn out to keep his eyes open even a moment longer; quietly, he let his lids drift shut.
Then came the creak of a door swinging open.
...It couldn't be. Dayson, back again? He had already spent his entire day's ration of patience.
Rubbing at his aching temples, Cassion raised his head — and jolted at the sight of an unfamiliar figure.
"Hello, Prince Cassion!"
The greeting that reached him was bright and bubbling with energy. The face above the opened door was one he had never seen: a pretty girl with golden hair and green eyes. Beside her stood another, brown hair bound up high, but to Cassion only the blonde girl seemed to exist.
"What a lovely room. May I sit here?"
Cassion blinked slowly, combing his memory for any trace of the green-eyed child. However deep he dug, the face was entirely new. And while he studied her, she made herself at home surveying his bedchamber as though it were her own.
Who could she be? Cassion went taut with wariness, lifting a brow. His mood was foul, and his body little better. If his heart had its way, he'd have seized on her intrusion into a prince's chambers as excuse enough to put her in her place — but Dayson was not the only one he needed to keep deceived.
"In the royal palace, the walls have eyes and the ceilings have ears."
His mother's old advice drifted up from memory. Perhaps Dayson had sent her to take the measure of his condition.
"Wh-who are you? And — how did you even get in here?"
Cassion gathered his killing intent back in and asked with wide, blinking eyes, every inch the simpleton — a fool's act worn smooth by years of practice.
"Goodness! You're a marvelous actor."
But she saw clean through the performance. The round, widened eyes narrowed by slow degrees, and the feigned innocence within them gave way to suspicion.
"Do you know what I heard outside just now?"
Understanding that he had been seen through, Cassion shut his mouth. Silence, at moments like this, was the finest defense there was. As if she had never intended to wait for an answer, the girl opened her mouth herself.
"You bastard."
A curse far too crude for those lovely lips rolled off them with perfect ease. Cassion flinched.
"What was it again... Goddess Helba's soul, or something..."
She heard every word. There was no point in playing the fool now. Cassion uncoiled his hunched shoulders and slouched back against the sofa without ceremony.
"I won't let this go. I'll make certain he never knows salvation — not even from Helba, god of justice and ruin."
Cassion graciously finished the sentence the girl had left dangling.
"Oh, that's the one! Hardly original, but a positively literary curse. Why not try your hand at a poem while you're at it? You seem to have quite the gift for it."
The girl carried on, beaming.
"Who are you?"
This time Cassion did not stumble over the words. The instant his eyes opened level and clear, the naive air fell away, leaving a face sharp-edged and heavy with history. The girl extended her hand, and Cassion stared down at it — a hand a little larger than his own, and far fairer.
"Hello, Your Highness. I am Diana Viola Ehrenberg, heir to the Ducal House of Ehrenberg. And as for me — you may think of me as the rope you'll need to grab hold of if you want to survive."
"Wh-who are you? And — how did you even get in here?"
The moment Cassion laid eyes on me, he began to stammer and play the simpleton. Just look at the darling little thing.
Had I not heard him cursing so merrily outside, I might have been well and truly taken in by the performance. His pitiable act was every bit that convincing — it even suited his delicate features. He looked fragile enough to snap at the slightest touch, big eyes strung with glistening tears, his breath coming in faint wheezes. His poor health was a genuine misfortune, of course, but it helped enormously with the character he was aiming to play.
He was cute enough in the role that I briefly considered letting the performance run a while longer, but I gave up on the idea. It would have been a waste of perfectly good time. Drawing out his true face was simple: a few of the curses I'd overheard outside, tossed back at him, were more than enough. Clever Cassion evidently judged he couldn't deceive me, because he dropped the act at once.
"Lady Ehrenberg — ah, or should I say Lady Ehrenberg? Cough. Damn it all! What brings you here?"
He was plainly trying to seize the initiative with a jabbing tone, but his body refused to play along. The fire in his eyes burned vivid enough, yet every cough folded that frail body in half, and it was almost painful to watch.
"We need to air this room out. Jenice, open that window for me, would you?"
That stale, musty smell had been getting on my nerves since I first stepped inside. The moment Jenice pushed the window open, bright sunlight came pouring through, and in the meantime I finished taking stock of Cassion's room.
Dreadful. This is supposed to be a prince's palace? Well, I'll grant it one merit — the sunlight comes in beautifully. It was a mess only for want of cleaning; the palace's design itself was perfectly sound. I had seen enough of the room. Now for Cassion himself.
His skin was rough, his lips cracked and peeling. A sallow pallor sat on his face, and he was so gaunt his cheekbones jutted out. Illness aside, what showed most plainly was that no one had ever taken proper care of him. Those dark circles, too — he can't even be sleeping properly. His prickly temperament suddenly made perfect sense. Anyone hounded without pause, neglected and sick on top of it, was bound to turn out a little twisted.
"What are you looking at?"
Cassion snapped. Half dead with illness, his face white as though he might keel over at any moment, he still sat up remarkably straight and radiated hostility — I had to admire the backbone. He was no abandoned kitten. He was a wolf hiding its venom behind a cat's mask.
The sort who'll need a great deal of hands-on care, one way or another. I needed to thaw the air before things could turn awkward — but where to begin?
"My lady, shall I bring out the sweets and tea we brought?"
Jenice, you're brilliant! Nothing brings people closer than sharing food. I nodded, and Jenice darted off. From the big basket she drew out pretty plates and laid sweets across them, their sweetness scenting the air; add tea brewed from leaves imported from abroad, and the spread — hardly lavish, but quietly impressive — was complete. I had packed it all on the off chance. Thank goodness I had.
"Did you poison it?"
But it was my own mistake to imagine the mood might soften. Cassion was warped from the very foundations.
Where on earth does one begin correcting a child with a temperament like that?