Breathed Anew of Sorrows

(12:0:5)

The ethereally lit, expansive grounds reached up to the curved and flowing shape of the Palace stretching above them towards the purpling sky, spires and towers cut against the dark backdrop of the mountain. Stretching out to embrace the central courtyard and a fountain designed after the seven dragons, it almost glowed in the light beamed strategically onto it, seemingly carved straight out of the mountain.

And technically it had been, through the work of a dozen Divinations wielding Earth-manipulating scalelets. A feat of architecture showing off just what they could do with the tools they had at their fingertips, now. Just like the dragons—the five elementals twining gracefully beneath Darkness and Light—spewed that hue-changing effect into the basin of the fountain, blue-lit droplets from Water’s mouth sparkling merrily.

Leading up to it, elegant posts held Light-scalelets glowing with a honey-like hue, perfectly-fitted cobblestones sparkling beneath the feet of over a hundred decently-dressed people.

“Oh no, I fear we might be over-dressed.” She kept the sly hint in her voice off her face, dipping her head genially to the other newly-arrived guests in their path as they swept through. Considering a few others around their age took the idea of Seih’s outfit but omitted the underclothing, that could even be taken literally. Her own showed off a fair amount of bare skin, really, but it was designed to tastefully hint, as opposed to shrieking “take me!” to anyone interested in all the potential contact offered.

Then again, I might be so desperate if I wasn’t already taken.

She smiled politely in passing at some younger girls with their eyes on her man as he completely and utterly ignored them on his single-minded mission to get to the upper balconies for the rich and powerful in time for the celestial event itself. Still thinking his brooding thoughts if the expression on his face and the almost complete lack of interaction with any of the other guests was any indication.

“Brei!”

She turned, glancing at the source of the call to find— oh, Pala. Of course she was here.

Seih finally paused, and she smiled a perfectly polite greeting at the other woman. It could be worse. At least Pala was mostly nice, just frustratingly vapid most of the time, as that nearly translucent gown showed off nicely, shimmering gold underclothing barely obscuring anything and accentuating everything. Raising an eyebrow, she appraised the beautiful braid-work done on her ridiculously long hair, glinting pins turning her honey-blonde hair into the most impressively eye-catching fairy-light bush she’d ever seen.

She smirked. “Well, someone’s gone for the top of the mountain.”

“...I’ll grab some refreshments,” Seih murmured in her ear, already turning and disappearing as Pala approached with a laugh.

“Oh, well, it’s the biggest event of the year, isn’t it? I thought I might as well go all out.” She flipped at one of her braids with another of those annoying little laughs. “Catch someone with some influence, maybe, this year.”

“Maybe you should try your luck with a councillor,” she said drily.

“Not all of us can be so lucky as you. I’d settle for a rich noble’s son. Anyone who isn’t another Draktih....” The other let out a mournful, over-exaggerated sigh, brightening innocently a moment later as her gaze slipped over in the direction Seih had gone, now greeting someone or other. “I have to say you two are looking good tonight, though. You’ve really outdone yourselves. Especially that tunic....”

“Yes, well, he has all the fashion sense of an old farmer. He didn’t exactly pick it out himself.” She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t suppose... he’d happen to be free for a couple of moments tonight?” Coupled with that sly look, it was obviously meant to be a joke. Supposedly.

Funny, that she didn’t feel like laughing. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, smile angelically cool. “Oh, he has eyes for only one.”

The woman laughed again, gaze awkwardly diverted to the drink in her hand as she idly swirled it, a stronger variety of alcohol from the design of the glass. Which probably explained the light flush to her cheeks and the looseness of her tongue. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying. It’s not like he even noticed me, anyway.”

The man in question appeared again, striding towards them with his gaze directed to something in the distance. With a sharp smile, crinkling her eyes benevolently at the other, she hooked her arm through his and swept them off. “He’s very distracted tonight. Only has eyes for the inside of his own skull.”

Pala didn’t follow, and she serenely took the glass offered to her, smiling as she sipped at the drink—some variety of honey-dew wine, lighter than whatever the other woman was drowning herself in—and ignored Seih’s sidelong look at her.

“Whatever she said, you didn’t have to bite at her like that.”

She sniffed. “She’s empty-headed and isn’t interested in anything except money and catching some man who’ll probably never love her. I’m not interested in being friends. Also she was eyeing your backside like she’d enjoy being sat on.”

He stoically didn’t choke on his own drink, but the sound he made was an interesting one. It could have been a laugh.

Her suspicion was confirmed when he nudged her. “As if you weren’t.”

“I would’ve gotten a blush out of you for that, once,” she sighed.

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve spent too much time around you.” He guided them up a spiralling staircase at the edge of the open courtyard, vines twirling around the central pillar brushing against her shoulder.

“You don’t regret losing your innocent, sheltered life where you weren’t endlessly teased for looking too good with your tunic rolled down?”

“I never had it.” The unexpected smile he sent her nearly had her heart skipping. “But being teased by you? That’s different.”

“You can’t just sneak up on me like that.” She pouted at him fiercely, halfheartedly hiding the blush creeping over her own cheeks behind the drink. “You and your felled honesty. If I was a councillor I’d make a law against it.”

He leaned in, the little smirking twist to his lips making the red deepen infuriatingly. “You just don’t like to be the one blushing.”

“It murders my complexion.” She tapped him right on the middle jewel of his crown with her glass as if to beat him back. “You look adorable when you’re embarrassed.”

“I think it brings out the purple hints in your eyes.”

“...Really?”

She had the sense he was laughing at her as they stepped up onto the balcony and she hurriedly did her best to dispel the rest of the heat in her face—wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to manipulate those sorts of things like a Divination could—purple hints or not. They were in public, even if half the rest of the others up here milling about weren’t really paying attention to the new arrivals.

...Damn Seih Hestas and his ability to get to her in all the best ways, anyway.

“You know, I might as well say it again, but thank you. For waiting.” She coughed lightly as he raised an eyebrow at her, and jabbed him hard in the ribs. “Don’t give me that look, I’m showing my appreciation you ox-claw.”

“Ow.” He winced, smiling aside at one of the other Lower Domini with a tap of his fingers to breastbone in greeting as they strode to the rail. “I told you, it’s no trouble. As long as we’re in time for the moons, we’re alright. The rest of it will continue until almost morning, anyway.”

“And here I thought it was a competition between councillors to see who can be the most fashionably early.”

“It is. But it’s also pointless.”

“Well. Everything for the dominance game.” She rested her hip against the rail, flicking her eyes over the crowd. It seemed like every Domini and his or her Divination was there, dressed boldly yet elegantly, and rather gaudily in some cases. It seemed Jondice had decided to clothe his bulk in crystalline scalelets that changed colour on every angle. Eye-bleeding.

“It’ll be happening soon,” he murmured, and she caught his gaze directed off towards the horizon, where the moons were rising over the dusky ridge of the distant mountains in a flattened triad, a golden glow lighting them.

There was a weird hint of... almost uneasiness, in his voice. He hid it well, but all the neutrality in the world couldn’t hide the slight tension in his brows or the intensity in his stare.

“Are you thinking it’s some sign of the end of the world?”

His gaze slid away. “No. Not really.”

The slight smile on her lips faded at that odd answer that practically implied the direct opposite.

Seih’s eyes flicked to hers again, his attempt at a reassuring smile failing miserably. “It’s nothing. I just....”

A rosy hue that wasn’t from the lights crept over the sky as she raised an eyebrow at him. “Just...?”

But his attention had turned back to the sky as the babble around them quietened, excited gasps and exclamations rustling through the crowd. Turning, herself, she watched as the moons themselves blushed, the colour bleeding into a rusty red that darkened into a crimson shadow as the edge of the planet cut off the light to them.

Cut off the light to them, and bathed the world in an ominous, dark red glow, the whisper of a chill raising the hairs on her arms harshly enough to prickle at her scalp. A dark coldness rushed over them all, the excited hush freezing and dying to a throat-strangling dread as that chill crept into her lungs.

“What... what’s going on?” The whisper struggled to make it past her lips, staring up at a sky gone dark, three red eyes gazing down into her soul and clutching at her heart.

Even Seih’s voice was barely more than a rasp.

“It’s started.”