The next few hours were such a blur, that Cressia, when she thought about it years later, could not even remember the words that were spoken - just how she felt instead. It was a plethora of cascading feelings that came right after one another. Joy of course, that she and Alvin were still alive, but then came the sudden trembling of anger, sadness and the subtle sense of isolation, and that she was now longer welcome on the royal grounds any longer.

  It had started when the two were lifted out of the pool, and how she felt she was being squeezed out like a ragged old beach towel while the other quickly assembled medicine personnel took more delicate care of their prince. Her sense of the world was still bloodshot, but to see Alvin alive and breathing left her far more elated than anything else that might’ve come in that moment. It actually made her feel alive to see that he’d not died an untimely death in some sneak attack by Hieronymus and the orcs. She could’ve easily brought herself to weep as well, but her face was already far too damp that she need’t even do that.

  The two were gently carried as far as the makeshift hospital camp, and it was there when the split began. Cressia was dumped unceremoniously outside by a few impatient nurses waiting for the chance to dote on their prince, while Alvin was carried straight inside by several guardsmen, who’d been preoccupied while being drunk as the Orcs approached, and were now doing their best efforts to get back into the good graces of the rest of the castle.

  Cressia coughed and breathed heavily and waited for anyone to come and give her more than the few cross eyed checkups the nurses had given her before she was left to fend for herself, but not even that came. Between the gaps in the bodies that were clamouring outside the tent, she could see that Alvin was being examined thoroughly by several doctors, Weria was trying his hardest to direct attention elsewhere, and that a dead body had been covered up, a heavy crown resting on top of it’s head as he was prepared to be wheel-

  A heavy crown.

  A dead body.

  She let the shock of panic ruminated right through her as she saw the burnt fingertips, hanging by a thread from a jewel encrusted hand, and put two and two together.

  King Theodore was dead. Alvin was going to become king.

  Her Alvin, her royal fencing apprentice who’d rather spend his afternoons gathering up butterflies in jars than act rough and rowdy like any other Zantzar man - was going to become king.

  King. The word still being chiselled deep within her. Maybe he was already considered a king, assuming the throne the moment Theodore had perished in the flames. She wouldn’t even be able to tease and pester him as her prince now,

  Her king. Her prince. Cressia shook her head in nervous fright. She’d spent far too long among these nobles that she was beginning to adopt their customs and titles wholeheartedly now. She had to escape elsewhere, to get away from all these humans and their dastardly social games and all these terrible costs that came when you start an evening of music during the course of an long standing conflict.

  The royal courtesans from earlier who’d clamoured around Alvin in the ballroom were now slithering around his, already jostling for whom be the one to be at side when he awakened. Cressia could not even find the strength within herself to go up and push them aside, and stand by Alvin. She felt weak, terribly weak, and so alone now that Alvin was seriously injured. She felt so out of place among humans, that strange feeling she was only able to let go of when Alvin, still healthy, was at her side when they were cleaning up fencing gear, or discussing the borough children’s wondrous paintings of them together.

  She had to escape. From this mess, this wondrous mess, and that’s when she ran away from all of it - the palace, her royal commitments and even Alvin. She sought refuge from a few guardsman who’d already started up the chariots, and who were themselves sympathetic to an elf lost among blue-blood humans.

  “Just take me back to the boroughs.” She pleaded, but it came out like the meekest of whispers instead. With the carriage setting off, she let her head turn, and soon found most of Alvin’s fanclub were ready to sneer her off if she so much as plodded her way back into the grounds of the Zantzar palace.

  She hated that feeling, to be sneered away by some noble girls who’d never even scampered their legs. Her eyes were beginning to wet, and as she nodded at the driver, she realised she should’ve torn up all of those damn invitations the moment they were place in her mailbox.

  Cressia was surprised by how quickly she found herself settling back into life among the people of the boroughs. Of course, it had not been without its fanfare and excitement, but it almost felt as though she’d never truly left the place. Autumn had come, and the attack on the palace had the unintended side effect of prompting her to fulfill the promise that she'd continue her world-famous fencing lessons for children.

  The children, of course, asked all about life in the royal palace, more concerned about its former luxuries than the hollowed-out mess it was now.

  “Is Prince Alvin a good fencer?”

  “Is there really a whole room dedicated to chocolates in the palace?”

  “How many rooms ARE THERE in the palace?”

  “What about the servants?”

  Cressia felt her mind was going to explode from these rapid-fire questions. At times, she considered retiring her fencing school just to escape them. Even though one could still see the burnt-out husk of the palace anywhere in Zantzar, it was evident from their questions that most of the Zantzar children still believed King Theodore was alive. Weria had probably dealt with the lingering whispers after the ballroom attack, and Cressia heard no playground gossip that old King Theo was secretly dead, with news being covered so Prince Alvin could ascend the throne.

  Another thing seemed to gnaw at Cressia—the fact that King Alvin had made no official comment on what had happened that evening. Weria, as Cressia overheard from an overstuffed public crier while fetching things at the market, had more or less become the official spokesperson on behalf of the Zantzar palace. The official stance was that the attack had come from Orcs and that Zantzar would regroup and strike down any Orc who threatened the kingdom. As far as she understood, Prince Alvin was merely biding his time until the royal garrisons gathered enough strength, and then he would drive out any remaining Orcs once and for all.

  She found herself maintaining this illusion too. Like their children, the borough parents barraged Cressia with pointed questions, clearly hoping to scoop up any salacious details she had come across. It was only toward the end of these discussions that they seemed to realize they’d overstepped, prompting Cressia, rather haggardly, to remark that there were always positions available as a royal toilet-sitter if they truly wished to know the color of the royal bathroom walls. (Which were purple, she added.)

  But she also lied. She would say that she and Alvin had escaped largely unharmed during the attack, that King Theodore had been elsewhere when the Orcs had emerged, and that Alvin had sent her off to the boroughs to rest while Weria and the war council drafted plans to crush the Orc menace once and for all.

  Cressia did not feel good about lying, but when she saw their tense faces relax—faces that had spent their lives worshipping the ground the Zantzar royal family walked upon—she understood it was for the best. At times, Cressia, with her simpler upbringing, still felt like a zebra among horses when confronted with these strange customs and expectations.

  Maybe Alvin really was dead—she had no way of knowing for sure. She and Weria both understood that Zantzar would need a strong poker face to resist the rest of the Mylean kingdoms descending upon them, eager to feast like so many ancient kingdoms had done in the past. Cressia felt her senses prickle at these dreadful thoughts and realized the only thing she could do for now was prepare the next generation to resist such a horrible fate.

  Reaching for Eliza’s hand—the young girl who adored her and aspired to become just like her—Cressia gently asked if she felt more comfortable holding a small sabre in a left- or right-handed stance. Eliza smiled back, her face still stained with leftover homemade chocolate passed around to celebrate Cressia’s homecoming, and the elven woman realized being among royalty-loving peasants was not always so terrible.

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  Alvin came to Cressia only a fortnight after the events of the bonfire in the ballroom. It was sudden, and only after midnight when there wasn’t another human scampering out and about after the local tavern had closed. There was, however, an elf coming back from the place after winning a drinking competition.

  Cressia usually found drinking pleasurable in moderation, but tonight it had been somewhat of a chore when she decided to have a drink-off with a heavyset boulder of a man who made his keep as a leather craftsman. She’d wanted a new leather backpack, and he’d agreed to it, and the two had decided to toast at this sudden influx of king’s coin into the boroughs.

  One drink had led to another, and suddenly Cressia had found herself in competition with the old leathery-skinned man. A coarse sly jab had come from him that elves were incapable of holding their drink, and she, not one who was normally prickly about these kinds of things, found herself downing one concoction after another until the handyman had drunk himself into an early bedtime.

  She was marked with the stench of red whisky by the time she’d left, and it was only when she approached her small cottage that she saw the faint outline of an ostrich tied to a nearby pole, plucking away at the daffodils the borough children had planted together with her earlier that morning.

  There was also banging, loud obnoxious banging coming from the back door of the cottage. Alvin had already gently knocked at the front before she'd come along, and was now beginning to panic about what to do next with all the untimely grace of a king-to-be in hiding.

  She waited until he'd stopped, then emerged from behind the fences where she had hidden herself, and gently opened and closed the front door. No sooner had she taken off her green scarf and warm mittens than she heard a shuffle of footsteps, an ostrich crying out for its master, and a loud symphony of frantic knocks emanating from her front porch.

  After a few long, ruminating thoughts about stepping into the noble world again, she decided to open it and take a quick look to figure out what was on the other side. And there was Alvin, dressed in the darkest and most ill-fitting of furs for such a trek from the palace to here on the outskirts of Zantzar.

  "May I come in?" he said, with the most sickly sweet of puppy dog eyes. His expression was whispering please, anything but another trek on that dastardly creature for a mount.

  "Of course," Cressia replied, "I'll put the kettle on." It was the least she could do when he came running back to her, and after she’d run away from him.

  Alvin followed in and discovered how small Cressia’s cottage really was from the inside. He’d expected her to live some sort of sparse existence, but not quite like this. She lived, breathed, and worked in a single room, which, as he looked around, he discovered was five different rooms.

  First, to the north, he discovered the kitchen, where there were a few small cabinets and jars of honey near a table and some chairs where Cressia worked. Then to the west was a small lounge area, decorated with a fluffy chair riddled in patchwork, no doubt a possession Cressia had gained only when it was being thrown out by another borough resident.

  Then to his east, he found Cressia’s workshop of paintings, still hung out to dry, alongside a small wardrobe filled with clothes that were also of a patchwork bent. Leftover clothes, like a skirt that was a size too small or a sweater riddled with holes, things she’d be embarrassed to wear in public but would when she was alone and freed from prying eyes. There were also a few rags and a pillow that constituted a bed on the ground, and a small mirror near a basin that was lined with all sorts of toiletries any normal woman would have.

  It was true then, as she’d told him, that she’d never really known comfort before he’d come into her life. It was something they’d sparred over, when Cressia had regaled tales of peasant life to a curious prince, and, ever determined to not let him get a point over her, had defended peasant life as superior to the one he lived. He knew she did not believe it—how could anyone believe that while living in conditions like this? There were not even tiles or wooden planks to cover the floor, just cold hard cement that had been poured down decades ago.

  Alvin would go crazy living among these dwellings, as would any other man who’d experienced even a morsel more of luxury than what was here in this cottage.

  "Alvin?” Cressia called from the kitchen. "Tea's ready." Thankfully she’d secured a spare cup for a moment like this, when someone decided to come and visit her. It had never happened before this, not with the borough children, nor with their parents, and she’d so desperately wished it had been her own parents, but Alvin would do.

  “This place is very spotless,” Alvin said, sitting down at the kitchen table with the mug in hand. It was really the only compliment he felt he could give, and it was not for lack of trying.

  "It's never as spotless when I have an essay due," she said, reaching for her one white mug from the counter.

  "Essays?" Alvin was confused. "I didn't know you were enrolled in any academics.” She’d made it ever so clear in the past that she hated dry academics, and much preferred to read and learn on her own terms than go through prescribed notes a lecturer would give out.

  "It's not quite that," Cressia replied, already dreading explaining this long-winded headache. "My mother is a spy, okay?"

  "Okay?"

  "And she's covering for me because everyone else in the Conclave thinks I'm spying too."

  Alvin made a few strange gagging noises as his lukewarm tea went down the wrong way. She hoped it was her revelation, and not her tea-making skills. She did not want to add it alongside archery as one of the few things she was truly awful at.

  "And I have to report back every so often on what I'm doing."

  “But, you’re not spying,” Alvin reasoned after he composed himself, “even though you have the best opportunity in Mylea to do so.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And nobody knows you're here in Zantzar?"

  "Besides my parents, no."

  "And they think you're spying?" Alvin was smiling at the insanity of all this groundwork. "You're not spying, but you’re pretending to spy, so your parents can report you as spying, when you’re not spying at all.”

  Cressia shook her legs out underneath the table. She always did this when she began to fidget and grow tired of being questioned about things. Maybe that’s why she avoided academics so much in life.

  "Yes, yes, that’s pretty much it, yes.”

  “Well, I hope your mother doesn’t order you to take me back to the Conclave.”

  “Not at all.” She couldn’t even picture herself dragging Alvin all the way back to the Conclave for a few goody-girl points, even if her iron-willed mother barked it at her. In fact, her last letter, the one she was in the middle of crafting back in the Zantzar palace when she’d decided to try out her old uniform for Alvin’s amusement, had gone up in flames during the Orc attack. Her parents were none the wiser about how far Cressia had integrated herself into the royal court.

  Maybe it was better that it stayed that way.

  “I didn’t intend to leave, you know.”

  She wanted to get the first word in, before she watched him painfully, terribly unsuited to do so, ask what had made her run off that night. That behaviour did not suit him in the slightest: a soft king ordering someone around, demanding that she give up all her free time to him without any recourse. He’d made every attempt to comfort her during her stay even while she pushed him to the brink of exhaustion constantly. How could she have left him in such a sorry state like that, even when he’d shielded her daily from the tempers and tongues of those around them?

  Even when his eyes did drift up to meet her, she flinched, and her gaze darted back to the iron kettle on the stove. How small did she feel now, the great Cressia, nomadic fencing extraordinaire, cornered in her own crumbling cottage, by someone she’d taken advantage of, and did not stop once to think and be remorseful over her actions.

  How selfish. How pitiful. How not at all like etiquette she found in droves when among the borough children.

  “And I’m sorry that I left,” She croaked, “when you needed me most.”

  Alvin didn’t say anything at first, and Cressia found himself glancing back to see that he was well dressed for someone who’d journeyed by ostrich to come and visit. Far more well dressed than her, but clothed in the blackest of velvet. His hair had been reduced down to a buzz cut and there was the faintest hint of concealer plastered under his eyes to hide all the dark stress underneath. Then there was the faintest of necklaces, in the sign of Dominion Sect, plated in gold, passed on from the high cardinal of Zantzar to a new Monarch when it was time to be crowned.

  She would not ask, but she knew he’d only come from a private funeral this afternoon, and one that had broken away from hundreds of years of royal traditions when he decided to get away from all the pageantry and parades and days of mourning that came with it.

  Then, for the first time since the attack, Alvin decided he was to mourn, and Cressia found herself rushing to console him in her arms before he could even begun heaving and panting on her kitchen table. The filmiest of dams broke, and she found the new King of Zantzar wailing and crying deep into her chest of whisky tainted sweater. He felt ashamed, and that this was now befitting of a king, but a heavy lump came into his throat and he backed down, and all Cressia could do was slowly take him from his chair and lean herself against the cabinet as he wept for the first time since his youth.

  “It’s okay Alvin, things will get better from here on in.” Her attuned senses, the one she’s prided herself in, were beginning to dull when he gazed up at her, eyes that were crimson from being quenched in waves.

  His eyelashes were so long now, so feminine, so wet, that Cressia wanted to forever hold him like this, and not let him aside, to not let him go and face the world outside with her alone again. He was far too forgiving, too trusting, and not at all like his predecessor, who was capable of slaying many orcs at once. Orcs he would still have to slay, once dawn had come and they were forced to leave Cressia’s small cottage together for the first time.