Of Love and Duty

The Mourner

Eimerado, 26th of 6th, 1392 ANS

Mournful tolls rang from the Citadel. A breath after, the Elannean Sanctuary's bells answered, followed by every temple and every civil tower in Eimerado. The tolls would spread like a wave from the capital to the farthest fief of Vernolia, announcing the official end of the mourning for the King's kin fallen in the fire that had ravaged Eimerado on the Darkest Night.

Ended was the hundred-and-fours days of sorrow; the dark days when only the heart-wrenching wails and the monotonous Nenai broke the silence shrouding the land. Ended where the days when only unadorned atra-coloured clothes, ash-dusted hair and unbound tresses could be worn. Ended were the nights spent in sobbing the virtues and exploits of the dead; ended were the meals of dark coarse bread and bitter herbs and watered vinegar.

Life could resume again.

Marriages and births could be celebrated again. Songs and laughter could lighten the heart and brighten the day. The children could ran and play noisily in the streets — the whores could lit once more their red lanterns over their doors and by their windows. Dishes of meat and fish, fine white bread and honeyed pies and candied fruits could fill the tables again. Balls and plays could amuse the living again.

A hundred-and-four nights and days were deemed enough to mourn for a member of the royal family, born from the queen's womb. And yet, the heaviness and the coldness had only settled deeper into Thalbas, as if a hundred-and-four nights and days were not enough to grieve Darina.

At first, Thalbas had been disgusted with himself—he had killed Darina with his own hands—snuffed the light from her lovely brown eyes with his own hands—broken her neck with his own hands, as if she was a harmless rabbit or a quail. He had asked to his own reflection how could he do it—how could he let filial obedience take him so far and so deep into despair.

And then the anger came, deep and ugly.

In those dark days Thalbas had been more of a beast, lashing to anyone who dared to break his solitude, be they servants or his own mother or sisters. Only Shirna, his valet—his milk brother and right-hand man—was tolerated within the privacy of his chambers. Because Shirna had been there, he had seen Thalbas's love for Darina grow and flourish—he had favoured their secret meeting, watched over them—even lied in the face of Adalfeo Gabirai, the Fourth Prince, to protect his young master's secrets. Another had been the traitor, and whoever they had been, they had been fed to the canals' fishes and rats long ago—Shirna still bore the marks of his punishment, but his loyalty had sparred his life.

Because of that, Thalbas had confided in Shirna as the anger dulled into bitter dreams. In those dreams, Thalbas ignored his Lord Father's command and the Queen his Grandmother's wishes—in those dreams, he run away with Darina. 

He would picture her and himself, living and loving in the maze-like enamelled streets of Yireen, under the scorching sun of Madoda, in a Dwerissi palace perfumed with spices, or in the vast steppes of Dalibaï among his maternal grandmother's kin. Thalbas dreamt of children with his eyes and Darina's sweet smile, of laughters under the sun and tender kisses in the light of the moons—of sweet nothings breathed on Darina's skin, and of her warm, soft arms around him.

Yet dreams were dreams. 

They turned the anger and despair inside him into a heavy and icy hollowness—as if in the moment his Lord Father had uncovered Darina's body, he had also torn Thalbas' heart out of his chest. 

Thalbas would lie in his bed, eating a morsel of coarse bread and swallowing a few sip of vinegar and water only because Shirna made him—only because his Lady Mother demanded if. He would spend his night at the windows, staring at the cloudy stars or the golden, silvery and coppery moons rising over the ocean, surviving on few hours of sleep only because his Lord Father's archiater gave him liquor of papanya.