Do you perhaps have "Short Story 4: "The Illusion" [ITFO/ITUO]"?
Short Story 4: "The Illusion" [ITFO/ITUO]
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The day of Elya’s birth was not a day of particular rejoicing. The King, of course, had enough children already. The controversy of his bastard’s heritage had not yet been brought to light. It would soon, not three months after Elya’s birth. Yet for now, the bastard was considered as much a Stiedry as any of Sobik’s other children. The king’s succession was quite secure, and he had very little use for a daughter, anyway. And what took the damper out of any sense of celebration was the bleeding and the shudders and the horrible paleness that seized Mira in her bed.
The twin brothers, Belos and Vedran, were only four, and both were practically inconsolable with fear and grief. For two full weeks, their mother was inaccessible to them. Not a soul outside of the royal physician was allowed to see Mira. Twice, a priest had been called for, and twice she had turned the corner and recovered. Miraculously, her strength returned and the coma passed, and on the same day–nearly on the same hour–the newborn’s fever broke.
The doctor, praising God for his intervention, delivered the news to His Majesty.
King Sobik, on the day he was informed that his wife was well enough to be seen, had been in the middle of drafting a letter to an illustrious archbishop in the northwest of Kanton, whose eldest daughter was recently widowed without child and was eligible for remarriage.
He was happy when he heard the news of Mira’s recovery; it meant he wouldn’t have to go through the aggravating process of finding another woman to actually wed.
Belos and Vedran were practically bouncing when they were summoned by their tutors from their shared room to the nursery. There were a thousand rooms inside the royal palace, yet the two brothers slept in the same. When they came down the hall, they walked nearly in step–the younger of the twins lingering just behind his elder.
The bastard was already there outside the door of Mira’s room, the child’s tutor right beside. There were men with swords about as well–the retainers of the little ones. The three Stiedry children met and formed a group, their adult supervisors ignoring them to speak to each other in hushed tones.
“Have you seen mom yet?” asked Vedran.
“No,” the bastard replied. “They say we can’t go in until dad is here.”
“Where’s dad?” asked Vedran.
“I don’t know,” the bastard replied.
“Where’s mom?” asked Belos.
The bastard blinked. “In the room. Stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid!” the boy fumed.
“Don’t say stupid!” Vedran interjected with the outrage only a little prince could manage.
Sobik’s eldest scoffed and turned away. The others were too young to grasp the danger fully. They couldn’t understand why their eldest sibling was nervous, why the child had chewed the nails on both hands to stumps. The bastard was of the age when the idea of death was known, but only on a broad and conceptual level.
The child would become quite acquainted with it in time. But for now, death was a hazy and horrifying thing, one that brought an infectious worry that spread from the eldest to the rest of the siblings.
“Is mom okay?” asked Belos.
“Is mom okay?” echoed Vedran.
The bastard snapped, turning abruptly and half-shouting, “I don’t know yet!”
“Your mother is fine,” cooed the nearest of their tutors. He was a man who, despite his role, lacked all warmth, and lacked any understanding of how properly to manage the emotions of children. “Your mother is feeling better.”
Belos reached for the door handle and whined, “Why can’t we see her then?”
The man snatched his wrist away, rough enough to hurt, and soon the boy’s eyes were filling up with tears, and all the extra noise and commission made the bastard’s head hurt. Then at that moment, King Sobik came around the corner of the hall, accompanied by the royal physician, but the grin on the doctor’s face was not matched by His Majesty. He was quite solemn as he approached the door, ignoring the pestering of his twin boys, and opened it.
Sobik stepped inside, stopping only for a moment to glance back and order, “Come inside. Say hello to your new baby sister.”
Elya was a small baby–and that smallness would haunt her into her childhood. Only in adolescence would she make up for lost size, but still even when the crown was placed upon her head, she was hardly the size of a full-grown woman. There would come a time in their shared youth when Belos would torment the girl endlessly over this. But for now, the boy was utterly enamored with the sight of the baby in his arms, his eyes wide, his mouth open, alternating between laughs and stunned silence.
He sat on the bed beside his mother, holding the young Elya, under the intense scrutiny of Mira and the doctor. Vedran pestered for a chance, but was told to wait his turn. Instead, he sat right next to his brother, pressing into his side, reaching over to play with the little baby’s hands. The bastard, too shy, too nervous to become involved in all of this, stood awkwardly some paces away, spectating.
Sobik loomed from a distance, in the edges of the room, watching the actions of his children wordlessly. Mira didn’t even look in his direction. Her weary eyes stuck out of a pale and hollow face, but it was filled with a warmth that would become increasingly rarer in time. She was proud, looking down at her two sons playing with the daughter she struggled so intensely with. She was proud of what she had accomplished in the face of grave peril.
In that moment, Mira forgot the deep and festering hatred she felt toward that bastard standing in the center of the room.
She took the baby gently from Belos’s arms, much to his disappointment, and called to Veluska’s child, “Do you want to hold her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come,” she insisted, smiling. “It’s not hard. You won’t hurt her, I promise.”
So the bastard approached, sat on the bed with the rest of the family, and Mira gave baby Elya over, slow and careful.
The child stared at the little one, face an unreadable mask. Fear, hesitation, relief. Love. For several moments, both were quiet, and the Stiedry family just sat there in precious silence and watched their newest member lay gently in the bastard’s arms.
Eventually, Elya opened her eyes. They were big and bright, even at such an early age, and they took in the face of their eldest sibling. It would be the only time she would ever see the bastard before the controversy, and the mutilation, and the dishonoring. It would perhaps be the only time that each and every one of the Stiedry children were content.
The bastard held the baby tight, and for the hour they all spent together, the illusion of a happy family became so vivid as to become real. Mira for this hour would be overwhelmed by the relief of keeping her life and the life of her child. But ennui would take her soon enough, and this would turn to dissatisfaction, resentment, hatred. In seventeen years, not half of the people inside this room would still be alive.
Looking at Elya, the bastard smiled.
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