Update: A/N: I am planning to re-write this story completely. I'm not happy with it at all, and have reached a point where I dread writing it. When I have the story written, I'll post it(and delete this), but I'm starting to realize that posting unfinished works (aside from fan-fics) is a bad idea... I apologize to those who have gotten invested in the story.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

Part 1

Aristandra's earliest memory was of an endless golden chain to which she was somehow bound, the shining strand delicate but inescapable. It wasn't a true memory, in the sense that it wasn't something that had actually happened to her, but it was real enough. After all, fate was said to be a golden chain, sometimes just a single strand, but other times, a multitude; sometimes linked, and other times broken.

The vision of the golden chain was rather fitting. Aristandra had been told that she had been born to a powerful oracle, and what better confirmation could there be that prophetic magic was inherited in her blood than for her first memory to be that of a golden chain? The memory was, in fact, a dream, but it was through dreams that Aristandra's abilities manifested.

Aristandra had no actual memory of the oracle, her mother. Curiously, she also wasn't disposed to having daydreams about her mother, the way that parentless children tended to do. She couldn't imagine the mysterious woman being some sort of soft, affectionate being, with a gentle voice, and feathery kisses. It wasn't that Aristandra lacked the imagination to picture such a thing. Rather, it was what her mother was, and what she was as well: Oracle, Seer, Prophetess. At most, Aristandra pictured a woman that looked like an older version of herself: long, straight black hair, dark eyes, golden-hued skin.

Being a seer set Aristandra apart from the people around her. It was both a status of great honour, and yet at the same time, an invisible sort of enslavement. She was treated with immense respect, and sometimes even reverence, as though people thought she'd spontaneously start glowing, or that her words would somehow echo across cities. And yet she was also treated as something less than human. Most people saw only her abilities - the opportunities, warnings or even power that it afforded them. They saw a tool to be used, wrapped up in a human package. They didn't see the girl behind the powers; didn't see the wry sense of humour, the wishes or desires, nor the soft vulnerability within her that longed for some sort of genuine connection. No one ever saw Aris the girl. There was only Aristandra the Seer.

Aristandra had been taken away from her mother at an early age, and for as long as she remembered, she was a resident of the Mahala Palace, which sat in the very of the heart metropolis known as Mahalan. The Mahala Palace was said to be a thing of beauty - creamy-stone walls, sweeping coppery rooftops, terraces upon terraces, and multiple courtyards - all with elegant tinkling fountains inhabited by small colourful fish. The courtyards were all ringed with cut-out walls carved with intricate petal-like patterns, and romantic colonnades added a lovely counterpoint to the low fountains. Beyond the palace, the metropolis of Mahalan spread out shining and white, like the artful scattering of hundreds upon hundreds of pearls. Mahala Palace itself was the crowning ornament, and an outward manifestation of the vanity and pomposity of rulers past.

To Aristandra, the Mahala Palace was both her home and her prison. The pale walls, and cool indigo tiles beneath her feet were comforting in their familiarity, but oppressive all the same. Here, she was safe from the dangerous and unscrupulous hoards that were sure to take advantage of her, were her abilities well known, and instead, she was at the mercy of only one person, and a very powerful person at that: the emperor of Mahalan. After all, it was he who had taken her away from her oracle mother as soon as he had learned of her existence. It was he who was both ambitious enough and daring enough to claim her as his very own tool, for as emperor, surely it was his divine right.

In truth, Aristandra's early years hadn't been that bad. Though she lacked royal or noble blood, she was accorded the respect that would be given to any young noble living in the palace. She had her own set of chambers, in the same quarters that housed the rooms of the nobles who stood attendant to the emperor. She sat with the same tutors that educated the royal and noble children, learning numbers, figures, history and natural studies. She learned the various courtly dances with their silly mincing steps, and the finer details of etiquette such as the purpose of that odd utensil that looked like a blunted hook. She knew the popular ballads and poems (even the ones where the heros did ridiculously foolish things for the sake of love.) She had the same grace and poise as those around her, wore robes of the same cuts and fabrics, and even had an intuitive sense of the politics of court life.

But for all that her life was similar to the life of the young royals and nobles, there were differences as well. Aristandra was required to record her dreams each night, and the scrolls were collected and taken to the court's clerics and mage to decipher. Worse yet, she actually had to meet up with the mage on a monthly basis, and it was near impossible to like someone who had the appearance and bearing of a cantankerous ostrich with a bad ulcer, what with his pointy face, wiry short hair and permanent scowl. The mage, though talented, saw Aristandra as someone beneath him, since she had no control over her own magic, while he had mastered his own with razor-edged precision.

Aristandra also found herself excluded from most of the feasts, fetes and revels thrown by Mahala's emperor. It was one thing to be beneficiary of the emperor's generosity - of his rooms, and lessons and fabrics; it was another thing altogether to actually have a presence in court. Aristandra may have been a source of power, but that did not mean that she had any real power. The emperor might have been more than willing to take advantage of her magical abilities, but that didn't mean that he wanted it to be known, just how much he might rely on her. He stood to gain more if Aristandra believed herself to be powerless - if she saw herself as being in his debt rather than freely offering her talents. And so, in this way, there existed a boundary between Aristandra and the royal and noble children that grew up around her.

As for Aristandra's prophecies, her nightly dreams, they were always abstract, symbolic and yet vividly clear - almost like still images. Snakes wearing crowns. Water lilies floating on pools of blood. Armies of tigers led by a leopard. Snow, as black as coal falling from yellow skies. Houses of wax rapidly melting. Ocean whirlpools that were strangely serene. Sometimes Aristandra's intuition allowed her to make sense of it; other times, the meanings were too cryptic, and yet without fail, Aristandra was expected to deliver each and every one of her dreams. Perhaps the mage or clerics understood them - perhaps there were books for deciphering such things. But if the mage, clerics or emperor knew, they never told her. Even with her own dreams, Aristandra was kept in the dark.

Aristandra's life took a sharp turn for the worse when she was eight years of age. Before then, the other children were, if not warm, then at least friendly towards her. She had been included in their sports and games, her favourite being a game called Rota that involved a circular playing-board laid out like a wheel, and playing pieces that had to be aligned three-in a row to win. Rota wasn't a game that she liked to play alone, and in those days, there was always someone willing to have a game or two of Rota. The other children had allowed her to eat with them at their table, or on the benches in the courtyards; they were willing to accept the way that she would linger at the fringes of their groups like an unobtrusive shadow. If she spoke up, they sometimes listened, and sometimes didn't, but their actions were without malice. She wasn't quite one of them, but she was close enough.

In those early days, Aristandra could still visit her nurse if she found herself feeling lonely. Though a servant, her nurse wasn't specifically relegated to her, but she was someone who cared for the royal wards of noble blood, and others that were more important than the common folk, but not important enough that they were royal. The emperor's children had their own special nurse - an otherwise unremarkable woman except that she had some minor healing magical talents (and a particularly arrogant bearing, for a servant.)

But not long after turning eight, Aristandra had a dream, and unlike many of other other prophetic dreams, she knew it was a very ill omen. The night before, Aristandra had dreamed of a rather skinny white bear frolicing about in a orchard, heavy with fruit. The bear had been gorging itself, rolling around in sticky juices and looking altogether pleased with itself. She knew that the white bear was the sigil of one of the noble families, and though the family name was old, it was well known that their coffers were filled more with cobwebs than gold. In fact, that particular family had a daughter, a year younger than Aristandra, who often liked to play a game or two of Rota with her. The daughter, who was named Ursala, was close enough that in those days, Aristandra had considered her a friend.

Being able to sometimes interpret her dreams, Aristandra knew that the white bear represented Ursala's family. She had told Ursala of the dream - after all, neither the emperor, mage nor clerics had forbidden Aristandra from speaking of her dreams to others. Perhaps it was hubris, but they seemed to assume that others would fail to make sense of the symbology that the clerics so carefully guarded. Ursala hadn't known what to make of the dream (other than to say "I can't picture a skinny bear. It just isn't right.") But it had all made sense a week later when a messenger had arrived at court, announcing the death of a childless noblemen, leaving Ursala's family as the heirs to to vast tracts of fertile land. Ursala had left court not long after that. But by that point, Ursala had already been avoiding Aristandra.

As she crawled into her low, narrow bed that fateful night, pulling the blue-dyed rabbit-wool blanket across herself, she didn't suspect the changes that were to come. Perhaps if she knew, she would have chosen not to write down her dream, or at least alter the details to confuse the meaning. Perhaps if she had given thought to that sickening twisted feeling that she woke up with the following morning - but unfortunately, she had not. She had extinguished the light from the oil lamp, throwing her room into the heavy darkness that so often frightened young children; it was a fear that Aristandra wasn't exempt from, but she forced herself to endure it, to let the monsters of her imagination come for her because she had no mother or father to protect her from those ghastly twisted creatures in her mind, nor did she have a knight to slay her inner dragons. At least sleep came easily.

Prophetic dreams, like ordinary ones, had a curious timeless quality to them. Aristandra couldn't remember the beginning of the dream - all knew was that a dream was upon her. She rarely ever had a body in her dreams. Whatever space she existed in was rather indefinable, but at least she had her senses, and she could see, hear, taste, smell and touch, if it ever occurred to her to actually touch anything. More vivid than her physical senses were her emotions, which were as telling as the strange things she witnessed. Her feelings, if she had any in the dreams, were often disconnected from the images themselves. She had had dreams of unrelenting anxiety, while standing in a meadow of wildflowers, watching the lazy glide of blackbirds overhead. She had felt soothing peace in dreams where rivers of blood flooded the plains, slowly seeping into the shining black soil.

On this night, she found herself looking upon a large, winged serpent, with only a single curved fang instead of two. The creature's movements were sluggish, its flight more like a slow descent than an undulating glide, and its blue eyes were glazed. Upon closer inspection, she saw that its wings were made of violet-coloured flower petals rather than feathers, which emitted a sickly-sweet odor with a touch of sourness. It made her want to sick up, though in this state, there was no way such a thing could happen. The petals of the serpent's wings were wilting and shedding, falling into pieces before even hitting the ground.

The dream was tinged with a sharp mix of horror and anguish, and like so many of her other dreams, it felt deeply personal, even if it wasn't. The winged serpent was important to her - at least in this dreamscape, and her heart ached as an unrelenting flow of despair was poured into the well of her chest. Alongside this was the uncomfortable twisted sense of revulsion and disgust, and a strange wounded sort of pride, as though it was simply wrong for such a majestic creature to suffer such a fate.

When Aristandra woke, it was the sense of horror that persisted. Her rabbit-wool blanket had been pushed aside, half-draped across the floor as though she had been battling with the soft folds in her sleep. It was rare for her to ever thrash about in her sleep - the sight of her bed in disarray only increased the feelings of foreboding. This in itself was strange to Aristandra. Her dreams may have felt personal when she was the dreamer, but upon waking, there had always been a sense of distance from the strange images in her mind. It was rare for her to ever connect her dreams with what she thought of as real life. Even if she was able to interpret the dreams and link symbols to names and faces, it had always felt more like an intellectual puzzle than a personal message. Whatever the dream had been trying to say, it was significant and material to her own life.

By Aristandra's low bed was a small wooden table, its legs carved with the same spiraling twists as her bedframe. Upon it was an untied roll of scrolls, a pair of reed pens, and an inkwell. But Aristandra did not immediately sit up to record what she had seen and felt. Instead, she remained prone upon mattress, her eyes open but unseeing as she tried to interpret the mysterious prophecy.

She knew that the sigil of the royal family was the winged serpent. It could be seen on the golden circular crests that represented the emperor's ancestors and progeny. It was likely then that her dream was about one of the members of the royal family, and if her emotions represented the flow of the golden chain of fate, then what it meant was that disaster might very well befall them. An injury perhaps? Or worse, a death? The winged serpent in her dream had been flagging - the feather/petals of its wings molting with alarming speed. That could also mean a loss of royal status. Perhaps the emperor meant to disown or exile one of his children.

Aristandra saw the royal children often, especially those that were close to her in age, but despite living in the palace, she knew very little of the prince's and princess's relationship with their parents, aside from a few whispered rumours. It was considered indecorous for the royals to show their emotions, and from an early age, all of them learned to wear their faces as masks. It was, after all, politically advantageous to be unreadable.

All she could be sure of then, was that the prophecy was related to the royal family, and that it foretold some sort of calamity. With a heavy sigh that did little to dispel the weighty burden of Aristandra's emotions, she sat up and began to record her dream, just as she did every morning since learning to write. Though only eight, her handwriting was meticulously neat - after all, avoiding the punishment of a raging mage insulting her in front of a gawking crowd of curious servants and clerics was strong incentive to ensure that her penmanship was perfect. She blew the ink dry, and left the scroll on the table, where it would later be collected by a servant and given to the clerics. Perhaps with the words written on paper and taken away, the matter would be out of her hands, and she wouldn't have to think of it again. That was the case for almost all her other dreams.

She shed her night clothes and dressed herself in dark blue silk wrap pants that the nobles currently favoured. With it, she wore a billowing silk shirt, and around that, a thick sash dyed a rich teal. After brushing out her long black hair, she put on a set of embroidered slippers, and padded out of her chambers, making her way to one of the palace's dining halls (of which there were two: one favoured by the royals and used in more formal occasions, and the other used by the nobles for everyday purposes.) Though the adults usually ate in the dining halls, the children often collected their food and ate out in one of the many courtyards throughout the palace.

Taking a plate of honey-coated dried plums, cheese and a slice of dense brown bread, she wandered the airy corridors, passing under an arch that took her to one of the courtyards. This one was empty but for a pair of young lovers feeding each other bits of honeyed sweets, so she trekked onward to another courtyard until she found a group of children, sitting on the edge of the central fountain. Among them was one of the royal princes and one of the younger princesses. The emperor's first wife had died in childbirth, after leaving him six children, and he was now wedded to a second wife who had so far given birth to another four (with one one the way.) And these were only his legitimate children. The emperor also had a string of mistresses who had born him numerous illegitimate offspring.

Spotting Ursala sitting at the edge of the group, Aristandra sat next to her. The other children gave her polite 'hellos' or nods, which she returned with perfect decorum. Being of higher status that her, it was necessary for Aristandra to show them due respect, so unlike them, she could not simply nod, but instead had to show greater humility.

"Hallo," Ursala chirped, her legs swinging childishly. Ursala did not have the same poise as the royal children, but being only seven, no one would look askance at her posture.

"Hello, Lady Ursala," Aristandra replied.

"Want to play Rota later?"

Aristandra gave Ursala a small smile. "Yes. I'd like that." She broke off a piece of bread and chewed slowly, still trying to shake off the lingering dark feelings.

"Eada says that the others are org'nizing a game of handball later. Are you gonna to come?"

"The older children?" Aristandra asked. The younger children often played handball together, but many of the girls stopped playing as they got older, and instead contented themselves with watching the boys (or more athletic girls) play the rather face-paced and rough game.

Ursala nodded cheerfully. "And Prince Quintus and Prince Septimus will be playing."

Aristandra blinked in surprise. If the princes were going to involved, then casual game or not, there was sure to be large audience that would watch. "All right. Will it be after lessons?"

"Yeah," Ursala responded, wrinkling her nose and fidgeting restlessly as she thought about their sessions with the tutors. "Oh! I told my ma about that dream you had. The skinny bear one." Ursala giggled, as she considered the strange image.

"Oh? What did she say?" Aristanda tilted her head, curious. It was rare for her to ever get direct confirmations about her prophetic dreams, and she welcomed any information she could get. The emperor might be the one using the information, but they were still her dreams.

Ursala shook her head slightly. "She didn't say anything. But she looked happy."

Aristandra hummed. "That's good, I suppose. That dream felt pleasant." She left out the words: 'unlike the dream last night.'

After breakfast, most of the children shuffled to the library where they would meet with the tutors for their lessons. The ominous feeling of foreboding was starting to fade, in the face of the ordinariness of the day. Though many of the children saw the lessons as a burden that kept them from more enjoyable things (such as playing), Aristandra enjoyed her studies. In some indirect way, the more she learned of the world, the more sense she was able to make of her dreams. Symbolic though they were, there were moments when she could spot parallels between her night time visions and her daytime studies.

The children sat on the floor, fanned out around their tutor in a semi-circle. She had just settled herself cross-legged at the fringe of the group when a servant quietly approached her from behind.

"Lady seer?"

Aristandra twisted around and looked up questioningly. She hated the title 'Lady seer,' but it was what all the servants called her. It was both weirdly adult (and really, she was no more than a child), and distant at the same time, separating her from those around her.

"Master mage wishes to speak to you," the servant informed her. The words caused a chill to ripple down her spine. Aristandra nodded (unlike the nobles, it was quite appropriate to nod to servants), and excused herself from the group before standing to follow the servant.

The pair left the library, turning down a corridor and through a courtyard, around a corner and up a set of stairs. They took another set of stairs to the upper level of the palace where the mage resided, in a set of chambers that included his personal suite of rooms, his personal library, laboratory and workshop. The workshop door was open, and the servant announced Aristandra's arrival.

"You!" the mage exclaimed with his usual rude abruptness.

"Master mage," Aristandra murmured with a (falsely) respectful bob.

"Come here girl," he demanded, eyebrows furrowed suspiciously at the servant who quickly departed. He led her to his laboratory which offered more privacy, shutting the door behind her with an aggressive push.

"Explain this," he commanded, picking up the scroll upon which she had written her dream, and waving it across her face with sharp emphasis.

"My dream? I wrote it all down," Aristandra replied, a slight note of mulishness in her voice, though she kept her chin down.

"I know what you wrote, girl. I'll not suffer your impertinence. Details! I need details!"

Aristandra risked a glance up at the mage. He looked particularly frazzled, his pointed features somehow more jagged than usual, and his wiry hair sticking up in mad tufts.

"Ah - what do you need to know?"

The mage tugged at his hair in frustration. "How did I end up with someone so hopelessly stupid?! Details! The serpent! Did it have special markings? Where was it located? Did you notice any particular sounds? What angle was the serpent flying at? Was it headed towards anything? The petals on its wings - What shape were they? And I know it's likely foolish of me to expect you to know this, but what flower were the petals from? Did the petals fall from the outside of the wings, inward or the other way around?"

Aristandra blinked, dazed from the barrage of questions. "Ah - well - the serpent was green. I don't think it had special markings. Just that weird single tooth and its blue eyes." She continued to answer the questions to the best of her abilities, but in truth, there was little more to say than what she had recorded. As much as she wanted answers about what the dream meant, she dared not question the mage. Experience taught her that he would not bother to tell her anyway.

Despite saying 'I don't know' more times than she could count, the mage continued to bombard her with questions, even though it was clear that her ignorance was pushing his (minimal) patience far past its limits. Aristandra felt as though she had been trapped with the mage for lifetimes, but eventually, he ran out of things to ask her, and with ill-disguised surliness, he permitted her to leave.

She skipped down the stairs and rushed back to the library to catch the tail end of the tutor's lecture on the ancient city of Colla that had been destroyed and lost in an ancient war that spanned nations.

"Where did you go?" Ursala asked when their lessons were over.

"The Master mage wanted to speak to me."

"About what?" Ursala questioned, curious. She, like the other children, had heard all manner of wild rumours about the mage, and what he was capable of. Changing the weather. Seeing clearly in the black of night. Conjuring monstrous creatures to fight in the emperor's army. Turning people into animals. Turning rocks into bread. Levitating. For all the hours Aristandra was forced to spend in the mage's company, she knew as little of him as anyone else did.

"He just wanted to ask me questions about my dream. I don't want to talk about it though," Aristandra said flatly.

Later that afternoon, the children made their way towards the palace's arena, chattering with excitement about the handball game. The palace arena was nowhere near as large as the public area, but it was still impressive in size. Unlike the public arena, it was well-maintained and very clean - after all, one could hardly expect royals and nobles to partake in athletics in a place that smelled of blood and sweat and other, fouler bodily fluids. It was a large, rectangular space, looking almost like an extra-large courtyard. The edges were lined with a row of stone benches, but most of the spectators simply stood at the perimeter.

When the children arrived, there was already a crowd surrounding the arena, humming with anticipation. Though it may have been an impromptu game, word had spread quickly throughout the palace. It wasn't everyday that either the princes or princesses joined in a game of handball, and already, bets were being made about which side would win.

To avoid unfairness, each prince would be playing on opposite sides. That said, there was still a deep-running undercurrent of polarity. This was because Prince Quintus had been born of the emperor's first wife, while Prince Septimus was the son of the emperor's second wife. Each wife may have been from powerful families, yet they also represented different factions that created an unspoken political divide.

The children wormed their way through the crowd, making their way to the front where they could have the best views. The adults paid little heed to them; it wasn't as though they were unruly urchins.

"Sermo told me the game would be delayed," a woman said from behind Aristandra.

"Well, it was hardly planned. It's not like the princes would take our time into account," replied the woman's companion.

"No, but really, how long does it take to grab a ball, and sort into two teams?"

"It's the princes we're talking about."

"Yes. Princes. Not princesses. They're not going to be fawning in front of the mirror before a game."

"The princes are just as vain as the princesses, and you know it."

"There's not much that you can do about your looks when you're just going to get all sweaty and dirty anyway," the woman pointed out. "And if the princes are worried about their looks while they're playing, then it isn't going to be a good game at all. That's not all Sermo said though."

"Oh? What else did Sermo tell you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the woman purred.

The woman's companion huffed in irritation. "You're the one who brought it up. Must you draw this out? You're going to tell me anyway."

The woman chuckled. "Yes, I will tell you. But at least now I know you're listening."

"I was listening to you the whole time."

"And now you're really listening."

"Just tell me what Sermo said."

"Apparently, something has gotten the emperor quite discomposed. It's to do with his children - probably the princes, though some people think it might be the princesses. I heard there was a -" here the woman lowered her voice, "- prophecy."

Aristandra barely managed to stifle her gasp. It wasn't the first time that she had heard her dream prophecies mentioned as part of court gossip, but usually, this only occurred long after the prophecy had come to pass. At this point, the prophecies had already been thoroughly dissected by the mage and clerics, so that the gossips only ever heard the most watered down generalizations of the prophecies. Few were aware of the details of the dreams themselves. Already feeling frayed about her day so far, Aristandra could not help but stiffen as she listened to the conversation behind her.

"A prophecy?" the woman's companion echoed excitedly. "Did you hear what it was?"

"Of course not!" the woman scoffed. "You really think the emperor would let information like that get out? And besides, you know how the prophecies are - only the clerics can make heads or tails of them."

"Yes but - you know how tight-lipped the emperor is about anything related to his seer's prophecies, whether it's the prophecies themselves, who they relate to, or even his own actions and reactions. He's always been completely inscrutable about them before, important or not. Who saw him discomposed?"

"I don't know," the woman said, sounding slightly irritable. "Sermo didn't say. But you know Sermo - he wouldn't make anything up."

"That's true. It must be serious then. If it's something to do with Prince Quintus or Septimus, they'd likely cancel the game."

"You think it is?"

"I don't know! I didn't hear about this until you told me!"

"You don't have to take that tone with me," the woman grumbled. "I just wanted to know what you thought."

"Sorry - it's just a lot to think about. Hex it! If only we knew what that rumour was. It would help to know which way the winds blow. Who else knows about this?"

Before the woman could reply, there was a movement in the crowd as people were gently pushed aside to make way for the handball players.

"Finally!" the woman behind Aristandra exclaimed, in hushed tones. It would have been ill-mannered to make such an outburst loudly, and at court, everyone was conscious of their manners.

The two princes and a group of youth walked out onto the arena. They weren't all boys - there were three girls among them wearing battle-ready expressions. Handball was a fast-paced and rough game. Combined with the heavy heat of Mahalan's climate, the game was usually played shirtless. The boys entered, bare-chested, while the girls wore nothing but binding around their breasts. To demarcate the two teams, battle paint was used, with a long vertical stripe slathered by hand across the torso and back. It was to be white versus blue.

Aristandra had been disappointed that the conversation behind her had been cut off. She had been curious to know who else knew about the rumour of the prophecy; however, once the two teams stood across one another on the arena, the conversation slipped from her mind, as she was swept up in the crowd's excitement about the impromptu game. Knowing that it would be prince against prince only made it more exciting.

"Who do you want to win?" Ursala said from beside her.

Aristandra eyed the teams, her expression thoughtful. "I think Prince Septimus. He smiles more." That and as the younger prince, the children saw more of Prince Septimus than they did of Prince Quintus. But what Aristandra said was true - Septimus had a sunny disposition, and a ready smile for anyone whose eyes he met. While it was true that the royal children were expected to keep their masks neutral, Septimus seemed to break that rule with that upturned quirk of his lips. But for all anyone knew, perhaps Septimus's smiling face was his mask. If so, he wore it well.

"Me too," Ursala agreed.

The match began without pretension. It was meant to be a 'casual' game after all, though at court, it was impossible to see anything related to the royals as being casual. The ball moved swiftly from player to player, as they leapt and ran and tripped one another in an attempt to claim the ball and score a goal. Body-checks were a permitted part of play, and the players were ruthless in their willingness to slam into shoulders or trip feet. Even the princes weren't exempt from the rough treatment, baring their teeth like snarling wolves as they faced their opponents.

At the moment, Prince Septimus had the ball, and he broke into a terrifying grin that promised pain just as a pair of the opposing players charged towards him. A light seemed to gleam from his mouth, causing Aristandra's stomach to lurch with a sickening twist. She was so used to seeing it that she didn't give it much thought, but it struck her then that Prince Septimus had a gold tooth - one of his canines - that he had lost during sparring practice, and had been replaced by the mage. One gold tooth - the winged serpent in her dream only had one fang. Could it be? Prince Septimus even had blue eyes (though in truth, over half the royal children had blue eyes, and the other half had grey.)

Aristandra had stopped paying attention to the game. The cheers and applause of the crowd faded as Aristandra felt herself gripped by the merciless talons of fear. Was there a way she could stop this? But she didn't even know what it was that she needed to stop. She felt as though she could hardly breath, like a great boa constrictor had her in its cold grasp, squeezing, squeezing. Why had the emperor allowed Prince Septimus to play today? Surely he knew. Surely the mage or the clerics told him.

Though Aristandra was expecting something terrible to happen, it didn't make it any easier when disaster finally struck. Prince Septimus had just scored a goal, elated that he had given his team a further lead. He had a fist up in the air, a proud gesture of victory, and his grin was so wide that it seemed to split his face. Before he had even lowered his arm, the grin was swept from his face, and his eyes widened in surprise. A strangled gurgling sound escaped from his throat, and his arm dropped just as his legs buckled and he fell to his knees.

His teammates swarmed around him, and were calling his name, their voices a upraised mix of bewilderment and concern; it was hard to tell what was even happening, and Prince Septimus was in no position to tell them. The prince did not remain on his knees for long. Even those weren't enough to support him, for he had fallen over, and was laying on his side, still making a horrifying wet choking noise. His skin was rapidly becoming mottled, and before the ghastly purple colour completely overtook his pale skin, there was already the shrill sound of screaming, cutting through the arena like shards of glass.

Panic overtook the crowd. Though they may have been royals and nobles, fear clutched their hearts with the same blind cruelty as it did to even the lowliest of beggars. Aristandra found herself clinging to the stone bench, afraid of being crushed, and desperate for some sort of anchor. She did not know what had become of Ursala or the other children. She did not precisely know what had happened to Prince Septimus. But she knew that whatever it was, it was horrible because the screaming hadn't ended, and the chaotic tramp of footfalls hadn't ceased.

What happened next remained a blur to her. A servant or perhaps a cleric had found her. She had been led away from the arena, through the palace and up the stairs until she was back at the mage's quarters. She was sat down on a cushioned bench pushed against the wall, and then seemingly forgotten. The contrast of the quietness here was strange, so very different from the deafening sounds of panic in the arena. It made her feel as though she had been frozen in time and her mind did not help, replaying the scene over and over in her head. At one point, the mage had entered the room. He blinked when he noticed her small presence, said: "Oh. You're here" and then promptly left, having far too many things to deal with.

She eventually returned to her own quarters, aware as she walked through the corridors that the atmosphere in the palace had completely changed. The air felt heavy with tension and dread. People spoke in whispers, as though their normal volume would somehow be inappropriate. She thought that she heard the word 'prophecy' uttered more than once, but it could have been in her head - some product of an overextended mind. But there was another word that was bandied about that felt like rough-hewn stake jabbed through her heart: 'dead.' Over and over: 'dead. He's dead. He died. Dead.' Prince Septimus would never smile again.

A/N: I'm thrilled about going back to writing fairy tales/fables. Fanfiction is really challenging in comparison (especially keeping characters in character). I love world-building though, so it's been fun to create my own fantasy world

In my outline, Prince Septimus didn't even have a name, and by the end of this part, I felt really guilty about killing him :(

I'll eventually post some art/sketches on ao3