Isolde's Web

Lady Isolde’s eyes, the colour of a winter sky just before snow, rarely missed a flutter of drapery or a hushed conversation in the royal court. Today, however, her gaze was fixed not on the polished marble of the palace corridors, but on a hazy, rain-streaked windowpane overlooking a bustling, grimy street. Beneath that window, in a cafe that smelled perpetually of roasted beans and stale pastries, a prince of the realm was making a habit of frequenting a common thief.

She’d had her spies watching Aerion, of course. It was their duty. The King’s son, heir to the throne, must be accounted for at all times. But what her informants had reported over the past few weeks was… peculiar. Not the usual clandestine meetings with ladies of the court, nor the discreet visits to scholars or strategists. No, Aerion, the image of royal decorum, was being seen in the company of a scruff. A charming one, admittedly, if the whispers of the street were to be believed, but a scruff nonetheless.

Elias. The name had surfaced from the underbelly of the city like a particularly persistent weed. A thief, a rogue, a man who lived by his wits and his nimble fingers. Isolde had dismissed him initially, a mere fly in the ointment of Aerion’s otherwise predictable life. But the fly was buzzing with an alarming frequency. The prince, so reserved, so controlled, seemed to shed layers of his regal self when this Elias was near. A softness bloomed in his usually guarded eyes, a tentative smile graced his lips. Isolde had seen it herself, from her discreet vantage point, the day she’d decided to observe the cafe directly. The way Aerion’s head had tilted, the easy laughter that had escaped him as Elias, leaning back in his chair, had regaled him with some outlandish tale.