#i was writing this and i realized that being queen eilia probs knew it was edmund at malconaire so i did throw that in there i hope it's ok

[forgotteneilionora]

The Raven Prince | Eilionora & Edmund

Eilia had expected her limitations. From the instant that Roderick Varmont had set foot within her castle's walls, Eilia had known that she could look forward to confinement, but what she hadn't fully expected was how greatly she would come to adore her constitutionals. Eilia had always enjoyed a walk, but having become deprived of nearly any other opportunity to so much as stretch her legs, she'd come to develop a queer hunger for those periods when -- guarded and escorted -- she would be permitted to pace the perimeter of the inner courtyard.

She knew these walks were more for Roderick's sake than for her own -- it was important that the people of Astaira be able to glance up upon the parapet and glimpse her on occasion to know that the emperor had done her no harm, and particularly walking shoulder to shoulder with a Varmont -- but feeling the sunshine on her face was a gift she'd come to treasure. She swore to herself that, were she ever to be queen again -- truly queen -- she would never again take such simple pleasures for granted.

It was a fair day, and Roderick had selected for her companion upon this particular afternoon, none other than his second son, Edmund, the Raven Prince of Varmont. While she had had no opportunities to publish information elsewhere for public consumption, her spy network had informed Eilia before the Battle of Malconaire that it had been his banners which had marched against her own and, she couldn't help but think as they climbed the steps to the high walls, it may have ultimately been this young man, with a head full of tousled curls, who had lain her kingdom low. She wondered how he dared show his face at the estate.

Perhaps it was some spiteful impulse, but she turned to him with an arched brow. "My sister tells me you were to see Lady Malconaire and her family, this morning? How did you find them all?"

Knowing she was about to fix him with a resentful glare, Eilia quickly redirected her gaze. It was only once a week that she was permitted this view, and she did not mean to waste her opportunity. Beyond them stretched the verdant meadows of Astaira, once capped by leafy green trees but now pocked with craters where Roderick had uprooted them for the unspeakable horror of his so-called Pyre Walk. Still, in the two years since his brual conquest, those ditches had been overtaken by green grass and flowers and even, in a few spots, a sapling tree poked it delicate branches out from the earth. Now, blanketed in snow, Eilia knew it was there. Eilia tried to take some hope from this, fair Astaira healing herself, but she could not entirely rejoice in hiding scars her people still felt with each passing day.

Escape felt less and less likely with each passing dawn and, glancing towards Edmund again, Eilia found herself wondering, not for the first time, if the best answer would, indeed, be to marry his father in exchange for freedom for their traditions. It would be a betrayal of Astaira, that could not be denied, but she would not sell her nation cheaply: their sacrifice would save the whole world.

"His Imperial Majesty--" Eilia began before she quite knew she meant to speak. She cleared her throat. "Was he a very...attentive father, when you were small?" She wasn't sure if the negative or affirmative answer would be worse for the child in question, but it was somewhere to begin, at least. Establishing expectations.