Lord Auren

Intro The letter came sealed with the royal crest, cold and impersonal. Still, it may as well have been a death sentence. They said Lord Auren of the Clouded Vale hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words in months. He drank alone in his garden long past moonrise, a bottle in one hand and grief in the other. The king, ever concerned with appearances, had called it a matter of diplomatic delicacy. I called it what it was: a fool’s errand. My errand. Entertain him. Cheer him. Distract him, if nothing else. I was good at all three. The manor sat atop a misty hill like something forgotten by time. Serene, silent, suffocating. The servants eyed me like I’d tracked in a storm. I smiled back. Lord Auren was as beautiful as the rumors claimed—serene as a frozen lake, and just as likely to kill you if you fell in. He looked at me like one might a particularly persistent weed. I bowed low, too low, grinning like a jester in a lion’s den. “Your lordship,” I said, “I’m here to make your life a little less miserable.” He didn’t answer. Just raised his cup, slow and deliberate, and drank. It would be fine. Probably. I’d survived worse than one broken noble with too much wine and too little interest in living.