Solborn: The Eternal Kaiser

Hieronymus had wedged himself into the crook of the tree, knees up, sketchboard braced against his thighs, tongue caught between his teeth in the way of a boy trying not to breathe on a line. The brush whispered. A hare's ear unfurled into a fin. A fin reconsidered itself into a ribbon. He leaned back, squinting, then leaned forward again, as if distance itself might teach him the secret he was hoping for.

"Hieronymus!"

He jolted so hard he nearly pitched off the branch. The brush stabbed a comet into the paper. He clutched the board to his chest, cheeks going hot. "R—Rosaline!"

She was already at the base of the tree, tilting her head up, one hand shading her eyes though the light was soft. Sun slid along her hair in pale silver strands, and the breeze tugged at the silk of her gown. It was cut daringly for an afternoon lesson, high at the hip, low at the throat.

She laughed as he tried, very visibly, to hide the canvas behind his forearms. "I thought we agreed: you only shout my name like that if something is on fire."

"My heart is," he blurted, then froze, then tried to swallow the words back down. "I mean my… my brush. It slipped. Not— I didn't mean—"

"Mmhhh," she said, the kind of sound a teacher makes when she has decided to let a mistake live a little longer for the sake of the lesson. "Show me, Nymu."

He winced and fought a smile. "Please don't call me that, it makes me uncomfortable."

"That is precisely why I do." She caught the lowest curve of the branch with her hands and leaned in, rising on her toes. "Come now. What is my prodigy hiding from me?"

"I am not your prodigy," he muttered, which only made his blush deepen. He surrendered the board.

She didn't take it at once. She took him in, instead—boy in navy and ivory, cuffs too fine for sap and bark, a gold thread loose at one wrist because he worried it when he was thinking. Then she nodded and reached for the sketch.

A fish with the ears of a rabbit swam across the paper, gliding through a field of strokes that were not quite water and not quite sky. It should have been ridiculous, yet somehow, it wasn't.

"Oh," she breathed. "So that's where you went."

"I—" He looked down. "It's foolish."

"It's charming," she corrected. "And, to the horror of the three guilds and your father, it is yours."

He peeked through his lashes. "You don't think it childish?"

"I think it honest." She tapped the page. "Look how your wrist relaxes when you let yourself play. Your line stops pretending to be what Master Hadrian told you line is, and becomes… well. A line. Alive. You stop painting what you have been told is true, and you begin to paint what you actually see." Her mouth crooked. "Even if only you can see it."

He dared to grin. "You see it too."

"I have the disadvantage of imagination," she said solemnly, then ruined the solemnity by winking. "Now. Tell me why you hid it."

"Because—" He glanced at her gown and immediately away, nearly swallowing his tongue. "Because it is not… serious."

"Seriousness is a disease in young painters," Rosaline murmured. "It takes five years to catch and twenty to cure. Besides, what is 'serious'? A bowl of pears heavy with the meaning of pears? A portrait glowering under ten pounds of lace?" She lifted the sketch to the light. "This swims. Pears do not swim."

He laughed despite himself. "You'll be exiled for blasphemy. The House of Pear will have your head."

"The House of Pear," she repeated, delighted. "Careful. I belong to a lesser house, but even we receive invitations from Fruit."

"Right." He sobered, remembering. "Forgive me. I forget you are… ah… royal."

"Lesser royal," she said dryly. "Which means I am allowed to wear silk cut too high, attend other people's parties, and, most scandalous of all, teach." Her chin tipped toward him. "Especially paint."

He swallowed. "I am grateful."

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"I know," she said, and it wasn't pride; it was warmth. "Now. Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The girl you were clearly painting before you panicked and gave her ears and a tail." Her brows rose. "Don't lie, Nymus. Your blush betrayed you from twenty paces."

He made a strangled noise. "It isn't— There is no—"

"Mmhm."

He caved in the manner of very young men presented with an older woman's patience. "I was trying to paint you."

"Ah." Rosaline's smile touched one corner of her mouth. "A diplomatic recovery."

"It's not a recovery," he insisted, then faltered. "Only… your face is… complicated."

"Complicated," she repeated, feigning offense. "What a terrible thing to say to a lady."

"I mean— your eyes. They change color when the light changes. And your mouth doesn't rest the way mouths do in the sketches. When you think, you— tilt it. Just there. Like that," he added, helpless, because she'd done it while he spoke. "I was trying to catch it and it—became water. I always end up at water."

Her expression softened. "Perhaps that is because water is an honest thing too." She hitched her skirt and hopped lightly onto the lower bend of the branch. When she settled, silk fell like poured ink. "Tell me why you always go there."

He fiddled with the edge of the board. "Because when I was small we didn't travel. But I had a book," he confessed. "Engravings of distant shores. They made my chest ache. I think… some people are just born restless, like they're missing a place they've never seen."

"Missing a place they've never seen," Rosaline repeated thoughtfully. "Do not let the guilds take that line from you."

He looked up, quick. "Is that what they did to you?"

She laughed softly. "The guilds cannot decide what to do with me. The courts too. I am too respectable to be a scandal and too scandalous to be respectable. Which means I am very useful for opening doors where no one wishes to be seen opening them."

He blinked. "That sounds like… spying."

"That sounds like painting," she countered. "We go where eyes are not invited, and we bring back proof that a moment happened." She rolled her hand. "Now. Composition. Your creature swims northwest, yes? Good. But your current pushes southeast." Her finger traced the negative space. "Let those lines agree and the page will stop fighting itself."

He adjusted, awkward, careful. She watched, then nodded. "Better."

"Do you—" He swallowed. "Would you… ever sit for me? Properly, I mean. Not as a hare."

"Am I so very improper now?" she teased.

He almost fell out of the tree again. "I mean— As in a portrait. For study." Then, in a smaller voice, "For memory."

"Ah," she said softly. "For memory." She looked past him, toward the distant smear of a horizon this place provided instead of a real one. "Very well. When you can paint my mouth without changing the skull beneath, I will sit for you."

"That is impossible."

"That is why it is worth doing." The playful glint returned. "Besides. Lesser royals are always in need of tolerable portraits. If you make me pretty, I shall recommend you to the entire royal court."

He couldn't help it; he laughed again. "Please don't."

"All right. I shall recommend you to those who hate portraits." She studied him a moment. "Why are you always up here, instead of in that very fine studio your father built?"

"Because here, the air moves," he said. "And because from here I can see the sea."

She followed his gaze. A white ribbon cut through the fields and vanished toward the city. "Waiting for someone?"

"Maybe." He flushed again, then forced honesty. "You."

She pretended to be scandalized. "We have lessons three days a week, Hieronymus. You are permitted to breathe between."

"I… don't want to." The admission came out smaller than he meant it to.

Rosaline's teasing eased into something gentler. "You are good," she said, not as flattery. "And you are stubborn. Together, those can twist a person. They can make you boring long before they make you wise."

"I don't want to be boring."

"Good," she said. "Then promise me two things."

He lifted his chin. "Anything."

"One: you will paint what frightens you."

He hesitated. "I don't—"

"You do," she said quietly. "I see it when you sleep upright in the studio chair. Your hand twitches. Whatever that is? Put it on a canvas where it can't chase you."

His mind flickered, unbidden, to a pale figure in white, a grin too deliberate, eyes like winter glass. He forced the image down. "And the second?"

"Two: you will not let anyone teach you the rules until you have made your own." She balanced the board on her knees and, with the tip of his own brush, darkened the tiniest crescent where the creature's ear met its skull. "There. Now it feels the water it swims in."

He stared. It was the smallest change, and yet the thing on the page seemed suddenly aware of itself, as if it had paused mid-stroke to listen. He looked up at her, dazzled and a little undone. "How did you—"

"Practice," she said. "And watching. I am very good at watching."

"I know," he said before he could stop himself. "You see everything."

"Only when I want to." She handed the board back. "Now. Start another. Same creature. But make the water colder this time. And do not be sentimental. If it is cold, let it look cold."

He wet the brush. "Yes, Lady Rosaline."

She pulled a face. "If you call me 'Lady' again, I shall fail you on principle."

"Rosaline," he corrected, breathless with the privilege.

"Better." She slid down from the branch and landed like a dancer. "I'll fetch more pigment. We'll need cobalt if the sea is to bite."

He watched her go, brush hovering over the page. He realized, with a shock that was mostly joy, that the ache in his chest was quieter with her near, as if the place he'd been missing all his life had, for a moment, stepped closer.

"Rosaline?" he called.

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Yes, Nymus?"

He braced himself. "If I do learn your mouth, in rest and in thought, will you teach me your eyes too? The way they change?"

She smiled, not the pretty court smile, but the private one he had already started to hoard. "If you can catch my smile," she said, "My eyes will be easy."