Chapter 63: Hidden Messages and Hidden Eyes
Chapter 62: Hidden Messages and Hidden Eyes
Lyria’s POV
Jacinta’s smile widened the moment the painting was fully visible to her.
"It is beautiful," she said, and the warmth in her voice was, for once, entirely unperformed.
Lucian inclined his head.
"You are most gracious, Your Highness."
The Queen regarded the canvas for a moment longer, her expression carrying the particular quality of someone examining something carefully before rendering an opinion.
"It is indeed remarkable," she said at last, her tone measured.
"Though I confess," she continued, tilting her head slightly, "that there is something about the figure which gives one pause."
Lucian’s expression did not change.
"The eyes in particular," the Queen said. "They do not quite resemble the princess’ eyes. One might almost suggest that the subject of this painting is someone else entirely."
A faint murmur moved through the nearest nobles.
Lucian opened his mouth.
"Well, that is because it is based on som—"
A cough split the air before Lucian was able to finish his words.
Every head turned toward the source of the cough.
The Duke of Blackmere stood with his hand loosely raised toward his mouth, his expression one of mild, innocent apology.
I watched Lucian’s jaw tighten.
The look he directed toward the Duke was not warm.
The Duke cleared his throat once more, with the leisurely satisfaction of a man who had accomplished something and was in no particular hurry to pretend otherwise.
"Forgive me," he said pleasantly. "Something caught in my throat," he said.
Then he smiled at Lucian.
"Please do continue, Your Grace. Only do remember," he added, almost as an afterthought, "that there are people present. It would be a shame to become distracted by something else that does not require others’ attention, for instance... my cough."
Every head in the courtyard nodded at this, even if it made very little sense to me.
He was a Duke; him coughing would obviously require attention from those present.
Perhaps there was something he was telling Lucian? But they were not friends. At least I hadn’t taken note of it that day at the lake. If anything, Lucian looked irritated by the duke’s presence.
As he did now.
But he pretended not to be and immediately turned to the king and queen.
"Forgive the interruption, Your Majesties," he said, and his voice had recovered its composure entirely. Whatever had nearly been said was gone now, folded away behind the measured politeness he wore as reliably as his coat. "As I was saying — the eyes."
He paused briefly.
"The colour you observe is not an error, nor does it suggest a different subject. Her Highness possesses eyes of a blue so particular and so vivid that I found no mixture at my disposal sufficient to render them as they deserve. Every combination I attempted fell short."
He turned slightly toward the canvas.
"And so I made a different choice. I ask that you look more closely at the eyes as they are painted."
Several nobles leaned forward. The Queen studied the canvas with renewed attention.
"What appears, at first glance, to be an imprecision," Lucian continued, "is in fact a deliberate rendering of the night sky within the iris. The depth of colour. The faint suggestion of light within darkness." He paused. "Because that is what I see when I look at Her Highness. Eyes that contain something vast. Something that draws the attention the way the night sky draws it — not because it demands to be looked at, but because looking away becomes difficult once one has begun."
The murmur that moved through the courtyard this time was warmer.
Several fans stilled.
Lucian continued, his voice even and unhurried.
"The painting depicts what I believe Her Highness to represent beyond the prophecy she embodies. She is not merely the moon that stars orbit — she is the presence that nature itself responds to. Animals are drawn to those whose hearts are genuinely benevolent. They cannot be deceived by performance or pretense. They come only to those who are, in some fundamental sense, safe."
He gestured toward the deer, the birds, the fox, the wolves arranged around the figure in the garden.
"I see Her Highness as someone whose kindness is not an ornament she wears for occasion. It is the thing she is made of. She is attentive. She seeks the company not only of those whose status demands her attention, but of every living thing around her. Her presence does not merely attract stars."
He looked directly at Jacinta.
"It calls to everything."
The courtyard was quiet at his words, and just when we all thought he was done, he added softly,
"I am sorry for all the harm I caused you when we were children. It was uncalled for and highly irresponsible of me."
He said the words as though muttering to himself.
But I was very certain that everyone heard it.
Jacinta blinked, then she laughed and lifted one hand in a graceful, dismissive wave.
"You are forgiven, Your Grace," she said warmly. "It was long ago. I have not thought of it since."
Lucian looked at her.
For just a moment, something like surprise crossed his face.
But it was gone just as quickly as it came. He nodded once with the composed courtesy of a man accepting what had been offered.
"I am grateful, Your Highness."
The Queen smiled at him with the warm approval she reserved for people who had met her expectations precisely.
"I knew you would not disappoint," she said simply.
"You are most kind, Your Majesty," Lucian replied. "I am grateful."
The servant stepped forward and carried the painting away.
Lucian returned to his place.
The footman called out the next candidate.
"His Grace, Duke Marcellus Frostmere of the Northern Reach."
Duke Frostmere stepped forward with the composed bearing of a man entirely accustomed to being observed. His painting, when the servant turned it outward, depicted a winter landscape — pale and vast and still, a single figure standing at its centre beneath a sky heavy with snow clouds, the only source of warmth in the entire composition.
It was technically accomplished.
I noted it and moved on.
One by one the candidates presented their works.
I observed with the detached attention of someone fulfilling an obligation rather than exercising genuine interest. The paintings blurred together after a time — some ambitious, some safe, some that attempted something and fell short of it, some that attempted very little and succeeded accordingly.
There was one that depicted Jacinta as a sunrise.
Another that had painted her in formal court dress with the palace behind her, which was precise and accomplished and told me nothing whatsoever about how the man who painted it saw anything.
A third had attempted a portrait so technically detailed and so emotionally vacant that it might have been a very good miniature in a locket that nobody carried.
I tuned them out one by one with the practiced ease of someone who had spent years learning to be present without being absorbed.
Until the footman’s voice sharpened my attention once more.
"The next candidate to present his work is Marquess Corvin Hale of Westreach."
I straightened very slightly at his name.
Not because I cared.
I was simply curious, in the way one was curious about a thing one had already formed a firm opinion of, to hear what interpretation he would offer. What words he would arrange around a skill that had not, in its origins, belonged to him at all.
