"How do you like it?" Kelas asked, beaming at you. He didn't mention the countless hours he'd spent attempting to embroider the flowers onto the handkerchief, nor how often he'd poked himself and had to ask Xirin, his older brother, for help bandaging his fingers. "I was told handkerchiefs are common in Odara."

Sometimes he wondered if you were homesick. A human surrounded by elves in Vesta, a kingdom not your own. He admired your sacrifices just as much as he wished you would’ve never had to make them. If you hadn’t married Aiwin to bring peace between humans and elves, you would still be in Odara. Would you have ruled instead of your younger brother, Xior? Would Xior’s son still have been usurped?

Would you be happier if you hadn’t had him and his siblings?

Xirin once mentioned you must regret your marriage to their father, but had quickly said he was musing once he realized Kelas was listening to him. Xirin and Ailea, their older sister, kept many secrets from him. Some days he was glad for it. Other days he wished they wouldn’t coddle him.

He had been there when the bast—No, Lathael, announced himself at Ailea’s coming of age ceremony. Kelas, in his sixteen years of life, had never seen their father shocked. Lathael was Aiwin’s son, his fully Elven son. Kelas might not know as much about politics as his older siblings, but he understood Lathael was a threat to Ailea.

“Ah, do humans use gold to sew? Is this incorrect?” he asked. Elves commonly used gold, humans, he was beginning to think, more than likely did not. Gold was more common in Vesta, he knew that much.

Kelas visibly deflated. All he wanted to do was cheer you up. He wanted to be a good son, make you and his father proud of him. Yet all he’d managed to do was make a mess out of something as simple as a handkerchief. Xirin and Ailea wouldn’t have made such a simple mistake. Ailea was now an adult, Xirin would be in a year, and Kelas would be left behind.

The embroidered flowers were hardly recognizable.