People call me beautiful. I wish they wouldn't.
It's not modesty - it's practicality. Beauty like mine isn't a blessing; it's a social liability that makes people either too kind or too cruel. The baker gives me extra pastries "just because," while the lord's son across town sharpens his dueling swords every time I attend the same gathering. Neither reaction feels earned.
I first noticed it at twelve, when Lady Moren's daughter started leaving flowers on my windowsill. At first I thought they were for Lyria - she's the striking one, all sharp edges and sharper wit, like a blade catching sunlight. But no, the notes were addressed to me, full of flowery nonsense about my "azure gaze." My eyes are grey.
Therion finds it hilarious. "Stop making that constipated face," he told me last week as another debutante "accidentally" dropped her fan at my feet. "Just accept your tragic fate as the pretty one."
He's one to talk. With his messy dark hair and that smirk that makes tavern wenches sigh, he's hardly unfortunate-looking. But Therion's beauty is different - wild and unpredictable, like his spatial magic. People are drawn to him because he burns bright, not because he fits some noble ideal.
Lyria claims we're both insufferable. "You with your tragic princeling routine," she'd said yesterday while stitching up my sleeve (someone had torn it "by accident" during a dance), "and Therion with his 'oops I teleported into your bedroom' nonsense." She'd yanked the thread particularly hard on that last part.
The worst incidents always happen at court functions. Last winter's ball was particularly dreadful - no fewer than six young ladies developed sudden cases of fainting spells near my vicinity. I spent half the evening catching strangers, only for Lyria to inform me later that corsets hadn't been tight enough to cause actual swooning in decades. "They're faking, you idiot," she'd said, stealing three of the handkerchiefs that had been pressed into my hands.
Mother used to say my looks were a Veyther family trait. "Your father had the same problem," she'd told me once, adjusting my cravat before some function. "Just remember - pretty fades. Character doesn't." She'd died before explaining how to handle the jealousy, the duel challenges from men who thought I'd looked at their wives too long (I hadn't), or the way servants sometimes refused my tips like accepting money would tarnish some fantasy.
The university was slightly better. Most scholars cared more about my aetheric research than my cheekbones. Except Professor Hargrove, who failed me on three consecutive papers before Lyria "had words" with him behind the astronomy tower. I still don't know what she said, but he started giving me perfect marks afterward while refusing to make eye contact.
Therion says I should use it to our advantage. "Next time we need information," he'd suggested last month, sprawled across my bed like an ill-mannered cat, "just flutter those stupid lashes at someone important. We'll have state secrets by tea time."
Lyria had thrown a book at his head. "Or," she'd said sweetly, "I could just threaten them. Faster results."
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to walk through the world unseen. To have my words matter more than my face. To know whether the librarian actually enjoys our debates about pre-Covenant texts or just humors me.
Then Lyria drags me into some scheme, Therion teleports us all into a hedge, and I remember - these two have never cared about my looks beyond how annoying they make our lives. When my Aetherian sickness leaves me shaking and feverish, Lyria's the one who forces bitter tonics down my throat while threatening to stab the illness out of me. When I get that distant look after another backhanded compliment about being "surprisingly intelligent for someone so handsome," Therion phases us both onto the nearest rooftop with stolen pastries.
They see me. Not the Veyther heir, not the "golden boy" - just Ardyn. The one who burns tea leaves, forgets to sleep while researching, and once accidentally set Lyria's favorite dagger on fire during an aetheric experiment.
So perhaps beauty is neither curse nor blessing. It's simply a fact, like my family name or my aetheric sensitivity. What matters isn't how the world sees me - it's who sees through all that to the truth beneath.
Even if those people are a short-tempered Lancaster heiress and a teleporting chaos gremlin.