The Roar of Andora: Book One

Chapter Five: The Evershield boys *10/15/2018 update*

The entire Evershield family was in their guest pavilion at the château des rois scuttling about with their personal servants (women who migrated by boat from the Pelalago islands after a devastating tycoon) and also those assigned to the Evershield family by the Pyrésees. Preparing for the ceremony, the men were groomed and the women powdered. The men wore their beards in the style of the Andoran Kings of Old—shaved in the cheeks to emphasize the hard lines of the face.

Aaron's first-cousin on his mother's side, Milo, was invited along personally by King Elijah, Princess Eden's father, for he had once attended a symphony in Andora and heard the young boy play the most beautiful lyre his ears had ever the privilege of hearing—and King Elijah was no easy audience member to please. The revered King of Pyrésea had crossed the seven seas many times over all for the sake of finding the world's finest musicians.

When Milo was a very young boy, his poor father had gifted him a broken lyre. Milo grew very tall (a whole head taller than Aaron) for it was said that he could hear the choirs of Apollo in the Heavens. And through that broken lyre, Milo taught himself how to speak through the seven musical notes on all the instruments. None other in all of Andora could recite the ancient melodies quite as well as Milo. The boy was seventeen at the time of Eden's coming-of-age. Milo was sought by many to play his lyre all over Andora.

The caravan of the Evershield's pilgrimage to Pyrésea was reserved for only those of the class status worthy of being invited to the ceremony, but Milo Vivaldi was granted exclusive permission by King Elijah (in agreement with King Adonis) to travel with the Family for the once-in-a-generation ceremony. He was ordained to fulfil the seat of the lyre player in the Pyrésees Symphony who fell suddenly ill. Thence the great honour was bequeathed to the boy with the broken lyre, for Milo aspired to be heard all throughout Andora and the Seven Continents beyond. In his youthful naivety, he dreamed that through using the universal dialogue of music—the tragedies of the minors and the victories of the glorious majors—understood by all—he would unite the world.

From the gardens of the guest quarters, Milo's lyre could be heard amongst the gurgling waterfalls cascading into the marble ducts that ran perpendicular to the castle walls. For an ephemeral season in Aaron's life, he, too, desired to will the seven notes of the lyre to his command and fantasized about dropping his commitment to the Art of Sword, and pledging his life to the Art of Sound. He imagined sitting under the shade of the parasol pine trees, hiding away from the hot afternoon Pyrésees sun, applying gloss to the long finger nails required by every lyre player to masterfully play the instrument, and imagined travellers postponing their journey to stop and listen for an hour on the roadside to the ancient songs that reminded them of their pasts and allowed them to dream of their futures.

Yet, that was not what he was called to do. His brother, Sidon, had already taken up Art, and for Sidon was allowed to take up Art for he was excused from learning the Art of Combat. Sidon—being the eldest son of Adonis the II—was being groomed for a life in the courts. Studying law and order and the political strategies of preserving law and order. Aaron, and the rest of the second sons of King Adonis II, were given first access to high-ranking positions as captains, lawyers, or capitalists. And all of them were trained to serve in the Andoran army. Soldiers were dispensable. Kings were not. Animosity inevitable brewed beneath the skins of the sons in the Evershield family, for all the men had pride and even larger egos. Familial tension ran higher amongst the Sons of the Evershield family more so than in any of the other Royal Families of Andora. For the blood of Adonis's people—reaching back through time all the way to the Age of the Anarryians—were sexual and dominant by nature. That rampant dominant sexual drive coupled with their Royal Birthright fanned further by the egos of their parents—created Men who all felt entitled to the Throne of Andora.