Gilded.

Everything in the room was rimmed with gold, and excessively lavish — from the white silk sheets to the plush woolen carpet. Even the logs in the hearth seemed to glow with a richness; sparking molten gold and ember.

Aella sat perched upon the singular windowsill of the Maiden’s Tower, her silken nightgown painfully thin against the biting chill of the Northern Wind. Gazing out into the winter night, she watched with glazed eyes as thousands of lanterns bobbed among the sea of people milling about the crowded and narrow streets of Starfell Capital far below.

Soon the day of Ascension would arrive, and she would never again hear the chatter of mortals on the breeze. There would only be the scent of prayer incense, the sound of golden bells, and an eternity of bitter loneliness. Not so different from the last fourteen years, she mused darkly.

“Twenty years have passed. The Golden One stirs, and he hungers for his tithe.”

The voice was like a susurrus of ice against her mind, bringing her back into the present. Aella hopped down from the window and padded across the small room to the mahogany vanity, settling herself before the golden mirror. She stared at the face she saw there silently for a moment, the startling gold of her eyes very like the embers crackling nearby.

“Let him hunger. Let him starve.”

Her silent reply was followed by a bluster of wind through the window, scattering snowflakes across the wooden floor. A few drifted into the fire, and sizzled as they returned to the air as steam.

“Will you forsake the mortals, then?”

The icy voice had sharpened with excitement. Aella narrowed her amber eyes, still observing her reflection critically. She had been blessed with beauty. Skin like golden milk, and hair like ink flowing through water. Her features were delicate and bright, like a lotus flower illuminated by moonlight. But those eyes. She would very much like to scratch them out, and toss them to the birds.

“No. You know I would never do that.”

Her reply was in response to the wind’s query, but partly to herself as well. She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at her reflection before turning away, already tired of the view.

The price of what those eyes signified wasn’t worth all the beauty in the world. But no one in this world could change the fate that they were born into — and she could no more change the color of her eyes than she could deny the Golden God his sacrifice.

((Is there a way to italicize text? Silent/telepathic dialogue would be easier to write!))