“It’s going to pass,” Liselle said confidently. “She’s going through a growth phase. She’s hungry all the time. She complains about her arms and legs hurting. Once she’s through it, I’m sure she’ll go back to sleeping when she’s supposed to.”
“And then there’s the matter of her going out to the cliffs to feed the birds,” Ambrose said. “One wrong step and off she’ll go. We’ll never know what happened to her.”
Liselle nodded in agreement but her gaze shifted to the table. Dynan thought she might still be taking Shalis out for the forbidden activity. Dynan knew his little sister liked feeding the gulls. It was a case of Ambrose being over-protective and one of those commands they all typically ignored.
“I should probably go check on her,” Liselle said but Ambrose shook his head and didn’t move.
“I just looked in on her. Sound asleep. Luckily.”
“Yes, that is lucky. Do you look in on her often, Your Majesty?” she asked. “Not that you shouldn’t, of course...”
Ambrose was nodding. “I asked Lady Rene some time ago to get you...different...night clothes.”
“They’re very uncomfortable.”
“You’ll get used to them, and for future reference, it would be better if you didn’t come in here. I’m not going to forbid it, even though I probably should. I know Shalis would keep giving you the code and you’d come anyway.”
“I would never—”
“Yes, you would, just the way you’ve disobeyed my wishes about the damn cliff, but if I can’t break Shalis of the habit, it’s far better you go with her rather than her sneak off without you. If I can’t keep her from coming in here in the middle of the night, I’d rather you stay with her.” He turned to Dynan then, his eyes narrowing. “You...Not so much.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You are well aware of all the reasons why you shouldn’t have stayed. What if I’d had Governor Taldic with me? Today? He’ll be up here later to join us for the service. What would I say to him to explain the two of you, like this?”
“It’s my fault,” Liselle said. Dynan wanted to stop her. “That’s what you would say, Your Majesty. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed. We were just talking. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Ambrose nodded to that while Dynan wanted to say something that would change the sentence, not able to think about not talking to her ever again, which was what his father really meant. Dynan was afraid if he did object Ambrose would just send her back where she came from.
The King stood so Liselle could scoot out. She rose to her feet, curtsied to him, keeping her head down, but when she glanced over at Dynan she was smiling. Dynan didn’t know what there was to smile about.
Making her way by the Surrogates, she headed off to the hall. Once around the corner, abruptly her hand came back into view clutching Dynan’s robe for a second before letting it fall.
Everyone thought that was funny and again Dynan didn’t see why. It felt slightly off to him, the whole thing, his father’s reaction to finding them in the kitchen, as if he’d known already. Dynan was too tired and annoyed to figure it out. He stood to leave, not interested in listening to the five of them make fun of him.
Ambrose stopped him, one hand on his shoulder. “Listen, it’s time to get ready for the day.”
Dynan shrugged him off, mumbled under his breath that maybe he wouldn’t take the damn oath and walked out.
Back in his room, the wardrobe case that contained the clothes he had to wear for the ceremony was in the corner and his attendant was with it.
Like the men in the other room, Dynan had known Regan Trinholm all his life. Between he and Lors Weich, who was Dain’s attendant, they kept after their things, and taught them not to make a huge mess everywhere they went. They kept up with their schedules and made sure they were where they were supposed to be on time.
“What’s wrong?” Regan asked.
“I hate my life,” Dynan said, flinging himself into the couch in front of the fireplace.
“You mean the life of ease and comfort?” Regan said. “Where you’re waited on for every need and desire?”
“Yes, that one,” Dynan said, pulling in another resigned breath. Sympathy for his station in life wasn’t something he got from anyone.
“I see.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“It isn’t a question of trust,” Regan said. “It’s a question of judgment and always has been. I think you know why he might question your judgment lately.”
Okay, so there’d been a few bad calls. Dynan’s ability to go to the mountainside and work at the ruins was due solely to the semi-official function it turned into with the King’s visit. Otherwise, he was under room arrest.
“It was two months ago.”
“You or Dain, or even both of you, could have gotten yourselves killed in that pod crash,” Regan said. “You knew the pods were recalled. You knew they were dangerous...”
Dynan rolled his eyes again. He’d heard this same lecture seven different times. This was Regan’s third go at it.
“...frozen by the time you were found.”
Dynan nodded and stood, aiming for the dressing room. “Dain was going with or without me. He even suggested I stay behind. He’d be dead now if I hadn’t been there.”
Regan wasn’t impressed and then he picked up the talon from the table and held it up. “Where did you get this?”
Dynan took it from him, suddenly unwilling to have him touch it. “I found it.”
“Where, Dynan?”
“Outside,” he said and turned from him, hoping that would be the end of it.
“In the ruins yesterday? Shouldn’t the Arc Group hold onto it then? It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you should leave lying around here.”
“I’ll ask next chance I get,” Dynan said as he went into the washroom. He set the talon down on a shelf without the intention of asking anyone.
“Dynan,” Regan said and then paused for a moment that ended in shaking his head. “Are you all right? It was a bad fall you took yesterday. You have a long day ahead of you.”
A couple of snide comments came to mind about that long day, but Dynan refrained from taking his unhappiness out on Regan. He softened his response with a smile instead. Regan looked worried.
“A little banged up is all. It could have been worse.”
He finished the cleaning up part pretty quickly, scrubbing down under a steady stream of hot water. Once he was out he felt better, less chilled to the bone. His father was there with the returned robe and Dynan barely stopped himself from yanking it out of his hands.
“Are you mad at me because you know I’m right?” Ambrose said, “or are you mad because you think I don’t have any faith in you?”
Dynan didn’t answer, except to look at him once before going back to getting dried off and dressed. Regan silently handed over articles of clothing as required until Dynan had on slacks and the shirt with the ruffled collar, along with a pair of dress boots. Everything was white.
His father stepped in to take over then. Dynan wished he’d go away.
“I can talk to her,” he said finally, knowing how much that explained.
“Really?” Ambrose said, loosening the lace collar a little. “Better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you not talk to her ever again,” Ambrose said then, helping him on with the vest and then the jacket coat. “But—”
Dynan groaned and his father laughed.
“You know the rules, and you know the list of them gets longer when you’re dealing with a Lady. A Lady at Court makes that list exponentially more complicated. So talk to her if you want, out in the hall where everyone can see you.”
“You know what will happen.”
“You’ll have to get used to people talking about it, Dynan. They talk about you all the time as it is and they have since the day you opened your eyes and drew breath. It’s time you accepted that
fact, don’t you think?”
“And is it so impossible to say, even once, none of your business?”
“It’s far easier to...You know we keep having this same discussion, I can’t remember how many times now, over and over. How many times do you think, Regan?”
“Oh dozens at least.”
“Over the last two years so—”
“That’s because you aren’t capable of doing anything about it.”
Ambrose only raised an eyebrow at the insult and shook his head. “If you can’t handle it now, how do you expect to manage what’ll happen when you walk into the next ball with Liselle Tremault on your arm?”
Dynan stared at him, hardly believing what he was hearing. Ambrose nodded, but then immediately dashed that small hope.
“Until you come to terms with the very public nature of your position, I question the wisdom of putting you in the thick of it. I can’t do much more to help you than I already am, and despite what you think, I am. Everything the Information Bureau puts out about you I approve directly. No one decides that but me.”
Ambrose took the white ceremonial robe with its white fur trim and white embroidered crests and dumped it on his shoulders, the weight of it making Dynan stagger a step. His father came around to the front, yanking the fabric into place and Dynan along with it.
“I let them have all the little things so I can pass on the big things that you really don’t want going out the door,” Ambrose said, attaching the fasteners of the robe onto the magnetic clasps that were inside the fabric of his coat. “They don’t know about a lot of the things that you and your brother get into. I know you hate it. Look at me.”
Dynan didn’t especially want to. His father was ramping up to ‘the point’, which wouldn’t likely improve the level of resentment Dynan had building up. It wasn’t just that the intimate details of what he did every day were out there for all to see. Too many times the achievements were glossed over in favor of amplifying the mistakes.
He had to act a certain way all the time. Talking to anyone he didn’t know was an excruciating ordeal. He had to take this oath when there wasn’t any need for it – he could hardly talk to girls much less do anything else with them – followed by a reception where speaking was a requirement. One day he’d inherit an enormous responsibility he didn’t think he’d ever be able to manage. It was all of those things. On top of the fact his father didn’t think he was capable either.
When Dynan did look at him, all that anger and resentment boiling to the surface, Ambrose shook his head in weary resignation.
“All right, never mind. I’m not going to get into another long, drawn out discussion with you over this. Apparently, you already know it all. I don’t want to argue.” Ambrose adjusted the robe again, fiddling with the clasps. “Listen, I know this is going to be hard for you. I understand, but for this, you have to do it on your own. You can’t ask Dain—”
“He already said he wouldn’t,” Dynan said. “He thinks it’s pretty stupid so he won’t help me with it.”
“Is that what you think?” Ambrose asked.
“Does it matter?” Dynan said.
Ambrose thought about it and nodded, right before contradicting the gesture. “No. Sorry. There were plenty of things I had to do that I didn’t like either when I was your age. As long as you recognize this is for you and not for Dain to say for you.”
When Dynan didn’t answer his father clamped two hands onto his shoulders. Ambrose shook him.
“You’ll be fine. Talk to the High Bishop and forget about everyone else. It’s almost time for you to leave. We’ll be along in a few hours.”
A few hours after he’d been in solitary confinement, Dynan thought. That was part of the ceremony; that he should be locked up ahead of the service for a time of quiet contemplation. They were putting him in what amounted to a cell. He turned for the dressing room to retrieve the talon, making sure his father didn’t see what he was doing.
“Maybe I should just join up full time,” he muttered at the wall.
“If it’ll help with your frame of mind, maybe you should,” Ambrose said. “You wouldn’t be the first Prince to spend a few years with the High Bishop. My father made me do it, but I thought I’d give you the choice.”
Dynan didn’t answer, recognizing a line he shouldn’t cross. He heard his father talking about his time spent at the Temple enough to know he didn’t want any part of it.
Ambrose picked up the last required adornment. The sword he held, its hilt encrusted with sapphires, had a long history, going back as far as Bremen and possibly to Alurn since it was believed to be a gift to his young son shortly before he disappeared. Bremen gave the sword to Aolrin along with another to his younger son. That weapon with its emerald hilt now belonged to Dain.
This would be the first time Dynan was allowed to wear it in public, and he found he resented that too. It would rest on the Temple altar during the ceremony since tradition dictated that it was supposed to. Dynan guessed that was the real reason he’d gotten it when he did.
“I’ll see you there,” Ambrose said, and Dynan nodded. “Go on then. It’s time.”
Dynan turned from him and walked from his rooms, feeling isolated already. Dain was still asleep. None of the Surrogates came with him. His father stayed behind.
~*~
Chapter 4
Alurn Telaerin stood at the entrance to the Room of Orbs, sensing a change to the usual intensity of evil they put off. The entities before him hadn’t changed since the day he died, except to multiply. They were why he was here, bound by the oath he’d uttered as life leaked from his body.
They had to be destroyed and he vowed to see that they were.
“The sooner the better,” he said to them, though the monsters inside the orbs couldn’t hear him. Now, he told himself, there was a chance, a slight one, albeit, but a chance for success this time, whereas he'd failed a thousand years ago.
He looked to the room again, trying not to dwell too much on the day that happened, the massive failure that then led to the near total destruction of the world - all of them - and the death of everything and everyone he loved.
But it'll be set to rights, he told himself. Soon.
The room itself wasn’t out of the ordinary. Inside, six orbs stood on white marble pedestals. They were arranged in a half circle with enough space for a man to stand in their midst.
To the non-telepathic eye, the orbs seemed only clear glass balls. To a telepath they seemed only clear glass – benign, except for the arcing bands of energy that roved through the room, seeking to connect one to the other but always stopped just shy of success. It was hard to place what was wrong.
The sensation eased and after a moment, Alurn wondered if he’d imagined it. Being a ghost made accurate interpretation a struggle and frequently impossible. After a thousand years of wandering the stone hallways, it was a wonder he could feel anything at all.
Alurn pulled in what counted as a breath even though he didn’t need air. He had a body he could feel leaning against the stone archway. He knew taste still, though the desire to eat or drink didn’t exist except as memory. Smells came through still. That was due to his host being a living, breathing man and those aspects of his existence filtered through. Without Gradyn Vall, Alurn’s ability to remain in this world wouldn’t exist.
The salt air from the Wythe Sea saturated everything. The smells took him back to days as a boy when he set out in hardly more than a raft, using skill and raw nerve to ride the waves. Alurn missed the sea second only to missing his wife and children.
“Maybe a few others too,” he said, “ahead of sailing the sea. Polen, Grint, Faulkin. I miss you. And I wonder what tortures you’ve endured because of me. Will you forgive me? Will the Gods grant me the strength to see this through and you saved?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked that question.
Alurn grunted under his breath, doubt filling his mind. It was his will that helped keep the
horrors contained in each of the orbs from spilling out into the world. He knew that. It was his strength passed down through the generations, his abilities through the long years he’d waited that would mean the difference between ruin and life.
Alurn turned from the orbs, rolling around the corner to look down the hall. The same strength and abilities also resided in two young men, the last of his line, sitting a few rooms away in the Temple. He remembered the day of their arrival in the world like it was yesterday too. Alurn hoped the power they held, combined with his own would be enough.
“It has to be enough,” he said.
“It’s never enough, and never will be.”
Alurn whipped around, startled and then afraid of the voice he recognized, a voice he hadn’t heard since the day he died.
A mirror image of himself sneered back at him. He almost looked normal. Except for the eyes. The evil he’d embraced reflected in his black eyes.
Alurn stepped back, wishing at the same time for the days he’d not been afraid of his own brother.
“Once a fool,” Adiem said, standing at the threshold of the room.
Alurn concentrated and felt the barrier still in place. He didn’t know how Adiem was able to show himself outside the orb that contained him. There must have been a shift of balance, though Alurn didn’t know how.
“Better a fool than an evil bastard.”
“The things you do call us,” Adiem said, tisking. “Enjoying your half-existence, brother?”
Alurn leaned against the far wall, trying to seem like he didn’t want to run at the first opportunity. He hated being afraid and hated it more that Adiem knew.
“It’s nice here. Nicer than your current residence. I bet you can’t smell the ocean, can you? What do you want? I know you don’t have much time. I can feel the energy you’re expending to be here draining off you.”
“To show you something,” Adiem said, and stepped back.
Behind Adiem, at the sweep of his arm, the fabric of existence shred. A hole opened, revealing a shelf of rock inside a dark mountain of stone. Alurn knew it, having been there once before.
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