Even if that was his dream and not just hers, he'd never rule this place.
Just as he'd never 'get a flame going.'
And he'd never stop thinking about the other world.
And his book wasn’t stupid at all.
He was getting tired of feeling grateful. He'd have to do something about Aelle.
***
That evening, exactly as she had predicted, he sat to his mother's right, and Aelle sat to his. The theater, Cloud Forest in the Mountain, was recently restored and its second season of new and classic works was doing excellent business. People were anxious, after all this time, to see and be seen, and the performances gave everyone a reason to dress and go out.
This was the opening night of Yridaane's Fire and Desire: A New Perspective. Rhuun shifted uncomfortably in the too-small seat, keenly aware that the unlucky theater-goers behind him were also shifting and grumbling, because he was in their way. He told his mother and Aelle he wanted to sit in the back, and they looked at each other and smiled. The Queen and her entourage always sat front and center. It had been so before The Weapon, and so it must be the case now. It would have been a grave insult to the actors and playwright to do otherwise.
"Yridaane would fill his mouth with sand! You know how he is," said his mother. "As for them," she glanced dismissively at the audience, "let them crane their necks. They can tell each other what an honor it was to have their view blocked by the prince." And that was the end of it.
The performers, all gifted in sharing sense-memory, led the audience through the four stages of passion, from the first look to the touching of the hand, through fire to ash. Those in attendance were intended to feel the emotions and intentions of the actors, and add their own back into the action in a neat synchronistic loop. It was an unusual skill, and one that nearly died out for lack of use after the Weapon. Rhuun found it dull, until they got to the fire part, and then he found it painful. But everyone else, including Aelle, had a rapturous look on their face. Again, they felt something he didn't. Ash represented the end of passion, because according to Yridaane, consummation was the same as destruction. Rhuun hoped that wasn't true.
***
"Pretentious," his mother said afterwards, as they sipped sarave in the Great Courtyard. It was custom for her to host a party after any performance she attended, and the audience members, even those who couldn't see half the action on stage, were delighted to attend. "But one cannot say one was not entertained," she smiled. "Personally, I preferred the old perspective."
"I liked it, mostly," said Aelle. "But I didn't like the end. What a sad outlook, that once a flame is lit, the romance is over."
"You thought this performance was about romance?" said Hellne. "That's sweet."
Aelle flushed and was about to reply, but her father appeared at her elbow and quickly added, "She has the innocent heart of the young." He looked at Rhuun. "And she's never been disappointed."
"Father..." she had gone bright pink. "Please."
Rhuun knew he ought to say something nice to Aelle, but what? "I thought it was about romance, also." He did not. "And I didn't much care for the end, either." It had been his favorite part, because it meant he could get out of that tiny chair and get a drink. He wanted to tell Yuenne he hoped he'd never disappoint Aelle, but that would be such a grotesque lie, it didn't even bear repeating.
"Ah! The great Yridaane himself!" said the Queen. "Congratulations, another triumph." They all gave a polite round of applause as the playwright joined them. He had two thin braids at his right temple, held at the ends by a black and a white bead, and his black tunic was lined in cream (in what Rhuun thought was an over-the-top attempt to copy his own family's colors). He mentally rolled his eyes. Artists. Yridaane also had a dark smudge on his cheek, perhaps from the pretty young actress who had performed the role of Ash, and who stood close by his side. Again, Rhuun allowed himself to feel superior—Ash being represented by someone covered in soot didn't seem like much of a stretch. But maybe he just didn't get what the artist was trying to say. Maybe Aelle would explain it to him later.
Yridaane bowed deeply. "I go where the pen takes me," he said. "I can only hope my audience is willing to follow." He looked from face to face expectantly.
"I thought it was beautiful," said Aelle.
"Moving," added Yuenne. "Especially the end." He dipped his head at Ash, who smiled and blushed.
"Um, it was interesting?" said Rhuun. "I liked how they put their, um, hands and feet?"
"I see," said Yridaane. "Hands and feet. Well, everyone takes something different away, or else I haven't done my job. I suppose."
"Hands and feet are very important," said the actress. "I think you're very perceptive." She smiled at Rhuun in a way that made him both uncomfortable and a bit warm. He could feel Aelle stiffen as she moved closer to him.
"He doesn't think much of theater," Aelle told the actress. "He prefers books."
The girl's eyes widened and she leaned forward. "You are a writer?" Now Yridaane got a bit of a look on his face. Rhuun wanted to say he was, just to see what would happen.
"No, I'm more of a reader. But I did like the play." He found he was smiling back at the girl. Aelle placed her hand on his arm. He could feel the heat through his sleeve. I'll pay for this later, he thought. But he kept smiling at the actress.
"Sometimes the best drama happens off the stage," said Yuenne. "Your Grace, may I fetch you another glass?"
"That would be lovely," said Hellne. "We don't want to keep you two all to ourselves," she told Yridaane and the actress. "I know there are many here who wish to compliment you both." The playwright looked grateful, but the girl could barely conceal a frown as he led her away.
Hellne turned to Rhuun. "Hands and feet? Really?"
He shrugged. "Should I have said I didn't understand it? He'd have thrown himself into the Crosswinds."
She shook her head. "I did nothing but expose you to the correct influences, I don't know why I even bothered." She stalked off after Yuenne, stopping every few feet to acknowledge her guests, her face a composed mask.
"I'm sorry about that," said Rhuun.
Aelle looked away. "About what?"
He leaned down so she could hear him without raising his voice, the courtyard had become crowded. "What my mother said to you. She didn't mean anything by it."
"So you aren't sorry about practically scorping with that little actress right here in front of me?" She had removed her hand from his sleeve but he could still feel the heat boiling off of her.
"You see things that aren't there, Aelle. You take offense where none is given."
She looked up at him, the blank expression on her face at odds with her words. "So now I'm seeing things? The way she looked at you...."
"I can't control other people's eyes. And her job is to please the Court. I am the Court, as you like to remind me." He looked at the crowd, and his heart sank. People were glancing—discreetly of course—in their direction. "I didn't want to come to this thing at all."
"Well maybe next time you should stay home," she said, still smiling pleasantly.
"Maybe I will."
They stopped and looked at each other, realizing how foolish they sounded, and she sighed. "Go home, then. Go have a drink."
"I do not want a drink," he said.
She raised a brow and opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind. She said, "Do what you like. I'm feeling a bit tired, I think I'm going to go home as well."
"I'll see you tomorrow?"
She shrugged without turning back to him as she walked away.
He thought he might like that drink, after all.
Chapter 23
Eriis City
20 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar
100 years later, Mistran calendar
Inside the Arch
"Of course it’s good for you, but I wouldn't be proud of the way you went about it."
Aelle picked at her lunch, only loo
king up to glower at her brother. She nodded at the server, who poured her more water.
The cafe was busy this afternoon, and the streets were unusually full of people walking or even flying about, as the habitual grey dust had started to draw back beyond the boundary of the city walls. It was widely cheered as a tangible improvement in what Hellne had dubbed Returning Eriis to Comfort. All her efforts—that is to say, the efforts of her Mages—had been turned towards simple improvements. And not having a mouthful of grit along with your meal? That counted as an improvement. And with the improving visibility, a display like taking wing in public was no longer considered vulgar.
Aelle and Ilaan had fallen out of the habit of dining together, he had to convince her to see him and that was after she changed her mind and canceled three times. Like most of their conversations lately, this one had fallen to furious whispers and fixed smiles.
"But I am proud, and it’s good for the family. Doesn't Father agree?" He felt Aelle was so deeply into the habit of disapproval in her own life that now it was extending to him.
"Yes," she conceded, "but that's only because he sees you, the youngest ever to be admitted to the Mage Conclave. He doesn't see what you're doing to Rhuun. This is bad for him, and that makes it just as bad for me. Or am I not a part of this family anymore?"
"How is it bad for Beast—" he began, but she cut him off.
"Don't call him that ridiculous name anymore! It was cruel and undignified when we were children and it’s worse now. He might still take his mother's seat, and how would it look?" Out of habit, she lowered her voice and looked from side to side before mentioning the High Seat.
Now it was his turn to look disgusted.
"Is that what this is all about, again? Still?" He sat back and folded his arms. "Father has really turned your head around. You still see yourself on the High Seat, don't you? Talk about ridiculous. You know perfectly well that is never going to happen." Ilaan didn't bother to look around.
"Why not?" she hissed. "He is her son. He is her only son. And we are...."
"Let's count how many things are wrong with that statement. Hellne," here he did lower his voice, "is young, and she could still marry and have another child. Any child would be better suited to take the seat, and you know I love Rhuun, but it’s true. He'd rather stare out the window or read a book than talk to anyone—he hates being looked at, and what is power but the drawing of all eyes? And you and he are... what? Wedded? Betrothed? More than friends? Passing notes in the classroom?"
"It’s your fault for encouraging this stupid book business."
"Ah, it always comes back to that, doesn't it? You share your life with him and you're jealous of a few dusty pages of text."
"That is not it!" She was near tears of frustration. "Why must you always make me out to be stupid? You know that's not it. He thinks about the human world all the time, he can't let it go. Like he'll get there someday, and he's always... rehearsing for it. You encourage him. If he focused for one minute on the world he lives in, he'd be a lot happier."
"Happier with you? Happier to follow your plan for his life, yours and Father's?"
She stood.
"Aelle, no. I'm sorry. I talk too much. Please, sit down. I didn't beg you to come out to lunch with me to fight with you."
She sat slowly.
"I miss you," he continued. "I miss seeing both of you at once, not just Bea—Rhuun during the day. Remember the time we set Lady Yiil's flowers on fire?"
She smiled despite herself. "We got in a storm's worth of trouble for that one. We had to spend the next two weeks turning sand into flowers for her."
"And Beast of course couldn't do anything but haul buckets of sand for us..." he laughed.
"And he dumped that one haul onto your head for making him carry a dozen extra. You were soooo mad!"
"I had sand in my ears! For days!" he laughed.
They smiled across the table. Then she sobered and said, "We aren't like that anymore, Ilaan. He's her son. And I am with him, and we—you and I both—have a responsibility to him, and to Eriis."
He laughed again, this time in disbelief.
"Seriously? You're somehow making this fantasy world you've created into an act of nobility?" She began to answer but he put up his hand. "It seems we've had this argument every time we've seen each other for the last 10 years. Maybe it’s not the book that's bad for Rhuun. Maybe Rhuun is bad for us."
She had no answer for that one.
"I'm having a party to announce the Conclave thing," he told her. "It would mean a lot to me if you were there."
She seemed relieved to have a topic other than her own life to dissect.
"The Mages are certainly lucky to have you," she said, "but won't you miss working up in the light and air? This is a big decision, your life will change a great deal. Have you really thought about it? And what about Niico? Not to mention me and your... why do you have that look?"
He sat back with a satisfied smile. She hadn't heard the best part yet.
"They made a few concessions on my behalf. I get to come and go as needed between my study up here and their workspaces down below. I have no intention of locking my glorious self away in a smelly dungeon. And give up Niico? That represents literally years of hard work! Oh, and I think you'll agree robes and hoods don't exactly cut the cloth, so that was off the table. And can you imagine a world without my voice in it? And then I told them that while their space down there is certainly atmospheric, I have many books and things up in my study that I intend to keep working with. They thought about it, and they agreed with everything."
Her look of skepticism fought it out with her awe. "They gave you everything you asked for. Just like that." He smiled sweetly. "And your good friend the Prince and your other confidant our Queen had nothing to do with it?"
"It's a new day on Eriis," he shrugged. "It's in two nights. Say you'll come. Everyone will be there. Niico will be there." Of course he would be there, even though Aelle tiptoed around him, and Rhuun avoided him whenever possible, nothing would keep his shani from sharing his night.
"Do you really think that boy loves you?" she asked.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.
"How many times have you asked yourself that same question?"
She stood again.
"Well, this was fun. I'll think about your party. Thanks for lunch." She tossed her serviette on the table and strode off.
***
Ilaan went directly from lunch with Aelle to the Royal Quarters.
We have to figure out how to stop fighting, he thought. She's my sister and I do love her dearly, but just because she wants something doesn't make it so.
He wished he'd been a better advocate for her when they were small. Yuenne's fingerprints were all over her plans for herself and Rhuun. If he'd taken her on one of his endless adventures to the Vastness, maybe she'd be interested in something more than a royal match for herself, but for Aelle, it all came down to taking the High Seat, as if that was the only thing she could do to make Yuenne proud. The tragedy of it was, she was probably right. He wasn't even sure if Rhuun had a place at her side in her fantasy, or if her affair was with the seat itself. He knew it was never going to happen, not only because his friend would flee in terror from the idea of ruling, but because he—Ilaan—had had a little breakthrough in translation.
Rhuun might get to go on his own adventure after all.
The book was in danger of disintegrating after so many years of handling and inspection, but he knew the ink was charmed to never run or fade. He knew because Hellne told him, the day she handed him the little book and made him her spy. At one point he'd asked Rhuun if he could tear off the back page so Rhuun could have his book and he could have his inscription. They had oh-so-carefully separated the back cover from the rest of the book. Now he had the spell all the time, and the book, which was still useful for translations, during the day.
The spell itself wasn't written in any language he knew,
although the demons and humans spoke a largely common tongue. But five years of studying dead languages—demon and human —had paid off. He'd been able to pin down roots and variants here and there. And they had long since assumed the brown stain was the blood of the human author. And now he had an update for Hellne.
After running the gauntlet of her social secretary, her three ladies of attendance, and her personal guard, he came to the most terrifying off all—Diia, the Lady of All Service. This woman had been with the Queen since the war and the Weapon, since the time she was practically a child herself, and she took her job very seriously. Her job, as she explained it to him, was to keep her beloved Hellne apart from the constant invasion of noise and trouble her subjects brought to her door. If you got on Diaa's bad side, you'd sit in the corridor until dust dunes rose around your ankles.
Diia was very fond of Ilaan. He knew she saw him like the queen's little pet, he'd been coming around for years, running this or that errand for Her Grace. He wondered if she knew how much he really did for Hellne. Whether she did or not, unlike her own child, Ilaan made the Queen smile, and that was good enough for Diia.
Ilaan set a piece of fruit on her little desk, and she tut-tutted him for wasting sand on an old thing like her.
"Now Diia, if you were any younger your wings would vanish." He leaned down for a peck on the cheek. "May I visit with Her Grace this afternoon?"
"I'll announce you."
The eight or ten petitioners in the corridor heaved a collective sigh.
***
"I heard about your little bidding war with the Conclave" Hellne said after they'd sipped their water. "Very clever. It certainly would be a shame to hide you away in the dark, Ilaan."
After all these years, he still found her an unending source of fascination. While his sister wanted her seat, Ilaan wanted her life.
The Sand Prince Page 12
