The white-haired woman tutted. “You mustn’t, but you did anyway. You should watch your tongue, Elector. Wouldn’t want his Majesty to curse it as his grandmother did Billieus Drivendy’s.”
“An old wives’ tale, madam”—
“It is curious,” the lady to Trent’s right said, appraising him. “Though it’s not a secret his Majesty and her Grace keep their favorites close by, some right here in Arnin.”
Trent peered toward the royal stage, to a table off to its right. Chrissa spoke to a man with multi-colored hair and a wide, twirled moustache.
“Ah, you know,” Lemon said, “the royals and their pets. It’s not a strain to imagine what this says of either of us, Mr. Geno.”
Trent looked pointedly at Lemon’s gut, then at the gentleman’s face. “Let’s say it is.”
Lemon laughed. “The king, you see, either thinks of you as highly as he does me or the other way ‘round.”
“Or perhaps I just filled a vacant seat.”
“Besides, Lemon,” Bradle said, “what would that say about the rest of us? Nobody thinks highly of you in the first place.”
“Of course.” Lemon shoved half a cracker into his mouth. “Your lot thinks the world would be better off with fewer people like me.”
“Not fewer people like you. Just less of you.”
Whether fake or genuine, a button from Lemon’s shirt flew across the table with how hard he laughed. Others took it as permission to laugh as well, and regardless of whether their mirth escaped them honestly or by proximity of offense, Trent joined their chortling chorus.
Lemon pounded on the table with an open hand, then shook his left index finger at Bradle. “We’ll have to get Whites to put you on a tighter leash.”
“Perhaps you could convince her to buy me a muzzle, too.”
Laughter again escaped Lemon in bursts. The fat man held his gut like a baby, and his face turned an alarming shade of red. “Oh,” he said and wiped a tear from his eye with his right hand. “Oh.” A royal staff member tried to take his plate, upon which still sat half a pumpkin cracker. “No, no. I’m still eating.”
The sweets course proved the simplest affair, the only dish Trent ate whole: pumpkin bread a la mode, the ice cream also pumpkin-flavored. Cheese, chilled fruit, and roasted pumpkin seeds made up dessert.
Guests around the hall already headed for the bar. The redhead next to Lemon and the dark-haired woman, whose eyes shined a bronzed gold in the firelight, excused themselves. A serviceman nearly dumped a tray of grapes and wine-tinged cheese when they scooted their chairs from the table.
As Trent joined the migration to the bar, mechanized tables moved to make room for a social space, where standing consoles and a small area for dancing rose from the hard wood. Already the Count from Montevoll jigged in spot near the floor’s center, his turquoise and silver headdress bouncing in time with his feet. The band rose from their pit to a stage that loomed over the gathered, and the singer wailed into his microphone to start a new set. A forty second introduction presaged the first lyrics of a decades-old song: “You could have a dragon’s wing…”
“Coffee, please,” a woman said to a staff member as her table moved with her still seated. She puffed an electronic cigar and blew vapor that misted into the shape ‘17’ and floated through the air a few seconds before it disappeared.
Trent’s right hand tingled while he waited for a tender.
“What can I get you, dear?” one asked of him a minute and half later.
“Coal Velour. Two fingers. Neat.”
She poured his drink for him, and as Trent turned and leaned his back against the counter, Chrissa sat on the stool next to him, facing the other way. She wore a seafoam romper-dress that hemmed high on her thighs and cinched around her waist with a silver chain belt, much the style of what most women wore around the hall. Her hair hung at a slant around her neck.
“You all right?” she asked. “Look like ya swallowed your tongue.”
“No I don’t,” Trent said. “And I’m fine.” He didn’t mean for the words to come as bluntly as they did.
“Then how’d it go?”
Trent stared forward. “Didn’t find it.” A small group of young people had formed around the prince, and with dinner now over, he ambled through the room, glad-handing those who a royal advisor—or perhaps his mother—had told him needed to feel important. “Thought I’d be able to sense it. Found something completely different, though.”
“Just a beer,” Chrissa said to a bartender, who opened a bottle for her and set it on the counter. “Do ya think it’s damning?”
“No.” And I wasn’t ready for it. The light at the end of the hall and the dirty woman flashed into his mind.
Chrissa clinked her bottle against his glass and swigged from it. “What now, then?”
Trent sighed. “Shadows aren’t darkness. They leave as the light does, but what hid in them remains.”
“Gods.” Chrissa shook her head. “I hate it when ya say weird shit like that.” Her brow creased. “Is that The Word of Karli?”
“You know The Word of Karli?” Even six months on, this woman still surprised him almost every time they spoke.
She waved her left hand in front of her face to sign ambivalence. “Some.”
Trent sipped his whiskey. He’d thought this the end. He hadn’t failed, but the stone in his pocket served as exhortation against pushing further—here at least. The string he’d pulled ran in a wild direction; a passabridge didn’t paint a different picture, just one with more detail. His thoughts turned to an old friend and what they might have counseled.
Did the queen know something haunted the thirty-first floor? Is that why she doesn’t spend time there anymore, according to her own staff? His gut told him that if answers waited for him, no one and nothing here would tell him anything.
“The world moves, and I stay the same,” Trent said. “My work here is done.”
Chrissa nodded. “Ya always have an excuse to come back.”
Trent smirked and glanced toward her.
“Because of your pumpkins.”
“Sure.”
“Gods.” She took a protracted sip from her bottle, then added quietly, if not incredulously, “So you’re not even gonna try?”
“Try what? Shit doesn’t always happen the way you want it to.” Trent watched the prince and his friends move through the crowd. One of the young women with him, who hung onto the prince’s left arm in between him receiving guests, kept stealing glances at Trent. Her golden hair hung high against her neck, except for two long tassels on either side of her face. The dress she wore bared her entire left leg and right arm.
Trent gestured to the royal table. “You had a cozy seat.” Their highnesses still sat at their places. The king ate his share of cheese while would-be petitioners approached, perhaps thanking them for the invitation, making what they could of a moment of faux-privacy at his Majesty’s ear. The royal daughter, a girl of olive complexion much the same as her Grace and a couple years junior to their son, sat next to the queen, half-turned from the royal party. One hand held her head while she read from a screen on her lap. She wore a difficult dress, laced tight in the bodice, and her hair hung over her shoulders in sheets of platinum.
“Cozy as a cactus. Envious?”
Trent turned to her. “Why are you here?”
Chrissa’s mouth hung open. “The queen invited”—
“No, I mean why do you work for the royals? Is your private demeanor for them defense, or do you really not like them?”
Chrissa whistled, her brows high on her forehead. “Ya told me when we first got into this ya didn’t want me asking hard questions. I could inquire the same of you about ‘em.”
“You never made that provision.”
“Thought it was implied,” she said, then looked around his body and nodded past him. “Company.”
“Uncle Trent.”
Trent glared at Chrissa for a half a second before he refol
ded his face, turned, and offered his hand. “Denard. Happy birthday.” The prince shook his hand. His head came to Trent’s cheekbones now. “Grown a bit since I last saw you.” On the young man’s lapel, he wore a pin in the shape of a pumpkin.
Denard let go of Trent’s hand. “I’m glad you could make it,” he said, then added to his group of friends, “This is the guy I’ve told you about—the guy with all the War stories.”
“A War veteran,” the girl who’d been hanging on Denard’s arm said. “That’s impressive.”
“Please,” said Trent. “Veteran is generous.”
“My father told me many didn’t survive the battles,” one of the young men said from behind Denard. His voice sounded on the verge of cracking. “Did you fight? How’d you make it out?”
“Did someone tell you I did?”
“No.”
“That’s good, ‘cause the only thing that saved me was luck.”
“Hang on, that’s underselling yourself, isn’t it?” said Denard. “You knew Jeom. And demons were everywhere back then.”
“Demons still are everywhere,” said the girl who hadn’t been hanging on Denard’s arm. “It’s wonderful.” She’d styled her hair the same as the other, though she’d colored hers a subdued bronze. Her dress hung off both her shoulders, cut out in the front to bare both her legs.
“I can assure you it’s not,” Trent said, straightforward. “And everyone knew Jeom. The Karlians kept demons away from populated areas as much as they could. Hemlet was well outta the way even then. We didn’t see many.”
“What would a pumpkin farmer know about the War anyway?” a guy with a deep voice asked. He scoffed. “From what my father told me it was unwinnable. Jeom won on a fluke is all.”
“Becker,” Denard snapped at the taller man behind him. “Sharpen up.”
“It’s fine, Deni,” said Trent. “Not uncommon for—younger people—to be unfamiliar with history. Tell me, Becker, did your father fight in the War?”
“No.”
“Then how could he know much about it? Apart from what he’s told”—
“There’s scant honor in death when it’s done in secret.”
“There’s no necessary honor in living, either.” Trent kept his face plain. “What would you have had Jeom do? Announce he was off to die? Just because you don’t understand what he did doesn’t mean it meant nothing. The Karlians won because of what he did, remember?”
“Educate me, then,” said Becker. Trent hated the challenge in the boy’s voice. “How did Jeom single-handedly end a War?”
“I’m not sure how much good that would do. Tell me, are you contrarian because you’re young or because you’re trying to be intentionally offensive—perhaps both? I have to wonder how someone with your view about the War got an invitation to a royal event, notably when that opinion coincides with separatists.”
“There are plenty of separatists here.” Becker crossed his arms. “Not like they’re going to make themselves known.”
The last of the boys piped up. “Yeah, because it’s a real stretch to imagine who they are.” He looked a couple years younger than the other three—shorter, rounded shoulders, a head of wild hair.
“Becker doesn’t really think like that,” the bronze-haired girl said. “He’s just being an ass.”
“Yeah?” said Trent. “Did someone have to teach you that, too, or were you born that way?”
The rest of Denard’s group snickered.
Becker smoldered. “Hey, man”—
“Really knew Jeom, did ya?” the youngest boy said.
“Of him,” said Trent. “Like I said, everyone did.”
“But Denard’s told us you were there, that you’ve told the story of the night. I’d love to hear it firsthand.” The boy sounded earnest.
Trent sighed. “I lived in a town near where Jeom’s final confrontation with M’keth took place. It would be secondhand, the details more so. Nobody knows what happened, and anyone who says they do is lying. Jeom was the bravest of anyone and a cunning warrior. I”—Trent shook his head. “We were all lost without him. He recognized the right thing every single time, and when everyone doubted the War could end, that we could ever return to normality, he alone turned himself over to the Light when it Called.”
“Gods,” the blonde said. “Men aren’t what they used to be.”
“Clearly.” Trent looked at Becker then back at her. “But they are and aren’t. The world changed, thank the gods for that.”
“Men are still fine, Elein,” the bronze-haired girl said. “Only because you like yours a little older”—
“Do not,” said Elein, but her face pinkened enough for her to hide it behind a hand.
“And what happened to the protégé?” asked the youngest.
Trent didn’t respond. Neither did anyone else.
“Come on”—the boy looked around his group—“you all know. The Order hasn’t elected a new Master, so Jeom’s successor has gotta be alive, right?”
“He died, too,” Trent said. “That’s my best guess.”
“That’s not what the Order says,” said Becker. “If they could confirm that, why haven’t they elected a new one?”
“How in the hells should I know? The Order’s official position”—
“Who cares what they think?” the girl with bronze hair said. “Karlians still think demons are a scourge, and they’re—just not.”
“Gods, Querenne,” said the cracked-voice boy. “We all know how much you love them.”
“I don’t love them. They were dangerous in the past, and they’re not anymore.” Querenne looked at Trent. “Right?”
Trent shook his head. “We can never forget what they’ve done to us—should never forget it. No matter how hard we try to run from it, the past catches us up, and demons are every bit the menace now that they were years ago, you mark me on this. The only people who messed with them outside of their masters were Warlocks.” He warned Querenne: “You don’t want to be one.”
“I’m not a Leynar, so I’m safe. Plus, isn’t the world supposed to be moving on—forward progress and whatnot? They’re always pounding that into us in school.”
“Demons aren’t a part of our world,” Trent insisted.
Querenne shrugged. “I think they’re cute,” she said, as though that settled the matter.
“So did Yessebet’s husband,” the boy with the cracked voice said. “They didn’t have the name back then, but we’d call him a Warlock now.”
“Yeah, but he stopped when he married into the royal family,” Elein said.
“Even if he messed with demons,” said Denard, “things were different then. No one had mastered them in centuries when Selestor started his work.”
“And many argue,” Elein said, “that her Majesty’s rule only lasted as long as it did because of Selestor.”
“Royal Majesty with a Leynar’s Grace,” Becker said. He awarded undue salience to his words.
“That’s exactly what I’m getting at.” Elein looked at Trent. “Leynars have abilities, don’t they?”
He frowned. “Yeah.”
“Say a Leynar wanted to, couldn’t they install themselves to a position of power and make it look like an accident?”
“An accident?”
“Just—they could make it look like they didn’t”—Elein rolled one hand over itself—"orchestrate it themselves.”
“Why Elein,” said Becker, smirking. “Asking about something specific?”
“No.” Her face pinkened again, and she drew pinched fingers across her body to sign frustration. She sighed. “It’s customary for the royal executive to marry a Leynar. Do you know why? No one here’ll tell me.”
Trent shrugged. “Just the way of things. Is how it is.”
“Being a Karlian sounds awesome, though, right?” Denard said. His face, too, had flushed.
Becker scoffed. “What would be so great about being a Karlian?”
“Uh, saving the world, f
or one. There’s nothing bad about it.”
“Says the royal son,” the youngest boy said. “But they’re not trainin ‘em like they used to. That’s what my dad says.”
Trent nodded. “That’s called Peacetime training.”
“Yeah, no need to train for War now, I guess. Think they’re focusing more on the Priests anyway, aren’t they?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“That’d be fantastic,” said Denard. A twinkle flecked his eyes, and his gaze filtered somewhere else. “Getting Called.”
Trent knew why—the expectations on the royal son’s shoulders sat atop him as a monolith. What he wanted only mattered so long as he acquiesced to the throne’s call above all else once that time came. But Brech had become a young king, barely a man when he’d ascended. Perhaps his son wouldn’t suffer the same fate.
“I know the emissary here in Keep,” Trent said. “You should talk to him. His Majesty no doubt has a long life ahead of him. Even if ya don’t feel the Call, you can still help the Order.”
Denard threw his left hand over his shoulder to sign indifference. “I don’t know. My dad wouldn’t like it.” Worry daubed his face. “Shit, or my mom. But Dad does talk with the Undertaker occasionally.”
Trent tapped down his concern over the topic.
The music picked up as the band started a new song. A man in crisp suit approached Denard. “Your Highness,” he said, “her Grace softly reminds you that the night is short, and many more guests are in attendance.”
Trent looked toward the stage. Pinny watched them. The rune on his left arm itched.
“Of course,” Denard said. The serviceman bowed and left. “One good thing about being king, I guess: won’t have to follow her orders anymore.”
“Denard,” said Trent, hesitant. “That would mean”—
Disbelief incised the royal son’s countenance as his friends moved away. “Shit. Didn’t think about that.”
Trent laughed. Chrissa giggled next to him. He embraced Denard, then held the young prince by the shoulder. “Anyway, you know how these things get. I’m gonna go before it gets any livelier.” More had joined the count of Montevoll, who had removed his turban. His wiry hair swept through the air as he heaved his trunk and kicked his legs and spun across the floor.
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