The Fifth Son

by Blaine D. Arden

  "And you don't mind? You don't like having Neia around."

  "I don't like the reason Neia hangs around. I don't need protection, Father."

  "So I'm starting to learn."

  Was he really? I sighed in relief.

  "I'm not dismissing Neia of her duties completely, Llyskel. However, I don't see why you can't move around on your own within the castle walls."

  Maybe I should have punched Lerran years ago, if this was the result.

  Father rose. "Follow me."

  I frowned. "Where are we going?"

  "Training hall. You need to be tested."

  "Tested?"

  "For this so–called immunity against magic."

  I hoped he was jesting, but the moment we entered the training hall it became obvious he wasn't. He was serious and thorough, a bit too serious and thorough. For the rest of the morning he threw spell after spell at me until he was close to tapping into his reserves. None of the spells affected me, however. Some I could feel going through me, like the colouring spell, while others seemed to just not work, like the stunning spell. I couldn't say the same of the poor dummies, which were in pieces by the time Father finally decided he'd had enough.

  Heaving and leaning heavily against one of the beams, he grimaced at me. "Inau will be grateful to get some rest while you watch Sirr."

  That was as much of a compliment as I would get from him right now.

  At least I thought so, until he added, "Your training with Captain Ariv starts tomorrow. Your lack of power prevents me from enlisting you. Though I hope you will never see a war in your lifetime, you will at least be prepared for it."

  He looked surprised as I threw myself at him, but didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around me. "Thank you," I whispered.

  "You're welcome, son. Now, go save Inau from that volatile grandchild of mine. She needs her rest and I have a harvest to oversee. I'm late enough as it is."

  Despite his dismissal, we left the training hall together, walking up to the castle side by side in silence, the way I had seen him walk with my brothers after training, the sun warming our faces. For the first time since I'd found out I would never be like them, I felt like I belonged here.

  "If you accept him, I have no doubt Captain Ariv will make you a fine husband, Llyskel. Invite him to dinner soon, so you don't worry your mother," Father said as he turned towards the stables, as if he had no doubt I would accept Ariv's request. "Don't tell her about the training. Danen is nowhere near ready to be king."

  SIRR'S TONGUE STUCK out of her mouth as she drew whiskers on the cat she was painting. It looked more like a large blob with dark eyes, but it was a change from the trees and stars she normally painted. She didn't look up as I mixed some red and yellow to get the hue of her dress right. I doubted she even noticed I was painting her. She had been rather quiet since we started painting, but Inau had warned me she didn't talk much these days, aside from her tantrums. I didn't mind. It gave me time to focus on my work, this being the first painting I had done in days, and it gave me time to think.

  Father's words were on my mind as I thought of the kozal bud lying on my desk and, once again, I pondered my place here. No matter how often they had told me I belonged, I had never truly felt it. I never lacked for anything—quite the opposite, I had been overprotected, coddled—and still I often felt like an outsider.

  I couldn't blame it all on my family, either. I could have challenged them, could have demanded, could have thrown a tantrum that might have even put Sirr to shame. I should have, but I never had. I let them treat me the way they did, resigned myself to my position the way they had, as though it was set in stone that powerless meant weak. As much as I kept convincing myself I wasn't weak, I had never tried to prove them wrong.

  Now that I had proved them wrong, it was time I proved to myself I did belong.

  "How's this look, Uncle?" Sirr held her dripping brush away from her painting.

  I quickly grabbed the brush and put it in the water bowl. Though, at first glance, her picture looked like a blob with a tail that ran off the paper, the detail she had put into the whiskers and eyes was amazing for a six–year–old.

  Sirr grinned as I told her she had done a good job, and her grin turned even brighter when I helped her make the cat's fur more lifelike. Soon she was busy cross–hatching, tongue firmly sticking out of her mouth again. She still hadn't noticed I was painting her.

  When I finished, I turned around, but Neia was nowhere to be seen. She had probably been sent to join her group in helping with the harvest. Neia was more at home as a soldier than having to follow me everywhere. Still, it was strange not having her around.

  Sirr was still cross–hatching cat fur, but I didn't want to start a new painting. I stood and stretched my legs a bit, walking around the garden—separated from the grounds by a hedge of orin bushes—and making sure to keep an eye on Sirr.

  I could barely believe I would officially start training with Ariv tomorrow. Though I'd assured Father it was comfortable with the idea, I wasn't so certain now. His presence had already been a distraction before we'd had sex. Still, Riki and Lerran seemed to have no trouble being so close to each other every day, and I wasn't going to refuse a chance to see more of Ariv. This being harvest season, I had to grab every opportunity.

  Between meeting Father and spending time with Sirr, I hadn't had time to go out into the south garden and cut a sprig of dark green leaves from the venoli tree. I would have to do that as soon as Inau had rested and relieved me of babysitting duty, so I could present it to Ariv tonight.

  Though there were more ways of answering a request to court, there was only one possible answer for me. No blue roset leaf, like Riki gave Lerran, meaning she would not be opposed to including a third in their relationship, and certainly no lavender zei blossom that would indicate an open relationship. No, a sprig of the venoli tree was what Ariv would receive from me. I didn't share, and I hoped Ariv didn't either.

  I would have rather presented the sprig after our training, but we would be alone then, and that was not how it was supposed to be done. It had to be done in public, and if Ariv could face my family at breakfast, I could face his tired soldiers after a day of harvesting, no matter how uncomfortable that made me feel.

  Which meant waiting at the gate for Ariv to return from the harvest.

  I was wrong. This was nothing like Ariv facing my family at breakfast. I stood by the gate, venoli sprig carefully hidden in my sleeves, as the soldiers returned from the harvest. They all looked at me as they passed, no doubt wondering what his Highness was doing out here this late.

  Endyrr was the first of my brothers to pass me. He nodded at his group and approached me. "Waiting for your captain?"

  I nodded. Of course Endyrr knew exactly why I was here.

  "I think his group is the last to arrive. They were still loading their last cart when we left." Endyrr rested his hand on my shoulder. "Good luck, little brother."

  "Thank you."

  Endyrr sprinted back to his group. I watched him as I tried hard to ignore the stares from the soldiers passing by.

  Danen, Riki, and Jeon walked by together, deep in conversation. They barely even noticed me, which was a relief, because Jeon would no doubt have laughed at me. He didn't care much for the traditional courting rituals and was always quick to make a joke of them. They didn't fit his view on relationships, not with the casual way he dated his lovers, male and female. Still, I had a feeling that someday someone would offer Jeon a lavender zei blossom, and Jeon would accept. I was certain he would. He just wasn't ready yet.

  I winced when Lerran passed a few moments later. His eye was still nearly black, though surrounded by hues of purple, green, and yellow. Lerran smiled and winked as he passed, before saying something to the soldiers next to him. They laughed. Had he told them how he got his black eye?

  It couldn't be long now before Ariv would arrive; Lerran was Ariv's commander, after all.

  When I finally did spo
t Ariv, he looked as worn out as the rest of the soldiers, ready for nothing but a shower and bed. He chatted to a soldier next to him, facing away from me. For a moment, I thought about going back to the castle before he noticed me. What had I been thinking? They had just finished a hard day of work and here I was, waiting for him to postpone his rest.

  But before I could slip away, Ariv faced me, his tired eyes trained on mine, his lips curling into a grin. No turning back, now.

  I waited until they reached the gate before approaching him, venoli sprig still hidden within my sleeves. Ariv paused, motioning his group to do the same. I swallowed as they all turned towards me, watched me, but I didn't stop. I kept walking until I stood in front of Ariv.

  "Captain Ariv." Pushing back my sleeves, I revealed the venoli sprig and held it up to him. "Ariv. Our paths have crossed and twined. I would gladly merge my path with yours."

  Ariv's wide grin, despite his obvious tiredness, made waiting worth it. He took the spring and studied it in the shimmering light, before pocketing it in his trousers.

  I expected him to nod at me and take his group home, but Ariv, traditional as he turned out to be, did no such thing. He stepped forward, pulled me to him, and kissed me in front of his group. I froze. I didn't feel comfortable with everyone watching us share such a private moment, but feeling his lips against mine, dry and rough from being out in the fields all day, made me forget all about them.

  Ariv trembled against me, leaning hard on me when we ended the kiss, his forehead against mine. "Good night," he whispered.

  "Good night, Ariv." It was hard not to try and persuade him to come to my rooms, but he needed his sleep, and I had to let him go.

  I couldn't wait for the harvest to be over.

  Chapter Six

  WHEN I ARRIVED in the training hall, I half expected Ariv to be all business about training me. Instead he grinned and kissed me, wearing the venoli sprig pinned on his tunic, a clear sign he accepted my terms.

  I didn't want to let go of him, but after another kiss, and another, and another, Ariv pulled away and shook his head. "Time to work," he said. My mind was slow to catch up, but Ariv handed me a cup of sweet tea and told me to drink it.

  It may have been sweet, but it was no tea I'd ever had before. "What's in this?"

  "Maris root. Helps to wake you up."

  "But I am awake," I protested.

  Ariv raised his eyebrow. I sighed and focussed on what he wanted me to do.

  He had me do laps first, warming up, practising my stance for the longest time, before he finally told me to face him, fight him. I remembered flooring Lerran and wasn't exactly eager to start, but Ariv, at least, expected my punches and blocked them at the right time. When he suddenly didn't, I felt his head fling backwards as I hit his jaw. I froze and stepped back.

  He stopped me by grabbing my wrist. "Llyskel. Look at me. I don't bruise easily. I may not have expected quite that much force, but I wouldn't have let you fight me if I didn't think I could handle it, that you could handle it."

  He didn't bruise easily, he said. I thought about all those times I had seen him fight, seen him throw his soldiers to the floor, seen him fall. He was one of the strongest soldiers in the field. He was right; he could handle this, and I needed to handle it or training me was a waste of his time. I shook my head. All these years, I wanted to be trained like my brothers, and here I was, losing my nerve. "I've never hit anyone, before Lerran."

  Ariv nodded. "We're going to work on that." He put his hands back in position again and grinned. "Wait until I get you to train with the short blades. You are going to love those."

  My eyes must have popped out, because he started laughing. "Don't worry, Your Highness. We'll start small. Are you ready to have another go?"

  I glared at him, but nodded nonetheless. Did he have to use my title to mock me?

  I checked my stance, checked my arms, and started dancing around him again. Ariv's blocking changed. Some of my punches almost made it past his defences, others Ariv stopped as soon as I struck out. And he wouldn't shut up. He kept commenting, kept telling me what to do, what not to do, making it hard to stick to the rhythm I had been practising. Even harder because he kept changing rhythm on me, forcing me to change mine, again and again, until I could barely remember a rhythm at all.

  By the time he finally decided I'd had enough, my tunic was drenched in sweat and I had trouble catching my breath, but I felt so good. I'd managed to hit him twice more. Or rather, he had let me hit him twice more, even if neither of the punches were as hard as that first one.

  "We need to work on the way you reveal your punches. It's too easy to tell what you're going to do." Ariv wiped his face and hands with his tunic. "Your face is too open."

  I swallowed as he stepped up to me, eyes boring into mine. This close, I could see their rich, dark brown colour, I could even see the tiny scattered specks of gold in them. He raised a hand to my cheek, moving even closer.

  "Like a book, so open. I see all of you," he said, right before he brushed his lips to mine.

  A mere hint of moist lips against mine, over before my brain even registered it. I closed my eyes and leaned forward, snaking my hand behind his head with no intention of letting him go. Ariv refused to give me what I wanted and kept his lips together. He put his hands on my chest and stepped back.

  I opened my eyes and reached out.

  Ariv grabbed my hand and brushed his lips across it. "You barely have time for a shower before the company starts flooding in. Somehow I doubt you're ready to have them catch us trousers down and my tongue down your throat."

  He had a point. I sighed.

  Ariv grabbed his shooter from the rack and walked away from me, "I'll make it up to you."

  I couldn't help glance at my wrists. The memory alone was enough to make me shiver in anticipation.

  Ariv stopped in the doorway and faced me, shooter hanging loosely from his hand, and I suddenly itched to paint him like this, with the morning sun creating a halo of light around his shaded profile. The muscles in his shoulders caught the light beautifully, making them seem more pronounced. I imagined kissing him there, at the point where his shoulders met his neck, and all thoughts of painting him disappeared. He was strong and gorgeous, and I wanted him.

  "Meet me at the gate at the dinner bell."

  I blinked, and he was gone.

  FOR EVERYONE BUT me, watching Sirr was as dangerous today as it had been uneventful yesterday. No soldier had even dared using the entrance in the wall opposite the garden. They'd all had to use the one on the other side of the training hall because Sirr had been firing off magic left and right all day.

  Of course, Sirr had no idea she was doing it, and spent her play time giggling as she chased a hapless butterfly around the garden with a large net. That was fine with me, because while she was running around, I was making a game of avoiding being hit by her erratic magic. I didn't need to avoid the magic, but it was fun to try. It started out as a game to test my responses, to see if I could be quick enough, but it turned into a lesson in magical theory—lessons that had been deemed unimportant due to my lack of power.

  Until today, I had always thought magic preceded its scent, not the other way around. It took me a while to catch on to it, to how I sensed the magic whoosh over me after I'd already ducked, and after I'd smelled its scent, mostly because it didn't seem possible for me to out–duck an aimed spell, let alone an unintentional one. But the more I played, the more I started paying attention not just to the smells but also to the actual spells as they passed me, passed through me even. That was when I finally caught on to the order.

  I wondered why I hadn't noticed when Father had been testing me, though I vaguely remembered the training hall being filled with the scent of magic. Also, I hadn't felt all the spells Father had thrown at me, while I could feel all of Sirr's magic, since she wasn't actually casting formed spells.

  According to Inau, whenever Sirr burned energy, it would come out in li
ttle bursts containing raw magic. On days like this, when the bursts of magic didn't seem to let up, Sirr would be exhausted before lunch and sleep the rest of the day to replenish. I could already see she was becoming tired. Her jumps weren't as high as they had been earlier, and she didn't giggle as much as pant.

  Sirr's volatility would end when she became aware of what she was doing. No one could tell her that: she needed to feel it for herself. Obviously, she hadn't yet.

  I had no doubt all this was common knowledge, but I wished someone had taught me when I was younger. It felt strange, only now learning about the magic that was so ingrained into our history, our daily lives, at the hand of a volatile six–year–old.

  Just as Sirr paused and turned to me, I caught the scent of another burst. I ducked and rolled out of the way of the magic flowing past me.

  "Why are you rolling in the grass like that, Uncle Llyskel?"

  I rose. "Because you're throwing magic at me."

  Sirr stopped and pouted. "Mummy says I can't help it."

  "I know."

  "Am I hurting you like I hurt Bess?" Bess was one of the kitchen maids.

  I shook my head. "No, Sirr. That's why Grandfather asked me to play with you. You can't hurt me. Didn't Mummy tell you?"

  Sirr frowned and bit her lip. "She said you have a good shield."

  That was what Sirr had been told. It bothered me, because no adult was going to believe that story. Everyone knew I didn't possess any magic. I wanted everyone to know about my immunity, too. I wanted everyone to know I wasn't weak, but Father forbade it. "To protect you," he had said. "Yes, because I have a good shield."

  Her head tilted, Sirr looked at me. "But why are you ducking?"

  "I'm playing a game."

  That seemed to cheer her up. "Can I play too?"

  "You are. I'm trying not to be hit by your magic."

  "But you have a shield. You don't have to duck."

  Suddenly, the roles were reversed, and I was teaching my six–year–old niece about magic. The little I knew, that was.