A King's Caution

by Brennan C. Adams

  A picture of strife burned in Raimie’s mind. The battlefield stretched beyond what he could see, combatants to all sides with faces twisted in anger or desperation. Most he didn’t know, but a precious few were incredibly familiar.

  The tenuous peace he’d forged between the students of his primeancy schools had fallen to pieces. The vastly outnumbered Daevetch children huddled behind Tejesper and Nessaira as the Ele students hammered them with wave after wave of white light.

  Kheled had joined a blurred, black-clothed figure in battle, their fight catching other, unknown primeancers in their attacks’ overflow, but of all the combatants which surrounded him, the two to cause the most damage were Bright and Dim. Horrified, Raimie watched the two splinters haphazardly fling their respective energies at one another, and each successful blow tore a thread from their guise, revealing the seething energy which lay beneath.

  The other fights faded away, and the longer Raimie watched his splinters battle, the more the fight lured him until, in a disorienting tumble, he stood between them. Bright and Dim devolved into indistinct suggestions of Ele and Daevetch. Their unformed smudges modeled hands and unnervingly long arms from their blank surfaces, and in a flash, they each seized a wrist and pulled.

  The pressure so quickly escalated Raimie let loose a yelp of surprise which transformed into a shriek as a fissure formed between his shoulder blades. The fracture shot in two directions, one to the top of his skull and one, straight down. The pull insistently amplified, and Raimie peeled into two pieces. As he drifted away, he numbly peered at his split body and woke with a gasp.

  He flailed, hands flying to his knit together sternum, before the dream loosened its grip. For a moment, he lay still, panting, while a cold sweat raised pinpricks on his flesh. When his heart ceased thrumming in his chest, he tentatively reached for Ren, grimacing at the idea he’d woken her again, but his hand encountered empty sheets.

  Damn it.

  Raimie rubbed his face, exhausted despite having just woken. He couldn’t blame the exhaustion on poor sleep or the fun in which he, Nylion, and Ren had participated the evening previous. The cause was much more terrifying than those simple explanations.

  He climbed from bed. The open doors on the room’s far side admitted the rising sun’s rays along with crisp, fall air.

  “Do not yet go outside,” Nylion pleaded. “Let her calm first.”

  Better to get it over with as quickly as possible, Nyl.

  After slipping into a robe, Raimie trudged onto the balcony and plopped across from Ren at the garden table. Nylion climbed atop the table and sat cross-legged between them, satisfied to allow Raimie control of this morning’s confrontation. Turning her book’s page, Ren sipped her tea, steam rising above its lip.

  He waited for her to say something, too tired to do anything more than watch the sunrise. After a good five minutes, she closed the book and set her cup on the table’s surface.

  “You did it again,” she began.

  “I know,” Raimie replied.

  “It’s happening more frequently.”

  “Trust me, I’ve noticed.”

  Raimie refused to look at her. He knew what she wanted, but Ren couldn't know what she asked. Primeancy was everything to him, something as interwoven with him as breathing or Nylion, and he used it every day. Ele gave him the comfort he required to withstand Ren’s touch without a surge of fear. He relied on its peace when Minister meetings turned especially frustrating. Daevetch infused him with confidence and brashness. It bolstered him to treat with foreign dignitaries and to dispense harsh punishments when required. Losing primeancy would be like losing a hand, a survivable experience that would ever haunt him with lack. Sans control of the primal forces, he was… less.

  “We need to discuss this,” Ren continued.

  “What do you want me to say?” Raimie asked. “I’m not consciously making the gray energy.”

  That was the name they’d wordlessly designated for the mystery which had plagued their bedchamber since shortly after their marriage. Gray because the mist expelled from him while sleeping took on that color. Energy because, whatever the phenomenon was, it came accompanied by a significant amount of force. They’d learned that lesson the hard way. Gray energy’s first manifestation had flung Ren from bed.

  “Your lack of control is the problem,” Ren said in response to her husband’s protest. “What happens if you don’t wake me with your nightmares, and a fall from bed hurts the baby? I can take a tumble. Our child cannot. Not yet.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Raimie asked as he met her eyes, daring her to ask again.

  “Tell me you and Nyl work to understand it,” she answered, neatly dodging the leveled challenge. “Perhaps you could try to coax answers from Bright and Dim again?”

  Slouching, Raimie crossed his arms. “Their story will never change, love. They’re splinters of eternal, primal forces, remember? They can handily resist my puny, human attempts to drag answers, especially those they wish to keep secret, from them.”

  Ren copied his move, although the swell of her belly kept her from slouching as far as he. “Let me try,” she said.

  A short laugh escaped Raimie before he could control it. Ren, gods love her, was a norm. What could she hope to accomplish regarding the splinters when she couldn’t even see them?

  “Would you please summon Bright and Dim?” she asked, all sweetness, an indication Raimie skirted trouble.

  With a thought, the splinters, who’d stood in their usual positions at Raimie’s side, manifested as thoroughly as they could into the physical realm. In this state, other primeancers, ones with connections to the realm which Ele and Daevetch inhabited, could see them, but to those rooted entirely in the physical, the splinters would never appear. Ren, however, looked straight at Bright and Dim as she addressed them.

  “Tell me what’s happening to my husband.”

  They traded an uncertain glance, and Raimie waved, permitting them to participate in the ridiculous charade.

  “When Raimie manifests what you call ‘gray energy’, he attunes our wholes’ hold on him,” Bright explained, “but we don’t know how he does it or why, in recent years, it’s happened so frequently. When he was a child, he forced a balance maybe twice a month. Now, it’s twice a week.”

  “When I was a child?!” Raimie exclaimed. “You never mentioned that! How long have I done this?” And why will you answer her questions but not mine?

  “Husband, I am speaking with them,” Ren said. “Wait your turn.”

  Raimie ducked his head, murmuring apologies. In the last week, he’d fought at least a dozen times with his wife. Each episode had started much like this, and he’d no desire to engage in another this morning. Arguing with her soured his day.

  “I told you to let her calm first,” Nylion sighed while their wife took a breath.

  You’re not helping MY calm.

  “That being said, he does have a point,” Ren said, once more addressing the splinters. “How long has he made the gray energy?”

  “Ever since birth, when he attracted us and harnessed our wholes,” Bright answered.

  “What are your ‘wholes’?” Ren asked.

  Raimie’s head whipped to her at the question. “You can hear them?!” he asked and, at her disappointed look, added. “You’ve told me this before, haven’t you?”

  Ren pointedly ignored him. “Answer the question.”

  “You lot call our wholes Ele and Daevetch,” Dim answered, making a face.

  “So, our problem is connected to primeancy!” Ren exclaimed.

  “I thought that was obvious. The balancing he unconsciously performs is why he’s not completely crazy by now,” Bright commented.

  “Or too rigid to allow change,” Dim added.

  “If he stopped using primeancy, would the ‘balancing’ stop too?” Ren asked.

  Raimie stiffened. There it was again, a glimmer of the impossible demand his wife had made of him mul
tiple times in the last few months.

  “I’m not satisfied taking such action would stop it…” Bright replied.

  “And I won’t give it up!” Raimie said as calmly as he could through gritted teeth.

  “Can you think of another solution?” she asked, heat creeping into her voice.

  Frustrated months with this antagonistic point between them finally spilled over, and Raimie shouted. “If you’re so worried about the baby, maybe you should sleep elsewhere until it comes!”

  She recoiled as if physically hit. The three of them cuddling before falling asleep was a sacrosanct point of their marriage, the one time where they could fully and completely be themselves sans the pressures of court. For him to suggest banishing her…

  “Yelling was a mistake,” Nylion grumbled, something similar to anger tinging his own voice, “and I will not allow you to follow through with your threat if you intend to keep it.”

  You won’t LET me?

  Nylion sprang to hands and knees on the table, face uncomfortably close to Raimie’s.

  “She is my wife too! I need quiet time with her as much as you do!”

  At that moment, a knock sounded on their bedroom door, shortly followed by a handful of staff. They spread breakfast on the garden table, stepping back to wait. Until shooed away, they’d disapprovingly stand nearby on the off chance their monarchs would allow someone else to dress them, as was proper.

  “Thank you,” Raimie said, effectively dismissing them.

  They filed out, and he wondered whether he should stoke the cooling embers of his anger. But what would that accomplish?

  “I’m sorry for yelling,” he told both his wife and his other half.

  Nylion returned to his relaxed pose, reclining in the ninety-degree angle between the table and the window, and tentative comfort radiated through their bond. Hugging her swelling belly, Ren blew hair from her eyes.

  “I understand my request’s difficulty,” she said. “I’m sorry I must ask the impossible of you, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  Looking at her, crushed by worry, and looking at them, distanced by conflict, Raimie decided it was time to try the one avenue of inquiry he’d avoided until now.

  “I’ve an idea,” he told her, “but it will involve me leaving Uduli for a spell. Can you run the kingdom by yourself while I’m gone?”

  “Raimie, you are not thinking of finding Alouin once more, are you?” Nylion asked. “The last time we contacted him, it nearly got us killed.”

  Raimie shot him a glare, willing him to hear the hush he wanted to demand.

  “I am serious, heart of my heart! Please, do not put us in unnecessary danger!”

  Do you see another way?

  Nylion’s teeth clenched, and he compressed into a ball, but he stopped arguing.

  “If taking the reins will help us fix this problem, then I’ll do my best,” Ren answered her husband’s question. “What’s the difference between the few days I’ve already accomplished and a few weeks?”

  “In that case, I’ll depart as soon as I’ve returned from the field trip with the primeancer students,” Raimie said.

  “I’d completely forgotten about that!”

  “Your brother picked a wonderfully perfect time to disappear,” Raimie darkly muttered.

  Better to harbor anger for Kheled than drive himself crazy with worry. Ren had, of course, chosen the worried path, but then again, she had two beloveds who’d vanished.

  Kheled’s disappearance was a familiar return to the first years following Uduli’s capture, but Ring’s, a faithful member of the Hand, was another matter entirely. Of course Ren worried herself sick over the woman’s unknown safety.

  Ren’s fear for her friend was understandable, but Oswin’s obsessive anxiety concerned Raimie. His old friend was a neurotic mess, utterly incapable of spymaster duties. Both he and Ren had lacked bodyguards for several days, Ren’s vanished without a trace and Raimie’s obsessed with finding Ring. Oswin had become so gripped by his desperate search he’d failed to assume his rotation, and Thumb and Pointer were off gods knew where attending to other Hand matters. The wreck Oswin had become, dropping everything in his frantic hunt, was enough to make Raimie wonder if perhaps a deeper relationship than fellow spies had run between him and Ring.

  “Khel never dumps his responsibilities on others, especially not the ones he creates for himself,” Ren whispered with pinched eyes, drawing Raimie from his musing.

  Don’t worry. He’ll be fine, was what he wanted to reply.

  “It’s no burden on me,” was what he said instead. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to leave the capital.”

  “You’ll only be absent a few days, yes?” Ren asked.

  “Out to the coast, one day there, and the journey back,” he told her. “No more than five days, at the most.”

  “Well…” she trailed off, intently gazing at the horizon as the sun made its glorious first appearance of the day. “You’d better get out of here. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll return, and once you’re home again, we can undertake our problem.”

  Rising to his feet, Raimie retrieved a scone from the breakfast spread. “Of course, love,” he murmured, leaning over to brush her hair to the side. “Nylion and I will see you soon.”

  Ren smiled at him, and Raimie knew that, no matter the current stressor to their marriage, they’d find a way to manage it and emerge stronger. They were Joined as one, all three.

  He touched his forehead to hers. Nylion engulfed them in an embrace, and they enjoyed a brief moment of unity. Unity of purpose, unity of spirit. Unity across his bond with Nylion and unity in Ren’s trust he’d solve their problems.

  Duty called. He rose with a shuddering breath, reluctant to retreat from the peace he felt with the two of them.

  “I’m coming with you, silly,” Nylion teased. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

  Raimie snorted a laugh. Stuffing the scone in his mouth, he meandered inside to dress.

  * * *

  Three days later, he and the primeancer students stood on Nephiron’s docks, a journey which would normally take weeks. Fortunately, Raimie and his companions were not normal people. Ele sped most of the students, and the rest shade melded the same distances in hops and skips. By using these methods, their trip’s length cut to a fourth.

  The Daevetch students’ addition to his roster had surprised Raimie, but when asked about it, Nessaira had simply shrugged, claiming her kids needed real-world practice as much as the Ele students. Raimie suspected the woman needed rest. She’d been wan, pale, and twitchy, testifying to the high probability she’d ignored Kheled’s previously given advice.

  Raimie was more than happy for the Daevetch primeancers to join them. The challenge Kheled had prepared for his students would be relatively difficult, and extra hands would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, their addition was also causing him a headache.

  “I won’t have them aboard my ship,” the captain declared. “They’re nothing but trouble, and if you keep them around long enough, Your Majesty, they’ll eventually go the way of our former Dark Lord.”

  Beside the five children, Tejesper stiffened, ready to make a scathing comment concerning the captain’s intelligence, but Raimie beat the teenager to the punch. Drawing Daevetch to his hand, he waved it in view of the captain.

  “Then, I suppose you won’t want me on your ship either,” he said. “We had an agreement, Captain, but if you’re unwilling to take us all, then I suppose we’ll find another crew to transport us to the isles. Someone more willing to accept the crown’s coin.”

  Coin which was steadily depleting. Light taxation and the sale of interesting items from Auden's tears could only do so much to mitigate the enormous cost associated with revitalizing a nation. Another problem for another day but for the captain’s benefit, Raimie flashed a peek of the gold chits which filled the pouch at his waist.

  “I’m sure we can work this out,” the captain prac
tically stammered, his eyes widening with greed. “If they stay below deck and out of the crew’s way, their presence might be tolerated.”

  “I can promise they won’t interfere with your crew, but staying below deck will prove quite impossible,” Raimie countered. “Today’s lesson will require open air. Unless you want us to accidentally sink your ship?”

  The captain grumbled unhappily, but he nodded and held a hand out. Reaching into the pouch, Raimie carefully placed a small pile of chits into the waiting palm.

  “You’ll get the rest once we’re safely returned to Nephiron,” Raimie told him.

  “Welcome aboard,” the captain grunted, eyes fixed on the gold in his hand.

  They climbed the gangplank, Raimie trailing the students with trepidation. He vividly remembered the last sea voyage he’d made along with its miserable beginnings. Huddling in a corner and shivering from a cold sweat wouldn’t help the appearance he must maintain as strong, sure, and in control. He hoped his stomach wouldn’t betray him on this short trip across the water.

  At the gangplank’s precipice, Tejesper pulled Raimie to the side. “Why did you bargain with him?” he asked. “We could just as easily have shade melded to the isles, avoiding these people’s scorn.”

  “Careful, Tejesper. These people only act from fear. Let’s show them Doldimar’s state isn’t the sole end for those with a claim on Daevetch,” Raimie cautioned. “As for why, do you think I haven’t noticed? For the last two nights, you six have sported the stain of foot travel when at our campfires. I know how difficult it is to emerge from the shadows as you wish. I didn’t want to fetch one of you from the ocean before we reached our goal. Besides, how many of you have sailed before? Look at how excited your compatriots are!”