The River King

by Kim Alexander

  Scilla flushed but held his gaze.

  “I won’t be hidden. I will be introduced and named and received.” There, that was the easy part. Certainly they suspected he might decide to visit Mistra again, on his own terms. Now, the next bit. He took a moment to ask Light and Wind for help, and continued. “In addition, and partially thanks to the mage, Coll, who has made our climate more hospitable, we are proposing the permanent installation of humans on Eriis. Reopen your embassy here. Name one of yourselves my counterpart. Call it good for business, or call it a hostage against bad faith. I chose to call it the natural outcome of these negotiations and a promise of more to follow. I can promise that the human who decides to remain will be treated as an honored guest, not a curiosity.”

  He couldn’t really make that promise, any more than he felt ready to be launched into Mistran society, but the attempt had to be made for any of this to work. He put his hand on the bundle of papers sitting in front of him on the long table, mainly to make sure they were still there; they wouldn’t be opened or read or commented on until later.

  “Eriis is ready to declare this session open.” Rhuun sat, forcing himself not to immediately look for Lelet’s reaction. Instead, he turned to Calaa, who seemed surprised but gave him a quick reassuring smile.

  Now it was the humans’ turn to address the table. Scilla stood. That was good—good for her and good for them for trusting in her.

  “I’ve been waiting for this meeting,” she said, “for nearly my whole life. A life separated into before I met the prince and after.” It was her turn to catch his eye, and she smiled. “A life, much like the rest of us on Mistra, made with its share of mistakes. It is my great hope that my actions—our actions—can help fix the things that are broken and heal the divide between us. And now I am here, and along with these brothers of the Guardhouse, we are ready to open The Door and live as neighbors, partners, possibly even friends. Not distant memories, enemies, or children’s stories. As to your remarkable offer, I can’t make a decision on anyone’s behalf. To the question of who might stay, I must ask for some time and private discussion before we respond.”

  “Certainly,” Rhuun said. “Granted.”

  “Then Mistra is ready to begin.” Scilla, her eyes bright and cheeks pink, sat back down seeming enormously pleased with herself. She also had the luxury of looking to her sister, who gave her the warm smile Rhuun wanted for himself. He sighed. This would be more than difficult, and it had only just started.

  Once each group had taken a few minutes to sip some water and look over their notes, the negotiations began in earnest. The first order of business was to set the agenda.

  Coll was the first to speak. “Reparations.”

  Brother Maron was quick to respond. “We won the war. It’s long since over. We aren’t here to make amends for an event we had nothing to do with.”

  “You should at least hear him out,” Lelet said. “I’m sure he has more than one word to offer.”

  Maron glared at her. “You would say that. Who knows where your loyalties lie?”

  She returned his glare. “I feel as if there are things you wish to say.” When he began to speak, she held up her hand, cutting him off. “Yes, since it seems this large group of people must know my personal business, I did indeed have a long meeting with the ambassador last evening. We had urgent business to discuss regarding a member of my family. It is unrelated to these sessions, and I would prefer—and I think the ambassador would prefer—not to elaborate.”

  Rhuun assumed everyone in the human party and nearly everyone at the table from Eriis knew about the interconnected lives of Lelet, Scilla, Rane, and himself. And his father, the absent Brother Blue, and his mother, the absent Queen Hellne. It was therefore particularly rude for Maron to force Lelet to explain herself.

  Olly, who had relationships of his own he probably wanted left unexamined, quickly said, “If it isn’t specifically related to this meeting, then—”

  “It is not,” said Rhuun. “It’s no secret I have a long history with Lelet and her family. If you question her motives, you may as well question mine.” He turned a cool gaze on the now lightly sweating Maron. “Would you like to do so? Our records keeper will of course include any of your concerns.”

  Maron appeared to want to speak, until Brother Clare gave him a sharp look, perhaps not wanting to be remembered as the associate of the man who derailed the negotiations before they began by insulting the prince. He shut his mouth, shook his head, and folded his arms. Lelet had her lips set in a hard line and stared angrily at the table. Rhuun thought it was likely she would try and murder the old man before the week was out. He checked her hands, but they were merely clenched, not sparking.

  “Let us hear the mage’s thoughts,” said Brother Clare.

  “Thank you,” said Coll. He turned to Zaii. “You do it. Your words are more palatable than mine.”

  “But it was your idea,” Zaii said quietly. He gave a small, supportive nod. Coll turned to Rhuun, who pushed the folder in his direction. Rhuun had never seen the mage nervous before, didn’t know Coll had enough self-consciousness to be nervous.

  Coll took another sip of water and opened the notes. “We propose reparations separate from the trade that will be decided on during the rest of these talks. As you’ll see as you visit the city in the days to come, we can make nearly anything we might want or need from the endless sands that surround us. Our clothing, the food we eat, the very furniture we’re sitting on right now. We can even create water. Nearly everything. You’ll notice, if you look, that there is one thing missing. There aren’t any plants.”

  “No plants?” Clare indicated the floral centerpiece. “Then what am I looking at?”

  Coll stood and plucked from the arrangement a handful of small white flowers on delicate pale green stems. He held them up and looked at Rhuun, who nodded. He closed his fist around the dainty blossoms and allowed the slow rain of sand to fall back onto the table.

  “No plants,” he repeated and sat back down, wiping his hand on his dark robe.

  “So you’re saying you want us to pay you back with plants? Uh, real plants?” Olly asked.

  “No.” Coll looked up from his notes, and his eyes shone. “Dirt.”

  “Excuse me?” said Maron. “Did you say dirt?”

  Coll looked from face to human face. “I did. Give us dirt, and we’ll grow our own plants. Eventually the plants may even bring back the rain. Eriis is not a dead world, but neither is it quite alive. The Weapon took lives, yes, many lives, and it tore down buildings and blotted out the sun. But it also turned the good soil of Eriis to sand. That is what we need—the living dirt of Mistra brought here, to bring the sand back to life and restore Eriis.”

  The humans all exchanged looks. Scilla said, “On its face, this sounds like the easiest thing in the world. But I am not free to make unilateral decisions, so let us say we’ll discuss it.” She gnawed the inside of her lip for a moment. “Oh, all right. I mean, it’s just dirt. So I’m saying yes. Yes, our dirt is yours, and when we get home, I’ll send a letter to our farms in the mountains and ask Father and Pol about where to get the good stuff. We’ll prop The Door wide open and truck it through. You’ll have your dirt.”

  Rhuun had been holding his breath, and Zaii gave a little sigh of relief as well. Coll looked as if he might weep.

  “Together, young human,” Coll said to Scilla, “we will make the desert bloom.”

  Chapter Five

  Eriis

  Aelle looked up from her book at every sound, but again, it was just the wind. She’d only been half reading it, turning the pages back and forth without really seeing them. She was waiting for Olly, who was taking her to dinner. It was to be their first official outing together. Everyone would see them. The thought of all those shocked faces was delightful.

  She abandoned her book and smiled at the memory of how they’d met: in a case of mistaken identity, he’d grabbed her and flung her through The Door into
a Mistran fireplace. At the time she’d been mortified—he’d thought she was Lelet, the very idea! But after all, Olly had never seen one of her people before. She supposed Rhuun really didn’t count. And he was merely trying to help his friend, thinking her a captive of the mages. He couldn’t know that she’d taken Lelet’s place, after Lelet had taken Rhuun’s place. They all fooled the mages, and each of them got free. Of course, it didn’t seem like freedom at first.

  But her sheer, blind terror quickly turned to curiosity as she recognized an ally in that cold, damp place. Then she understood Olly might be much more. At first Aelle found his forthright demeanor, his open expression shocking. She tried it out for herself, during her stay at the Guardhouse, and perfected it during her short stint as a teacher of young humans. Smile when you’re pleased. Speak out when you’re angry. Show your heart on your face.

  Upon returning to Eriis, she found it difficult to slide back into her old habits. It was their way, after all, to show nothing. She’d scandalized her friends to the point that many of them had evaporated from her life.

  She didn’t miss them. It wouldn’t take long to count the ones she did miss—Ilaan, grieving at the tents, would come back when he was ready. And of course, Niico was never coming back.

  But she also found she missed Olly. And unlike the first two, he was here.

  Olly and the rest of the human delegation had arrived the previous day, and she’d told herself she was merely curious, not nearly overcome with anticipation. She considered going to the palace and greeting the party herself, but that seemed somehow forward. So Aelle sent an invitation for Olly to join her at her home, even though she didn’t want him to see the small, mean house she and her mother had been forced to take. Their big house in town, only steps away from the great courtyard of the palace itself had been ‘requisitioned by the High Seat.’ That meant the Zaal decided he wanted it for himself. At least Rhuun was able to make sure she and Siia stayed inside the Arch.

  As far all Olly, she needn’t have worried. The Door had barely time to shut when he, trailed by his own assigned palace guard, knocked on her door. He told her he’d walked through The Door, met for “literally two minutes” with Rhuun, and then come to her as soon as he was free. He looked around, smiled, complimented her mother on an old water service, and acted like it was the finest place he’d ever been.

  He had a gift for her to be delivered in private, but he also brought something for Siia—a scarf. As he’d learned from Aelle when they’d spent so many hours huddled in her cold Guardhouse room, everyone had at least a few scarves, some nicer, some purely functional, but all for the same purpose. This was a traditional traveling scarf and, as such, was a perfect square, dark brown, and with a small white stone looped into one corner to provide weight. Olly’s Mistran version had its dark fabric shot through with threads of red-gold that caught the light. The white stone was carved in the shape of an eye with a glinting bit of bright red glass for a pupil, and the whole thing was weightless—you could read through it. Siia held it up with obvious delight and told them to enjoy the party and pay close attention. She wanted a full report. She didn’t comment on how Olly filled the room with his size, how he wouldn’t fit in a proper chair, how he was the second bizarrely outsized man her daughter had brought home.

  Olly understood the value of a gift.

  Since they had a little time before the reception at the palace, they excused themselves and she took him back to her suite—it was a small house compared to the last one, but it was big enough to give her some privacy—and she had to decide between kissing and receiving her gift. She could still smell the damp cool of Mistra on his clothes and reached up to touch the strange, deliciously rough texture of his cheek. Kissing won out, rather to her own surprise. Joining would have to wait. She didn’t want to rush getting dressed and prepared, and she well remembered the excellent job Olly did on coiling her hair. She didn’t want to rush her proper reunion with Olly either. After kissing, she smiled and held her hand out, and he gave her a slim box covered in bright paper, tied with curling shining strands of ribbon.

  Aelle looked up at him. He nodded.

  “Just as we discussed. You know what to do.”

  And with a little shriek of pleasure, she tore the paper apart. Inside was another box, this one had a lovely soft sort of texture. She stroked it but looked up, confused.

  “Velvet,” he explained. “It’s for fancy things.”

  Velvet. She would remember that. She considered herself a fancy thing. And finally, the box opened, her gift exposed.

  “Those are citrine, the yellow ones. And the white ones are diamonds.”

  She held it up, watched the light bounce off the stones and shatter into a million pieces against the walls. The largest, a yellow one in the center, was as large as her smallest fingernail. It was exquisite. He took it back from her and worked the tiny clasp. The yellow stone lay perfectly against the hollow of her throat. It was as if he’d had it made with her small frame in mind.

  “I love it,” she told him. I’ll never take it off. I don’t have a gift for you, but I do have something I think you’ll like.” He reached for her, and she laughed and pushed away his hand. “Not that! Later. This. Look.” She thought hard about the color of the scarf and the red-gold sparkling threads and gave a mental push.

  “How did you—did you just do that?” Olly gaped at her gown, which now matched her mother’s new scarf exactly, right to the amber shimmer, although not quite as sheer. A row of tiny white-and-red eyes marched around the hem. It went perfectly with her necklace. Olly himself turned out to be a fine accessory also, after he traded his dusty traveling clothes for a fine charcoal-colored silk coat with a subtle scarlet sheen. It was a nice way to acknowledge that he stood with Rhuun—and Hellne, she supposed—without being too obvious. The looks and behind-the-hand comments she got on her outfit and her companion were by far the best part of that bizarre and uncomfortable party.

  She had to admit it was entertaining watching Rhuun get insulted and then blindsided by the sudden appearance of Lelet, but it was disturbing seeing the new king and queen wander around looking decidedly uninterested. She couldn’t imagine being that unenthused about looking at humans; they barely flicked an eye at Olly and his partisan coat. The new king and queen had not adopted any particular color that she could tell and weren’t wearing the traditional black and red. That was strange, but everything about the pair had felt a bit strange to Aelle. She recalled Hellne’s parting remark, “Be careful around my brother.”

  She sighed and went to the window to wait for him. She’d sent him home with a kiss on the cheek after the party the night before because she knew the sessions started early and didn’t want him to go in looking tired. This evening, though, she had other plans.

  Chapter Six

  Eriis

  Rhuun looked up from his notes. “Come in.”

  It was open, of course. His door was literally always open, having no lock, only a loop of twisted black-and-red ribbon on a hook. He’d decided he’d been in too many locked rooms, been confined too many times, been at the mercy of Light and Wind and children and mages. He wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

  So the door was open, and Lelet was there. Zaii and a house guard both got to see their serious faces, the way they kept their hands at their sides and their voices cool, how the human woman, who could hide nothing, appeared to have nothing to hide. The story would go out that the former lovers were now barely allies Zaii would make sure the contents of this conversation—the official contents—got broadly distributed because he probably already knew what they were.

  The door closed. They were alone.

  Rhuun reached for her as soon the guard’s footsteps receded down the hallway, and she kissed his throat—it was as high as she could reach without standing on her toes.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said and simply picked her up.

  She could reach his face now and kissed him properly
. “When this is over, we will have nothing but time.”

  Lelet loved it when he carried her around, so he took her on a tour of the ‘garden,’ then past his mantlepiece with his collection of carved horses, once around his desk, and finally off to his bed.

  “You did very well,” she said, sitting up. The quilt pooled around her waist, and he pulled her back down into his arms.

  “Just now? Thank you. I’ve missed practicing with you. Not that I’ve given up practicing at all, you understand.” Then he paused. That came out wrong. “I mean by myself.” That implied she wasn’t by herself, and that was even worse. “I mean, um, I’ve missed you.”

  She laughed, mercifully letting it pass by. “Me too. No, I mean at session. Although just now too. Extremely much so.” Her expression turned serious. “I think you did very well today, despite Maron’s nonsense. I don’t know what he has against me, other than he doesn’t like demons and I’m demon-adjacent.”

  “Do you know why he put himself forward to come here?” The trick was to keep her talking. That way she wouldn’t be able to tell him what she came here to say. What he already suspected. “It’s clear he thinks we’re going to rub off on him and turn his eyes red or something.”

  “I don’t know. I may ask him. But that’s not the thing.”

  “There’s a thing?” He cupped her breast. “Is this it?”

  Lelet laid her hand over his. “I’m going home.”

  There it was.

  “I’m going to ask Scilla and Maron to send me back.”

  Rhuun focused on her hand, on the skin of her hand and her seashell-colored fingernails, how their hands looked, twined together. It was funny, with her slender pale fingers and his much darker hands, their fingernails were almost exactly the same shade of pink.