CHAPTER 4
At ten years old, Atyas’s wooden training sword was nearly as tall as he was. His wrists had begun to emerge from last winter’s sleeves, but the hilt still seemed made for someone with larger hands. Captain Seraphina insisted this was not the sword’s fault.
“You’re holding it too tightly,” she said.
Atyas loosened his grip.
The sword slipped from his hands and struck the ground. Seraphina looked down at it.
“Perhaps slightly tighter than that.”
Atyas glared at the weapon.
The training yard of the Lunar Watch surrounded them. Silver-armoured soldiers drilled beneath the morning sun while officers called commands from the raised walkways. Beyond the palace walls, the capital stretched towards the horizon.
Atyas picked up the sword.
“When do I get to train with steel?”
“When you stop dropping the wooden one.”
“I only dropped it because you told me to.”
“Then your first lesson is not to follow bad instructions.”
“You gave me the instruction.”
“And you followed it.”
Atyas narrowed his eyes.
Seraphina’s expression did not change, but he had learned to recognise the slight movement at the corner of her mouth. It meant she was enjoying herself.
He raised the sword again.
“Feet apart,” she said. “Left foot forward. Bend your knees.”
Atyas adjusted his stance.
Seraphina walked around him, pushing lightly against his shoulders. The third time, he lost his balance.
“Again.”
“I could have held it if you let me use the current.”
“Balance before current.” Seraphina pushed his shoulder again. He caught himself this time. “Stay there. Breathe. Now try.”
“I wasn’t going to spend all of it.”
“You were holding your breath. You had already stopped measuring.”
He returned to position.
“Why do my feet matter? I fight with the sword.”
“You fight with your entire body. The sword is merely the part most people notice.”
Seraphina drew her own practice blade.
“Watch my shoulders.”
“Why?”
“You will see the turn sooner.”
She attacked.
Atyas watched the blade. It moved towards his left side before changing direction and tapping him on the right shoulder.
“You watched the sword,” she said.
“It was trying to hit me.”
“It succeeded.”
They tried again.
This time, Atyas watched her shoulders. He still failed to block the strike, but he moved in the correct direction.
“Better,” Seraphina said.
Atyas rubbed his arm.
“Do people lie with swords often?”
“Constantly.”
“What about without swords?”
“Even more often.”
Atyas thought about the adults who visited the palace. They smiled at his parents, praised Asehria and claimed they wanted nothing in return.
“Can you watch their shoulders too?”
Seraphina lowered her practice blade.
“You watch what they do when they believe no one important is looking.”
A voice sounded from beneath the covered walkway.
“That is an unusually political lesson for the training yard.”
Alaria leaned against one of the stone pillars. She wore the red-and-ash travel cloak of Feenix, although she had left her armour somewhere inside the palace. Her autumn liaison rotation had brought her back to compare Feenix and Asehrian escort procedures before the gathering of foreign courts. The work required six council meetings, inspections of three royal roads and no involvement in Atyas’s sword lessons. Solara’s private instructions had mentioned the last point twice.
The command was no longer the only reason Alaria came looking for him. Across four years of rotations, she had taught Atyas how to sit a horse without pulling against its mouth, how to cross a crowded courtyard without allowing every adult to redirect him and how to tell when she was pretending not to have heard his mother call them back. She never brought the carved toys foreign visitors thought children wanted. She brought time in which he was not required to mean anything. Seraphina regarded her with the weary familiarity she reserved for Alaria whenever she interrupted training.
“You are late.”
“I was not aware I had been invited.”
“You said you wished to observe.”
“I am observing.”
“You are distracting him.”
Atyas looked between them.
“Are you going to fight?”
“No,” Seraphina said.
“Probably,” Alaria said at the same time.
Atyas grinned.
Seraphina pointed her wooden blade towards him.
“Again.”
Lieutenant Rian Mer appeared beneath the western arch before the lesson ended. He waited until Seraphina had corrected Atyas’s stance, then spoke quietly about a disagreement between the Asehrian procession route and the countersigns supplied by Feenix. Seraphina looked towards Alaria.
“You will keep him in this yard.”
“I admire how precisely you distrust me.”
Seraphina looked at Atyas instead.
“Wood only.”
Then she left with Rian. Alaria waited until the captain had disappeared beneath the western arch. Then she looked at Atyas.
“Do you want to know what steel feels like?”
He lowered the wooden sword.
“Seraphina said no.”
“I did not ask what Seraphina said.”
“Father also said no.”
“That is two people I did not ask.”
Atyas glanced towards the arch.
“Mother says you encourage my worst ideas.”
“Your mother knows I improve them first.”
Alaria led him to an unused courtyard behind the old armoury. Weathered training posts stood beneath the walls, far from the windows of the royal apartments. She removed a short sword from the back of her belt. The longer weapon at her hip remained sheathed. Faint bronze-grey lines showed where its guard met the scabbard, but Alaria chose plain steel for his first lesson. The weapon was simpler than the ceremonial blades carried at court. Its guard was narrow, its grip darkened by years of use, and scratches covered the steel. Alaria held it out with the edge turned away from him.
“Both hands.”
Atyas accepted it.
The sword was heavier than he expected. Not because it weighed much more than his wooden weapon, but because the balance pulled differently against his wrists.
“It feels alive,” he said.
“It isn’t.”
Alaria adjusted his fingers around the grip.
“Never give a weapon intentions it does not possess. Steel does not want to protect you. It does not care whether you are frightened, angry or right.”
“Then why use it?”
“Because sometimes the person trying to kill you has one.”
She placed herself behind him and corrected the angle of the blade.
“Do not swing.”
“Why give it to me if I can’t swing it?”
“Because the first lesson is learning that holding a sword does not mean you should use it.”
Atyas tried several positions while Alaria corrected his wrists, elbows and feet. When she was satisfied, she took a coil of old rope from a hook beside the wall and tied one length between two training posts.
“One cut,” she said.
“You told me not to swing.”
“Now I am telling you to swing.”
“You change the rules a lot.”
“The world changes them faster.”
Atyas raised the sword and struck.
The blade hit the rope, twisted and bounced away.
Pain travelled through both hands.
Alaria caught the weapon before he dropped it.
“You tried to force the steel through.”
“That is how cutting works.”
“That is how axes work. A sword needs direction more than strength. The current only carries a bad movement into the mistake faster.”
She stood beside him and demonstrated the movement without a weapon: one step forward, a turn of the hips and a path that carried the edge through its target rather than stopping against it.
“Again.”
Atyas copied her.
The second cut passed through the rope.
Its severed end struck the ground.
Atyas stared at it.
“Again,” he said.
“No.”
“But I did it.”
“Which is why we stop before confidence becomes stupidity.”
Alaria took the sword from him and inspected the edge.
“That is enough for today.”
“When do we do it again?”
“When I decide you have remembered why we stopped.”
Atyas looked towards the archway.
“Are we telling Seraphina?”
“No.”
“Mother?”
“No.”
“Father?”
“Especially no.”
“Why? They trust you.”
Alaria crouched until they were at eye level.
“They do. I intend to remain worthy of that trust. That is why this happens only when I am beside you.”
“So it is a secret.”
“A carefully supervised secret.”
“Is that different?”
“Very.”
She rested the sword across her knees.
“You never enter the armoury to find a blade yourself. You never touch steel without me. You do not show your friends, and you do not use it to prove anything. If your parents ask you directly, you tell them the truth.”
Atyas frowned.
“Those are a lot of rules for something we are not telling anyone.”
“Dangerous secrets need more rules, not fewer.”
“Do you promise not to tell?”
“No. If I believe you have been careless, I tell them immediately.”
He considered that.
“Then what do I promise?”
Alaria glanced at the severed rope.
“That you understand steel is not a toy.”
Atyas followed her gaze.
“I understand.”
She handed him the remaining uncut length from the coil.
“Good. Now help me replace that before Seraphina notices.”
“That sounds like hiding evidence.”
“That is because you are becoming observant.”
That autumn, his parents first required him to stand beside them during a full gathering of the royal court. He had attended celebrations before, but those had involved music, cakes and opportunities to escape beneath tables. This gathering was different. Delegations had arrived from across Asehria and from kingdoms beyond its borders. Thousands filled the palace district, while millions more gathered throughout the capital to watch the processions.
Inside the palace, the ballroom had become a forest of banners. Atyas stood upon a small platform while servants fastened his formal coat. Silver thread formed the shape of a falling star across its chest.
“I do not want to wear that,” he said.
Isolde adjusted the collar.
“The coat?”
“The comet.”
“Why?”
“People stare at me when I wear it.”
“People stare at you regardless.”
“They want me to bless their babies.”
“I remember.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Neither do the priests, but it has never stopped them.”
Atyas smiled despite himself.
He touched the silver embroidery.
“Do you think the comet chose me?”
Isolde’s hands became still.
“People have been asking that since the day you were born.”
“But what do you think?”
“I think the comet appeared, and I think you were born. I do not know whether one caused the other.”
“The priests say it did.”
“The priests disagree about nearly everything else.”
Atyas studied the silver star.
“If it chose me, do I have to become what it wants?”
Isolde knelt so they were at eye level.
“No.”
“Even if it came from the gods?”
“Especially then.”
“Why?”
“Because anyone demanding your obedience should be questioned. Gods included.”
Atyas glanced towards the open door, half expecting a priest to have heard her. Isolde smiled.
“People will spend your entire life telling you what your birth means. Listen to them if you wish. But never mistake their expectations for your identity.”
She finished fastening his coat.
“You decide who you become.”
King Eridan stood beside the throne when Atyas entered the ballroom. He offered his son a reassuring smile.
“Remember what we practised.”
“Names, titles and where they come from.”
“And?”
“Do not promise anything.”
“Particularly that.”
For the next hour, Atyas met governors, generals and foreign representatives. Some bowed to him. Others bowed to the Crown he would one day inherit.
Most called him the comet-born prince.
One ambassador asked to touch his hair. Another presented him with a ceremonial dagger inlaid with silver crystal. Seraphina took it away before he could discover whether it was sharp. Eridan quietly explained each delegation after they moved on.
“That man controls the eastern river ports.”
“He smells like fish.”
“Do not mention that.”
“Does he know?”
“Almost certainly.”
A woman wearing a crown of blue glass approached next.
“She governs twelve northern cities,” Eridan whispered. “Her support keeps the mountain roads open during winter.”
“Does she smell like fish?”
“Try to behave like the future king of Asehria.”
“I am trying.”
“That concerns me.”
The next ruler did not bow.
King Aldren of Caldris clasped Eridan’s forearm and pulled him into an embrace that nearly displaced the crown from his head. He wore mountain-green beneath a heavy grey coat, and the beard around his smile had begun to turn silver. The coat could not hide his thick neck and heavy shoulders; when he stepped back, Atyas had to move aside to see his father again.
“Ten years,” Aldren said. “You finally permit the child whose shield has been occupying space in your armoury to stand still long enough to speak with me.”
“It is in his rooms,” Eridan replied.
Atyas looked up at him. “I thought it was mine.”
“It is.”
“Then why did he say your armoury?”
“Because Aldren enjoys being inaccurate when it annoys me.”
“It has preserved our friendship,” Aldren said.
Prince Caelen stood beside his father. At twelve, he was only two years older than Atyas, but he already held himself with the stillness of someone accustomed to being inspected. Caelen stood half a head taller, with straight sandy-blond hair trimmed above his collar. His father’s square jaw was already visible in a face that had not yet lost its childhood fullness. A dark green coat bore the twin-bridge seal of Caldris. He looked at Atyas’s embroidered comet before he looked at Atyas. Aldren rested a hand upon his son’s shoulder.
“Caelen has spent the journey explaining why the Marren treaty favours Asehria.”
“It does,” Caelen said.
“Your merchants said the opposite for six years,” Eridan replied.
“Then they should have negotiated it better.”
Aldren laughed.
“You see what I endure.”
Eridan looked towards Atyas. “Pay attention. One day the two of you will inherit every argument we fail to finish.”
Caelen’s expression remained serious.
“Friendship does not make a fair treaty,” he said.
“No,” Eridan agreed. “It keeps people in the room long enough to write one.”
A herald called Aldren’s name from the centre of the ballroom. Before following, the king inclined his head towards Atyas.
“Your father once kept my northern road open when closing it would have been easier. If you ever need the bridge upon that shield, remember that roads remain open because people work to keep them so.”
He and Eridan moved away together, already disagreeing about tariffs. Caelen remained for a moment.
“Is it true they wrote songs about you before you could speak?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you like them?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to surprise him.
“Neither would I,” Caelen said.
Then he followed his father. The next visitor bowed lower than any king had. Governor Halren Dey carried no gift. He was a stout man with carefully parted brown hair, and a deep crease remained between his brows even while he smiled. He presented Eridan with a bundle of petitions tied in the silver of Asehria’s western province.
“Flood damage, disputed grazing land and three district councils that have mistaken the festival for an excuse to stop governing,” Halren said. “None have improved while we have been celebrating.”
Eridan accepted the petitions.
“You might have allowed us one morning of celebration.”
“The rivers did not.”
Halren bowed to Atyas.
“Your Highness.”
After the governor moved on, Atyas looked at the petitions in his father’s hand.
“Do you like him?”
“That is not always a useful question.”
“Do you trust him?”
Eridan watched Halren disappear beneath the banners of the western houses.
“I trust him to remember the people who live beyond this ballroom,” he said. “I trust him less to remember where his authority ends.”
“Why is he a governor, then?”
“Because both things are true.”
A messenger arrived before the next delegation and whispered into Eridan’s ear. His expression changed.
“Remain here,” he told Atyas. “Your mother is speaking with the temple representatives. I will return shortly.”
“Where are you going?”
“To prevent three governors from beginning a trade war during lunch.”
“Can I watch?”
“No.”
Eridan followed the messenger from the ballroom. Atyas remained near the throne, surrounded by adults who had suddenly become very interested in speaking to him. Seraphina had told him to watch what people did when they believed no one important was looking. A lord who had praised Eridan moments earlier leaned towards another guest and laughed at something written in a folded message. A woman wearing emeralds slipped a palace servant a small purse before entering a restricted corridor. Two ambassadors smiled while shaking hands, then wiped their palms against their coats after turning away.
Adults were strange.
“Prince Atyas.”
Lord Arcanis stood beside him. The Valanorian royal ambassador stood a few paces behind him, comparing trade maps with one of Isolde’s advisers. Arcanis wore the same black and crimson as the rest of the delegation, with the small tower of his house fastened above his heart. Age had touched his hair with grey since the night of Atyas’s birth, but his eyes remained bright.
“Lord Arcanis,” Atyas said.
“You remember me.”
“You sent me the model with the moving moons.”
Arcanis smiled.
“Then the mechanism survived your childhood. I owe the craftsman an apology. I expected you to dismantle it.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I put most of it back.”
Arcanis laughed.
“Most is an excellent beginning.”
He examined the silver comet embroidered across Atyas’s coat.
“Do you know why people call you the comet-born prince?”
“Because the comet became brighter when I was born.”
“It appeared before you were born.”
“I know.”
“The astrologers at Valanor’s observatory still argue about why its light changed.”
Atyas frowned. “Do any of them know?”
“They have produced seventeen answers. This usually means they possess none.”
Arcanis looked towards the painted ceiling. It showed the gods of Asehria arranging the sun, moons and stars around the world.
“What do you imagine lies beyond the sky?” he asked.
“More sky.”
“And beyond that?”
Atyas considered it.
“Other worlds.”
“Why do you believe that?” Arcanis asked.
“It would be strange if ours was the only one.”
“Did your tutors teach you this?”
“No.”
“The priests?”
“They say the stars are where the gods live.”
“And you disagree?”
“I think the gods would get bored if they were the only ones up there.”
“What if there were people on those other worlds?”
“Then I hope they’re nicer than the people here.”
Arcanis laughed.
“You may find, young prince, that distance changes very little about people.”
The ambassador called Arcanis’s name from beside the maps.
“Duty,” Arcanis said. “The enemy of every interesting conversation.”
Atyas caught sight of Alaria making her way between the guests. He forgot to excuse himself and ran the few steps to her, throwing his arms around her waist. She shifted one foot to take his weight and folded an arm across his back.
“You could try walking,” she said.
“I wanted to see you.”
“I noticed.”
Her hand rested between his shoulder blades for a moment before he let go. When he looked up, one corner of her mouth had lifted. She straightened his crooked collar and walked back with him to Arcanis.
“Lord Arcanis.”
“Lady Alaria.”
“I am not a lady.”
“My apologies.”
“You never sound sorry.”
“An unfortunate weakness.”
Alaria rested her hand upon Atyas’s shoulder.
“The Queen is looking for her son,” Alaria said.
“Then I should not keep him.”
Arcanis bowed to Atyas.
“If you ever visit Valanor, the royal observatory will let you argue with all seventeen answers.”
“Can I take the model apart there?”
“Only if you promise to return most of it.”
Arcanis returned to the royal ambassador and bent over the maps. Atyas watched him leave.
“He thinks there are other worlds.”
“Valanorian scholars think there is always another thing to discover and name,” Alaria replied.
They escaped onto the western balcony.
The ballroom doors closed behind them, muting the voices inside. Evening had settled over the capital. Countless lights marked its roads, towers and layered districts until the city appeared to contain more stars than the sky.
“Arcanis asked what was beyond the sky.”
“What did you tell him?” Alaria asked.
“That there might be other worlds.”
“There might be.”
“Do you think people live on them?”
Alaria rested both hands on the balcony wall and considered the sky.
“I have enough trouble with the people on this one.”
Atyas laughed. Through the glass doors, the ballroom continued to rearrange itself around the rulers. Compliments passed from one group to another. Servants carried gifts. Agreements began in corners and changed before they reached the centre of the room.
“The two ambassadors shook hands and wiped them on their coats,” Atyas said.
“Which ambassadors?”
He pointed them out.
“They have been arguing over a river for eleven years,” Alaria said. “Today they need to look cooperative because neither can afford to anger your father.”
“So the handshake was a lie.”
“Not entirely. They did agree to shake hands.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It tells you they can bear to be in the same room. Today that may be enough.”
Atyas watched one ambassador accept a drink from the other.
“How do you decide whom to trust?”
“You watch them for longer than a handshake.”
“Is that how Father decided about you?”
“I dragged your father out of a battlefield while he complained the entire way.”
“I was giving instructions,” Eridan said from the doorway.
Neither of them had heard him approach.
“You were bleeding on my armour,” Alaria replied.
“It was an urgent situation.”
Atyas ran to him.
“Did you stop the trade war?”
“I delayed it until after dessert.”
Eridan placed a hand on his son’s back.
“Did you learn anything?” Eridan asked.
“Governor Halren thinks you forget the west. Caelen thinks your treaty helps us more than Caldris. Two ambassadors hate each other but need you to think they do not. Lord Arcanis says there might be people on other worlds.”
Eridan looked at Alaria.
“I left him alone for less than an hour.”
“He was productive.”
Atyas looked through the glass doors. Arcanis stood beside Valanor’s royal ambassador beneath the painted stars. He said something that made three representatives from rival kingdoms laugh together.
“Is diplomacy another kind of sword?” Atyas asked.
Eridan followed his gaze.
“Sometimes.”
“What is it the rest of the time?”
“The reason the swords stay where they are.”
The invitation reached Asehria the following spring beneath the seal of King Renvar of Valanor. Alaria was in Feenix; her next rotation in Asehria had not yet begun. Lord Arcanis had added one line in his own hand.
The observatory has secured every piece of the model in preparation for the prince.
“He remembers,” Atyas said.
“Diplomats are paid to remember,” Eridan replied.
Isolde read the formal invitation over his shoulder.
“King Renvar is renewing the western grain agreement.”
“I know.”
“Which means your father and I will spend three days discussing tariffs, river depths and whose soldiers are permitted to inspect a warehouse.”
“I can go to the observatory while you do that.”
“That,” Eridan said, “is why Arcanis wrote to you instead of us.”
“Does that mean I can’t go?” Atyas asked.
Eridan looked again at the added line.
“It means Arcanis knows what will make you want to.”
“He paid attention,” Isolde said. “That is not a crime.”
“It is also not an accident.”
“Nothing written by a diplomat is an accident.”
Atyas looked between them.
“Are you arguing about the observatory or the grain?”
“Both,” they answered.
Isolde smiled first.
Eridan did not.
“I dislike a foreign adviser learning which questions can lead my son into another room,” he said.
“If we answer by never allowing him into another room, we teach him that curiosity is a weakness everyone else controls.”
“I’m still here,” Atyas said.
Eridan folded the invitation.
“You may visit the observatory. Seraphina remains with you, the public galleries remain open and Lord Arcanis does not decide when you leave.”
“You make it sound dangerous.”
“Your father makes breakfast sound dangerous when another kingdom provides it,” Isolde said.
“Foreign kitchens possess knives.”
“So does ours.”
“Ours are loyal.”
Atyas looked at his mother.
“Does he always do this before travelling?”
“Only when he cares where we return.”
Eridan’s expression changed.
He reached for Isolde’s hand, and she gave it to him without looking away from the invitation.
“Can Alaria come with us?” Atyas asked.
“She is in Feenix,” Isolde said.
“Could we go there first?”
Isolde turned towards him.
“You were asking about Valanor a moment ago.”
“I want to see Feenix too.” He pressed a thumb into the fold of his sleeve. “And Alaria.”
During her spring visits, he grew used to finding her in the practice yard or at supper. Then she would leave, and for days he still looked towards the door whenever someone entered. He had tried asking Seraphina when the Feenix officers would arrive. She had given him a date for the engineers.
“Is that why you keep asking about the spring rotation?” Isolde said.
“She said she would teach me to ride standing up.”
Eridan looked at Isolde.
“I shall include that in my letter,” she said.
“To Alaria?”
“To Solara. Visiting Feenix would be another journey. But I can ask whether Solara can spare Alaria to join us in Valanor.”
“She could come to the observatory.”
“If she wishes to.”
“She will.”
Isolde waited.
“Will you ask her?” he said.
“Yes.”
Atyas released his sleeve. Isolde drew a clean sheet towards her before he could ask when.
They accepted Renvar’s invitation. Isolde’s letter to Solara travelled with the next Feenix dispatch.
In Feenix, Solara read the letter twice before Alaria arrived with the spring inspection returns. Alaria put the bundle beside her elbow and remained standing while the Queen opened it. Through the courtyard window came the scrape of a wagon being turned where its driver had been told it would not fit.
“Your engineers wish to inspect another grain road,” Alaria said.
“Their engineers. Ours have replied.”
“They will wish to inspect the reply.”
Solara put the returns aside and offered her Isolde’s letter.
“You have been invited to Valanor.”
Alaria read the first lines.
“Isolde has Eridan and the Lunar Watch. What does she need me for?”
“Atyas asked whether you could come.”
Her eyes stopped moving down the page.
“To the grain negotiations?”
“To the observatory. He also asked whether they could visit you here first.”
Alaria read the rest. Solara watched her turn the page over, although nothing had been written on the back.
“He has spent too long with people who answer every question,” Alaria said.
“He appears to miss one who does not.”
Alaria lowered the letter.
“You find this entertaining.”
“A little. I remember your objections when Isolde first asked you to spend an afternoon with him.”
“He was six.”
“He has been working on that.”
“The inspection returns are complete,” Solara said. “I can deal with their questions. Seraphina remains responsible for the prince’s protection. This invitation is for your company.”
Alaria folded Isolde’s letter along its existing crease.
“You are not ordering me to go?”
“No.”
She looked towards the open door, then back at the page.
“Tell Isolde I will come to Asehria before they leave. We can travel together.”
Solara reached for a pen.
“There is one condition.”
“There usually is.”
“Isolde would prefer her son to remain seated upon his horse.”
Alaria’s mouth tightened, though not quite quickly enough to hide the smile.
“He was meant to ask before discussing that lesson.”
“He did ask. Unfortunately, he asked his mother.”
Solara began the reply. Alaria moved the inspection returns out of reach of the wet ink, then took a spare sheet from the desk.
“Leave room in the dispatch,” she said. “I will write to him myself.”
She sat at the far end of the table and wrote Atyas’s name. Solara returned to Isolde’s letter without trying to read over her shoulder.
Alaria reached Asehria two evenings before their departure. Atyas found her in the stable courtyard, still loosening her horse’s girth, and stayed beside her while she handed the animal over to a groom.
“I brought your letter,” he said, pulling it from his pocket.
“You were meant to read it.”
“I did.”
She glanced at its worn fold and rested a hand on his shoulder as they went inside.
On the third morning of the journey, Atyas lingered beside Alaria’s horse while the carriage was made ready. Isolde had already climbed in when he came to the open door.
“May I ride with Alaria instead?”
His mother looked past him. Alaria stood with one hand on the saddle, waiting for the answer.
“If she has room for you.”
“I have room,” Alaria said.
“Stay beside the carriage,” Seraphina told her.
Alaria nodded. Atyas was back at her side before the footman could fold the carriage step. She helped him up, mounted behind him and settled the reins where he could see them. He leaned back against her while she found her stirrups.
“Comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“One of us, then.”
But when the carriage began to move, she drew him a little closer and brought the horse alongside Isolde’s window.
For a while, Atyas listened to the hoofbeats beneath him and the slower creak of the carriage wheels. Inside, Eridan had spread a document across his knees. Isolde held one corner down whenever the road threatened to shake it loose.
“May I hold the reins?” Atyas asked.
Alaria brought her hands forward and let him take the leather between them. She kept her own fingers beneath his.
“Looser. She can feel you.”
He eased his grip. The horse’s ears flicked back towards their voices, then forward again.
“Does she know where we are going?”
“She knows we are following the carriage.”
“What if we weren’t?”
“She would have a serious interest in that grass.”
Atyas glanced towards the verge. Alaria felt him laugh against her before he turned his head towards the carriage.
“Father, did your first horse do what you told it?”
Eridan looked up from the document.
“Eventually.”
Isolde released her corner of the page.
“Tell him about the puddle.”
“It was a very large puddle.”
“I have heard this story before,” she told Atyas. “It grows larger each time.”
Eridan folded the document, accepting the interruption.
“My pony would not cross it. I tried asking. Then I tried shouting, which was less successful. At last I dismounted to show him there was nothing to be afraid of.”
“Did he follow you?”
“He walked around the edge while I stood in the middle.”
Atyas laughed loudly enough that the horse lifted her head. His hands rose with the reins, and Alaria gently lowered them again.
“So you got wet for nothing?”
“I learned that he was cleverer than I was.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Unfortunately, there were witnesses.”
Seraphina brought her horse level with Alaria’s, leaving room between them and the carriage wheel.
“Keep looking ahead, Atyas. You can listen to your father without turning the horse towards him.”
He faced forward. Once his hands had settled, she rode ahead again to speak to the leading pair of guards. Behind him, Alaria shifted her hold on the reins and let him feel the small adjustment that brought their horse back alongside the window.
The road grew rougher for a stretch. Conversation gave way to the rattle of the wheels, and Atyas settled against her while she took the reins. When the carriage stopped jolting, he looked down at her hands.
“Do you ride every day in Feenix?”
“Most days.”
“Even when you aren’t going anywhere?”
“Sometimes I take a horse out because I have been indoors too long.”
“What do you do indoors?”
“Read reports. Write reports. Explain why the report I sent last week already answers the question in the one I have just received.”
“Is that what you and Solara talk about?”
“Some of it. We do occasionally manage supper without bringing the papers.”
Isolde glanced at the folded document in Eridan’s hands. He tucked it into the case beside his feet.
“I had finished that page,” he said.
She reached across and brushed a fleck of dried mud from his sleeve.
“Then you can tell me about the next one after we arrive.”
Atyas watched his father take her hand before turning back to Alaria.
“Will you go straight home afterwards?”
“After Valanor? No. I shall come back to Asehria with you. There is still work waiting for me there.”
“But when that is finished.”
“Then I go home.”
He rubbed a rough place along the edge of the saddle. He had known the answer; he had watched her pack often enough.
“You could write to me when you get there.”
“I could.”
“A proper letter. Not a report.”
Alaria bent her head a little to hear him over the wheels.
“What would you like to know?”
He considered that. Until now, Feenix had mostly been the place she went when she left him.
“What you did that day. Whether you went riding.” He paused. “Anything you would tell me if I were there.”
Her hand settled over his where it rested on the saddle.
“Then you will have to tell me what you have been doing too.”
“Even the lessons?”
“Especially the ones you think I would not hear about otherwise.”
He leaned back to see whether she was smiling. She was, a little.
“I can write tonight.”
“You can tell me tonight. I shall be there.”
That satisfied him. He began telling her about a target he had finally struck in the practice yard, using one hand to show how far away it had been. Isolde corrected the distance through the window. He objected, Eridan asked to see the shot when they got home, and Alaria listened while Atyas explained it all again.
Valanor announced itself with light long before its walls became visible. Thousands of copper roofs covered the hills surrounding its capital. Mirrors mounted upon towers carried daylight into narrow streets and lower courtyards. Black and crimson banners moved above pale stone bridges, while the river divided into canals crowded with freight boats, passenger barges and floating markets. The city was darker in colour than Asehria. Glassmakers displayed coloured lenses in open windows. Brass star clocks turned above public squares. Charts of the moons, seasons and constellations hung beside bread prices and shipping notices. Every district appeared to possess a tower built for measuring something.
Above all of them stood the royal observatory. Its white dome occupied the highest western hill. Copper instruments surrounded it like the open framework of a second city, and a long mirrored gallery caught the afternoon sun strongly enough that Atyas had to shield his eyes.
“That is larger than the palace,” he said.
He twisted in the saddle to look up at Alaria. She steadied him with a hand at his waist. On the other side of the carriage, Seraphina glanced towards the dome, one hand resting near her sword.
“Most buildings are larger when you include the hill beneath them.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Then say what you mean.”
Isolde leaned towards the open carriage window, following her son’s gaze.
“She has been waiting three days to say that.”
“Longer,” Seraphina replied.
The road widened as they approached the central district. Crowds filled the terraces overlooking the procession, but they did not cheer as loudly as the people of Asehria would have done for a visiting royal family. Many watched in silence. Others continued working while the banners passed. Atyas liked that. It felt less like being placed inside one of the songs written about him. King Renvar received them in the Hall of Laws. He wore a plain gold circlet and a dark coat with ink along one thumb. His face was narrow, his beard almost entirely grey and his expression more curious than ceremonial. He had left the throne behind him and come down to meet them.
“King Eridan. Queen Isolde.” Renvar greeted each of them with the formal respect owed between sovereigns, then looked at Atyas. “And the prince who has threatened my observatory.”
“I only took apart the model.”
“Lord Arcanis assures me that an observatory is merely a larger model with more expensive pieces.”
Arcanis stood at the King’s right hand.
“I said no such thing, Your Majesty.”
“Then it was my idea. That is even more concerning.”
Renvar offered Atyas his ink-stained hand.
“Which did you come to see first—the kingdom or the observatory?”
Eridan drew breath behind him.
“The observatory,” Atyas said.
Renvar laughed.
“An honest heir. Guard that while you can.”
“He was supposed to say the kingdom,” Eridan said.
“Then you should not have brought him to a city that keeps its most interesting building above the palace.”
At the guest quarters, Atyas caught Alaria’s hand before she could follow the others up the courtyard stair. The observatory was still visible between the roofs.
“Will you look through the lenses too?”
“If you leave one free.”
He grinned and went inside with her.
The grain negotiations began before supper. Atyas attended the opening hour because Isolde insisted that future rulers should understand where food came from before they learned how to command the people who needed it. Valanor wanted inspection rights at three western crossings. Asehria wanted fixed prices through the next poor harvest. Renvar rejected one clause because it allowed his own governors to raise fees without publishing them. Arcanis identified a second clause that would have permitted Asehrian officers to delay Valanorian freight while calling the delay a security inspection.
Eridan crossed out the clause. Renvar called his clerk over to amend the second copy. When the scribes began arguing over the definition of a navigable river, Isolde released Atyas. Arcanis led him through the city towards the western hill. Seraphina followed with six members of the Lunar Watch and enough suspicion for all of them. Alaria walked beside Atyas. Whenever he stopped to examine a lens in a shop window, she waited until he was ready to catch up.
Inside the observatory, Arcanis stopped looking like a diplomat. He removed his formal coat, rolled his sleeves above his wrists and greeted assistants by name as they passed. Ink marked two of his fingers. A pale burn crossed the back of one hand where, he explained, he had once adjusted a solar lens before it had finished cooling. The central chamber rose through the complete height of the dome. Rings of brass turned around a suspended model of the known heavens. Moving platforms carried observers between instruments larger than Atyas’s bedroom. Shelves held generations of star charts, each corrected by hands that had never met the people who would use them next.
Atyas forgot to behave like a prince. He moved from one instrument to another, asking questions faster than Arcanis could answer them. How far away was the nearest moon? Why did some stars change colour near the horizon? Could the lenses see another world? Why did the constellations move without changing their shapes?
Arcanis answered when an answer existed. When it did not, he said so. Beside the stair, Atyas found a broken iron collar mounted against the wall. Its torn edge had been polished smooth by hands.
“Did that come from a lens?”
“A street mirror. The collar held its counterweight.” Arcanis laid his unburned hand over the break. “I approved the loading. Three fitters went up to turn it.”
“Did it fall?”
“Yes.”
Alaria stopped beside them. Arcanis took his hand away.
“Couldn’t you mend it?” Atyas asked.
“We replaced the frame. We had already buried the men.”
He led them towards the upper instrument. Atyas looked back at the collar before following.
At the highest platform, the roof opened along two silent tracks. Daylight entered the chamber, followed by a wide piece of blue sky. An astrologer adjusted a long instrument mounted upon a turning frame. Arcanis checked the angle, then invited Atyas to look through its narrow eyepiece.
At first, he saw only brightness.
Then the nearest moon entered view.
It was no longer a smooth silver circle. Shadows filled enormous valleys. Pale ridges crossed its surface, and one dark basin appeared large enough to contain Asehria. Atyas pulled away.
“It has mountains.”
Atyas turned and caught Alaria’s sleeve.
“Look.”
She bent to the eyepiece while he stood close enough to make Arcanis move his elbow away from one of the adjustment wheels. For a while she said nothing.
“Can you see the dark part?” Atyas asked.
“Yes.”
“That is a valley.”
Alaria looked again before straightening. Atyas watched her face, hoping she could see as much as he had. He waited while she made room for him at the instrument.
“It is larger than I expected,” she said.
He returned to the eyepiece, pleased that she had seen it too.
“Do the other lights have mountains?” he asked.
“Several of the wandering lights do,” Arcanis said.
“Then they could be worlds.”
“Some probably are.”
“With people?”
“The instrument cannot answer that.”
Atyas looked again.
“But you think there are.”
Arcanis adjusted one of the brass wheels.
“I think a universe large enough to produce us should not be accused of having done so only once.”
It sounded less like a prophecy than an invitation. Along the next wall, a silver line crossed a chart covered in dates and witness marks.
Atyas recognised its shape.
“The comet.”
“Every reliable observation we possess,” Arcanis said. “Asehria, Valanor, Caldris and nine smaller territories sent records after your birth.”
The line ended in an empty section of the chart.
“Where did it go?”
“Beyond the range of every instrument pointed towards it.”
“When will it return?”
“We do not know.”
“Why did it become brighter when I was born?”
Arcanis studied the unfinished line rather than Atyas.
“One event can begin a pattern. It cannot prove one.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No. It is the reason an astrologer should wait before inventing one.”
King Renvar joined them near sunset with Eridan and Isolde behind him.
“Has the observatory survived?” he asked.
“Most of it,” Atyas said.
Renvar looked towards Arcanis.
“And the prince?”
“Also most of him.”
Renvar led them onto the outer gallery. From there, Valanor spread beneath them in terraces of pale stone and copper. The palace occupied the central hill, but the observatory looked down upon it.
Below, attendants opened the lower gates. Students, merchants, sailors and families began entering the public galleries for the weekly night viewing.
“You let everyone come here?” Atyas asked.
“Not everywhere,” Renvar said. “Some instruments are too fragile, and some visitors believe a sign instructing them not to touch anything is a personal challenge.”
“Why let them come at all?”
The King rested his hands upon the stone rail.
“Because a kingdom should not place the whole sky in one man’s keeping.”
Arcanis inclined his head. Below them, an assistant began covering the largest instrument before the visitors reached its platform.
“I asked for this gallery to remain closed tonight,” Arcanis said.
Renvar looked towards the instrument. “The public viewing was announced a month ago.”
“The observation cannot be repeated next week.”
“Then take the upper platform. Have the assistants keep that stair clear.”
Arcanis’s hand closed upon the rail.
“The smaller lens will not give the same result.”
Renvar had already turned to greet a family coming through the gallery door. Arcanis waited for him to turn back. When he did not, Arcanis went down to uncover the instrument himself. The first lamps appeared as evening settled across the capital. They ignited district by district. Copper mirrors caught each new flame and carried it into streets the sunset had already left. From the observatory, the city seemed to answer the stars before the stars were fully visible. Atyas remained at the rail until Isolde called him inside.
End of chapter