Adrin

Adrin hovered, looking at the spread on the table. It was all simple food—fruits, drinks, probably yesterday’s bread—things that didn’t need cooking to prepare. Adrin was hungry, but didn’t have much of an appetite, and besides, this food didn’t feel like it was his to take. He didn’t even sit down. One of those six chairs belonged to King Gerimon, and he didn’t want to take it by accident. That would be too much like usurping the king’s place.

He fixed the rest of the lamps instead, along with a warming tray and preserver box that had been left on the sideboard, not realizing that he had an audience.

“Not bad,” said Queen Zafrys. How long had she been standing in the doorway, watching him?

Adrin shrugged. “It helps to be doing something.”

“That’s always true, isn’t it?” Zafrys replied. Adrin remembered reading that she’d turned eighty a few years ago, but she moved with the light, brisk steps of a woman half her age. “Well, I’ll thank you for it, even if my granddaughter won’t.”

“I think she hates me,” Adrin said.

Zafrys sniffed. “It helps her to hate you. Don’t take it personally. She’ll wear her anger like armor, rather than show a hint of pain or fear. Come now, sit and have some breakfast with me. You seem a little better than you were last night.”

Adrin hesitated. “Where should I sit? I . . . don’t want to take his chair.”

“Go ahead and sit in Irezan’s.” Zafrys indicated a chair before sitting down in the one next to it. “She’s finally asleep, my poor girl.”

“Is she all right?” Adrin asked, taking the seat she offered.

“She’ll get through. She always does.”

“And the king?”

“He’s still breathing.”

Adrin looked down at his empty plate and said nothing.

The former queen put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s still alive, and there’s hope in that. Besides, he knew better than you did about the dangers going in. I know that when she calls you, you can’t say no, and I know what she asked of you.”

“And you know that I failed,” Adrin said. He remembered seeing the younger Zafrys among the shades of his predecessors, a witness to his inadequacy. “I should go back. If I can take his place, like—” he tried to say like she wanted, but choked on the words and coughed instead.

“There now,” Zafrys said, pouring him a cup of water. Adrin gulped it down.

“Why can’t I say it?” he asked.

“She likes to keep her secrets. Won’t let us speak of things she doesn’t want widely known. Funny thing, though.” A sly smile crept onto her lips. “Now that the Blight’s got its claws in me, she can’t always keep me from saying what needs to be said. Can’t get away with it all the time, but I suppose it’s one bright side to getting old.”

The king had seemed to struggle for words during his interview with Adrin the day before. He wondered what Gerimon would have said if the Ocean had allowed it.

“Is that really for the best?” Adrin asked.

“Eat,” Zafrys said.

Adrin took a slice of pear from the platter and barely chewed it before speaking again. “Really though, what are we supposed to do if we’re not allowed to talk about—things? The things we saw were terrible, but they were real and important, especially now, with the constructs. But we can’t even talk about it?”

“We can talk about the constructs all we want, and how to seal them up again,” Zafrys said. “But she’s trying to stop anybody from making new constructs, or any of the other nasty things Vas and Bhadrat cooked up to destroy each other. And you and I can at least speak freely in the unconscious sea.”

“The unconscious sea?” Adrin repeated.

“In our dreams. It’s part of the package she gives us. We can keep our minds lucid while we dream, connect with others, do . . . other things.” Zafrys cleared her throat and sipped her water. “Almost got it by her that time. Anyway, I’ll be able to tell you much more about that when we’re asleep. You need to eat more than a sliver of fruit, Adrin.”

Adrin obeyed and took a bite of dry flatbread, then washed it down with more water. “So if I dream something now, it’s not just a dream, then?” he said, thinking of a girl in a sunlit courtyard.

“Yes, but it can take some time to get the hang of it, so don’t worry if we’re not able to connect for a few days. I’ll find you and we can have a real conversation.”

Adrin chewed on stale bread, trying to remember more about his dream of last night and the strange girl in it. “Where is she?” Kaethar had demanded of Brizin. He’d been looking for his daughter, looking for her in the unconscious sea. What color had that girl’s eyes been?

“Do you know who that man was?” He asked hesitantly, expecting the words to catch in his throat.

Zafrys opened her mouth, then held up a finger. “We’ll have to talk about that in our dreams too, I’m afraid.”

Adrin decided to try a different angle. “Are we the only people who can go there? To the unconscious sea?”

“The unconscious sea touches everyone. We make it, all of us, our unconscious minds. But only those chosen by the Ocean can walk it freely. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Zafrys drummed her fingers on the table, looking out the northward window. Adrin made himself eat another slice of pear. It did help to have something in his stomach, even if it didn’t fix all the holes that remained in him. So the ability to speak freely was one of the things Brizin had taken from him. However righteous her reasons for that might be, it still didn’t sit well.

A man strode in through the door, his cloak and boots splattered with mud and his shoulder-length hair a damp, wind-swept mess. Despite the frightful state he was in, Zafrys rushed to embrace him.

“Vaclan! I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

“We didn’t know what we’d find when we got back here, so we marched all night,” the prince replied. “Is it true, then? Gerimon?”

“What have you heard?” Zafrys asked.

“First that he was dead,” Vaclan said. “But then that he might not be.”

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“Gerimon is still alive,” Zafrys said. “Not conscious, but alive. Stable. Vaclan, this is the new Prince Ethereal, Adrin Remyer.”

Vaclan turned to Adrin with a piercing look. People often referred to him as the “other king,” and seeing him up close, Adrin could understand why. Even in his unkempt state, he had a certain nobility of bearing that Gerimon had lacked in his finest attire. The prince was about fifty, his chiseled features beginning to show the wear of his years, and a few strands of gray were mixed in with his wild black hair.

“The Ocean chose him, Vaclan,” Zafrys added, after a few moments of uneasy silence. “We can trust him. I’m sure of this.”

“The Ocean killed Raen,” Vaclan said.

“It’s not that simple . . .”

“I know it’s not simple. There’s this boy, and whatever’s happened to Gerimon, not to mention the disturbance in the ambient field that knocked out every single magical appliance at least as far as Suthmin, and who knows what’s happened to the seals. But you can’t tell me what is going on, can you?” Vaclan said. Even though he was speaking to Zafrys, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Adrin. That unyielding stare, combined with the wild state of his appearance after a night of travel, made Adrin want to shrink into his seat.

“I sent Sangar and Reidas last night to check the seal in Efrinas,” Zafrys said. “I’m sorry I don’t have more to tell right now. I’m afraid we’re all still in the dark.”

“We spend too much time in the dark,” Vaclan said. “We’ve been groping for answers ever since Raen—no, since the first seal broke. And you and Gerimon and your secrets have been of damn little use.”

“Vaclan,” Zafrys said, her voice quiet but as hard as steel. “I think you need to get some rest.”

There were many who thought Vaclan should have been declared the heir, passing over his sister due to her infirmity. That debate had been put to rest before Adrin was born, when the Ocean chose Gerimon, and the birth of Princess Jocyanë a few years later had ensured the succession would continue.

No one knew for sure how Vaclan felt about the arrangement, though. Adrin had heard there was no love lost between Vaclan and his brother-in-law, though there never seemed to be outright hostility between them, either. The two just moved in separate spheres as much as possible. But now, with the king’s condition uncertain, would people start wondering if they should have promoted Vaclan instead?

No. No matter what happened to Gerimon, there was still Jocyanë. No one could doubt her legitimacy.

Adrin’s, on the other hand, seemed very much up for debate.

“I saw the dispatch, before you went in.” The prince was addressing him, now. “You’re a student at the University? What year, and what are you studying? What’s your rank?”

“Third year, Ceram engineering. Eighth in my class, first in my department.”

“Ceram engineering?” Vaclan repeated, and Adrin thought he sensed derision in the prince’s tone. So he was the sort of person who saw innate vitricity as superior to anything that could be engineered from ceram and powered by ambient currents. Adrin had come across that attitude from plenty of people, especially those who happened to be more gifted with vitricity themselves.

“He’s the one who fixed the lamps,” Zafrys said.

“We have maintenance crews who can fix the damn lamps,” Vaclan said. “Is he going to restore the communication lines? Or the linecar? Lead the Ethereal Guard against the constructs that are no doubt breaking out of their seals as we speak?”

“You remember when Gerimon came up, don't you?” Zafrys said. “The Ocean takes a lot out of its chosen. He needs time to recover.”

“And no warning from Alzyn or Esar, I assume? Of course not. Neither Tresuan is anywhere near Thaliron. You shouldn’t have let Esar leave after the funeral.”

“Yes, and why not lock him up while we’re at it? Now’s the perfect time to break our pact with the Tresuan,” Zafrys retorted.

Vaclan crossed his arms and turned his glare on his mother. “Everything else is breaking down. Azil only knows where Alzyn’s gone off to, while Esar can't be bothered to get off his ass in Norana—”

“Do you really think he’d be of much use anyway?” Zafrys asked.

“Maybe it’s for the best that Alzyn’s not here, making sly comments and manipulating us all till we’re right where she wants us. But Esar seems to have recovered a great deal. If we could prevail upon him to use the symbic device again—”

“Vaclan!” Zafrys interrupted, shock written on her face.

“Not long-term, just for a few nights, which I think is entirely reasonable given the circumstances. But it doesn’t matter since he’s all the way in bloody Norana anyway. Where are Rezy and Joce?”

“Don’t you dare wake your sister,” Zafrys said. “She just finally got to sleep half an hour ago. It’s been a terrible night for her.”

Vaclan shook his head, and for the first time, his voice softened. “Poor thing. She didn’t deserve this.”

“None of us did,” Zafrys said.

“And Jocyanë?” Vaclan asked.

“She’s. Around,” Zafrys said, clipping the words. “Go get some rest, Vaclan. You look like a wreck. We sent out messengers last night, we’ll convene and take stock of the situation once we get their reports in a few hours.”

“I can tell you about Suthmin,” Vaclan said. “People are panicking. I left—”

Zafrys cut him off. “Save it for later.”

“Are you trying to send me off to bed, Mother?” Vaclan asked.

“I am merely suggesting that a rest would do you good,” Zafrys said. “You’re free to take my advice or leave it, Vaclan, but we're not discussing this any further right now.”

Vaclan swept out without another word, and Zafrys sighed heavily.

“If you’re up to it, there’s one more thing we ought to take care of this morning,” she said. “Follow me.”

Zafrys led him to a small room where Gerimon lay on a bed, tucked into the blankets as if he were only sleeping. On one side of the bed was a healer whose belt marked him as devoted, and on his other side was Princess Jocyanë. She leaned in to kiss her father’s cheek and swiftly left the room without a word.

“Any change?” Zafrys asked the healer.

He shook his head. “His body seems well—I don’t even have to sustain him. But there’s no response to anything.”

Adrin stepped closer and swallowed a rush of guilt before it could overtake him. The king’s chest rose and fell with a regular rhythm. The tether connecting him to the Ocean pulsed in time with his breathing, a little brighter, a little dimmer, a lifeline carrying the power to sustain his body.

Zafrys, meanwhile, had produced the sword that Gerimon had been wearing when they’d gone down to the Ocean the day before. She presented it to Adrin.

“I can’t take this,” he said.

“Gerimon’s not going to be able to wield it, and I’m not in proper shape to bear it, either. If any constructs have broken free, you’re going to need it.”

Adrin breathed in deep before reaching out to take the sword. The narrow blade was enclosed in a sheath of deep Talmuir blue, wrapped with blue and silver cord. The black opal inlay on the hilt echoed the strange, shifting colors on the black stone of the blade itself. The weight of it felt familiar in his hand, but the familiarity didn’t come from Adrin’s own experience.

“This was Isuld’s sword, wasn’t it?” he asked Zafrys.

“You’re giving it to him?”

Adrin jumped. Jocyanë stormed back into the room—apparently she hadn’t gone far—her cheeks and the rims of her eyes as red as her hair. She passed him by to advance on her grandmother.

“What are you thinking? You can’t just hand my father’s sword to this stranger! We can’t trust—”

“Jocyanë, please, there’s no need to shout—”

“What’s the matter, do you think I’m going to wake him up?” Jocyanë indicated her father with an outstretched arm. “I would love to wake him up! Let’s all shout, maybe if we’re loud enough we can bring him back from wherever he’s gone. Can you tell me that, Prince Ethereal? Can you tell me if he’s ever coming back?”

The princess rounded on Adrin, seething, glaring up into his eyes. Adrin averted his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I don’t know whether to pity you or be terrified of what you’ll do to us all.” She wasn’t shouting any longer, but her voice was filled with venom. “I know you feel like you have to shepherd him around, Grandmother, but watch yourself. Watch him. And I beg you, don’t trust him with that sword. While my father lives, that blade is his. It’s not up to you to dispose of it.”

“The Ocean chose him, just as she chose your father. Just as she chose Isuld!”

“The Ocean killed Raen!”

Adrin almost relinquished the sword, to end the argument and to placate the woman whom he was supposed to marry. But now that he held it in his hands, he knew that it truly did belong to him. He was a link in a chain that stretched back four hundred and fifteen years, all the way back to Isuld. He drew on that strength to face Jocyanë.

“I will do my best to be worthy of this weapon,” he said. “I know I’m not who you expected—who you wanted—but I won’t let you down.”

“You already did.” Jocyanë turned her back on him and left.