Birds chirped nearby. Instinct slammed my eyes shut when I felt the magnetic pull, the hook between my shoulder blades that carried us…wherever we were. I opened my eyes to see Prince Edouard kneeling on the ground going through his traveling pack again, seemingly unconcerned with the change of scenery from quiet library to forest. We were in a forest. There was no denying it. It was not the type of forest found just outside of Quinze, a King's forest. In a King's forest, the brush has all been burned away leaving clear paths for horses and hunting dogs and elderly kings.

No one had burned out the underbrush where we were. It was thick and thorny. The trees were leafless and the ground was packed down with their remains. It had been Spring moments ago. I shivered. It was cold. And night.

“Put this on.”

Edouard tossed me a woolen cloak. It was what I had taken for a blanket at the bottom of his pack. I obeyed and slipped the warmer cloak over top of my own. I still had not spoken five minutes later when the Prince had succeeded in getting a small fire going. I watched as he dragged a log over in front of the fire and sat down, rubbing his hands together over his handiwork.

“You should rest,” he said. “Travel takes it out of you.”

“Have we traveled?”

“Thousands of leagues and as many years, yes.”

When I was a young boy, and father read to me before I closed my eyes to sleep, I often imagined myself inside those stories. It never crossed my mind that when you find yourself inside such a story, you rarely behave as a hero. We are all the heroes of our own stories, but we are not all storybook heroes. It is easy to imagine being brave. The act is what earns the adjective.

“I don’t understand.”

Edouard laughed and looked at me. The flames danced in his eyes.

“I would be concerned if you did. Sit down. I’ll do my best.”

I sat next to my Prince and warmed myself by the fire.

“The first thing you should know,” he continued. “Is travel. We are in Vin. It felt instantaneous to us, but our bodies do not distinguish. It is as if we have walked the distance.’

As he spoke, the words became true and my shock began to wane. And I felt it. I could feel the heaviness in my limbs, the soreness of my feet. I rolled my shoulders and winced.

“You see? Your body still pays the price. So first we rest.”

“And you ex–”

I hesitated. I remembered all the events leading up to this moment. It was easy to forget with all the dramatics, but the Rodanian rebel returned to the forefront of my mind. Was this what he wanted? Had he followed us? Images of him grasping the ends of my cloak and being dragged along with us came to my mind. Was he hiding nearby? Watching?

“And I explain,” Edouard said. “And apologize again for doing this to you. Truly.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He pulled the leather cord and ring from inside his cloak and held it out.

“It is my birthright. Before I can become king, take on the mantle of responsibility, I am meant to understand the weight of it. To feel the full history of those before me. To live it.”

“Live it?”

“We are in the Northeast corner, Ori. At the beginning of the Empire. Where else to start my education?”

I began to understand, not entirely, not for a long time yet, but a little. The Northeast corner.

“That’s why you need me.” It was not a question.

“Yes. I was meant to do it alone as my great grandfathers and grandfathers before me have done. But–”

Here he twirled the ring on his finger before locking eyes with me.

“Early in my father’s reign, several of our signets were stolen.”

“I’ve never heard of a theft from the King.”

“It was kept very quiet. For reasons I should think are obvious to you at this point. There are signets for each generation.”

The impressions on each row of the twenty eighth floor, each one its own, unique engraving.

“How many do you have?”

“Three.” “Come here,” he said, standing up.

We walked over to the base of a tree with gnarled, ancient roots. We kneeled and Edouard dusted off a spot between two roots. There was an iron rod with a filigreed impression atop it.

“You see?”

I did.

“It’s important you know. Should it come to it, these are our escape hatches.”

He had three of them. There were more than three rows on the twenty eighth floor. We had stack upon stack of iron shelves to traverse in which we would not have any escape hatch. We walked back to the log by the fire and I sat down feeling heavy. Febril’s bread in my stomach a stone.

“I need to know more.”

And so he told me. His forebears before him had all traveled through the history of the Empire in order to understand what it meant to rule, what the consequences were to actions. In his pack, there were genuine letters of introduction which would allow us to enter into the Empire’s court across time without struggle. Much like the rest of the library, the precise origin of the twenty eighth floor and how it worked as it did was lost to the royal family.

“Traveling from Northeast to Southeast is a pure timeline. Terrain will change rapidly with the contents of what history we have. West to East will take us through the entirety of the timeline we have for that particular moment.”

I could not help but think of the turning pages of a book and all the time I’d spent on the twenty eighth floor flipping through histories. It was a good thing I had.

“What happens when we get as far East as we can go? Do people stop talking mid-sentence? Mid sword-thrust? Everything freezes?”

“I have no idea.”

“How comforting.”

“We will have to find out together. My father was very clear on what support I would receive. I know the terrain fairly well, having been allowed a diagram. And in theory, I should know the history well enough from my tutors.”

“But?”

“I wasn’t the most diligent student.”

He threw up his hands before I could protest.

“I didn’t know the stakes, then!”

“Your family is harsh.”

I winced at my choice of words. If Edouard felt the same discomfort, he did not show it.

Tradition was tradition, even if its beginnings were lost. It was meant to be strenuous and difficult, he told me, but not as dangerous as it would be for Edouard, as there was meant to be an escape hatch from every generation’s family member. His frantic search for someone to guide him through the twenty eighth floor made more sense in context. I found it difficult to be mad at Edouard for putting me in this situation. I should have been furious at the danger I found myself in, but whether it was his inherent charm or the thrill of it, or the sheer break in the monotony of my day to day, I was ready to tackle the challenge. Or so I believed.

It was clear to me who had stolen the missing signets, but still I held back. I did not tell Edouard about the rebel or his desire for me to be in this exact position. Edouard was kind to me, even if he had put me in danger without my consent, and he treated me as an equal, but he was still a royal and my skin was still ochre, my eyes black. I could not unburden myself to him as a brother. I still feared the consequences of sharing what I knew. The rebel spoke in the back of my mind. He holds things back. Not true equals. If you knew.

“This is yours,” Edouard said, tossing me a blanket.

We had banked the coals of the fire. The chill of the night was setting in. The chill felt by people three hundred years in the past in Vin. A thousand leagues North of Quinze, closer to two thousand from Rodan. We bunked down back to back. No sense standing on ceremony when heat keeps both royals and Rodanians alive the same.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I woke first, watching the gentle clattering of the bony tree limbs above us in a chill morning breeze. It had not been a dream and I was not in my garret room. I would not be having a warm loaf from Febril’s on my way to work dusting shelves in the royal library. I hoped Febril would not worry. There were few people who I considered friends, but Febril meant the most to me. He too had been orphaned in the city and found his way to his feet.

I stretched and sat up, realizing the old adage about soreness is true. The first day is a prologue. The second day is when the story begins in earnest. And did it ever. My bones and joints cracked like the tree limbs as I stood and touched my toes, rolled my shoulders, and pulled my arms behind my back. It was going to be a long day and the cold was doing my sore limbs no favors. Why couldn’t the recorded history of the Empire begin in summer?

“Why couldn’t it be the warmer months?” Edouard asked from beneath his blanket, reading my mind.

He rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head, considerably less regal in the cold of early morning. I found coffee in the pack and a small pot. I paused for a moment to get my bearings, and walked as due West as I was able until I heard a small stream. It was partially frozen over. I crunched through the thin layers of ice with the pot and drank my fill before refilling and heading back to our fire. The forest was quiet and each of my steps crunched in my ears.

“Do I smell coffee?”

“Indeed.”

The roasted beans and the boiling water succeeded in getting his highness out of his blanket. He wrapped it around himself and sat next to me on the log. He was not uncomfortable with me preparing his coffee for him, I noticed, and he took the proffered tin cup without comment. I shared the remainder of my loaf from Febril’s and while he ate I waited for him to lead. The rebel would have told me I waited for him to lead because I accepted my place beneath him but I also had no clear Idea of what we were trying to do or how we were supposed to start. So, he was supposed to live through his family’s ruling history. What did that mean exactly? He had been generous in answering my questions the day before but so many still roiled.

“Edouard?”

“Yes?”

“Are you meant to change what happens in your family’s past? Or are we just spectators?”

He chewed on a large hunk of day-old bread.

“We have some things in common, Ori. That was one of my first questions as well. I was never given an answer. I don’t know if we’re playing an elaborate game. If we change things, will it ripple Southeast along the timeline? If that is the case, then I won’t be learning my family’s history as it happened. I don’t know. Start at the beginning my father said.”

“And here we are.”

He swallowed his last piece of bread.

“And here we are.”

Start at the beginning. There is an arrogance to the notion. There was time before the Empire, and hard as it is to imagine, there will be time after. If there is anything I have learned from all of the reading I have done at the library, it is this: all things end.

We traveled Northwest. We must start at the beginning. It was unspoken, but Edouard and I were both looking for signs of change. What does the past look like, smell like, feel like? There was no guide for us to follow other than the compass that rested in the palm of my Prince’s hand to check we were on target. If we were moving backwards through time along a Northwest corridor, the forest through which we trudged did not seem to notice. It did not treat us as if we were on a journey of great importance. The thorns pulled and ripped at my cloak and as cold as it was, the wool extra came off and my own stuck to me with sweat.

We stopped when the sun was straight above and I wondered if it shone on our own time in the same indifferent manner. We both breathed heavily. It had been hard traveling. Our path was determined by a specific cardinal direction, but there was no path cut through the forest to accommodate our unusual needs. Edouard passed me the water skin and I squeezed water into my mouth. It was warm from the heat of his body.

“Thanks,” he said, catching the tossed water skin from me. It was the first word either of us had spoken in an hour or more. “Do you feel–”

“I’ve not noticed anything yet.”

He nodded in assent. To be honest, it felt like we had been walking through dense woods for the better part of the morning and that was all. If we were time traveling, it was not nearly as exciting as stories had led me to believe it might be. After a light lunch of provisions, we set out on our “path” again. It was my turn to take the lead, to take the brunt of spider webs, thorns, and anything else unpleasant along the way. We went on in this way well into the afternoon, periodically changing places, heavy feet trudging, boots covered in detritus of plants stepped through and crushed down. The weather grew warmer, and leaves appeared on the trees again. We no longer crunched on mulched leaves underfoot.

The afternoon was getting late and Edouard was in the lead when I noticed some berries just off our path.

“Edouard,” I said. “Wait.”

He turned to look but did not make a move as I took two steps from our path and plucked a berry.

“Blackberries,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. It was a fine specimen of berry and the juice was already seeping into my palm. I popped it into my mouth. It was…well it was a blackberry, but it was a blackberry as I had never tasted one before. Edouard misread my surprise as danger. He came stomping back towards me and I had to hold up my palms.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Try one.”

I watched his face go through the contortions mine had moments before. The berries would have fetched a fortune at market in Quinze. This is what all the hawkers in market claimed their berries tasted like as they shouted over each other. But no blackberry in mine and Edouard’s time tasted like these.

“It’s like,” he started. “They’re missing–they don’t have–”

“People,” I said. “There are no people.”

That is what was missing from the berries and what made them the fullest version of themselves. They were growing in a time outside of dust and commerce, bloated bodies clogging streams, and the commerce of road and wall building, forever kicking up grit and leaving grime and sweat in trails across the earth. There was no other way to describe them. They simply could not have grown in a world as populated as our own. I was as certain of it as anything in life.

We looked at each other and I broke first. I laughed from deep down in my belly, the mirth bubbling up from a place of simmering stress finally broken. Edouard followed, his baritone laugh echoing through the trees, sending birds squawking away in anger. We doubled over with the joy of it and once we could stop, we ate our fill of the unthinkable berries. Our palms and faces were blackened with berry juice. Prudence demanded we think of our stomachs, but prudence went unheeded that day.

“It’s true then,” Edouard said as we sat against parallel trees cleaning ourselves up as best we could. “It’s all true.”

I was surprised to hear him speak his doubts about his family’s mission for him out loud.

“I believe it,” I said.

“I wanted to.”

“I don’t understand.”

Edouard poked at the dirt between his feet with a stick, drawing nonsense patterns. He did not meet my eye.

“You wouldn’t have heard. It has been kept internal. We’re good at that, we Cortes. My ascension to the throne is not a prospect met with enthusiasm from all quarters.”

He was right. This was not anything I had heard. The Prince was admired and feared in equal measure by the citizens of Quinze, not that many could base such assumptions on any personal interaction with the future monarch. He kept behind the keep walls and to himself.

“My Uncle Cortland,”he continued. “Lobbies against me to my father. Speaks of my weakness, my unwillingness to shed blood. The fall of the Empire is on his lips and all as a result of my ascension.”

“Your father does not listen to that.”

“He listens. He does not agree, but he listens. And so do others in court, many of whom are sympathetic to my Uncle’s views. Returning to campaigns is not unpopular. There are those who would see the Empire expand again, who think my father a fool for presiding over an unchanged Empire. My father is old, Ori. His wits are about him, but he cannot protect me forever.”

“And this,” I said, gesturing around us at the trees wrapped in vines, the berry brambles and the chirping birds.

“A convenient way to rid the court of a mess. No heir, no need to displace an heir with someone better.”

“You believe your father is capable of that?”

Edouard sighed and threw his stick into the woods.

“My father is a good man, a loving man, but he is a king. From the time I was a child, I have been told that the Empire is first. Even over family.”

A small breeze kicked up and I closed my eyes and listened to the leaves, taking in what my traveling companion had said.

“You came anyway?”

“What choice did I have?”

I could have come up with a handful of options I found preferable to being sent to my potential death by my own father but I was not a Prince. Edouard would have found running away to be distasteful and unworthy. Even if we succeeded in traversing the entirety of the Empire’s history along the Northwest to Southeast corridor, it was possible that we would return to a world unchanged in its opinions of him, or a world in which his uncle had already claimed the throne for his own. Or a voice whispered. A third option. The rebel in the library rode my mind like a tapeworm in my gut, engorging itself at my expense all the while.

“Edouard,” I said.

He looked up, from between his knees, his locks falling over the sides of his face, lank with sweat. There was something in his eyes that had not been there before the berries. It was not the initial excitement from our transport by signet and it was not the air of confidence and haughtiness I first detected in the library. There was the unmistakable gleam of hope in his eyes. I cleared my throat.

“We should probably keep moving.”

There was a renewed vigor in our step for the remainder of the afternoon; we swiped away errant tree branches, leaped over logs and…

We stopped. Edouard turned to look at me and confirm what he saw. I nodded and pulled even with him. We stood on the edge as if on a cliff. It was a road. I knelt down and felt the smooth river stones and shells of ancient creatures caught up in a dredge. It was a standard issue, well-maintained, Empire road. It looked like hundreds of other roads I had seen in my lifetime, but it appeared to cut through the forest and disappear in both directions. There was no sign of any way station or inn or guardhouse, just rolling away in either direction. It was across our path, and we could walk the few steps necessary and back into the woods on the other side but that no longer seemed right. This was it.

Roads first was the Empire’s greatest achievement. When a territory was conquered, the first thing done was to build superior infrastructure and turn it over to local authorities. It was proof of two things: 1. We can build superior roads, bridges, and all the mechanisms of life and 2. We bring it to you and your people as a gift. Of course, the gift came with strings attached, but it was hard to deny the stroke of genius. More territories were conquered by force of technology than by force of arms. Edouard’s ancestors realized something that many conquerors before them were unable to learn. A territory is conquered by the will of the peasant, not the soldier. In any territory, the lower classes make up at least two thirds of the population. No matter how popular or powerful a leader, if that leader cannot provide clean water and prevent starvation, the people will gladly welcome someone who can. The vast majority of people all over the world simply want to live their lives unbothered. Rodan was more of an outlier than the typical case.

After a brief discussion, we hung a right, which was roughly East/Northeast. After so much walking over roots and bushes and through thorns and under low hanging branches, the relative smoothness of the Empire road felt like a luxury on my feet. We fell into a relaxed gait and easy conversation. We each enjoyed the political writing of Wilfred Amanpour from two centuries passed, but we disagreed on the merits of his opinion.

“...writing is agreed. I cannot argue with that. That’s what I’m saying. His prose is his defining characteristic. The content of his argument is rehashed. He’s just repeating what Singlan Cortes said generations before him, but saying it prettier.”

“I think I would know if Amanpour was cribbing from my own ancestor.”

I smiled.

“I would think so too, Edouard. But here we are.”

“Here we are.”

As night fell, we decided to camp off the road, but within sight. We did not make a fire. Now that we had seen proof of civilization, there was no telling when or who might come strolling along the road while we slept.

It was not from the road where they came, but from the forest.