One of the common failings of humans is a lack of adaptability, particularly in hierarchical systems. Suppose the king wants to be able to detain any miscreant who violates his laws, but not kill them, suppose further that they can be apprehended and the question is really one of keeping them secured. This is easily done until the infinite magics of stigmata are considered. Clearly, a man who can turn stone to clay and undermine a castle wall in mere hours is not a man that can be secured within the guest wing of the castle. So, the faithful bureaucrats put their heads together and create the donjon, an island surrounded by the voracious monsters of their goddess, able and willing to kill any escapee.
Suddenly, a system has been created that can be utterly farcical because the prince can order that Lucius be apprehended and feel secure that the boy is in fact arrested because no matter his stigmata the prison system can contain anyone. Despite the fact that the boy was being kept at the castle, and not at the donjon. Indeed, he had a room with a high balcony that only a fool would imagine as a means of escape.
Or a man who could put his body back together even from such a drop.
After such a finale as the assassination of King Charles von Arandall, this trivia might seem boring, but it is precisely the reason that I was able to secret myself into the castle. Acheliah had locked herself away with Kassie and her senses had been dulled by wine. It made the excursion dangerous, but possible.
The rooms Lucius were consigned to had been for Duke Ashe, and many of his personal effects still filled the wardrobes and other furnishings, although his family did not. Some weeks had passed and his family had fled back to the safety of Jarnmark. As such, he was only accompanied by those of his closest retinue as Gabriel saw it. Which was to say that Leomund was elsewhere. Keeping two of the most competent fighters in the kingdom together would not have been a wise decision.
I found the boy with a book, sitting in candlelight beside the balcony. The soon-to-be mother slept fitfully in the master bedroom, sharing the bed with Lupa. The two of them had become close as sisters ever since the attack, while Aria and Felicia rested in the guest room. When he heard two sets of feet cross the wooden balcony, he cast the tome across the desk and leapt up. Battle tension vanished when he saw the tired and confused face beside me. He gaped for a moment, then looked at me. “Master.”
“Go, go,” I urged the girl, practically shoving her into his waiting arms as I beamed at the boy. “Lucius, it is so good to see you again.”
Holding her head to his chest and stroking his hand through the hair of his childhood friend, he gripped her protectively as he asked, “How much time do you have?”
“Not much, but enough,” I answered as Kajsa whispered questions into his night clothes. I shut the balcony door and lit more candles with a flick of my hand. I was a travel weary mess, my clothes dyed black by my time beyond the world. I looked, for the most part, just as he had always known me on the road. He was the one that had become the image of a young noble, so far removed from the dirty boy in the woods I found so long ago.
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“It’s dangerous for you to be here.”
“But it would be a betrayal if I weren’t,” I said, taking the seat he had used for reading. After giving him a moment to speak with Kajsa, I went on. “I couldn’t be happier with your performance in the central kingdoms. You’ve become one of the best commanders in the world, a true rising star. Everything I’ve taught you, you’ve absorbed and now experience is augmenting. Your performance at the feast was heroic as well, but your position is precarious. Over the next few years, you’ll have to continue walking the blade’s edge between suspicion and utility. You must be too good to throw away, but never within the new king’s shadow.”
Lucius lifted his chin. “It’s Kassia that is next in line.”
I shook my head. “Her oldest brother will take the crown, perhaps not as the official king, but a king reagent. Acheliah is the one who gives the crown regardless of law and she dotes on Kassia too much. If she does, however, that is no loss. A boon if anything, which you’ll have to capitalize upon yourself. I’m afraid that for the next year, we must remain apart. I doubt you’ll get so much as a missive from me, but that is to free you to act and build your power.”
Gripping Kajsa’s hand, the boy grimaced. “You barely gave me time to prepare before…”
I waved a hand to cut him off. Silence was prudence. “I hope next we meet will be under celebratory auspices. It will be the first birth day of your son and I will lavish gifts upon him, commensurate with your accomplishments. But first! Your reward. Girl, give me your hand.”
“Go on,” he urged, keeping hold of Kajsa’s shoulders and turning her around to face me. She hesitated, but soon I had the little alchemist’s hand in mine.
“Just as I promised,” I said, unweaving the bonds that held her memories. She collapsed into Lucius’ arms as fear rearranged into sense within her. At once she turned around and wailed, grabbing onto the boy. She babbled from one thought to another, reconstructing the past months. Her words almost brought Lucius to his knees, but he stood like a pillar for her to lean on as I rose once more. Then, standing at my full height, I planted my hand on his head and spoke the most binding curse that all the tongues of men have ever conceived.
“I am so proud of you, my boy. You will do great things.”
That winter as the year became 756 CC, a great many events transpired and historians have argued ever since about which was the most pivotal. The assassination, the crowning of a firstborn son, the first riot massacre, but I maintain that the most important was the birth of Lucius von Solhart’s first child and the changes it brought in him, for that moment of euphoria drove his ensuing life and who would be foolish enough to think that the emperor of the world was not the most important character in history? The only substance to their arguments was the comparatively slow life he undertook at order of the king, both performing policing actions throughout the capital, and subjecting himself to the teachings of the academy.
However, those events are all removed from his clash with the paladin of Jeameaux, and so I shall put a close to this tome.