Free Web NovelChapter 40: Chapter 40: Labor
The temple had done something to Elian.
He walked back through the palace gates feeling lighter than he had in weeks. The ritual, the incense, the specific quality of people praying for something with genuine intent — it had settled something in him that had been restless for a long time.
He was almost at the royal wing when Edmund intercepted him.
"His Highness requests your presence in the study, Your Highness."
Elian stopped.
The study.
"Of course," he said.
* * *
Lyra was still there.
She was sitting in the chair across from Caelian’s desk with the particular ease of a woman who had decided she belonged in a room and was waiting for everyone else to catch up. She looked up when Elian entered.
Elian looked at her.
Oh, he thought. Right. I’d almost forgotten about all this. And you’ve brought me here to remind me. Real classy.
"You wanted to see me," he said to Caelian.
"Sit down," Caelian said.
Elian sat.
"Is there anything bothering you," Caelian said. He said it carefully. The tone of a man who had a specific thing in mind and was approaching it sideways.
Elian thought about it.
Yes, he thought. The thing that is bothering me is sitting in that chair looking at you like you’re something she found in a market and has decided is worth the price.
"No, Your Highness," he said.
Caelian’s jaw tightened slightly.
"Nothing at all," Elian said pleasantly. freewёbnoνel.com
"You left the greenhouse rather suddenly," Caelian said.
"I had ledgers."
"You always have ledgers."
"I’m very thorough."
Caelian looked at him with the violet eyes. Elian looked back with the expression of a man who was completely fine and had no feelings about anything.
Lyra shifted in her chair. She looked between them with the expression of a woman recalculating something.
"I feel," she said, in a light voice that was doing a great deal of work, "that Your Highness might not be entirely — comfortable. With the situation."
She was looking at Elian.
Elian looked at her.
He smiled. Large. Warm.
"How could I possibly be uncomfortable," he said. "I was selected for this position randomly myself." He glanced at Caelian. Just for a moment. "Our king is extraordinarily open-hearted. Even an illegitimate child can become a consort. I’d expect nothing less from His Highness."
The room was very quiet.
Caelian said nothing.
His face said several things.
"I hope everything goes well," Elian said, to neither of them specifically, and stood up and left.
* * *
Sable was in the corridor outside his office when he got there.
"I heard," she said.
"From who."
"Mira. She was passing." She fell into step beside him. "That was a bit hard."
"Was it."
"He’s under a great deal of pressure. The council—"
"A few months ago," Elian said, "nobody was suggesting he get remarried. You know why? Because he was pale and hollow and the voices in his head were telling him to step off balconies." He pushed his office door open. "Now he looks better. Now he sleeps. Now the heaviness in the palace has lifted and he moves through it like a person instead of someone waiting to stop existing." He sat down. "All of that happened because of work I did. And now that he looks marriageable, the council wants to find him a wife." He looked at the desk. "I do all the work and somebody else takes the benefit of it."
Sable sat across from him.
She didn’t argue. Which was, Elian found, more irritating than if she had. An argument would have given him something to push against. Her silence just left the feeling sitting there, uncontested, taking up space.
"Say something," he said.
"I think," Sable said carefully, "that you are angry about something that has nothing to do with the council."
"The council is absolutely what I’m angry about."
"The council," she said, "has been pushing for this for months. You weren’t angry about it then. You were annoyed. Strategically inconvenienced." She looked at him. "Today you left a formal meeting, insulted your husband in front of a guest, and told a duke’s daughter to get lost. That’s not strategic inconvenience. That’s something else."
Elian looked at the desk.
"I don’t want to talk about what else it might be," he said.
"I know," Sable said. "I’m not asking you to."
They sat in silence for a moment. The office, the late afternoon light, the distant sounds of the palace going about its business without any awareness of the small disaster that had just occurred in the study.
"He looked at me," Elian said finally. "When I said even an illegitimate child. He looked at me and his face—" He stopped. "I shouldn’t have said it like that."
"No," Sable agreed.
"It was accurate."
"It was also cruel."
Elian said nothing.
"Tomorrow," Sable said, after a moment. "The temple we visited. It’s full moon — they do a purification ritual. Major one. Would you like to come?"
Elian looked up.
"Full moon," he said.
"Most auspicious time in the calendar for this tradition." She paused. "It might be useful. For what you’re building."
He thought about the temple. The stone. The people praying for a king they’d never met. The goat. The genuine unhurried faith of people who had decided something was worth believing in.
"Yes," he said. "I’ll come."
He picked up a pen. Set it down. Picked it up again.
"I’ll apologize to him," he said. "Later. When I figure out what to say."
Sable nodded.
She didn’t make a thing of it. That was one of the things he’d come to appreciate about her — she knew when to let something land and when to leave it alone.
She left him to the desk and the pen and the unfinished thought of what exactly he was going to say.
* * *
He was in the corridor outside his room when he heard her behind him.
"Your Highness."
He turned.
Lyra. She’d found her way to this part of the palace with the efficiency of a woman who asked directions and remembered the answers.
She looked at him with the dark eyes. Not unkind. Not warm either. Just — assessing. Honest in a way the greenhouse had not been.
"I think," she said, "you may have misunderstood my intentions." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Elian looked at her.
He thought about the greenhouse. About her hand near Caelian’s. About the specific laugh that hadn’t been earned.
"I don’t think I did," he said.
She opened her mouth.
"Let me be straightforward," Elian said. "The only reason I was in that room today is because the council wanted you there. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given you a moment of my time." He kept his voice level. Completely civil. "I don’t like you. I suspect you don’t like me. Let’s not pretend otherwise." A pause. "Please don’t seek me out again."
He went into his room and closed the door.
Stood in the quiet of it.
Looked at the bracelet materials on his desk. The notes. The list of things still to do.
Right, he thought. Back to work.
* * *
He went back through the temple in his mind on the walk home.
The goat. The prayers. The people who had no idea their king was slowly being pulled toward death by something twenty years old and patient, and who prayed for him anyway because he was their king and they wanted good things for him.
They don’t know what they’re up against, Elian thought. And they’re still here. Still praying.
He thought about Caelian running a kingdom while carrying all of it. The voices. The snake. The weight of a curse he couldn’t name or explain or escape.
And still governing, Elian thought. Still here.
He thought about saying even an illegitimate child can become a consort in front of Lyra and watching Caelian’s face.
He thought about what Sable had said. He doesn’t mean it like that. He’s under a great deal of pressure.
He doesn’t mean it like that, Elian thought. But I did. I meant it exactly like that. And I shouldn’t have said it.
He pressed his fingers together.
I’ll apologize, he thought. When I figure out what to say.
The palace came into view.
The shrine lamps were burning. Small lights in the garden, steady and warm.
People prayed for him tonight, Elian thought. People who don’t know him. Who just live in his kingdom and want him to be alright.
He walked through the gates.
I want him to be alright too, he thought.
That’s not a complicated feeling.
It’s just true.
He sat in the dining room for a few extra minutes after the others had gone.
The tea was cold. He drank it anyway.
You built this, Lyra had said to him once, looking at the palace. She’d meant it as an insult.
She hadn’t been wrong.
He had built things here. Quietly. Without announcing it. The shrine, the protections, the network of people who trusted him for reasons they couldn’t fully articulate.
I built this, he thought. And I’m going to finish it.
He set the cup down.
Went back to work.
