But I’d yet to meet a girl who could see past my crown.
Sir Tomlinson fumed down two flights of granite stairs and across the wood-paneled entrance hall, each slammed heel a punch line that tickled me no end.
We crossed into my father’s council room and I lost my grin.
Perhaps it was the length of the ancient table, the carved map that covered the length of a wall, or the shadows on the council members’ faces, but the mood seemed sober and ominous. Sucked dry, as it were. A chorus of Historians in raven-feather robes and silver masks surrounded the edge of the room. At the center, my father’s council and the Savak cleric sat around a long table.
Sir Tomlinson took his seat at my father’s left, and my father dismissed my guards.
The lone empty seat was reserved for my uncle, so I stood among the Historians.
“Seen anything naughty lately?” I asked the closest Historian.
They did not respond. Not even a chuckle.
I could never read the Historians, not with their expressions hidden behind their carved masks. They were tasked to record everything of note for posterity, refusing to influence history, only to observe it. Truth was I barely noticed them anymore. They were simply always there—watching me eat breakfast, studying me sword fighting with Grigfen in the armory; one always observed me as I slept, in case I were to die while dreaming and my last gasping sounds were worth recording.
Prince Ryo ne Vinton’s last words: gurgle gurgle.
Who would want to lose that?
The cleric wasn’t speaking.
Her red hood rested at the crown of her pale hair. Silver wings—the emblem of the Savak—painted across her brow, her dark red robe puddling around her chair, and a silver and glass sphere necklace tucked between her collarbones. Her face was flat, devoid of emotion, but I could not say that of the rest of the council. Sir Tomlinson crossed his arms, the general’s jaw pulsed tight, and Lord Reginal’s tongue peeked from the side of his false smile. A sign of his greed as well as his suspicion.
My mother watched me, not the cleric. And my father? My father sat like a spring wound tight, pinching the bridge of his nose, his foot tapping against the marble floor, his twisting mouth rebelling at the silence.
“What is your business here?” my father expelled, his voice rough and serious, like he only was to our enemies.
She stayed silent.
My father, the most powerful king in the world, asked her a direct question, and she sat in silence and the king did nothing but huff in impatience.
Mother waved her hand. “Perhaps you’d like something to drink?”
The cleric pressed her lips together. “Not until every chair is filled.”
Well, at least we knew she had the ability to make sounds.
The last chair stayed empty. By rights of the council it belonged to my uncle Edvarg, but as emissary for the Abbey of the Undergod, he wasn’t likely to show his face in order to appease the Savak. No matter how many times the king sent a messenger to the Abbey, he would not come to hear a heathen’s words.
It would be a council of five.
“Son.” The king gestured toward Uncle’s seat.
“Me?” I touched my chest. Tomlinson sighed, but the rest of the council seemed to soften with affection, looking at me much the way they did Mother’s pet cat, Chompsens. I cleared my throat. “Yes, Father?”
“Take your uncle’s seat, please.”
I bowed to the council, and I fought back a grin as I touched my forehead in a salute to the Historians. This I wanted them to record. I looked back at the king and in that moment, I saw my father. The man who always welcomed me to sit by him no matter how busy he was, who cheered at my tournaments even when I was bested, the man who told me that there was nothing I could do that would make him not love me.
And then in an instant something behind his eyes went blank, and he shifted from the man who was my father to the man who was my king. But I could handle this opportunity. All that I wanted, more than any win or tournament, was to see my father look at me with pride, the way I remembered.
I slid into the chair at Mother’s right.
“You must give me your kingdom,” the cleric said.
The council shared looks. Ridiculous. I laughed, and General Franciv gave a snort. Sir Tomlinson’s giant hands batted at poor Lord Reginal, but the scrawny little man was giggling so hard he didn’t notice. Mother pressed her fingers over her lips, trying to remain polite in case it wasn’t a joke.
It had to be, although the Savak were not known for their humor.
Their cunning, their betrayal, their strange religion? Yes, of course.
Humor? Not famously reported.
The cleric tipped her head to one side as if she did not understand our reaction. Her golden eyes seemed sharp in the light coming from the arched windows.
Father did not smile. “Is there a threat in your words?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Not in my words.” She pressed her lips in a tight grimace and reached into her long sleeves.
My father’s guards drew their weapons.
There, hidden behind swaths of red silk, was a bag, brown leather, tucked tight next to her body.
“In the future.”
My breath caught.
Out came a clay vase, sealed with wax. It thudded as she placed it on the table in front of her. She withdrew five small clay cups.
The guards did not put away their weapons.
We all eyed the vase … or pitcher, most likely. Filled with the only thing the Savak possessed that made this cleric welcome to the court.
The clear water of the Seer Spring. One sip and the future no longer remained a mystery.
I cocked my head to the side as the cleric filled the cups.
It would be considered blasphemy to drink of the spring water, but anyone who did could see the future. Imagine knowing what enemy might attack, or what the clouds would bring—drought or famine, richness or surplus. We could prepare for war or for illness. Blasphemy seemed a small price to pay for such a vision, yet there were rumors the seer water was also a judgment. If their goddess didn’t consider the partaker worthy, the water would kill.
I leaned forward.
Oh light. I seemed eager. My reputation would never live that down.
“Generations ago,” the cleric said as she placed a cup in front of my mother, “we were allies. I ask you to remember the time before the Seer Spring was discovered. Back before the first seer drowned in his vision of the future.”
“Before the walls,” Mother said, her voice measured.
Sir Tomlinson’s voice was not. “Before the hibisi.” Sir Tomlinson’s anger was well placed. He’d lost his wife due to the lack of those flowers.
When they discovered the Seer Spring, the Savak built walls around their island, and they stopped sending aid or emissaries to any other kingdom. The Savak closed their gates by the edge of the sword, only allowing certain traders to come, and only if they brought the seeds of the hibisi flower. A century later, they owned every hibisi flower on this side of our world, and they dotted their island like little white specks of light.
The cleric placed the small cups in front of my father, Sir Tomlinson, General Franciv, and Lord Reginal. She did not place one in front of me, which was wise, because I might’ve thrown it in her face. She lowered her gaze. “We, like you, regret the lives lost to the gray illness.”