Chapter 321

Neither of them moved for a while longer.

Zaeryn could hear people passing through the gallery beyond the door, their voices too distant to make out. Somewhere out there were officials waiting for her, and attendants wondering where she had gone. For the moment, Athea seemed content to let them wait.

Then came a quiet knock, and an aide’s voice through the door, apologetic and careful, reminding the Princess that the visiting delegation had been waiting in the reception room for some time.

Athea’s hand stilled against his cheek.

"That would be my afternoon," she said, more to herself than to him. "Diplomats keep worse hours than the Council."

She did not send the aide away, and she did not ask Zaeryn to move. She only looked at the door for a moment, and then down at him.

"You should go back now," she said. "You still have not eaten, and I have kept you longer than I intended."

Zaeryn sat up before she needed to ask again, swinging his boots off the sofa. The strange ease of the last hour went with him. Upright, with the past two days settling back over his shoulders, he remembered exactly how much was still unresolved. Only then did he realize how much of his weight she had been bearing.

The anger had not gone anywhere. It had only gone quiet.

Athea smoothed the hair above his forehead, putting right what her own fingers had disturbed. Then she rose with him and straightened her dark robes with a few efficient motions, as though the last hour had never happened.

"We will spend more time together soon," she said.

Zaeryn thought of turning down her offer. After all he was supposed to be angry with her. But his mouth betrayed him. "Sure. I’m guessing you’re going to send someone for me?"

"I will speak to you first and arrange a time. There is no need for you to sit in your suite waiting for a summons."

He nodded, accepting that more easily than he would have accepted another vague promise that she would see him when circumstances allowed.

At the door, she turned back to him once more. "You do not need to wait for our next meeting if something is wrong. Contact me."

"Sure." He agreed. Then sarcastically added, "I will just make sure you’re not busy before contacting."

Athea did not rise to it. "Tell me what has happened, and let me decide whether it can wait."

Zaeryn studied her. He wanted to believe she meant it, although actually contacting her over a problem would probably feel stranger than standing here and promising that he would.

"You’re very good at looking after me from a distance," he said. It was not quite an accusation, and not quite anything else.

Athea did not flinch. "I am," she said. "I am learning. Be patient with me."

"I’ll try."

It was as much as he could honestly promise, and she seemed to know it.

"And eat properly tonight," she added. "I will know if you do not."

When she opened the door, the guards straightened outside, and the small amount of privacy he had grown comfortable with disappeared almost at once.

"Please escort Mr. Noctis back to the guest residence," Athea instructed them.

Her voice had regained its public composure, and Zaeryn found himself standing a little straighter in response.

"Thank you for your time, Your Highness."

Her eyes rested on him a moment longer than protocol allowed. Something rose in him in answer, a word he had never once said to her, and he held it back. Athea inclined her head as though she understood what he had not said, and was willing to wait for it.

He followed the guards down the gallery without looking back, though he stayed aware of her standing in the doorway until they turned the corner.

He looked for Valerie as they went, but there was no sign of her; the lighting array had presumably consumed the rest of her day. Instead, through the open doorway of a reception room off the gallery, he caught sight of a cluster of formal robes, and understood why the aide’s message had carried such urgency.

★★★

Three women were waiting in a reception room overlooking the gallery when Zaeryn passed with his escorts.

One stood in the open doorway, her crimson hair loose over the shoulders of a fitted green dress, one hip against the frame like someone who had never once been told not to lean on royal furniture. Near the windows sat her younger sister, very straight in white, her blue hair swept into a knot so precise it might have been drawn with a ruler. A woman in a navy coat stood at the younger sister’s shoulder, chestnut hair pinned tight, a slate held against her chest as she ran through the afternoon’s schedule.

The crimson-haired woman noticed the guards first. Then her attention slid to the man walking between them, and stopped.

Her eyes widened, and she squinted at him, as though that might help her get a better look.

"What the fuck?" she said, not quietly. "What’s that?"

The woman in the navy coat winced, very slightly. "Your Highness..."

The blue-haired woman turned her head and followed her sister’s gaze into the gallery.

Zaeryn had turned toward one of his escorts, giving them a brief view of his face. His dark coat hung open over a blue shirt, and even from where they stood, his height and the breadth of his shoulders were apparent.

The blue-haired woman rose a few inches from her seat, but the guards were already leading him past the opening. Within seconds, all three of them had disappeared into another passage.

"Was that a male?" she asked.

The woman in the navy coat crossed to the doorway and looked after the escorts. "I doubt it, Your Highness. I have lived in this Capital for six years, and I have never seen one in the royal wing. Not once." She turned back, composed. "If I had to guess, I would say it is a robot. A prototype, perhaps, or a servant construct for the Gala. They would not want it wandering the halls alone before it is announced."

"Then why does it need two guards?" the crimson-haired woman asked. "Do they walk their dishwashers too?"

"Because it is valuable, Your Highness."

The blue-haired woman did not look convinced. She had crossed to the window, arms folded, watching the passage where the three figures had vanished.

"A strange place to test a servant construct," she said. "Through a gallery, past the delegates’ wing, in the middle of the afternoon."

"Which is why it was being escorted, Your Highness. They were moving it from one wing to another."

"Robots do not walk like that." Her voice was even. "I have seen the labor units at the ports. They move correctly. Every step the same length, the same rhythm. That moved like a person. It turned its head when the guard beside it spoke."

The other two looked at her.

The crimson-haired woman dropped into the chair across from her and stretched out her legs. "Fine. Say it’s a man. We have men in Asteria, and none of them look like that, and none of them are strolling through a palace. So it’s either a construct, or it’s something Lumina hasn’t bothered to tell the rest of us about." She shrugged. "Either way, not our business."

"We are about to see Athea," the blue-haired woman said. "I will ask her."

Her sister laughed. "And what makes you think Princess Athea would ever answer to you?"

"Because we are two future Queens," the blue-haired woman replied, unruffled. "There should be mutual respect between us, just as Mother and Queen Athena have always kept a good professional relationship."

"Mother and Athena keep it professional because there are forty advisers at the table." The crimson-haired woman grinned. "You’ll be alone in a room with Athea."

"Then I will ask very politely."

"Your Highness," the woman in the navy coat began carefully, "I would suggest..."

"That I not ask. Noted."

★★★

The suite was quiet when he returned. Sage was on the sofa with a slate resting against her knees and a dozen tabs opened at the same time. She looked up as the door opened and set the slate aside when she saw his face.

"There you are," she said. "Valerie abandoned you, I take it."

"Correct," Zaeryn said. He hung his coat over the back of a chair and went towards the dining area. The rations Viora had sent up were still waiting where he had left them, and the sight reminded him how hungry he was. He set them to warm and took a glass from the cupboard.

"Shouldn’t you be running the Aegis Division?" he asked, filling it.

"They can survive an afternoon without me," Sage said, joining him. "Were you hoping I would leave?"

"Not at all. I was wondering how much trouble I’m causing you."

"Considerably less than the Council is."

He carried his food to the table, and she sat beside him.

"That was quick. What happened?"

"Something went wrong with the Gala preparations, so she had to leave," Zaeryn said. "Athea asked me to stay behind."

Sage’s attention sharpened. "You spoke privately?"

He nodded, picked up his fork, and for a moment only looked at the food. Then he told her most of it, and she let him finish without interrupting.

"She said she should have contacted me more," he said eventually. "That sending me away was necessary, but staying away all those years wasn’t."

Sage watched him quietly.

"I thought she’d spend the whole time explaining why she couldn’t have done anything differently," he went on. "I had quite a few things ready to say if she did."

"Did you still say them?"

"Most of them stopped making sense once she agreed with me," Zaeryn said.

"It’s difficult to argue with someone who concedes the point," Sage said.

He ate for a little while before speaking again.

"I’m still angry with her, though. I don’t want her thinking everything is fine because we had one decent conversation."

"Did she give you that impression?"

"No," Zaeryn admitted after a moment. "She actually seemed to understand that part."

★★★

Athea had been back in her office for only a few minutes when Calyra entered and closed the door behind her.

"There you are," Calyra said, crossing towards the windows. "I was told you were occupied."

"I was speaking with Zaeryn," Athea replied, setting aside the report she had been attempting to read.

Calyra turned towards her immediately, her expression shifting from mild displeasure to surprise.

"You went to see him without me?" she asked.

"I did not plan on it," Athea explained. "Valerie brought him into the palace, and we encountered each other in the gallery. She was called away shortly afterwards, so I asked him to stay."

Whatever complaint Calyra had been preparing seemed to lose its importance. She left the windows and took the chair opposite Athea, leaning forward with considerably more interest than she usually showed in anything discussed across that desk.

"Then you have to tell me about it," Calyra said. "Start from the beginning. How was he?"

Athea found herself smiling at her sister’s sudden eagerness. She had barely begun deciding how to describe the encounter when a soft chime sounded from the communication panel beside her desk.

She glanced towards it before accepting the call.

"Yes?" Athea asked.

"Forgive the interruption, Your Highness," her aide replied. "Ambassador Durell has arrived with Crown Princess Thalia and Princess Claudia of Asteria. They are waiting in the reception room."

Athea’s smile faded as she looked towards Calyra.

"Please see that they are comfortable," she instructed. "I will receive them shortly."

"Of course, Your Highness," the aide replied before the connection ended.

Calyra sat back in her chair, her disappointment evident.

"Thalia and Claudia are here already?" she asked.

Athea sighed and rested her hand beside the panel.

"They have come early for the Gala," she replied. "They could hardly have chosen a worse time."

Her gaze returned to the reports on her desk, although none of the matters waiting there concerned her quite as much as the young man she had sent back to the guest residence.

"I would have preferred to settle Zaeryn’s situation before we began receiving foreign guests," Athea continued. "The Council has barely finished its evaluation."

"Thalia will want to discuss the Aegis Division while she is here," Calyra said. "Sabine has been asking about a meeting for some time."

"I know," Athea replied. "Which means this will take rather longer than a welcome and an invitation to make themselves comfortable."

Calyra glanced towards the door before looking back at her sister.

"We will finish this conversation afterwards," she said. "You are still telling me how it went with him."

"Afterwards," Athea agreed, pressing the panel again to ask her aide to show their visitors in.