#arateph

A man was sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed. He was tephan. He was even taller than Dad and his hair was yellow. His clothes were boring gray, but he looked kind of glowy from the bed lights.

I had seen him on the infostreams, so I knew who he was. He was Prince Auren from the history books. He was alive more than a hundred years ago, and everyone thought he was dead, but really he was only sleeping in a stasis machine. That keeps you asleep without breathing, so you don’t get any older inside it. You’re not supposed to sleep in them for a hundred years, but Prince Auren did. The people who were supposed to watch him died. So did everyone else, because it’s been a long time. So now that he’s awake, he doesn’t know anybody. It’s Mom’s job to help him.

He likes Mom. I know because he smiled when she came in. He looked a little sad before that. He stood up, and instead of shaking her hand like he’s supposed to, he bowed like they do in old-fashioned lumiscopes.

“Nimira,” he said. That’s my mom’s name. “Thanks for meeting here.” He pointed to the lady in the bed. “The treatment’s almost done, so she’ll be waking up soon.”

Mom looked at the lady a little scowly. “Do we have to do this here?” 

Auren’s face went still. “Yes.” 

“But what if she wake--what if we wake her up?”

“She won’t mind.” 

“But…” Mom said. “My daughter…” 

He stepped around the corner of the bed and saw me. “Forgive me,” he said, bowing again. “I didn’t know we had another guest.”

Mom said, “I hope you don’t mind. My husband got called in last minute and the walk-in creche was full.”

“Not at all,” the man said. He bowed again. “Honored by your presence, morikana.”

He talked in layers on the last word, so I knew it was a naming tongue word, but they don’t teach those words in school so I didn’t know what he was saying. It sounded like he was being nice.

I bowed back. “It’s nice to meet you, Prince Auren.”

“What is your name?” he asked me. 

“Katie,” I said. 

His face kind of got all scrunchy. “Kay--”. 

He added extra sounds under my name, like he was trying to talk in layers again. I told him, “My name doesn’t have undertones. It’s human.” 

“I know.” He scrunched his mouth like it tasted bad, but then his face straightened out and he  bowed again. “My apologies. I’m not very good with human names yet.” 

“They’re easier than tephan names,” I told him. “Even babies can say ‘Katie’ because it doesn’t have any undertones.”

“But I’m not a baby,” Auren said. “I have a big, clumsy grown-up mouth that never learned how to make human sounds.” He crouched down to look at me. “Do you mind if I give you another name?” 

“A virtue name?” Mom had told me that Prince Auren had given Tanza a virtue name. It told you how to be good, but it sounded like a lot of work.

“No,” Auren said. “Nothing so serious. Just a name between friends.” 

I like making friends. And I like names. Human names are easier to say, but tephan names are funner, and I can talk in layers now. A tephan name feels more grown-up.

[I'm not happy with the name or the definition, so I'm leaving that bit out. He was just going to give her a name that references the fact that she's wearing red (because this would be a Little Red Riding Hood retelling), which he likes because people these days don't wear much color.]

When Mom was busy with Coalition stuff--which was a lot of the time--I stayed with Auren. He was nice. Tanza was nice, too, but she was sleeping a lot. Auren said she’d been hit by a spindle--that’s a really nasty energy weapon that tears up your guts--so she had a lot of healing to do. 

“The king wishes an audience with you. Will you grant him entry?”

Terror jolted through Marastel for half a second before she remembered that the king was Jemrauth now. She set aside her embarrassment at confusing one of the palace secretaries for a maid and gave her blandest, brightest professional smile. “He may enter as it pleases him.”

The secretary bowed swiftly and disappeared. A moment later, Jemrauth rushed through the door, still in his coronation finery, his golden hair gleaming beneath the circlet of his crown. Yet even though he was identical to the king who’d stood upon the coronation stage, there was a smile in his eyes that turned him into her Jemrauth again.

She was so relieved to find him approachable that she couldn’t keep herself from approaching. She rushed toward him and threw her arms around his neck. He leaned his head over hers and kissed the crown of her hair. “Marastel,” he murmured. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to see you.”

“I’m guessing,” Marastel said, “about as long as I’ve waited to see you.”

His chuckle rumbled beneath her. “This is a pleasant surprise. I feared you might strike me after what happened with my virtue naming.”

“I still might,” Marastel said with a smile as she pulled away. “If it weren’t treason for me to strike my king.”

He laughed. “If that’s all that’s protecting me, maybe I’d best not make you my queen.”

Marastel couldn’t smile anymore. “Jemrauth,” she said. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“In intricate and exhaustive detail,” he sighed. “Shall I repeat the full lecture, or stick to the highlights?”

“Your father?”

“If he weren’t such a slave to decorum, I think he’d have dragged me away by my hair. I didn’t take two steps off the stage before his guards steered me toward his study.”

“Was he that angry?”

“Does Common Tephan have a word stronger than ‘livid’?”

“Jemrauth,” she sighed, half in sympathy, half in suffering.

“Apparently,” he said, with jovial irony in the words, “I have dishonored the crown, made a mockery of the sacred practice of virtue naming, and failed to live up to my first virtue name of Verinen—because it seems that failing to inform one’s parent of every nuance of a chosen virtue name counts as lying now.”

Marastel sank into the stained chair. “All because of me.”

“You were only half of it,” Jemrauth said. “He wasn’t any happier with the other undertones.”

After silently asking and getting permission to sit, he perched on the chair Rilya had vacated. “I haven’t been shy about showing my disapproval for the way he values power over people.”

Marastel nodded. To King Hilath, virtue was only worthwhile so far as it strengthened the throne. Anything that threatened it could be discarded—and that included the concerns of other people.

“Thus,” Jemrauth said, “he thought that taking that particular virtue name with those specific undertones was a direct attack upon him. Announcing his sins to the world and claiming I could do better.”

“Was it?” Marastel asked.

“Not on purpose,” Jemrauth said. “Living with him all these years has certainly shown me how lack of loyalty can backfire. Might have been what put it into my head. But it was an honest virtue name. I want to be loyal to my people as people, not just subjects.” He laughed. “It’s not as though I’m the first monarch to name myself Fidrin. For all the lectures he’s given me about the serious duty of the crown, you might have thought he’d be happy I put a little more thought into the undertones of my regnal virtue.”

“You didn’t really think that,” Marastel said.

Jemrauth gave a humorless chuckle. “I knew better than to expect it. Especially when...well...”

“When you also vowed to stay loyal to me.”

“He did take issue with that.”

“Jemrauth,” she sighed. “You had to know he wouldn’t react well. Openly opposing your father at the start of your reign?”

“Once I thought of it, I couldn’t not do it. I was already taking a virtue name vowing to honor personal loyalty, and when I think of specific people to whom I want to remain loyal, no one will ever rank above you. I wanted my virtue name to honor that.”

“You did more than honor me,” Marastel said. “You tied yourself to me. With a name like that, you can marry me and only me. I may as well be crowned queen right now.”

Jemrauth smiled softly. “That’s rather what I hoped to accomplish.”

“Are you certain?” Marastel asked. “Because it won’t end at the wedding. We’ll have a whole life together, and I don’t want you to regret being bound to me because of an undertone in your name.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “You think I’ll regret marrying you?”

“I’m just not sure you’ve thought through the implications of what you’ve done. You announced this in front of the whole world. There’s no going back.”

He sat next to her on the wide chair and lightly turned her shoulders to face him. “I didn’t take that name lightly, Marastel. I mean to honor every undertone, and I intend to remain true to you.”

She looked away. “I know you mean to, but will it be possible?”

“I will make it possible,” Jemrauth said. “That’s the point of the virtue name. To live up to the challenge it sets.”

“This is more than a challenge,” Marastel said. “It may be in impossibility. Your father, the Houses, the Great Lords. They’re all as hostile as ever. Even you might not be able to overcome that many problems.”

“With you by my side, I can.” He kissed her hands. “Marastel, I would never have started courting you if I didn’t intend to do whatever was necessary to make you my queen. Standing on that stage today, feeling myself responsible for the lives of every person on the planet—I knew in an instant that I couldn’t do it alone. And the only person who can help me do it is you. Who else has your compassion, your cleverness, your gentleness? I have vowed to serve the people of Arateph, and the best thing I can do for them is to make you my queen.”

From his lips, the words rang so true that even her darkest doubts couldn’t make her disbelieve them.

Jemrauth finished, “Can you help me to do that, Marastel?”

His gaze, as he met her eyes, took her breath away. Who had ever said this prince was too shallow and self-centered? His devotion overwhelmed her—in his place, with such pressures, she might have given in long ago. What had she ever done to deserve her Fidren? How could she deny him her support?

She gave him a soft smile. “I make no promises, lirishan. But I will try.”

Excerpt

Auren let a lectriscroll unroll itself on the stand on his writing desk. A letter appeared on the lectriscroll’s unrolled screen. From this distance, Marastel couldn’t recognize the looping handwriting.

“One of your cousins?” Marastel asked.

Auren nodded. “Bekrah.” He read over the letter and began to scribble notes in the margin. Bekrah could read them the next time she opened her matching lectriscroll. Auren was an excellent correspondent. Security concerns—such as needing to hide from assassins in the middle of the forest—and royal duties kept him from having much time to socialize, so long letters were one of his few social outlets.

“What does Bekrah say?” Marastel asked.

“Not much. She’s busy with wedding preparations.”

Marastel set down her letter. “I’m sorry you have to miss it.” Auren had been looking forward to his cousin’s wedding for months, but the death threats now made it impossible to attend.

“I’d rather not put her in danger.”

He let the lectriscroll roll itself shut. His hand brushed his hair back from his forehead—a nervous tic he’d never been able to hide. “You know,” he said, “they celebrate Summerheight here in Eckler, too.”

“Yes,” Marastel said slowly. “They do.”

“Even if I can’t attend Bekrah’s wedding, it would be nice to go to a wedding. They’re supposed to have ten of them in the village. Plus the usual—food, music. I hear they have a tree-climbing contest.”

Marastel sighed. “Auren, you know you can’t go. There’d be the same danger there as in Kepha.”

“I could go incognito. That puts no one in danger.”

“No one except you.”

“I was perfectly safe last year.”

Marastel sat bolt upright in her chair. “You went to Summerheight last year?” The danger last summer had been less profound, but still severe enough that he’d spent a month and a half in hiding at his usual campsite at the head of the Lessin River—or so Marastel had assumed.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Auren said, the hint of a nervous laugh in his voice. “Because the correct answer is no, but I’m named Verinen, and at this point, I don’t think you’d believe a lie...”

“I can’t believe you went to Summerheight.”

“Nathiel was with me. It was a tiny village. No one even looked our way.”

“You know better than that. Or I thought you did.”

Auren crossed the room and crouched next to Marastel’s sofa to place a firm hand on her shoulder. “Ammi,” he said, in a calm, firm tone. His voice was so like his father’s. “Nothing happened. I was unharmed.”

Marastel let out a breath. “I know.” A flash of lightning split the sky. “I know Nathiel wouldn’t have allowed it if he thought there was danger. But Auren, now that you’re of age, I need to know that I can trust your judgment. You have to see that this year is much different than last year.”

“Yes. We’re further from the capital. I’m less likely to be recognized.”

Marastel closed her eyes. “Auren, please.” Her voice was pained. She squeezed his hand and met his gaze. “The rebels will do anything to make sure you don’t reach the age of ascension.”

Auren looked at the cane lying next to the sofa, at the pillows beneath Marastel’s battered leg. “I know.” He adjusted her pillow and returned to his writing desk. “Forget I mentioned it.”