30

Vidhya's office, Aethoria

The mage eagle sat on window of Cordaelae's office window, with Vialthor's mark banded at its leg.

Cordaelae looked up from his desk, and whatever ease had settled into his evening left him at once. Mage eagles were not common couriers and no kingdom spent a mage eagle on pleasantries or routine correspondence. If Vialthor had sent one, something had already gone wrong or was about to.

He crossed the room and opened the window himself without calling a steward and drew the letter from the eagle's leg, he read it once, then again as if a second pass might change what the words said.

By the time he lowered the letter, his mind went back to another letter, seven years past, the same seal, the same clipped urgency dressed up as formality. He remembered reading it at this very desk, remembered thinking he had time to think it over.

The world had spent the six years after learning otherwise.

He sat with the letter a while longer, the eagle still perched at the window as though it, too, understood there was no rushing what came next. Then he reached for parchment and ink, his hand hovered a moment before it touched down, he was choosing each word as though the wrong one might cost more than he could afford to pay.

He read the finished letter twice, made no changes, pressed Aethoria's seal into the wax and then called steward. "Send word to the Paendrage Palace, I wish to see His Majesty."

Steward nodded and left at once; he’d come to recognize the urgency in Cordaelae’s voice, and this one was serious.

"Nara," Cordaelae then reached out and stroked slow along the eagle's neck. "Wait with Vyman in the Sanctuary, I shall call for you when it is time."

Nara nodded her head, leaned briefly into the touch, and then she spread her wings and lifted from the windowsill.

Vyman caught sight of her the moment she landed, and his great golden eyes brightened at once. "Nara," he was delighted, "you honor this humble perch with your presence yet again."

Nara rolled her eyes as she folded her wings tight with indifference. "Cordaelae bid me wait here until he calls," she said. "Nothing more."

"A tragedy, truly," Vyman grinned, "that fate should keep bringing us together under such reluctant circumstances," he tilted his head and feathers ruffled with charm. "Might I show you round the Sanctuary while you wait? There is a fine new perch on the eastern ridge, excellent view of the falls."

"No," Nara said flatly.

"The western grove, then," he tried. "Freshly stocked with hares, I'm told."

"No."

"I could simply sit in companionable silence beside you instead, if company is the trouble."

"That sounds considerably worse," Nara settled herself with deliberate finality upon the far end of the sill.

Vyman huffed an amused sound at that, entirely unbothered by yet another refusal, he had, after all, weathered a hundred of hers before, and expected a hundred more still to come and then he let the thought come to him.

Why has she truly come, Vyman wondered, what has House Vialthor done this time?

The steward returned within the half hour and Cordaelae felt something in his chest ease at the swiftness of it, Rosaete, it seemed, had wasted no time in granting the audience. He rose at once and made his way toward the palace, where guards fell into step beside him the moment, he got down from carriage, they escorted him without further word through the winding halls until they reached the private chamber where Rosaete himself waited.

“There is wine," said Emperor Rosaete Paendrage, Human man sixty of age. "Though I suspect you will prefer your head clear for this.”

“I prefer it clear regardless of the occasion, Your Majesty.”

“You always did.” Rosaete set the glass back down and looked at him. “I have had a letter from Vialthor’s ambassador expressing what he called concern regarding a Draconian national currently residing under the protection of the Charter.”

“I had one as well, from Princess Naervyn. Her Highness wishes me to hand a girl over to Vialthor under a precedent that does not exist, for a reason she insists does.” Cordaelae paused. “I declined.”

“The previous administration withstood far worse pressure than the invented claims of a sixteen-year-old princess, and those who come after us shall do the same.”

“Your Majesty is generous to call it merely invented. I found it considerably more deliberate than that.”

“I do not doubt it.” Rosaete’s expression shifted.

“Your Majesty shares my view of the war, we have spoken of it before," said Cordaelae. "Whatever the legal account says, I do not believe Emperor Tharaen's commanding army would commit a war crime, he was a man of manner."

"Collegium was a loss this world shall spend a century recovering from, if it recovers at all," Rosaete sighed. "The Fall of Solari was tragic. Miranda and Viana had been bound by the Carrasova bridge for centuries, we moved freely between continents before the war ever existed, before anyone thought to ask whose blood ran on which side of a border."

"I came to see Your Majesty because I do not believe Vialthor's interest in this girl will end with a declined letter, they will request her through the Patronage program, which is beyond my control. Influencing or rejecting sponsorship goes against the charter," Cordaelae said with hope and was silent a moment, as though arranging the words before he trusted them to speech. “I will not surrender her."

“I understand that entirely,” Rosaete said. “What concerns me is the size of the thing you have decided to protect her from. Vialthor rules the southern half of this continent with an army that has not ceased growing in six years of war. We have maintained peace with them not because they respect our borders, but because attacking us has never yet been worth more to them than leaving us alone.”

“You believe that calculation may change?”

"Norvaente lives by his principles and understands the necessity of peace, but he would set the world on fire if his family asked it of him," said Rosaete. "Do you understand what may yet come to us for this?"

“I do, Your Majesty," Cordaelae nodded. "I will not pretend the danger is small but the moment we begin calculating which students are safe to protect, the Charter becomes a negotiation and negotiation are won by whoever is willing to ask for more. I am aware that if Ryska Aen is protected here openly and the truth she carries finds its way into the rooms where it matters, Vialthor will not blame the truth, they will blame Aethoria and Aldaene for having given the truth a roof beneath which to live," Cordaelae lowered his voice out of invisible exhaustion. "The great war has just ended, but the world seems to see no peace."

"Vidhya, a war does not end when the armies stop marching, it ends generations later if it ends at all." Rosaete leaned forward. "It lives in the way people think, in the way they teach their children to see the world. It outlives the men who fought it, it outlives their sons, centuries pass and still you will find the pieces of it in some old hatred nobody quite remembers the original shape of."

"Your Majesty," Cordaelae thought a lot, but no words came out of his mouth.

"If there is a road that leads away from war, I would walk it before I send even one soldier south but if Norvaente decides the girl is worth more to him than six more years of peace," a glint of pride shone in Rosaete's eyes, "then let him find out why the charter my forefather founded has never once bent."