For the past decade, I had spent most of my time as a cat. Even during those rare moments when I returned to my Elvish body, there was no one I could converse with. After all, I had to maintain the facade of being nothing more than an innocent animal that had found refuge with a woman who was once a goddess.
“It is good to see you in person, my herald,” Aramaz declared, closing the distance between us with swift grace. His face brightened with a broad smile as he embraced me firmly. The king was unchanged; his blue eyes gleamed in his sun-kissed face, and his hair cascaded around his shoulders, golden as the threads adorning his white tunic. His hand clasped my shoulder, and his expression turned somber. “I know what I asked of you was no easy task, but you have fulfilled it admirably.”
At his words, I had to avert my gaze, a storm of conflicting emotions coursing through me. I knew my task had been necessary, but still…
“Did you receive my last message?” I inquired. The smalllyrin-stone I used to keep the king aware of the queen’s activities only possessed enough power to send messages, not receive them. We had decided to restrict my use of magic to avoid detection.
“Oh, yes, I received your messages, all of them,” Aramaz replied, his expression calm. “It was the reason I came.” With a graceful gesture, the king beckoned me to walk beside him, his gaze drifting toward the distant farm. “You were right. Baradaz has aligned herself with my brother.”
To my astonishment, there was no fury in his voice, no hint of the wrath I had expected. I had envisioned him storming the farm in righteous indignation to bring the queen and his brother back to Lyrheim. The thought had made me hesitate far longer than I was comfortable with before sending that last message.
“And you do not intend to intervene?” I asked, my voice barely steady. The king’s leniency toward Noctis and Baradaz was a well-known fact and often a point of contention among the other Anima. I had defended his decisions more than once, yet even I could not always fathom his reasoning. The intricate web of love, hate, and deceit binding him to his wife and brother was beyond my understanding.
Aramaz slowly shook his head, a strange gleam in his eyes that I could not decipher, despite having served him for millennia. “Not yet,” he answered. “It is not the right time.”
I swallowed the urge to press him further, knowing he would reveal more when he deemed it necessary. “It might have been wise to inform me that your brother is still alive before I arrived. I was taken completely by surprise. It’s a wonder I did not inadvertently reveal myself.”
A small chuckle escaped Aramaz. “I can imagine.Forgive me, Tayshren.” He sighed, a slightly contrite expression on his face. “Part of me might have hoped it would not become necessary.”
“You thought he would not come for her?” I asked, surprised. Throughout ages of war and imprisonment, and now the loss of his power, Noctis’s obsession with Baradaz was the one thing that had not diminished in the slightest.
Aramaz’s lip twitched in unwilling amusement. “Sometimes even I underestimate my brother’s daring.” He gave me a pensive look. “Baradaz seems to believe he has changed. You shared a house with them for quite a while. What do you think?”
The question should not have been unexpected. And yet I did not quite know what to say. Not after all that I had witnessed in the last moons. Not after all that I had felt.
“Your brother…” I began, only to falter. My eyes avoided the king’s too-sharp gaze, fleeing to the comforting, familiar sight of the green pastures around us. “I do not know,” I finally said.
“Mmm.” Aramaz somehow seemed to understand without me saying more. He did not probe further, instead gesturing at our surroundings. “This place is beautiful. Peaceful.” An inscrutable expression flickered across his face as he absentmindedly touched the faint scars on his cheek. “Do you think she was happy here?”
I thought of the many nights I had witnessed Baradaz crying herself to sleep. Of how often I had curled up on her lap for hours while she sat in a darkened room, staring into nothingness, still as a statue. Of that one terrible winter when all her stores had spoiled and she had not eaten for days, only Briseis’s timely visit reawakening her will to fight.
Somehow, I could not bring myself to speak about this. I had always done my duty, had never failed to deliver a single report to my king. Yet divulging Baradaz’s suffering without her knowledge was a line I could not cross.
“I would not presume to speculate on the queen’s feelings,” was all I managed to say.
Aramaz studied me for a long moment. “She still does not suspect, does she?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “She doesn’t suspect.”
Aramaz nodded. “Ensure it stays that way,” he ordered. “Continue to watch them. But do not interfere without my direct order.”
A disbelieving sound escaped me. Had he not said he received all my messages? “They almost perished because I did not step in,” I exclaimed, my frustration breaking through. Never had I been more tempted to defy my orders than when Rada had collapsed in the courtyard, her life’s blood seeping into the earth after her battle with the Kritak. The king knew the nature of the foes that pursued his brother; surely he could not expect me to merely stand by and watch as—
“We don’t believe she was ever in real danger.” The soft rustling of wings, Air stirring around us, informed me who had joined us a moment before the Farseer stepped out between the trees.
“My lord.” Enlial. I had to hide a scowl as I bowed in greeting, not amused by the unexpected presence of the Aurea of Air. My senses were sharp in all my forms, so they must have used their power to mask their presence. They had probably listened to the entire conversation between Aramaz and me.
“Her magic is not lost,” Enlial explained, their voice calm and assured. “It lies dormant, her connection to it severed. In dire need, she might be compelled to revive it.”
“I am not so sure of that,” I answered, a frown on my face. “She was threatened more than once and her magic did not react at all.”
Aramaz’s calm expression did not waver. “None of those threats were insurmountable.”
A sudden, dreadful suspicion coursed through me. Could the king be contemplating forcing Baradaz’s hand, risking the very outcome of the looming war to bring her back to the Ten?
“The Chiasma and Galator will bring war to Lasgallen and the other realms of Order,” I said. “Do you not plan to rally the armies to stop them?”
“The political situation in Lyrheim is complicated,” the king answered. “We cannot rely on the High Elves’ army. Leander Lyrasen is plotting against his older brother, desiring the Sunfyre throne for himself, and he has long since lost faith in the Ten. The Human realms are weak; the Dwarves have buried themselves deep in the Obsidian Mountains. And I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it would be to rely solely on magic during a rise of Chaos.”
