How could I possibly clear my mind with near-constant thoughts of our exchange, and those words I’d pretended not to understand ringing in my ears? I’d panicked, not knowing how to respond, and feigned ignorance instead. But since Shadow Diplomats were trained with knowledge before they ever began to learn advanced magic, even ancient Gyorian was familiar to me.
When the clans split, they’d each begun to form their own language. But the Treaty of Vel’Thara marked a fragile peace and the beginning of Elydor’s Unification Era which lasted for many years. With it, common Elydorian was encouraged, the clan’s separate languages relegated to text alone and, eventually, ceasing to exist altogether.
Learning them had been a part of my training.
Unsurprisingly, Terran never answered my question. He likely didn’t know why my life meant anything to him, or even why he’d utteredVoren vel’kora.We were both in unchartered territory, the lines between my mission goal and feelings for Terran blurring.
He was becoming more as Kael had described him than the stoic and ruthless Gyorian prince I’d come to know over the years. Kael insisted his brother was not simply their father’s puppet.
“Are you ready?”
I wasn’t.
My parents would be mortified.
“Nearly,” I said, closing my eyes and flexing my fingers once, then twice, a habit from early training. The pulse points at my wrists throbbed with a quiet, rhythmic energy. I pressed my thumbs there… pressure, breath, release. Repeat.
I closed my eyes. A single breath.
I let the echo of his voice –Voren vel’kora– fade. Not because it meant nothing, but because it meant too much.
I opened my eyes. He was watching me.
“Aye.”
Opening the door slowly, Terran peered out, looking right, then left. He pushed it open, and we both stepped into the corridor. I turned back to watch as he closed the door, set within the stonework, as its seam disappeared.
An incredible feat of architecture and concealment.
Beyond lay a narrow corridor carved from the same obsidian-hued stone as the inner palace walls. The floor beneath our feet was smoother, less worn, and the air felt cooler, untouched by the bustle of the main halls. Occasional torch brackets dotted the passage, though most sat unlit, casting deep shadows along the floor.
At the end of the corridor, we stopped. Terran pointed to the right, indicating the first guard lay just beyond that wall. I nodded and stepped in front of him, blocking out his presence. My target couldn’t see me first. If he did, there was little purpose in putting him to sleep. Peering around the corner, I watched as he scanned back and forth, ensuring none entered the throne room. We stood there for some time, Terran never uttering a word. I expected him to become impatient, asking why I waited.
Instead, he trusted me to my skills.
Finally, the guard turned away from us. Without hesitating, I inched out as far as I dared and breathed in slowly, feeling the air around us, muttering,sova enaiwith a twist of my fingers.
Drawing intention from the elemental current around us, pairing it with the ancient Aetherian phrase more superstitious than practical, I held my breath, waiting.
The guard dropped to the floor.
We were clear.
I turned to my companion.
“You seem surprised,” I whispered.
“Hearing of it and seeing the Sovaen Whisper performed are two very different things. Come.”
Stepping out, he walked past the guard skeptically though I knew he would not wake for some time. Once inside the throne room, we moved quickly, through it and beyond a door at the back of the chamber. Another corridor, this one more well-used.
Terran pressed his finger to his lips. Passing door after door of mostly storage, according to Terran, we came to one last turn. Beyond it would be the second guard. Inclined to agree with Terran that it was an exceedingly odd place to post a guard if something important were not within these walls, I followed his lead and peered around the corner.
This time, there was less space for the guard to move. He stood like a statue, not moving, staring straight ahead. I could perform the rite from where we stood but would have preferred to be a bit closer as he was quite a way down the corridor from us. But there was no help for it.
I looked at Terran, conveying my concern without words.
He understood, and did something extraordinary.
