"I think that location is on one of his maps."
There was one more thing I could tell him, and I decided to share it.
"The magnetism was extraordinary. The field strength up there is enormous, which is part of why she grows where she does; she feeds on it. It was so strong that I felt it in my teeth, of all places. A buzzing, a tingling along the jaw and through the teeth. It later faded." I tapped the photograph of the rock. "I didn't read about this in any of your father's published writing. Did he ever describe such a sensation or write about it in his private journals?"
Lou sat back. "Actually, he told me about it. He never experienced those sensations himself, but he collected accounts of people who had. Some reported pressure behind the eyes, a humming in the bones or the teeth."
"Well, mineral fields do act on the body. It's not mysterious. But it's worth noting, and I'm glad to know he noted it too."
Lou wasn't listening to my tidy explanation. He was looking at the photographs again, his eyes moving between the three.
"Can I see her?" He pressed a hand to his chest. "Forgive me, I know one doesn't simply ask, but I have to ask. I want to see her with my own eyes if it's at all possible." He glanced around the café and lowered his voice. "Though I suppose, I mean, you couldn't possibly invite me to the palace, could you?"
"I'd be delighted to host you at the palace," I said. "And I would love to show her to you. Bring the maps and the journals, if you're willing, and we'll see what they can tell us together."
His eyes gleamed behind the spectacles.
"This is the best day of my life," he said. "Well, it's the second-best day of my life. The best was the day my son was born." He started digging in his jacket. "Here he is."
He produced a fan of worn wallet photographs and pushed them across the cups toward me, beaming with pride.
The young man in them was perhaps in his thirties and already losing his hair in the precise pattern of his father and grandfather before him, a third dome in the making.
"My son," Lou said proudly. "Haldren the third, we call him. My father was Lorento. I'm Lou. And my son is Less." He counted the names off on his fingers. "Lorento, Lou, and Less."
"That is," I said, looking from the photograph to him and back, "extremely confusing."
He laughed, delighted. "It is, isn't it? My wife says the same."
"He looks just like you," I told him, which was true and made him beam even wider. "And exactly like your father. Three generations of the same kind face and smart eyes."
"He's about to take his doctorate," Lou said, the proud father entirely in charge now. "In the healing arts. Pharmacology. My father would have been so proud of him."
I gathered the photographs, his and mine, and handed his back across the table.
"Then it's settled," I said. "I'll send my driver for you. Tell me which day works best."
34
ALAR
“You do not move a mountain by pushing against it. You find the crack in the stone and set your shoulder there.”
—Elurian proverb
Inoticed more guards than usual as I made my way to my father's office, which wasn't surprising given the recent assassination attempt. They inclined their heads as I passed them by, and I was glad that I hadn't been forgotten or mistaken for a sheepherder.
Golden, Arlen had called my tan, and there had been no criticism in his tone over my new outdoorsy looks. I wondered if he knew where I had been. Our parents had decided on a cover story to explain my visit to Elucia, but I didn't know who they had already told that version to, or whether I was allowed to tell my brothers, or if my parents were going to do that.
It was one of the things I needed to talk to them about, but it was a minor detail that could wait. The main reason I'drequested a private meeting with them was that I needed to change their minds about the succession.
Regrettably, my request had not been granted, and my father had sent a servant to inform me that the meeting would take place in his office, which could still work provided that my mother would be there.
She was the linchpin of my whole plan. My father would weigh Arlen's situation from a king's perspective, while my mother, who had a special spot in her heart for Arlen, would intercede on his behalf once I presented my case.
All I had to do was give her an opening, and she would seize it and force my father's hand.
I was counting on it.
