"How is Father?" I would ask.
"He needs you home," she would answer.
"Is he ill?" I would ask. "Tell me what I am coming back to."
"We will discuss it when you arrive, darling. Not over the telephone."
That had been every call with slight variations.
The line to the royal quarters was as secure as it got, and my mother usually wasn't so paranoid. That particular affliction belonged to my father. For her to fear someone eavesdropping on her conversations with me, things must be out of control in Catonia, or perhaps the entire Federation, and every shadow was suspect.
The last call had really raised my hackles. The connection was bad, and the line was so degraded that I had to strain to hear her through the static. When I'd asked her how the rest of our family was doing, her pause had been too long to mean nothing.
"Soon, darling," she had said. "We are all waiting for you."
Perhaps the trouble wasn't with my father but one of my brothers?
Why did she fear telling me about it? What was she hiding?
I was worried, so I pushed, arguing for earlier starts in the morning, longer hauls, and fewer stops, and I'd managed to trim four days from the journey, but I felt no sense of achievement.
With each day, Veynathei's distant warmth faded more until it was so faint that I had to stop and search the back of my mind to find her at all. Ten days of hard travel had stretched the bond between us until it was little more than a thread humming at the edge of my perception. She was still there, but the vivid, vast presence of her had attenuated to a whisper, and every kilometer southwest had deteriorated it further.
When the royal palace came into view, I didn't know whether to feel relief that I was finally going to get some answers, or dread for the same reason.
We came through the main gate under a presented arch of rifles, the household guard snapping to attention in their crimson and gold.
The great doors opened before the vehicle had fully stopped. I stepped down onto the marble of the receiving court, and the chamberlain rushed toward me, while a column of liveried staff arranged themselves behind him.
Usually, I didn't receive such a stately welcome, but then I usually didn't come home in an armored vehicle with a convoy of special forces soldiers.
"Your Highness." He bowed, and the assembled household bowed with him in a single motion. "Welcome home. Catonia rejoices at your safe return."
"Thank you." I shifted into the cadence I had been schooled in, every vowel rounded, every word weighed. The merchant's son who had crossed into Elucia was no more, and the cadet who'd become a dragon rider receded.
I was once more Prince Alaranthus Tekumuton the Fifth, and as I stood on the marble stones in my travel-rumpled clothes, I let the old title settle back over me like a collar.
I hated how easily it fastened.
"I hope your journey was not overly arduous, Your Highness." The chamberlain fell into step beside me as the guard took up position around us.
"It was shortened considerably," I said. "Colonel Krest should be commended for his efforts to bring me home expeditiously."
"I shall see to it, Your Highness."
We climbed the great stair, and the palace unrolled around me, all the gilt and marble and the long portraits of Tekumuton kings and queens staring down with their regal expressions, and I performed the small courtesies as we went, a nod to a steward I recognized, an inclination of the head to a pair of bowing footmen, the choreography returning to my body without my having to summon it.
It was obscene how quickly it happened.
I'd spent months learning to be a person instead of a title, and ten minutes in the palace had stripped all of it away.
"Their Majesties await you in the royal chambers," the chamberlain said as we reached the upper gallery. "They wished to celebrate your return home with a small private feast."
I was glad for the family-only welcome, but I wondered why they had chosen to do it that way.
Would my brothers be there?
A welcome feast, even a private one, meant family, and that meant all of us. I tried to picture our parents' receiving room, with my brothers gathered to greet the prodigal fifth son who had returned from his foolish adventure. Arlen, the heir, who resembled our father not just in feature but in manner, groomed since birth to rule. The twins, Aric and Aden, who lived for court intrigue and social climbing and would already be trading the latest gossip and embellishing it heavily. And Avren, who had found his place in the military and wore his severity like a second skin.
