“I find it quite frankly preposterous that this outsider is even allowed to sit with us during these meetings.” The venomous sound he put on the word “outsider” was accompanied by a look in Mana’s direction, who was sitting at Cobal’s right hand side. He didn’t miss that she flinched at the bombardment of negativity and was well aware that she’d been fidgeting with the edges of her sleeve throughout most of the meeting.
“Watch your tongue, Lord Meduar. You are in the presence of your king.” Nazuren said, causing the gaunt man to recoil.
Cobal stood up and added, “It would serve you well to remember that Lady Mana is as much a member of this council as the rest of you. Not only is she here by our request, she is also an ambassador for Milinia.” He flashed the most diplomatic smile he could muster. “Perhaps I wrongly believed that your responsibility as minister of foreign relations was to keep peace with our neighbors, not to insult them in our halls.” Cobal sat back down, satisfied at his rebuke. He could see that the beady eyes of the minister of foreign relations took in every part of Cobal’s response and likely wouldn’t forget about it anytime soon.
“I believe that now is a good time for our meeting to be adjourned for the day. The exhaustion of it all seems to be getting to some of us.” King Navyr Blueyerd stood up from his seat at the far end of the table and chuckled. “It sure seems to be getting to me. Perhaps my son should take over the meeting tomorrow.” He patted Nazuren on his back who frowned at the off handed remark his father made. “We will return here tomorrow in the early afternoon, for now you are all dismissed.” The king walked past his sons and quickly smiled in Mana’s direction before walking to the edge of the room and staring out a window.
Cobal stayed seated with Mana while the ministers and advisors left the room first. The council was quite large which made coming to any agreement near impossible as everyone had a range of different opinions on how to proceed.
A few weeks had passed since Cobal first sent a letter with news of Sapher’s whereabouts to his father. The betrayal of his oldest son had hurt the king deeply and his father looked much older now than he did only a year ago. He even started saying that maybe Nazuren should take over since he clearly wasn’t fit to rule. He mostly said these things in a joking manner, but Cobal could see that he was seriously considering it and that worried him. Nazuren would surely make a capable king if given the time. Cobal loved his brother, but he didn’t think he was ready for a job he didn’t really expect to get in the first place. If his father could sit on the throne for a few more years and this mess got sorted out, then things would be much more stable. Maybe Nazuren would never have to rule and they could somehow get Sapher back. That last part seemed unlikely to Cobal, but he still hoped. The room quickly emptied out and soon only the king, his two sons and Mana were left in the meeting hall. Suzinne Rimeston – a young woman with bright red hair and freckled who served as the minister of trade – was the last to leave the meeting hall, politely nodding at the royals before closing the door behind her.
The king let out a deep sigh. “You’d think their job was to make our life easier, not more difficult.”
“It is their job to worry about the future of our kingdom after all,” Nazuren said. He put away the notebook he had been writing in and stood up. “Father, brother, Lady Mana, if you’ll excuse me,” he smiled and left the room. Mana was about to get up from her chair as well when the king motioned for her and Cobal to stay. “Please, I’d like your input on something.”
They both stayed seated for a while and waited for the king to speak. Still standing at the window, but now turned back around to face them he said, “as you are aware, I have been getting some doubts lately. I never saw any signs of my son being unhappy about how we ruled the kingdom. He was opposed to the summoning ritual, sure, but he agreed to go along with it when the vote happened and a majority was in favor of the plan. Even in the days after you were brought to our world, I didn’t see any indication that he was planning something. To hear that he not only left of his own accord, but also disavows our actions and has threatened to undo them came as a shock to me.”
Cobal hadn’t failed to notice the abundance of grey hairs in his father’s beard and the bags under his eyes. This wasn’t just due to the endless meetings they were having, but from a more central exhaustion. Cobal was worried about his father a lot. “Well, you’ve been busy running the kingdom as best as you could, it makes sense that you didn’t catch on to every single thing happening in the palace.” Cobal said. “Besides, none of us realized that there was anything going on with my brother, you’re not the only one to blame for this.”
The king pondered this for a moment before turning his attention to Mana. “You were the first to realize that something was off about the way my son disappeared, am I right?”
Mana nodded. “Cobal and I investigated the room and because we had already encountered the magical runes that were in his room before, it wasn’t difficult to make the connection. There was no struggle in his room at all, which meant that they either knocked him unconscious without any signs of it or he was participating in the magic. I also theorized that the circle had to be drawn to teleport someone into the room, before it could then be reused to teleport away. Doing so makes no sense if the crown prince was not involved. Although at the time it was only a theory that I would have liked to be wrong about.”
“Yet you were right in your findings and not only that, you were also responsible – alongside Cobal and that pirate friend of yours – for finding where my son had gone too and preventing a war with Rilodar.” He once more let out a deep sigh. “For now at least. I hear that their king is understandably quite angry with me and the false accusations I threw his way. Things are relatively stable for now and although I don’t think war is an immediate threat, I would not be surprised if this increases tensions at the border in the near future.
“Well, you did what you could with the knowledge that you had, father.” I’m happy that Mana and I could help as much as we have in this difficult predicament. Not only did Mana get to learn a lot about magic at the libraries in Marsolin, but we also managed to make some friends and even save Selvia from a very dangerous situation.”
“Silver linings,” was all that the king said in reply. He walked away from the window, where the sun was slowly setting. “I won’t keep you any longer, we will meet here again tomorrow.” He shuffled out of the room, leaving Mana and Cobal to be the last ones there.
“How are you holding up?” Cobal asked Mana. They were back in the small study that was built for Cobal after they first returned to the palace last winter. It was now getting close to fall again and the curtains were fluttering in the wind.
“I’ve been better. Going from peaceful days of studying in Marsolin to these awful meetings has definitely taken its toll on me.”
“Not everything we did in Marsolin was peaceful,” Cobal remarked.
Mana nodded. “That’s very true, but at least it didn’t require talking to so many strangers who start the conversation already disliking my presence.”
Cobal didn’t really have an answer to that. It’s true that many of the ministers – even those who were initially in favor of summoning a new hero – had spoken out against Mana’s presence. They had included Sapher’s claims about foreign heroes causing problems for the world in their messaging and several members of the meeting had been quick to call out the fact that getting rid of the hero would solve the problem and get Sapher to come back. Navyr reminded them that their kingdom was only as prosperous as it was due to the actions of the previous hero, but it didn’t seem to stick. Cobal wasn’t even sure if they were right in believing getting rid of Mana would get Sapher back. But even if they were right, Cobal didn’t think it was an option anyway. “So what do you want to do?” He asked.
Mana didn’t answer for a while. After a few moments passed she got up and turned on one of the lanterns. The sun was going down slowly and the room was getting dreadfully dark. After fiddling with the lantern for a few moments before getting it to work, she placed it on the table between them and sat back down. “I don’t know.”
An awkward silence filled the space. Cobal didn’t have the answer either. When he spoke with his father that night before they left for Marsolin he was fairly convinced that Mana would be treated well by the Blueyerd Kingdom. At least his father was on their side. But now that they were back, Sapher was gone and his father’s confidence was wavering. Nazuren was a good man and wouldn’t do anything stupid, but he was also inexperienced. As much as Cobal disliked Lord Meduar and his beady eyes, he knew that what the minister was saying about sacrificing the hero to get the crown prince back would be appealing to many. They didn’t care for the people anymore, just for stability for themselves. Cobal wasn’t able to see any of this before Mana came to this world, being content with his position as a prince in a thriving capital city. But having actually traveled through his kingdom as well as two neighboring nations, he knew that the kingdom wasn’t thriving everywhere. Roads and buildings in the eastern part of the nation were in poor condition and the people lived much more humble lives than in the west. Cobal had brought up some of what he’d encountered throughout his travels when these meetings first started but his comments were quickly waved away. He let out a deep sigh.”I don’t know either. I wish Eliana or Mirgia were here. Hell, even Cassandra would have some useless insight that would lighten the mood.”
Mana chuckled. “That would be a nice change of pace.”
Cobal thought back to when they returned to Fitseren aboard the Tidesetter. Eliana joined them aboard the small trading vessel that they took back to Saphestan, but after a quick audience with the king she left again. Cobal found out later that she robbed one of Lord Darsivan’s personal vessels about a decade ago and the man had never forgotten it. So she wanted to be out of dodge before the man realized who she was. He got up and paced around the room before his eyes lingered on the quill laying on Mana’s desk. It was the gift that Dionil had sent them while they were in Marsolin. ‘Did you ever get this thing to work?” Cobal asked, picking up the quill and studying it.
“I did, actually.” Mana got up and walked over to him. She took it from him. “It took a lot of practicing and getting used to it. I thought I might have to attune to it, and I think I was right.”
“Attune to it?”
Mana blushed. “Well, it’s a concept from a game I know. If you spend time with a magical item, you get more familiar with it. There are even stories of important objects housing spirits in them when they’re treated with love for a very long time. As a little girl I absolutely loved those stories and secretly I still do.” She smiled. “So back in Marsolin I started using it just to write notes and by the time we got back here I realized that using it felt different than using a normal quill.”
She took the quill into her hands and inhaled deeply. She then moved the magical item through the air as letters slowly started to appear, floating in front of them. Anxiety. Tapping it again, the letters fell to the ground before disappearing again. “This is all I can do with it so far.”
“That’s already very impressive.”
“Sure,” Mana agreed, “but what use is it?”
“Maybe it helped out the poet that first used it. Or perhaps he figured out how to do different things.”
“I’ve considered that too. I wondered if he maybe managed to infuse his actual poetry and writing with magic.”
“Did you not read any while in Marsolin?”
“I’ve only read the copies that were publicly available. I was going to ask for an original, but we had a lot going on already.”
Cobal nodded. He suddenly got up. “I almost forgot, Dorgan and Selvia invited me over for dinner.” He grabbed his coat. “Would you like to join us?”
“An unexpected social gathering at the end of an already stressful day?”
Cobal chuckled. “I shouldn’t have even asked.”
“At least you understand. No, I’m going to bed soon, but send Selvia my regards.”
“I will, good night Mana.” He buttoned up his coat and threw on his beautiful red and purple scarf – the one that Salandra gave him during their date in Marsolin – and made his way to the front gate of the palace.
Opal Kaharis 