15. Idrilia
IDRILIA
"Duty is the tax royalty pays for the privilege of its birth. It is non-negotiable and always due."
—Queen Margada of Tarina
The Silver Princess was dying.
Not dramatically, the way it had nearly died on the mountain when the avalanche had crushed my pack against the rocks.
That death would have been quick and violent.
This was slower, subtler, and arguably crueler.
The luminous petals that had glowed so brightly on the mountain ledge were curling at the edges, their light fading to a dull translucence.
The metallic root filaments that had woven so eagerly through the magnetic substrate of the mountain rock now hung limp in the enriched soil I'd prepared for them, reaching for something that wasn't there.
The plant was homesick. It had evolved to thrive in freezing temperatures and powerful magnetic fields, and my private garden in the palace offered neither.
The afternoon sun beat down on the courtyard with a warmth that was pleasant for me and would have been equally pleasant for any other botanical specimen, but not for the Silver Princess.
I should have known that it wouldn't survive outside of its natural habitat, but I'd hoped that the extra measures I'd implemented would be enough for it to survive and perhaps even produce offspring.
I needed more of her to conduct experiments, maybe even by splicing it with a hardier specimen to help it thrive.
But so far, none of my extra measures had helped.
I knelt on the flagstones in my gardening trousers and linen shirt, both still clean and smelling of the laundry detergent my maid used, even if old stains made them look filthy.
My mother would pop a vein if she saw me in those rags, as she called them, but what she would deem acceptable was not suitable for this kind of work.
I replaced the ice packs that comprised the cooling system around the protective glass enclosure I'd built for the plant.
The concept was simple enough. The ice was wrapped in insulating cloth and arranged around the glass walls to lower the ambient temperature without shocking the roots.
I'd calculated the optimal configuration based on the rate of ice melt relative to the glass's thermal capacity, and I'd been adjusting it twice daily for the past week.
Regrettably, it wasn't working.
The temperature was manageable. I could keep the enclosure cold enough to approximate the mountain conditions the Silver Princess favored, at least during the cooler parts of the day, but I couldn't replicate the magnetic fields or the magnetically enriched soil of the Elucian Mountains.
The Princess's roots needed that magnetism the way other plants needed sunlight, and without it, no amount of ice and careful tending was going to save it.
I needed to build a magnetic field generator, which was theoretically possible but in practice, beyond my capabilities or resources. The university's physics department might have the equipment, but I doubted it would be possible to build it in time to save the Princess.
"I don't understand what you are trying to do," Gavon said from the shaded bench where he'd installed himself, his splinted ankle propped on a cushion and a glass of chilled lemon water sweating in his good hand.
"If you keep rearranging those ice packs, you'll eventually arrive back at the configuration you started with, so what's the point? "
"I'm optimizing the thermal distribution."
"You know that those fancy scientific terms go over my head. All I know is what I see. The ice melts, and the flower wilts."
His simplified assessment of the situation wasn't wrong, but I hated when he dumbed himself down on purpose.
As a courtier and my paramour, he was expected to be good-looking, charming, but not too smart, and he was playing the part splendidly, but I had told him countless times that he didn't need to hide his smarts from me.
I liked having intelligent conversations just as much as, if not more than, watching his perfect body naked in my bed or enjoying what he could do with it.
But Gavon was a lost cause. He claimed that I was trying to see things in him that weren't there. He was just as shallow and vacuous as he appeared.
"Life is simpler and more enjoyable when you don't push your mind too hard and into places it shouldn't go. Pushing the body is healthy. Pushing the mind is not." He usually accompanied that statement with flexing his impressive biceps.
I repositioned a pack and checked the temperature gauge I'd mounted inside the enclosure.
Still two degrees too warm. "I'll keep fighting for the Silver Princess as long as it takes.
Two men died on the expedition to find her.
I need to honor their memory." I sat back on my heels and wiped my forehead with my sleeve, probably smearing dirt across my face in the process.
"I plan to name whatever medicines I can derive from this plant after them. "
"That's so noble of you." Gavon saluted me with his lemonade.
He looked comfortable and clean and perfectly groomed despite his injuries, his blond hair freshly washed and slicked back, his linen shirt crisp and unwrinkled.
He'd been like this all week. Perfectly pleasant and perfectly useless. He’d actively resisted when I asked him to accompany me when I visited the families of the fallen porters.
"How is your ankle?" I asked, not because I was particularly concerned for him at this moment but because it was the polite thing to ask.
"Sorel said I can start putting weight on it next week if the swelling continues to go down." He wiggled his splinted foot. "The wrist is better. I can almost hold a pen properly, which means I can start working on the script again."
"The script." I turned back to the Silver Princess, adjusting another ice pack that didn't need adjusting. "Of course."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"That was clearly something disguised as nothing with a thin veneer of nothing on top."
I didn't respond. I focused on the temperature gauge, willing the numbers to drop by another two degrees, and knowing they wouldn't.
"Idrilia." Gavon's voice shifted from playful to cautious. "What did I do to upset you this time?"
Where to even begin?
"You didn't come with me," I said without turning around. "I practically begged you to accompany me, and you said your ankle hurt too much for the hover-car ride."
The silence behind me was telling.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But I was in too much pain. Three hours in a hover-car would have killed me."
That was such a poor choice of words for someone who fancied himself a wordsmith.
"Moran's widow has four children." I turned to face him. "The youngest is just a baby, and the other three are all very young. His daughter held on to my hand and asked me when her daddy was coming home from the mountain. She thinks her father is just late getting back from a trip."
He had the decency to look uncomfortable.
"Voser's wife didn't cry. Not once. She was so composed that I almost believed she was handling it well. Then, as I was leaving, she asked me if I could describe exactly where her husband had fallen because she wanted to know what was the last thing he'd seen before he died."
My voice cracked on the last word. I swallowed hard and turned back to the plant.
I'd held it together during both visits.
I'd been calm, compassionate, and thorough.
I'd answered every question as honestly as I could, taken responsibility without deflection, and promised both families that I would personally ensure they would want for nothing.
The insurance payouts would sustain them for years if managed well, but I knew that money was a cold substitute for a husband and father.
I'd committed to covering the children's education through university, and any other needs that arose.
I'd done everything I could, but it didn't ease my guilt.
Those two visits had destroyed me, taking years off my life. I could have used a shoulder to cry on during the ride back. I could have used a strong arm wrapped around me, and kind words murmured in my ear even if I didn't deserve them.
"I'm sorry," Gavon said quietly. "You're right. I should have been there for you."
"Yes, you should have."
"My ankle—"
"Was a convenient excuse."
Gavon set his glass down and was quiet, letting the sounds of the garden fill the silence. Insects buzzed in the flowering vines along the palace wall, and water trickled from the stone fountain in the corner.
"I'm a pampered coward," he said after a while. "I was afraid. Not of the ride. Of the faces. I didn't want to see the grief and the accusation in their eyes for coming back only injured while their husbands and fathers had died."
It was the most honest thing he'd said to me in a long while, and it softened something in me that had been hardening since the day I'd returned from the visits.
"Next time, I'll come with you." He put a hand over his heart. "I promise."
"There won't be a next time," I said. "I'm never leading another expedition into those mountains."
The thought of making decisions that put other people at risk was intolerable.
Except, the Silver Princess was dying, and the only place where more specimens grew was on those wretched mountains. I knew that this wasn't over because I was incapable of giving up.
"Did you hear the latest gossip about the annual ball?
" Gavon asked, changing the subject to something he was much more comfortable talking about.
"The court of Catonia is supposedly going all-out this year, and the rumors claim that it will be the most lavish one in decades.
They've commissioned the best entertainers from all over the seventeen provinces, and the menu is designed by Chef Verdigio. "