Chapter Four #3
Prince Kinan screwed up his face, looking like he was thinking hard.
“The… resistance is different. Going through an object is a little like wading through mud. I can do it, and it feels weird, but maybe part of that is because there’s still part of me that thinks I shouldn’t be able to do it. It’s… passive, if that makes sense.”
“I’m not sure any of this does,” Cormal admitted.
The Prince huffed a breath, his lips tipping up a bit. “Well, that’s certainly true. Going through a person is more like…” He trailed off for another moment, thinking. “In the winter, did you ever pull back the blanket in the bed, and it crackled?”
Cormal nodded. “I used to pretend those were tiny flames.”
The Prince grinned. “They were the best in the dark, when you could see the sparks.”
“It’s like the sparks?” Cormal asked.
The Prince tilted his head back and forth. “It’s like a thousand of them all compressed into that one space. It’s not resistance the same way it is with the objects, but I’m definitely going through something. Oh, and—”
But he cut himself off abruptly.
“What?” Cormal asked.
The Prince shook his head. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Nothing.”
“Prince Kinan, it might be important,” Cormal persisted.
“A random thought. It’s nothing,” he insisted.
He was definitely lying to Cormal, and as soon as he wondered why, he knew. He looked out at the sea of Mage Warriors who were supposed to be reading and were probably at least half of them listening to this conversation, and decided that maybe now wasn’t the moment to pursue this.
“Which book would you prefer to read?” he asked instead, holding the books aloft, one in each hand. “Riveting title number one or riveting title number two?”
The Prince let out a little laugh that sounded more genuine now, and Cormal congratulated himself on actually managing to improve a situation and not use any fireballs.
Maybe he was growing as a person?
“Oh, number two, definitely.”
Cormal obediently put the book down in front of the Prince and then opened up his own.
“What am I looking for exactly?” the Prince asked. “‘Spell to make the Prince solid again,’ right?”
There was a flurry of laughter that proved that yes, most of the room was listening. But that was all right. Listening and engaged was better than tired and frustrated and missing something.
Cormal smiled faintly. “If only life were so simple.”
“Yes, if only.”
As it turned out, this method wasn’t particularly practical.
Every time the Prince said, “Page,” it threw Cormal out of what he was reading, and he lost concentration.
But he learned to put his finger on the spot he was reading, flip the Prince’s page, then go back to what he was reading and do his best to wait for the next moment when the Prince called out and Cormal would have to do it all over again.
The Prince might not even have the magical knowledge that was necessary for the task, except that he had trained a little with Tramad, Brannal, and Cormal when he was younger.
It had all been theoretical, of course, but it was important for the royal family to understand what the Mage Warriors and Mages could do.
It wasn’t the same as actually being able to control the elements, but it was probably more than anyone else learned. And since they didn’t know what the solution would look like, it was even possible that the Prince was, in fact, the only person who would recognize it.
If that was the case, Cormal wasn’t sure that even a lifetime would be enough for the Prince to make it through all of the books in their libraries.
But they failed if they gave up, and this was better than that.
Plus, Cormal didn’t ever want to make the Prince feel as though he couldn’t contribute.
He’d spent so many years able to do so little; if it took Cormal getting distracted by a periodic “Page” to make him feel like he could help, then Cormal would put up with it every day.
Once it was time for dinner, the Mage Warriors marked where they were in their books and filed out in a hurry, like they were worried that Cormal was going to tell them they had to stay. But they all took the time to thank the Prince, say goodbye to him, or at least incline their heads.
“You did a good thing today,” Cormal acknowledged.
“I wasn’t very helpful, and you know it,” the Prince said, waving at the book with frustration. “My knowledge of the Old Tongue is more rusty than I thought.”
“It can be practiced,” Cormal said encouragingly. “And I wasn’t talking about the book, although every pair of eyes helps. You brought them focus, and that’s very important. So thank you. I mean it.”
The Prince looked a little taken aback, and then he nodded, his expression turning pleased. Yes, it had been too long since the Prince had felt useful, and Cormal determined that he would do better. He’d come up with tasks the Prince could do if the Queen decided she wanted to wait.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Uh oh,” the Prince said.
Cormal eyed him.
“That was so polite that I just know it’s not going to be a question I like.”
Cormal huffed a breath, more amused than offended. “I can be polite, you know. If I’m being totally honest, it was more to show you that I’m calm than worry that you’re not.”
“All right,” the Prince said, though he was still eying Cormal cautiously.
“Whatever you didn’t want to tell me about Perian before, will you tell me now?”
The Prince’s face went completely blank, which told Cormal his guess had been right. The Prince didn’t say anything.
Cormal swallowed and thought about what he needed to say. “It’s not about him. And I promise you that I won’t try to use anything you say against him. He’s out of my reach. I’m just looking for anything that could help us to help you. I swear. Getting you well means more to me than getting at him.”
The Prince considered him for a long moment, and Cormal felt very much as though he was being judged—and as though he was likely to be found wanting.
But then the Prince said, “I will take you at your word. Please don’t disappoint me.”
Cormal shook his head. He’d like not to disappoint anyone, though he was clearly failing at that in so many ways.
“He felt different than anyone else,” the Prince said quietly.
“Touching him—or sharing space with him, I guess, since we couldn’t touch—was different than touching anyone else, like those sparks were a hundred times bigger.
And when I saw him before he helped me at the end?
It was a hundred times bigger than anything before. A thousand.”
“You can feel the energy of people,” Cormal said wonderingly, not sure that could help them, but it was still learning something, and he couldn’t help but think it was important.
Or at least that it could be. “The more energy Perian had, the more you could feel it.” Cormal considered this.
“I wonder if you could find carnalions that way?”
The Prince let out a huff of sound, and it wasn’t until Cormal saw movement that he realized the Prince was stalking out of the room—and then he realized how what he’d said sounded.
“Fire and water,” Cormal groaned.
For once, he actually hadn’t meant it that way. By the time he made it to the corridor, the Prince was gone.
Cormal sighed and made his way to dinner.
He’d messed things up with the Prince there at the end, but he felt like the afternoon had been productive.
It wasn’t answers, exactly, but it was eliminating non-answers.
Every book they crossed off increased their progress.
And it was making people feel like they were making a difference, and that mattered.
Cormal was just realizing how much.
But he was going to need to apologize to the Prince.