Chapter 50 Welcome
Welcome
We do not slow. The movement never becomes something I can follow with my eyes. I drift in and out of sleep without meaning to, the rhythm of it strange and unbroken, hours folding into one another while the warmth inside the transport holds and everything outside moves far too quickly.
At some point something changes.
Colsar feels it first. "We are close," he says.
I open my eyes. The air has weight now, the presence of something vast and long established pressing inward from every direction. The transport slows just enough for me to notice. Voices carry from outside, ordered and controlled.
We are being received. The opening parts, its wards reacting as though they had been waiting.
“My father has prepared for us,” Colsar murmurs.
Wyn and Trophi ride forward, their horses cutting cleanly through formation before stopping at the edge.
Trophi's gaze moves to the children, then to Colsar. "Do you wish to be seen?"
"No," Colsar says. I nod.
He lifts his hand and the air shifts, the feeling of it like stepping slightly to the side of everything else, close enough to see but removed from it, as though the world continues on one path and we have been placed just beside it.
"Remain within the boundary," Wyn calls to the troops. “You will not be noticed."
The opening closes, and we pass into Shalvar unseen.
Even like this I feel it. Shalvar does not rise upward in display.
It builds into itself, each level shaped with intention, drawn from the land and layered into something vast and connected.
Structures stretch across one another, elevated paths crossing above and below, forming a city that folds inward instead of spreading out.
Light moves differently here, gathering along surfaces in warm tones as though everything has held fire at some point and never fully released it.
Nothing shines or glows, the effect is quieter than that.
I look at the sky. The gray has cleared. There are no signs of the firebirds anymore, though it seems they are never truly gone, only scattered, waiting until he reaches for them again.
The palace sits at the center, not separated from the rest of the capital but woven through it, its reach extending in every direction.
When we arrive, the transport opens. No army waits. Only a small gathering, and at the center of it Arabar, who steps forward immediately and straightens when he sees Colsar, pride moving through his expression before he can contain it.
"My King."
Colsar steps down and grips his forearm. "You did well."
Arabar's ears turn pink almost instantly. "I carried your message exactly as you gave it."
"I know," Colsar says.
Behind him the Sovereign of Shalvar stands waiting. The man who found Colsar half dead in the mountains, young and abandoned, and made him his son. The man Colsar calls father.
Colsar turns and helps me down from the transport, his hand at my waist as my feet meet the ground. The pain comes slower now, deeper, something I brace against rather than something that overtakes me. The air here is warmer and contained in a way that feels intentional.
The Sovereign does not look at Colsar first. He looks at the children, entirely, and steps forward without hesitation.
"Let me see them."
Colsar allows it carefully. The Sovereign leans in, his attention moving over Fiorakis first, taking in her small form and the alertness already present even in stillness.
"Extraordinary," he murmurs.
Then his focus shifts to Ari and remains there, longer.
He reaches out and brushes his hand lightly through the boy's hair as though confirming something he already knows.
Ari does not stir. He remains exactly as he is, calm in the particular way that already feels like something more than temperament.
"He will be better at this than you or I," the Sovereign says quietly, his fingers moving along the length of Ari's leg beneath the blanket. "Look at him. The shape. The length already there." His gaze sharpens. "He will be fast. As a siakar should be."
Approval sits plainly in his voice alongside something that sounds like expectation. He lingers, then steps back and lifts his attention to me, something warmer entering his expression.
"And you," he says. "You have done something very few survive. And brought them here."
I incline my head. "Thank you."
He turns back to Colsar. “You return with heirs,” he says. “And still you refuse the seat I have asked you to take for years.”
A pause. “The Sovereign’s seat still stands open. It will not wait forever. It is time, Colsar.”
Colsar does not answer.
The Sovereign reaches into the folds of his coat and produces three circlets, each one small and precisely made, the insignia of Shalvar worked into the metal with a delicacy that suggests they were not made in haste.
He places the first on my head with a care that acknowledges without being asked that I cannot bend to receive it properly.
"For you," he says. Then he holds up the other two, smaller, sized for heads that will not be ready for them for some time. "And for them. When they are old enough."
I take them carefully and look at them for a moment, the Shalvar insignia glinting faintly, and something about the gesture moves through me before I can stop it.
"Thank you," I say. "I would curtsy but I am afraid the pain will not allow it at present."
His smile is genuine. “I would not ask it of you.”
He reaches into his coat again and produces two small vials, handing one to me and one to Colsar. “From our apothecary.” He pauses, something in his expression shifting into the particular gravity of someone passing along knowledge that matters.
“We are creatures. We thrive on scent above almost everything else.”
“If they smell either of you on the other, they’ll have no trouble detecting your children. These will mask your scent so no one will detect Colsar on you, or you on Colsar.”
He lifts his chin slightly. “Drink it now, before you go further inside.”
I uncork mine and drink it without hesitation. Whatever it is moves through me differently than the healer’s vial had, less warmth and more of a fading, as though something that had been quietly broadcasting goes suddenly and completely silent.
Colsar drinks his and says nothing, but something in the way he exhales suggests he had not realized until now how much he had been carrying.
“This is simply a precaution,” the Sovereign says. “To protect the children while you rest and plan. But make no mistake, you are not limited to the hidden kingdom. You may roam wherever you wish in Shalvar.”
Colsar nods in quiet agreement.
“I am pleased to have you here.” The Sovereign’s smile remains. “Come. You need rest.”
We begin to move, but he pauses after a few steps, his attention shifting back to me. “I dine at the same time every evening,” he says, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, though nothing about him suggests forgetfulness. “You are always welcome. With or without Colsar.”
Something in the way he says it makes it clear this is not a formality.
I incline my head. “Thank you.”
He studies me a moment longer, as if ensuring I understand what has been given, then turns and continues forward.
The shift happens without warning. One step forward and everything changes. The structure remains, the same walls and the same air, but something is different, offset in a way I feel before I understand it. I turn and see it.
The throne room. Clear. Close enough to touch. People moving within it, voices carrying faintly, and not one of them looking toward us.
"We are still inside the palace," I say.
"Yes," Colsar answers. "And no."
"This is the hidden kingdom."
It stretches beyond what I can fully take in, corridors layered alongside others, rooms folded into each other in ways that should not exist. We walk and pass through thresholds I do not feel, the hallway shifting subtly, doors lining the walls.
Saurin is guided to a chamber beside ours without question.
Inside, everything is prepared. A bed large enough for all of us, bassinets placed close beside it and within reach. Colsar does not pause.
"Send someone," he says. "Now."
The attendants move immediately and a healer arrives within moments, this time without any quick assessment.
Her hands move with purpose, undoing the bandages, examining fully, pressing and measuring and understanding the damage beneath the surface.
I feel every part of it, the strain and the weakness and the truth of what my body has been holding together through sheer necessity.
"You should not have traveled," she says quietly.
"And yet I did," I answer.
Something almost like approval moves through her expression. "We will fix what we can."
Colsar stays beside the bed, his attention fixed and unmoving as she works. When she finishes adjusting the bandages she steps back.
"She will hold," she says. "But she must rest."
"I will," I say.
Colsar's gaze shifts to mine and for a moment he does not move.
"You should go," I say quietly.
His jaw tightens.
"She is safe here," the healer adds.
He exhales once and nods. "I will not be long." He leans down, his hand brushing my face and then the children, adjusting them without thinking, and then he straightens and turns and leaves.
The door closes behind him.
For the first time since any of this began, he is not here.