A Long Way for a Short Joke

Riches weren’t enough.

That was the simple truth of it: Angus would never give in for a chest or two of gold.

Of course his friend wanted gold. Everyone was aware of that. But in his life, he’d never seen gold make Angus suddenly forget himself. It heightened his senses, if anything, turning into more of a weapon in his hands than his mace. Rohan hadn’t spent thirteen years watching others make the same mistake and fail – from castle guards to Maeve herself and even King Fin Varra – to think it’d be different if only he tried next. And all to offer Angus something he could gather on his own, without the added, royal work of being a prince.

There was roast at his face.

He nibbled it.

The roast went away.

Protection, then? The trouble with Angus and gathering riches ‘on his own’ was getting caught for it. But if no guard dared to catch him, surely he’d benefit from that. Fine, yes, being a prince made him a target for newer things, but how much of a bother was it really when he got kidnapped? Rohan saved him quick enough from Maeve and the wizard, and Angus saved himself the other times.

The relief would be from the guards in Kells’ castle. Their whole lives, Angus limped around saying what happened when they cornered him, and any marks that might’ve explained it instead were hidden by his many layers. Still, he’d be slow and cross if Rohan tried playing with him too early, and there’d been days he hadn’t complained over going to Cathbad. Whatever it was, royalty would spare his friend from more of it. So that should be the prize. It was obvious.

Maybe.

Maybe obvious.

Except protection was like gold. As Angus had gotten older, he’d learned the rules for handling all that on his own: which guards to push, which to avoid, which to run and surrender to, and which ones meant he could vanish after a bit of a distraction. That was before he became a Mystic Knight, and a close friend of their kingdom’s princess. Now Angus was a war hero, who personally took Maeve to her exile. He didn’t need to be a prince to keep the guards away, and half of them liked him.

What else?

Not power, since power meant responsibility. That’d mean work.

An heir – as though there weren’t three children in the village looking too much like him.

A bath?

... Angus did love a bath.

While Rohan was honing control of his sword, he’d cooked Angus in one for hours. They only stopped when his friend forgot how words were formed, though he remembered enough of them to still be grumpy over getting out.

So – a bath. Rohan could offer that. Royal baths were for royalty, which meant needing to be a prince. It was simple.

His arm went up while he thought.

Was it?

‘Simple,’ he meant.

No sooner did the word echo in his mind than it rang hollow. Because Angus didn’t need to be a prince to have a royal bath. Rohan – his arm went down – already was one. As proof, he’d been planning on cooking Angus again in a week to hone his control over the Dragon Torch. That hadn’t needed discussion, and would’ve been today if not for the feast. Rohan had more challenge ahead in getting Pyre to join that practice than he did with Angus, and of the two, Angus was the more reasonable one.

That was how Rohan was trapped. He understood his friend: food, warmth, rest, shelter, chores, clothes, fun – comfort. That was what Angus wanted. In spite of being a Mystic Knight for a year, he’d only earned the finest Kells could offer a handful of times, and paid heavily for it. If Rohan hadn’t been –

Well.

Maeve’s son.

If Rohan wasn’t that, he could’ve dangled a castle over Angus’ head, and Angus would’ve leapt to be a prince. A castle with servants and pantries fit to burst, even if the royal work came with it...

But he was that. And no one disagreed. It meant the question wasn’t if Angus would get to live in a castle one day. The question was who Rohan would be kicking out to move Angus in. Same for the food, and for warmth, and for chores and the rest – everything Rohan could’ve dangled. Angus becoming a prince when that much was handed to him for free only added obligations. ‘Work’. Unless something existed in royalty that his friend truly wanted, that Rohan couldn’t give, he was never going to get to ask.

So he had to think.

There had to be more.

His arm went up, and his cup bumped at him ‘til he sipped.

... Time?

Time could be useful.

He’d been – his cup left – he’d been looking at this wrong: two days had passed by now. As Angus himself explained, Maeve’s throne was still warm. They should’ve had plenty of time to prepare for this. But in the royal sense, and the only sense to matter, it meant Kells was late by two days in hosting their feast. From morning ‘til night, there’d been a blur of plans for celebrations, becoming another battlefield but without the simplicity of swords.

Royal time ran differently to true time in both directions. So maybe that was it. Angus hated waiting, and this would be a wait.

King Conchobar said that wars didn’t end with a banishment. They ended when everyone agreed on who had lost, which meant convincing people the war was over before even making the case it was Kells that won. How often had they claimed as much, only for Maeve to return with a new plan to throw it into chaos? Now, while she was gone, they could rush to gather the Chieftains and show how the dust had finally settled. No expenses were spared, nor surfaces left untouched. The richer and more decorated the party, the fewer losses Kells would look to have taken. With that as the last attack before Temra lost its queen, Kells seemed to have barely noticed the final battle. The kingdom shone brighter than it ever had, especially with Draganta at the table and Lugad gone to wander elsewhere in the land on his personal quest.

Word would spread in royal time. In true time, the king needed another message pushed into Temra’s heart: Rohan, the mighty warrior of legend and prophecy, and the son of their bested queen, bearing the same mark as her on his arm, would be coming to claim his rightful crown... eventually. That was in royal time again. The king said they didn’t have to be specific, as it was only to ensure Maeve’s throne didn’t ‘cool’ without Rohan’s hand upon it. There’d be no telling who might try for power in her absence. Hearing she had an heir, the very one to have defeated her, would keep those forces at bay until it was safe for him to rule.

“Let them welcome their new prince,” King Conchobar declared, “as a young man who fought for peace and an end to Maeve’s tyranny. Once they’ve sung your praises from their highest mountain, you’ll have your throne.”

Rohan didn’t know about that.

But the roast was back. There was laughter somewhere else. Singing.

... He nibbled.

The king had sent him with Ivar yesterday. The war was fresh, even though it was over, and Ivar had been in this political dance before. He’d made a similar tour across his own kingdom, having had to settle things after a decade of fighting there. So he’d be doing the talking – and they would only be there to talk. Rohan protested this, saying he’d made a name for himself with the perfectly-honed control over his sword. These were Temrans, after all. They were used to magic. And Maeve had hidden her mark from everyone, so how could flashing it at the nearest village over the border be enough? The soldiers knew Draganta better by his flames than his face. But Ivar said this spoke to how he’d been seen by the people, who weren’t as quick with their words, and were likely to mention the fire as a statement of ‘carnage’ over the land. So there’d be none of that. Ivar would strike with the story of Maeve’s defeat and Rohan’s mercy in allowing her to be banished for her crimes, not worse.

Rohan thought he’d do better with the fire. It was the reason Kells liked him. Ivar said they weren’t in Kells, which Rohan had found hard to believe. As they made their way along the border villages, the children there looked as unimpressed with him then as anyone from Kells had been while he was growing up.

The roast bumped his lips.

He nibbled it.

Ivar’s plan, true to his word, had worked. The Temrans were fascinated by the prince’s voice and the colour of his dress, as it fell closer to their own purples and blacks than Rohan’s reds and yellows of Kells. The distance of Ivar’s home made the message seem more important, as though he’d braved the oceans purely to lead them to their future ruler. And Rohan... was there as well. By the third village, he stopped flashing the mark on his arm. By the fourth, he wondered if he’d been needed on this trip. At the sixth, a small band of soldiers tried to attack, and Rohan was free to dismount and prove himself. Only he’d looked back at the end of it, and saw the villagers’ faces. Ivar was right: to them, he looked like someone attacking Temrans. On this side of the border, that was bad. But Ivar climbed atop his horse and called to the people again, saying that with their own eyes, they’d watched Rohan defend them from rogues who meant to kick the final embers back up, and yet no harm befell their village thanks to Draganta’s intervention. Rohan’s prowess as a warrior was as majestic as unmatched, and he meant to protect his subjects from cowards who struck at them. It was the sternest Ivar had been, and they called their efforts after it, riding home rather than pressing their luck. A second attack would be harder to explain.

When the Chieftains of the allied villages nearest to the border arrived, they were awash with news of the ‘heir’ they’d been hearing so much about: how fiercely Draganta strode in while atop his noble steed, how regal his escort was and how richly he’d spoken, how nervously Temra listened with poorly, bated breath, and how they arrived only to talk before departing. The gaps in where ‘Maeve’s heir’ came from were filled as well – with gossip, which had been Ivar’s truer goal. The people would come to their own answers, but Ivar gave them direction. Obviously, Maeve had heard of the prophecy but wanted to keep her crown, so fought against her fate by casting Draganta into the ocean. There, he was carried along the coast for Kells to discover him, and was trained in secret until he’d been old enough to join the war. After a year of leading their army, he’d shattered his mother’s rule, but whether he meant to bring Kells on Temra or turn against his convenient allies was too early to be guessed by either side.

Ivar was delighted, as Rohan’s loyalties survived with the ‘benefit’ of doubt. Deirdre called it kinder than anything Temra had said of her. Garrett agreed that Rohan could swim, at least. Angus said that made it the third time the ocean failed to drown him, meaning Cathbad had kept his word in not mentioning the water horse.

He appreciated it. All of them, and all of their encouragement. Even now, he felt the edges of a smile.

But it wasn’t his point.

‘Once they’d sung his praises.’

As silent as Temra’s castle had fallen, Torc would’ve pulled their remaining forces back inside. That was safest place to regroup, but the riskiest for Ivar. With Maeve gone and Draganta a monster on the horizon, Torc was trapped. The quick news of an heir would stop him from taking the throne himself – not without a campaign Torc was too cowardly to wage, and that would have to stand against the one Kells had already started. Should the worst happen and somehow, Maeve returned, she’d be forced to resume a war the island had since moved past. There’d be nothing to gain by helping her when she’d lost already, and while her son was there to challenge her if she dared. All of this was built of their careful messaging, Ivar said. That was the power of reputation. The first to brandish a sword would now find it pointed back at them, as the people had wearied of war and were ready to paint it as cowardice. If Rohan ran with this, the Temran villages would laugh the soldiers away, and turn to him as a ruler with sense for ending this. After that, it’d be a matter of time until Torc fled in surrender. He would never win the people’s hearts, and forcing them to submit – Torc’s last option – would damn him through their resistance and hatred.

Fleeing came with the chance of taking Ivar’s silver chalice, though. King Conchobar agreed to have his scouts positioned along the coast, but Ivar didn’t hide that the sooner Rohan was crowned, the sooner this was over. The chalice was Ivar’s reason for questing here. It almost cost them the armour for the Mystic Knight of Water, as well as Ivar himself, when he’d stolen away to reclaim it in impatience.

Rohan’s eyes flicked across the table.

There were three kids sat on the prince, and one was wearing his helmet.

Exactly. That was Ivar being ‘impatient.’

The first thing Rohan had asked on their ride back to Kells was how he was supposed to win the hearts of Temra’s people, armed with nothing but his personality, and without the sword that at last brought Kells to warm up to him. Ivar promised many new and faster techniques would be taught through his royal education. Since that sounded like the education needed to happen first, Rohan asked how long it would take – given the ‘rushing.’

“Precious little time,” Ivar replied. The planning of what he would learn had begun, and that would be finished soon as well. And what did either of those mean, in days or weeks or months? And according to – what?”

“Toast to peace, look happy.”

“To peace,” Rohan said, looking happy.

His arm was already up.

The stares of the throne room erupted into cheers, and the horde of guests slammed their hands on the table’s wood or thunderously clapped themselves through the air. Angus pulled his arm down – Rohan managed a sip – and joined in with the rest of the noise.

Anyway.

Time.

They were late to throwing this feast. They were rushing to get Rohan ready to rule. They were early in winning the people of Temra’s hearts. What seemed late or not to royalty just told Rohan it’d be faster having Angus becoming a prince without waiting. Not that he would get a castle out of it – well, not if Rohan was right. Which, as he’d been telling himself, wasn’t likely. That was probably why he wasn’t going to ask. It’d be a waste of time – true and royal – when he knew the answer was ‘no.’ And an insult. If Angus hadn’t said it to him, then assuming there was something to tell, his friend would’ve had his reasons. Rohan couldn’t betray those.

Assuming.

On the chance his best friend had something to hide.

And who would always be his best friend, even if – what?”

“Say you’re happy.”

“I’m happy,” Rohan said.

His arm wasn’t up. That was – oh. There was a finger at his chin.

The finger pushed Rohan’s head to turn and face...

Deirdre. He blinked at her.

“Look slow.”

Done.

“And mean it,” he heard.

“I’m happy,” Rohan insisted, wearing his brightest, slowest smile. To impress his point, he happily lifted his cup by himself – Angus pulled it from his hand and switched in a heavier one – and happily enjoyed a happy sip of his happy, filled cup. “To peace, princess?”

He felt Angus behind him. Angus thought that was funny.

Deirdre, down to two blue eyes piercing into Rohan’s own, didn’t.

Rohan took another sip.

“It’s bad enough –” Was the room always this loud? It’d jumped from a distant pressure to a roar. He had to realize he’d was reading Deirdre’s hiss at him on her lips. “– you’ve been swinging his arm around –”

“There’s no one noticing,” shot by his ear. “Who’s gonna see past this?” Shuffling came as Angus flapped his vest of furs at her, followed by the corner of Rohan’s cape. “Hey?”

“I can see –”

“You’re sat on his left, I’m blocking his right.” Angus was flashing a hand as well, which gave a glimpse of it as it snapped over Rohan’s shoulder. “If you weren’t makin’ a fuss, he’d be fine.”

Princess Deirdre, with her hands in her lap, and from what he could tell within the limits of his straight-ahead and unbroken eye contact, violently crushing a cloth to death, had plenty to reply to that. But he didn’t mind. She’d only gone to war with Angus, and given how far they’d had to push the royal table, there was only the throne behind her. Under the mess of drums and chanting and roars in the other direction, revealing what he’d thought had been his heavy heartbeat, Rohan was safer keeping his stare fixed towards her side. It gave him a chance to watch her mouth as it pressed together like petals, softened by the rosy flush of the evening sun. The delicate pattern of braids along her red hair had paired well with the stitches of her elegant green-ish or something gown. So long as he didn’t catch her attention, Rohan could stay this way, and could even return to his thoughts.

Roughly then was when he felt her foot.

“Why,” he managed.

“Do something other than staring at me,” she gnashed.

Before Rohan answered, Angus perked up again to argue, “He’s been starin’ at his drink, and you went after at him for that.”

“I didn’t go after him. I went after you,” she snarled, sharper. With a sound that barely stayed below the ebb of the music, Deirdre gracefully lashed her cloth in the air and resettled it in her lap. “Rohan’s heir to the Temran throne now, Angus. He can’t waste a meal with half of the Chieftains in Ireland by staring at a cup.”

“He’s his mother’s son – she got all her best ideas from a cup.” Rohan’s back got slapped hard enough to be relieved he’d put his drink down, though the teamwork they were showing in attacking him was admirable. It was their training, he bet. “Be grateful there’s not a little man poppin’ out and scaring everyone. And eat your roast, or I’ll be feeding you too. And I’ll have to stretch for that, so everyone’ll see –”

Her flash of rage cut through any sort of wall Rohan could form between them.

Angus stopped talking.

Rohan nibbled his roast.

He must have done well enough looking slow at that, for Deirdre pressed her flower petalled lips together. Presumably, she’d also sighed, though the music had crested over it. She relented and leaned in towards him to speak, which he mirrored as far as he dared.

“Pay attention,” she said, in a softer tone. Her fury had faded to a gentle concern. “I know it’s sudden. I’m sorry for that. I wish we’d had any time to prepare before throwing you into this. But you’re a prince now, Rohan. You’re expected to behave as befits a prince. You don’t need to talk, but you need to look as though you care.”

“I care,” Rohan told her.

“I know.” After a moment’s hesitation, she took his hand quietly in hers below the table. The warmth of it spread through his arm, and drew him in as a harbour for his focus. “I know you do. But the villages don’t, and that’s the hardest part of being royalty. We’re judged for how we appear, even if it’s not who we are.”

She lingered on those words, but wouldn’t cede her reason. Rohan was more distracted by how she’d included him in what she said, anyway. Was he meant to think of himself royalty so soon? He’d thought they were still discussing it. He knew they’d agreed to it theory but –

“Rohan. You need to show them.” She’d brought him to earth again. “You’ve shown us you can do this. You’ll show Temra too someday. But you can’t show anyone anything when a little man keeps popping in to speak for you –”

Angus hadn’t stopped listening, so the two went back and forth on that for a while. King Conchobar eventually cleared his throat, aiming the sound at the three of them. Deirdre returned to her graceful, upright portrait of an ever-patient daughter, though she’d kept Rohan’s hand in hers throughout, and pulled him to her after.

“Please,” she said. “We’re here to help you, but you need to do this for yourself. The wrong antics can ruin you. It matters how you’re seen.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. It felt weak. But he wasn’t sure what else he could say, and she seemed to accept it, squeezing his hand twice before releasing him. He caught her wrist before it vanished, though, and cordially asked her, “How long is my princess planning to stay where she is?”

“Oh – forever,” she swore, “if I must.” Lucky it wasn’t yet time for that, so Deirdre extracted her knife-life heel from out of his ankle and smiled. “That’ll come back if I catch you staring at your drink again.”

Which would happen below the table, where no one could judge it. They both considered the message received.

... Though before he turned his mind to the feast, he turned the other way and pressed against Angus.

“Would you want to be a prince?”

“Nope,” Angus said, biting a turnip. “She’s your problem.”

That could mean anything.

Rohan would have to think about it, but without glancing at his cup for the rest of the feast.

Unless he was very, very stealthy.

Morning.

Rohan set off on his plan with a hobble.

Bribing Angus was well and good, but having him take the bribe was the challenge. His friend had a funny sense for trouble that came in at the worst of times. If this was one of them, it wouldn’t work. He would need to be convinced he was a prince before Rohan could sell him the prizes of it, and there laid the trap: how would Angus be convinced? How was Rohan meant to convince him?

It wasn’t only being somebody’s son. Growing up, they’d both heard of bastards. It was a strange term, and the few to visit the castle were stranger still, either modest in its wake or fiercely defensive of the name. The difference seemed important to so many people, though it went unmentioned for Rohan and Maeve. He’d been waiting for it, for someone to admit how it mattered, as he’d never heard of her being married. But everyone agreed Rohan was a prince, and his foot meant Deirdre expected it. He didn’t want to disappoint her. He planned to do as he was told. But he had to admit, he wasn’t ready to handle those questions if Angus brought them up.

He knew who could. He knew two princes. Importantly, they were princes he could wake first thing in the morning, and lead to the forest with precious little time wasted on complaints. Garrett even insisted on going when given the choice. Such grace at the early intrusion was inspiring, though Garrett’s heels had dragged the entire walk. That demonstration of their trust and confidence was also heartening for him. When they arrived, however, with Ivar standing tall and Garrett shoulder-to-shoulder with a tree, Rohan was equally struck by how easy they’d be to kill. This far from a village, and under this dim, grey light, it’d be impossible getting found or stumbled on by chance. That was his point – the one that landed him in this mess with Angus. So their first order of business was planning the ways to ensure this didn’t happen again. Maeve, though stripped of her sceptre, could have reserved enough magic for disguising herself. Victory was a tenuous time, and when wars shifted from conquest to simple revenge, the tactics shifted as well. If ever there was occasion to assassinate a foe without worry for the consequence, this was it. They needed to be careful.

Anyway, no, they couldn’t leave. Rohan needed to talk to them.

“How d’you know you’re a prince?”

The words felt wrong through his teeth, and clunky in the air. He’d struggled with putting them into order all night, and now it seemed he’d stayed awake with nothing to show for the price.

“I was seven,” Garrett explained.

“Our importance in the role is a central part of any royal education,” Ivar said. “In my kingdom, that starts when we’ve turned five.”

“Five,” Garrett amended.

That didn’t help. Rohan had to steel his jaw against the earnest itch for nervous prattle to tell them as much, and asked instead, “Supposing you didn’t have that.”

The pair exchanged a glance, however slowly. Rohan eyed their conversation, noting the tone was shrouded by Garrett’s crossed and sagging arms, an elbow stuck in the bark for some leverage, and by Ivar’s purposely visible hands, folded over the barbs of his trident. Their other contrasts emerged as well, with one clad in his yellow tunic, the other tidy in his blue; one pale and squinting in the breeze, the other dark and comfortably bearing his helmet; one without the mystic axe awarded to him by the Fairy King of Tir na Nog, and the other not mentioning that. In this moment, though, they were the same. They understood there were levels to this if Rohan had declined their more obvious answer. Whether that was wisdom common to every prince, or from them getting used to Fin Varra’s riddles, it didn’t matter. So long as Rohan got what he brought them for.

Ivar answered first.

“I suppose it’d be difficult.”

“I would’ve assumed it by seven,” said Garrett.

“Five,” amended Garrett.

Fewer answers from Garrett, perhaps.

“Are you having doubts, Rohan?”

“No,” he said, recognizing Ivar asked that as a friend, but a cautious one. Which was odd. Everyone agreed: Rohan was a prince. He was willing to wait to feel like one, as he accepted everything eventually. But he supposed Ivar had watched him react to news of being Draganta. With the chalice on the line, maybe it was fair to be concerned. So Rohan pressed on, no offence taken, and only a shuffle of his scabbard’s strap across his chest. “I just want to understand. It’s important. Something that important should have a way of being known, shouldn’t it?” Yes. “A feeling or... or something I can point to as proof. I shouldn’t have to wait for our enemy to tell it to us. What if she hadn’t?”

He’d dealt with wondering if she’d told him the truth. Cathbad had checked the mark on her arm, and it passed his Second Sight. More than that, Rohan and Angus already picked over the logic: Maeve had a lot to gain by spoiling it for him ages ago. Were the king to have learned who Rohan was before he’d proven himself as Draganta, there would’ve been no victory for Kells to celebrate. Their triumph came from him being raised as a ‘mortal without lineage,’ otherwise he would’ve been banished too, branded as a spy or traitor-in-waiting. And Maeve would’ve known that, with how treacherously she schemed. It gave her motive to threaten him with the truth a bit, and to do so earlier. Yet she’d kept it to herself until the end, then gave it freely when she did. That confession was her attempt to stay his hand from attacking when it counted, as he’d done with Lugad. Only that.

She hadn’t even meant to divide the Mystic Knights.

He’d put more work towards that himself, and all he did was annoy everyone.

So, though it was gossip, the Temrans might’ve stumbled onto something when they said that Maeve had learned of the prophecy, and wanted no heir to challenge her rule. She’d two children, after all, and raised neither.

Angus said that narrowed who Rohan’s father was. ‘One child made sense,’ and Lugad seemed to be the fruit of a dark bid for darker power. But two children, and one without any demon blood to speak of, born to a woman who’d done nothing but murder and pillage her way through Ireland, and who’d’ve torn an uninvited guest to pieces to feed to her twelve-headed hound, meant they needed to look for a man with ‘quite a limp’ in his step.

“You should tell that to Deirdre,” Angus had chirped, sprawled as he was on his cot, “and Garrett.”

Garrett’s arms were still miserably crossed. He’d managed to crunch himself slightly farther down his tree.

Rohan fiddled with his scabbard’s strap, and decided Garrett was handling enough.

“Your spirit,” Ivar said, as if to distract him back to the question. “That is what you can point to. There are always signs of one’s spirit.”

Rohan wasn’t alone in being wrested by his royal blood. Ivar began to explain that they all had been – though in their cases, failing to notice felt like an embarrassment to themselves. Royalty was meant to ‘have a way,’ and one that everyone could tell from a glance. Clothes helped, but with that aside, there were still signs to be found.

“What signs?”

“It’s difficult to give a list,” Ivar answered. “But you know what signs can be. When we met, you were already on your quest to find Draganta. That conviction in your path was a sign of the orders you acted upon. To have had such an impossible task put onto you, surely you were your king’s most trusted champion. And though you weren’t then, you are today. I wasn’t wrong to have assumed. It’s those signs that create a first impression, and first impressions have a special magic in revealing who we’ll be.” At the low stutter to their side, Ivar cast an eye at Garrett. “Generally.”

Garrett frowned, but gave a light snort of agreement.

“Deirdre’s known me for years,” Rohan said, trying not to sound ridiculous. “King Conchobar, too. They’ve never noticed signs of me being a prince.”

“You’re sure?” Ivar’s mouth twitched. “From what I’ve heard, your quest wasn’t acting on King Conchobar’s orders. At least not before you’d shouted him into revoking his planned surrender.”

Rohan’s ears perked up.

“Did shouting make me royal?”

Angus shouted at kings.

His faint outlines of inspiration were smashed by Ivar telling him, “No. The shouting is incidental. Your spirit is what grounded it in royalty.” Ivar’s posture shifted, and the prince settled in to make his point. The gaining tide of intensity surrounding him was quieter than it’d been in Temra, but if he’d been atop a horse as well... “At every turn in your life, Rohan, someone has told you who you are. Be that Cathbad as his apprentice, Fin Varra as a Mystic Knight, all of us as Draganta, and now your kingdom as a prince. Those roles have their place, and you’ve been pushed to embrace in yours. But you’ve refused, because your spirit cannot simply be contained.”

Ivar’s mouth twitched again, but in the other direction.

“Admittedly,” the prince continued, “that’s a challenge as much as a virtue. There’s more at stake as royalty, and you’ve lived to see how power runs unchecked through watching Maeve. But –” The emphasis stopped Rohan’s thoughts from lingering on that name. “Had you accepted your place as it was assigned, you would never have gone to Tir na Nog. King Conchobar isn’t a man who’s easily swayed, and his kingdom was on the brink of ruin. A mere apprentice – not even a soldier or one of his personal guard – managed to convince him to hold on his plan to save as many of his people as he could, and to give the remaining time to an ancient prophecy instead. That is your spirit, and that is a sign. We all noticed it.”

His spirit as a sign...

Rohan turned the concept over.

“If you noticed,” he tried understanding, “why did no one mention it sooner?”

“That’s the power of first impressions,” Ivar said. “When you told us you were a warrior, we didn’t question it. That became what you were.”

Ah.

He swallowed.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Rohan supposed, “but...” His thumb picked at his scabbard’s strap. “Would it have helped if... I’d said nothing?”

Shrugs looked strange on Ivar’s scholarly stance. This one rippled through the blue of his clothes.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps we would have anchored ourselves to another, easy answer.” ‘Easy.’ Rohan had needed a mystic weapon for anyone to believe he was a warrior. “What’s hard to imagine is you hiding that part of your nature. You are a warrior. It felt right to attribute your signs to that, whether or not you insisted upon it. What fell outside that role still seemed to fit as Draganta, a warrior of legend. It may have left very little to reveal you as a prince, but it didn’t deny you your destiny. Nor did it stop you from being revealed as royalty now.”

Garrett made a new noise. Ivar nodded towards it.

“Garrett agrees.” And just as Garrett craned his neck to elaborate, Ivar cut in with a sharp, “And.” A look. But reluctantly, Ivar returned to facing Rohan. As if having to summon his strength first, the prince carefully said, “You did shout at the king.” Rohan saw a smirk from their side – and Ivar must’ve sensed it coming, because he cut in once more before Garrett spoke. “It’s a challenge as well, but it’s easier to address. We all had to learn our refinement. Some at seven.”

Garrett frowned.

And how old was Rohan? He hadn’t learned any of this. Angus hadn’t either, though. That gave him some company.

With greater confidence than he felt, Rohan secured his hands to his hips and said, “Fine. I’ll look for signs of it.” Somehow. He’d have to manage. “Thank you.”

Ivar inclined his head. Rohan did it back, and felt clumsy.

Angus would shout at a king even after he’d been ‘refined.’ Angus would shout at anyone. So would Deirdre. Garrett was a prince, and he shouted. Only Ivar didn’t, really. Except for those times when he did, and louder than the rest of them. Rohan was beginning to think he couldn’t use that one.

“You don’t need to decide this at once.” Ivar’s voice shocked him to his senses. The lack of sleep was having its effect. “Take your time. Ask the others what they think.”

‘Ask the others’?

“I thought I had to find the signs of my spirit,” he questioned.

With a short approach, and a hand nimbly set upon Rohan’s shoulder, Ivar offered him more patience.

“I told you,” his royal friend promised, “we can see the signs of your spirit. The impression you’ve made in Temra will speak for you long after you’ve returned to rule. It’s why we were careful to craft it to show only your best side.” That wasn’t far from what Deirdre had said. Maybe royalty did have a way about it. “But your friends have seen the rest of you. Even though we took it for something else, we saw. We know which signs have been with you from the start, and you can feel stronger believing in them the older they are.” Was that the trick? “First impressions will fade. Whatever remains is left as your true nature.”

That was it.

That was the trick.

Spirit, nature, impressions – all that aside, could he decide what was a sign, if it’d been going for long enough?

“Does it count, sitting in a throne?” Angus was endlessly sat in Conchobar’s. Then again, Angus loved any good chair. The best simply happened to be for royalty. “Do princes get thrones?” Deirdre had a chair, but he’d never seen Angus sit in that. Either she’d hunt him for it, or he’d already tried and wasn’t impressed. “Are they comfortable?”

They didn’t look it. Maeve’s had a cushion, and Fin Varra’s was carved from stone.

Stone came from the earth.

... What if –

“We’ve been friends for a year,” Ivar said, patting his shoulder less patiently. “You and Deirdre were acquainted for longer, but your oldest friend claims he knows you more than you know yourself. You’ve yet to prove him wrong. If you wait for the sun to finish rising, I’m sure he’d be willing to help.”

Angus knew Rohan as much as Rohan knew Angus – or, well... As much as it mattered. For this. Unfortunately, it added to the list of things that Rohan would have to ask, but it was well-timed. As the yellowing light crept past the forest’s canopy, he was starting to tell by Ivar’s face how early this meeting had been.

Rohan put his attention back to Garrett. Amidst the speckled breaks of birdsong greeting the third day since Maeve was banished, Garrett was sliding down the length of his recently-acquainted tree. There was a finger over his mouth, which – so far – had held in words, but with increasing concentration.

Ivar’d probably said everything there was to say. To be safe, though, Rohan pressed for any hidden gems with, “Thoughts?”

One. Their humbled prince of Rheged turned to empty it down his tree.

“You did great this time,” Rohan noted.

“I disagree,” Ivar disagreed.

Fast.

Oh. Yeah. Him and Angus called that ‘the uncorking.’

“I can hold your helmet,” Rohan said.

And trident. Ivar pushed both into Rohan’s hands, then scuttled off to find his own tree. With that, Garrett’s first feast in Kells – and Ivar’s second – came to a natural end. Rohan waited for them at a rock in the centre of the clearing, weighing his options for the day. Signs of a royal spirit didn’t seem impossible to exist. They’d have to, if he thought he was right. But he’d need to find one first to prove the others real. However Angus helped him with his, Rohan could do it back to him, and that’d be good for them both.

Because it was good to know a friend.

A best friend.

It was probably good to mention that King Conchobar liked chairs, too.

They’d been watching their eggs boiling in the usual silence. He had ten in there, since he’d spent the rest of his morning gathering berries. One of the women that tended to the royal hens had always liked him, and berries for eggs was their friendly trade from even before Cathbad took him in. It started with her giving him four a basket, then six as he grew. Today, she’d given him ten to celebrate the war ending. Rohan was pleased with that. It’d also been a good way of passing the time ‘til his friend was conscious.

He’d been doing some reflecting during the wait, and hunting for more of Ivar’s signs. They could’ve had something to do with the eggs, as Angus, strangely, never made a fuss about their price over the years. Maybe since they weren’t paid for in gold, or because Angus wasn’t gathering the berries himself, but he’d been happy letting the lady charge Rohan however many baskets she’d wanted. Or maybe Rohan had gotten a deal from her without realizing. He hadn’t asked. It’d be rude if she’d done it as a kindness to him, and it wasn’t a bother filling a basket now and then if it’d been a scam. He’d grown up collecting herbs for Cathbad anyway, and had come back once to the hut already to drop a basket off for Angus – and to roll a few berries under Angus’ lip to try hurrying his friend awake. Rohan left the rest on the table, so there’d be no choice but to crawl at least that far for more. Something felt like it should’ve been unearthed in that history, but for all his attempts, the most Rohan’d managed to notice was that Angus liked to eat. That wasn’t ‘royal’ specifically, but it was true to Angus’ nature, and it added more weight to what Ivar said about picking signs that were there from the start.

So he’d have to do this.

But he would need to be delicate.

It helped that their eggs could be cooked inside the hut. Their stove only needed a little fire, and since no smoke from it would be worth their notice, Rohan was free to drag it in for them. This gave Angus a closer chore to finish waking himself with. He was better at knowing when the eggs were ready, since Rohan would cook them into rocks. Rohan’s job instead was to scoop the eggs from the pot, and depending on how asleep Angus still was, slide one of them in his friend’s mouth as well. Last they’d checked, Angus was able to fit four. Five, Rohan thought, if they practised, but Angus only tried with eggs he’d be allowed to eat, and Rohan wasn’t giving him that many when a basket only bought them six.

Settling that was a fun day. They’d learned Rohan could swallow a boiled egg whole, which was how Angus missed out on having his fifth. As grown men, they ate their meals slower now, but a lot of that lesson was learned by Angus learned trying to whole-swallow the last of them. And he’d nearly managed it. And ‘nearly’ wasn’t the fault of the egg, as Rohan proved once he’d fished it from Angus’ neck.

... That wasn’t a sign. That was just the two of them having their fun. He couldn’t get distracted by those things, or by how – as a proper prince – he’d probably never get to swallow an egg whole again. They’d make him chew it, along with the other manners everyone in royalty learned at five. Or seven.

“When we met,” he asked, after another moment of those ten rustling in the water, “what did you think of me?”

“Under a log.”

Angus didn’t move for that. His chin stayed firmly rested on his hand, with his elbow stuck out as far across the table as it’d go. He was as close to laying down as anyone sat mostly upright on a stool could be, and was turned to the pot with all of the life he’d mustered this far.

“Yeah,” Rohan said – and fair enough. “But after that.”

“Dead.”

Right. But.

“After that,” Rohan said.

“Not dead.”

“After that, Angus.”

“Under a log, not dead.” With the barest pivot on his palm, Angus flicked his eyes and levelled Rohan with a flat look. “That’s how we met, s’what I thought, s’not my fault you’re wantin’ something else. When do you think we met?”

When Angus poked with him a stick to check if he was dead.

But that wasn’t going to be helpful here, so Rohan tried picking a different time.

“When we talked.”

“We were talkin’ lots,” Angus muttered, “when you were under the log. S’not my fault you forgot that either. You’d remember if you’d kept your blood inside, but you were too busy stabbin’ at me with your sword. That’s your fault for gettin’ spooked from me trying to help.” That wasn’t why Rohan had stabbed at him, but they weren’t dragging themselves through that now. This was the third Sour Knight he’d talked to today, and Rohan’s own mood was spoiled from it. He was about to drop the matter entirely, but felt a nudge below the table at his Deirdre-foot. So he looked back up, letting Angus flatly poke at him with, “Hey. What d’you want. Why’re you askin’.”

... He had a reason.

Fine. Rohan forced his resolve back into place, and taking Angus’ grumpy offer of peace, he returned to explaining his point as patiently as he could.

“I want your impression of me when when we met,” he said. “Not when I was under a log. After I was awake, and when I wasn’t bleeding to death. When we were having our first, real talk.”

“Oh, at the farm.”

And there it was. The sound had arrived in Angus’ voice, as summoned from its grave as Balin had been. It was high and it was falsely relaxed, as if meaning to hide its interest to lure the story out. But per their truce, and surely through its own sign of their friendship, Angus pivoted his chin towards the pot. Farther than that. He’d put his face at a hard angle away from it. Rohan, in recognition of the feat and their agreed-upon terms, didn’t dwell on that or the lilt dangling from his best friend’s words, and how it implied he’d had more to say, but couldn’t.

Not because of the truce, of course. Because Angus had to mind the eggs.

“Yes,” Rohan said, knowing where this was likely to go. “The farm. When I woke up and we talked.”

“Dunno if I’d call that ‘when we met.’”

Angus’ words ended on another lilt. With that, he suddenly had to have himself some more of the berries. Of course, he had to push them to the back of his mouth so he, of course, could make sure they’d be sitting between his thickest teeth. That, of course, meant hooking his thumb inside of his cheek, and pulling it as far and as taut it’d go. Five eggs’ worth, by Rohan’s count. Easy. And again, Rohan repaid the feat by not dwelling on it.

“It’s when we first shared our names,” he expressed, while Angus dug a tiny, tiny berry out from the other side of his teeth. With the thumb already hooked inside his cheek, of course, there was no sense in moving his hand around to get at it from a better angle. Rohan watched as Angus stretched his pinkie across to pick at the teeny, tiny, probably invisible berry – like he was giving himself a horse’s bit. Then Rohan ignored it. “What did you think of me then?”

Angus picked.

The eggs bubbled.

That very real berry, of course, was very stuck.

“Scoop ‘em out,” Angus finally said.

Rohan did. He scooped. And since Angus, of course, couldn’t eat with a thumb in there, he had until Rohan finished peeling the first one to get a hold of himself.

Angus picked.

The shell slipped off with perfect ease.

“It’s a simple question,” Rohan promised, idly holding the egg out. “There’s no riddle to this. I trust you.”

One egg. And Angus could have it. All it would take was an answer given according to their truce’s terms. Probably because Angus knew that, and knew that Rohan knew, his friend started biting his hand instead. He put his other one to prompt the egg’s delivery, and Rohan, attempting to be merciful, reached slowly forth and placed it in the waiting palm. Following this, Angus crammed it in his face and went, “You were fine.”

“Angus.” All these antics, and for that? “I want a real answer.” Rohan peeled the next egg and offered it too, insisting, “You didn’t notice anything about me?” Second egg delivered. “No signs?”

“Ovvat.”

Yes, they were hot. Normally Angus nibbled the eggs into cooler bites, but he’d crammed the second one in again and was doing his best to breathe like a dragon.

“Of... you know.” This was getting more treacherous. “My personality,” Rohan said. “My spirit.” All right, he deserved that look Angus gave him, but he still meant to explain. “I’ve been talking with Ivar. He said with the spirit I have, when we met, there should’ve been signs appearing of –”

... Oh.

“Ov vat,” Angus repeated, fuelled by their written terms for blame of this.

Which were clear. Their terms weren’t written as though they could never talk about this. It was a part of their life, and clearly, it was something that Angus enjoyed. It just limits on how far that talk could go, and this soon after a party, Angus always had the hardest time keeping to their one rule. It’d been years since they’d talked about it, though. Perhaps it’d be dull now, and only funny for the memory of when it used to be.

Rohan peeled the third egg.

“When we met,” he began.

Angus stared.

Rohan ignored this and continued.

“... did you think –”

Angus had plenty of time to chew what was in his mouth, and hadn’t. That’d be its own uncorking, and Rohan was sat across from him at their table.

“When you met me...”

His mouth wasn’t even closed. It was parted like a wolf. And from the look in the eye of his dearest, greatest, deepest friend, that irony hadn’t been lost on either of them.

“Was I having signs – of... being...” Days from today, when Angus whined about why Rohan insisted on years of writing their truce down, and trimming the good memories they had shared while at the farm, after Angus had saved his life by stuffing Rohan’s wound with wet leaves and – by all accounts – heroically dragging him there from the forest atop a blanket of some kind, this was the reason for it that he’d be getting. “– princely?”

The sharp eternity that followed was spread against every agonizing moment of having to hear it. It hadn't dulled, and by the end, Angus’ face was streaked with brooks of tears and slime. He’d inhaled his eggs, obviously, and blown them back out after choking as he did at fourteen, sputtering them over the table in a wet rug of white and yellow. They slathered down his front as well, made worse by the nectar he’d smuggled home from the feast. He’d tried drinking it at once, the eggs still stuck in him, only to cough it up and at his last moment, grab for Rohan in a strike of panic and pull to give a punch to his gut. That worked, which was horrible, for the second that gulp was freed, Angus sucked in a whirlwind that set off a red-faced, sobbing shriek of glee, as if none of his howling had been interrupted in the first place. The madness of it ended simply when his blubbering wheeze hurt too much to laugh at Rohan about it any further.

Then he said, “No.”

And then he wanted another egg.

“You’re sure – not the egg, you ass,” Rohan snapped, and swallowed the damned thing to prove his point. Whole, for maybe the last time. “Ivar said there’d be signs since I am one. He said you’d be the best to tell me. You’ve known me the longest.”

“Aye,” Angus cried, but only after wiping his face and snorting hysterically into his sleeve. And though that ended on a lilt as well, the feckless guffaws this time shoved out the rest of what’d been waiting, leaving Angus to helplessly hiss between cackles, “What kind – of signs –”

“I don’t know.” They were grown men, and Angus was laughing over something from when Rohan was six. “Ivar said when I shouted at King Conchobar, it’d been grounded in a royal spirit.” The new delight this drew was drowned by the banging on the table, there for Angus to fill any gaps he couldn’t by squeaking out another tee-hee. “Do you have to do this every time?”

“Ee,” said Angus.

Rohan took the fourth and the fifth egg. When he started peeling the sixth, Angus’ stomach asserted itself, and suddenly his friend was sober enough to call Rohan a hog for it.

“So?”

Angus didn’t move ‘til ownership of the seventh egg was decided. Rohan gave it to him, unpeeled, which was good enough to earn a hiccuped, “You get bossy at times. Does that count?”

“No,” Rohan scolded. “It needs to be a true sign. I’m a prince now, but I’ve always been a prince, so there must’ve been something to have shown it.” The massive grin buried behind the nibbled egg made Rohan regret admitting, “You’re the only one who’ll know.”

Laughing directly into a cup didn’t hide it either, Angus. Cups echoed.

“What d’you want from me? I didn’t know you were a prince,” Angus replied. “I’m not gonna look at you under a log, stabbed with a branch, and think of how royally you swung your sword at an innocent passerby.” Rohan let that go. Not the time. “And for everything you babbled about on the way out, if there was gonna be a sign, you’d think you’d drop a hint to it then, your majesty.”

Huh. That might’ve been the first time Angus had called him this and meant it as such. The newness of it saved Rohan from hitting him ‘til next time.

“I was delirious,” Rohan argued.

“I know,” Angus crowed. “Well, you weren’t on the way in – but, yes, on the way out, fine. It’s true. I know. ‘Cause I was awake.” Even that egg squishing in those cheeks couldn’t stop Angus’ grin from gaining strength. “You know who else awake?” Don’t – “You. At the farm.” They had a truce, Angus – “You weren’t delirious when you woke up, sayin’ the same thing you as in the forest, completely sure of yourself.” And as if Angus had just run to Tir na Nog and back, he let out a wild breath to empty his chest of exhausted air. “Right. I’m done. But you brought this up. I didn’t say anything about it.”

“‘Didn’t say –’” He was ridiculous, and Rohan shot that back at him. “You were laughing loud enough to scare the cows at Tir na Nog!”

“Didn’t say the word, though,” Angus cooed. “You wrote it down: the truce says I can’t say the word. I didn’t say it, so nothing’s wrong, and if you wanted me in trouble for laughing, that’s what you should’ve wrote.” His greatest, dearest, best and most loyal of friends, who was scraping the eggs spat onto the table together for their second chance at being a meal, chose that moment to beam at him. “Y’didn’t.”

This unfortunately answered another mystery: why Angus had been so calm at twelve when they’d signed it. This stank of a twelve-year-old’s trick, as did the smirk on Angus’ face while watching Rohan puzzle that out.

“I want a better truce,” he mumbled.

“Good luck gettin’ me to sign,” Angus bragged. “But call it practice. A truce is the first thing you’ll be dealing with when you get your crown. Conchobar’ll see to that. Make sure you read it, though, ‘cause you don’t want ‘im too happy to sit you on a throne. You’ll ruin all of Ivar’s work making the Temrans like you.”

‘A throne.’

Not ‘your throne,’ as everyone else had been saying.

“... You think they’ll like me?”

“Sure,” Angus said, answering a question Rohan hadn’t fully meant to be out loud. “They can’t hate you more than Mider.” Then at Rohan’s pause, which Angus used to grab the eighth egg, he insisted, “There is a response to ‘Who could be worse than Maeve’. But you won’t be worse than her, and they’ll see that when you’re there.”

The certainty in that...

Rohan’s arms inched back from the table, released from the nicer feeling he’d had hearing ‘a throne.’

“What makes you so sure?”

It was too early for anyone to have given it much thought.

“‘Cause if they’re pricks, you’ll leave,” Angus replied, as he picked through the shell. “That was Maeve’s problem: always overstaying her welcome, no matter how much we wanted her gone. You, it’s harder keeping in a place than it is keeping her out. I’ll bet you a new truce that the first law you pass is ‘Everyone fucks off for the day ‘cause I’m sick of them and I’m going home’.”

Right then, the feeling returned. Rohan’s arms were warmer, and they inched closer to Angus again as he heard himself confess, “That doesn’t sound very princely.”

But he wasn’t displeased with it.

“You’re gonna love how princely it sounds when I’m dragging you back there on a rope.” Which Rohan would survive, so long as it was nothing like what Angus was doing to this egg. “It’s gonna be every week. ‘Angus, I’m leaving, I hate this place.’ You’ll do it once, actually angry, fight me over it, then go. You’ll do it twice, still mad, but expecting me to come for you. Third time, you’ll make me wait with you ‘til you’re done having your fit. Every time after that? ‘This is fun, I like playing with my friend. I’m gonna hide in this cave of human fingers down this path of sharp rocks, and see how long it takes for him to find me today.’” The egg-butchery stopped for Angus to shake his head. “Calls me an ass. Ask how I know those rocks were sharp.”

“It’s called ‘practice,’” Rohan said. Angus threw the mangled shell at him. Blocked. “But all right. I’ll take it if that’s your answer.”

“What answer?”

“About the signs,” Rohan reminded him. “I asked if you thought I’d be a prince one day when we met. You’re saying no.”

Angus didn’t often look thoughtful. In a rare act, he did so now, keeping a quiet gaze locked onto Rohan. It was unusually focused for him, even while he busied himself nibbling shell off the ragged egg clumps, and it was pointed in such a way that the mission returned to the front of Rohan’s mind. Rohan wouldn’t call it ‘piercing,’ though it balanced upon that same edge. It wasn’t ‘crafty’ either, as Angus seemed to have no intention of hiding its purpose once he was done with his nibbles. The closest he came to giving this look a name was ‘impish,’ and even that felt harsh. But it fit, for Rohan’d seen it once before: in Tir na Nog, on King Fin Varra, moments ahead of dropping Garrett into a pit.

“Didn’t say that,” Angus finally answered. “You didn’t ask that.”

Rohan had.

“What do you think I asked,” he said, playing along anyway.

“Dunno. I wasn’t listening. But it wasn’t that.” To put the finest point on it he could, his best friend concluded this statement with, “Would you like to ask me that instead?”

Angus glanced away to grab another egg-clump to egg-nibble, but when he returned, he was still wearing the look.

“Fine.” Rohan shifted to square off against him. He planted his elbows firm and ready, jostling the berry basket. “Angus.”

Angus blinked.

“Did you think, when we met, that I was going to be a prince one day?”

“Rohan,” Angus explained. “Not specifically.” Oh. “But it does seem like shit that would happen to you.”

Huh?

“Wh–” What sort of answer – “What does that mean?”

“I mean there were ‘signs,’ if ‘signs’ are just whether I think it would happen, Draganta,” Angus said. “At the farm? Sure. The sign was you telling me why you were in the forest. Before that? Trying to get the sword out’f your death grip – not-death grip, apologies – long enough to cut the branch you impaled yourself on, under the log you crushed yourself with, all while you were swinging it at me ‘cause you thought I was stealing it? Aye. That too.” ... All right, yes, that was why Rohan had been stabbing at him. But he was willing to ignore the part where Angus didn’t admit that that was exactly what had been happening – “I wasn’t ‘stealing’ your ugly, rusted sword!”

“We’re not getting into it, Angus,” Rohan shot. “How’s that a sign of anything?”

“How’s it not a sign?” Angus dropped his last bits of egg and started counting off of his fingers. “You were dyin’ of thirst, losing blood, getting crushed by a tree, stuck with a branch, freezing, by yourself, in the middle of the forest, two days passed, war’s around, and you come back to life long enough to tell me I can use your sword to cut you loose, but ‘I’m not letting go, it’s my sword,’ and to this day, you’ve defended doing that.”

They waited.

Long enough for Rohan to get itchy.

Itchy enough for Angus to raise his eyebrows at the reaction.

Raised enough for Rohan to refuse to acknowledge it.

“We’re not getting into that, Angus,” he said.

And then Rohan ate an egg.

“I spend the day minding my business,” Angus regaled as Rohan chewed, “and I’m locked up for arson by the afternoon and put on trial. You find a cave made of human fingers, and leave with a prized goat and the medicine for a chieftain’s dying wife.”

“Well.” If they were going to be specific. “It was arson and theft –”

“Learn to die in a cave made of human fingers,” his friend suggested, “like a normal boy.” Rohan supposed it spoke for itself that for once, Angus hadn’t also – “And quit goin’ into finger-caves ‘fore you even know a goat’s missing.” Ah. Next time. “‘Did I think he’d be a prince’ – mate, you’re supposed to be a corpse.”

Despite himself, and against his most valiant efforts not to, Rohan couldn’t help it: he blushed. Angus had forever had a gift for compliments, and his genuine shake of disbelief at needing to spell this out left Rohan with a chipper swell of pride. Because he had saved that goat and that dying wife, hadn’t he? And not by doing much of anything, but more than everyone else. It’d been a few fingers dangling from a cave entrance, but it wasn’t as though they were attached to anything. It’d all gone well, and no matter what the future held, Rohan could at least say that about their past.

“Thank you for cutting me free and not taking my sword, Angus,” Rohan plied.

“You remember that the next time I laugh about you handling your witch.”

One word, and the entire purpose of their truce, yet there sat Angus, grinning away and shamelessly proud of himself. Rohan’s ears were still ringing, and half of the village must have been deaf from earlier, but... the flash of outrage left him just as soon as it arrived. And it hadn’t felt as it usually had. It was softer. Annoyed, yes, and brimming with it, but it seemed time had worked its magic. The sting was dulled, and coated with something akin to fondness. It surprised him. It’d been thirteen years, and their first conversation felt fresh in his mind, but it wasn’t. Rohan had been six and Angus, seven. Being nineteen now – nearly twenty – gave the memory a shape he’d never noticed, and almost wouldn’t mind.

Like Ivar said, this was his nature. Both of theirs, as Angus kept finding reasons to stay despite the chore that Rohan was.

Rohan could trust him.

He could ask too, maybe.

“Maeve is a sorceress,” he suddenly realized.

All right. They were even, and Angus could only weather choking so much in a morning. Rohan left this alone, even though he hadn’t said the word back. Besides, Maeve had had the idea that he’d been stolen from her. He took ‘stolen’ to mean where his loyalties laid, as her last words were of how he’d been on the wrong side of her war. If she’d wanted him to join her as her son – and she hadn’t – she wouldn’t have sent a storm to kill him. If she’d wanted him dead – and she did – then the storm wouldn’t have been her sole attempt on his life. This one attack felt safe to distance from her name. The hundreds of creatures, battalions, enchantments, curses, and swords at his neck were her fault, but not this particular storm. He could rest. Even when he’d asked Cathbad, the storm sounded wild but natural.

Surviving it, though.

Finding a child under that debris, and dragging him out from it alive...

“Did you know your parents?”

Rohan sat surprised by the question.

As surprised as Angus, whose head tilted towards him curiously.

Then more surprised, once Rohan recognized that as having been his own voice.

Oh.

Oh, no.

No, no. No, he hadn’t meant for that. That wasn’t how he’d wanted it said. It wouldn’t work, it hadn’t worked, which was why Rohan had never been able to ask, and Angus was changing his expression, moving from curious to searching for Rohan’s intent. There’d be none to find, since Rohan hadn’t been thinking. He shouldn’t have talked, and his face would be carved into proof of this: eyes too wide, mouth too dropped, brow frozen where it raised, full of nervous breaths as if preparing to say to ignore this as well, but never managing the words because now his voice had disappeared.

They waited.

It wasn’t a fun wait this time, and a touch of concern crept into the silence of their stare.

“Yeah,” Angus said.

Right.

Right – it didn’t work. It wouldn’t. Of course. But it’d been harmless, and that was fine. It’d been a strange matter to turn to during the meal they were enjoying, but harmless enough to forget Rohan had spoken. He could take the day to find a better approach, and try asking –

“Both of them?”

His heart sank, and he closed his eyes.

In his mind, Rohan was stood at the forest where they’d first met, staring up at the clouded edges of a dark storm he needed shelter from.

In their hut, after waiting for his eyes to open, Angus quirked a befuddled smile at him.

The two felt the same. Worse, Rohan felt six again sitting on his seat, journeying past the bended trees and into the storm.

“Yes,” said Angus.

“They were villagers,” said Angus.

“I’ve told you that,” said Angus, “lots of times.”

Rohan nodded and nodded. He took the answer for what it was. He took the last egg as well, out of Angus’ hand. Not fully peeled, but close enough. He chewed it firmly, swallowing bits of shelled regret.

“I know,” he eventually chattered. Then twitched. Itching. He went to fiddle with his scabbard’s strap, then remembered he’d set it aside to join Angus for breakfast. He had to reach behind himself and swipe it from where it leaned against his cot. Along with his sword, he slung it across his chest, and then fiddled with the strap. “It’s Maeve – that’s all. It’s new for me. It doesn’t matter.”

Because he’d learned: storms meant finding shelter.

“You’re not running off, are you?” It hung overhead as Angus watched him. “You’re in your ‘mood’ again. You take forever to find when you’re like this.”

Chatter. Rohan chattered, and he didn’t look as he stood up.

“You found me in the middle of an empty forest, mostly dead under a log.”

“Aye,” came the reply, “‘cause you couldn’t run off.”

He laughed. Quick. Sharp. Enough to claim he had, even though Angus hadn’t said it as a joke. But anyway – he made sure to tuck his seat under the table, mostly. That would save them room to walk around, like Angus always went after him for. Angus, who went quiet during this, ‘cause one of their mothers was Maeve, so Rohan probably had loads to think about when it came to accepting that fact, and his best friend wouldn’t saddle him with useless questions he could answer by himself.

“You can have the berries,” Rohan said, breathless. “I’ll see you later.”

“What’s happening late–”

He left.

‘Outside’ was not a proper plan.

But Rohan stayed. He didn’t have a better one, and there was work to do, in a sense. An old experiment.

The air was warm. The scents were fresh. The sounds were hushed and comfortable. It wasn’t like the storm that nearly killed him, and was – in fact – a clear sky in an open field, but it would be fine. It’d serve the purpose.

He walked to one end of it.

Rohan had stripped his outermost layer of chain. The interlocking pattern of bronze rings seemed shiny enough in his hands, but he wiped them on his cape to see if they would brighten. No. Not from only that. They’d need a proper scrub to be rid of the tarnish, but they would serve his purpose. It’d be cheating for them to gleam anyway, when his sword hadn’t gleamed. Angus had called it rusted.

So...

He dropped it in the grass.

Then he walked, all the way over to the other end.

He crouched. He tried imagining trees. Great ones, piled with leaves and dirt.

Before he made his decision, he wondered if perhaps he’d crouched too far away. He shambled closer, then closer, until he could see his ring mail again.

Having accomplished this, Rohan stretched to his full height and decided he’d learned absolutely nothing.

His next two days were less remarkable. He tried using the time to reflect, but he only had one point to ponder. It was five days from Maeve’s banishment now, and from their first decision of Rohan as a prince. Honestly, they’d been lucky with their timing. He couldn’t imagine having to fight if they’d made his royalty clear the moment they’d known he was her son. The distraction would’ve been terrible, with none of it being the fault of Angus. How could Angus be blamed? For friendship? For not leaving Rohan behind at the farm? Finding Rohan funny instead of a fool, and letting them stay together? Angus was the reason Cathbad met Rohan, and those crossing paths brought Kells their champion. There’d be nothing to hold against anyone for Draganta letting his mind run away.

But run, his mind did.

He stayed with Cathbad through this. His teacher would keep him busy and out of the way as the castle sprinted towards their next feast. King Conchobar said – as Rohan heard from his hole overlooking the throne room – that this feast held even greater importance to Kells. The sincerity of their kingdom’s strength would be tested by those who returned, checking whether the first had been only for show. The other Chieftains, the ones too reluctant to attend before, were also demanded to accept their place at Kells’ table. An absence would cast their loyalties down a less acceptable path. They should all expect a more sombre affair, with more purpose behind their discussions, and more judgment towards Temra’s supposedly princely heir.

... It would require finding him first. He’d kept from the others fairly well, since he didn’t want to have to explain why he’d been out of the hut and in Cathbad’s chamber. There were no quarrels, which should’ve assured them a bit, but Deirdre was more relentless than Ivar and Garrett combined. This close to the second feast, she’d been on a warpath, demanding perfection of everyone. He knew ‘cause Angus said so, having come to visit on both days, repaying Rohan’s habit of visiting him in the dungeon.

“She wants you in a new shirt. Temran colours,” Angus explained. “Felt the fabric. Have fun.”

Rohan had asked if Angus was getting a new shirt as well.

“Shirts are for royalty,” his friend said, very happy to. “Peasants have to bear the curse of being able to bend our elbows.”

They’d spent most of the fourth day designing a plan for some sort of elbow-pocket that Angus would sew in, which lasted up to planning the route around the guards, when Rohan asked about making a shirt with shorter sleeves.

He did still like the elbow-pocket, though. If Deirdre made Rohan wear new pants, Angus promised to try it with the knees.

So there. No fighting. Rohan only needed time alone. Already it had its benefits. He’d barely thought of asking anything that wasn’t to do with Deirdre and clothes. In another day, perhaps the urge would slumber in him again.

And yet he’d never felt so seized by it. As he laid in his old apprentice’s bed, he felt more childish than when he’d had the idea as a child. It had marched in as a joke, but its age had revealed its place as a conscious thought. ‘Belief’ – that was too strong of a word. With the moonlight spilled onto Cathbad’s chamber, passing itself into day, he considered every name the thought could wear instead. He seemed to be able to fit it under ‘errant fantasy,’ but it couldn’t bend its piteous, gangling arms in that. So... he dressed it up again, this time using ‘belief,’ and as awkward as it looked, it did fit. That made it more complicated, because how he was supposed to ask Angus about this belief in earnest? Was he doomed to be deaf by the sound Angus made over it?

That was why Angus had to want it as well. If Rohan brought up it up to satisfy his own hope, he would never get an answer. It’d be easy to refuse. But if Angus had some reason to argue for it too, there was a chance he would volunteer the answer on his own.

But riches weren’t enough. Time, perhaps. Baths were a given. Rohan could add in a chair.

There had to be something else. Something better. Something Angus couldn’t resist.

What else would he want?

“No, Rohan –” But he hadn’t finished! “– I cannot be compelled to take a student I am not already inclined to teach.”

That wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t what he’d asked.

“I don’t mean ‘compelled,’” Rohan tried to explain. Cathbad wasn’t standing still long enough to even glance at him, and was swishing by instead with the ends of his great, white beard blowing in the wake. Yes, his former teacher had work to do, but as the apprentice to said teacher, Rohan understood how that work was meant to flow, and when it was being used to ignore someone: him. “‘Persuaded.’ That’s all. Surely a request from royalty would –”

“No.”

He tried again.

“If you’d been approached by –”

“No.”

“– by the king,” Rohan forced through, with as much undaunted will as he’d put into trailing Cathbad towards the shelves. “As a royal order. If he commanded you teach to him.”

“To what end,” Cathbad inquired.

It was so sodden with disinterest that there must’ve been some unspoken magic letting his teacher utter the words at all.

“I don’t know,” Rohan said. Before that struck as the wrong answer, he stumbled to add, “To know. Out of interest.”

“There are many scrolls the king may read to satisfy his curiosity. I have neither the time nor patience to read him magical theory before bed.”

Argh. To the both stonewalled reply and Cathbad swerving towards a new place in the room. His teacher had changed his mind from checking the inventory to inspect the pile of herbs he’d sent Rohan to gather that dawn. They’d been sat in the wet basin since then, looking almost like busy work. His suspicions of that grew as Cathbad suddenly seemed compelled to dunk his hands into them.

“But,” Rohan began.

“You’ll find,” Cathbad swiftly interrupted, dividing the pile into wet halves, “neither does he.”

“Yes, but –”

“As king, there are plenty of matters demanding his attention. One cannot profess an interest in magic as though it’s a merry jaunt of tricks.” Rohan had dropped off the herbs with the long stems arranged in a single order. He’d expected the water to tussle some around, but Cathbad’s handling to shake the water away were flipping the ends in every direction. “Neither can one commit themselves to the art when already charged with caring for their people. We’ve watched the attempt, with Maeve’s obsession for conquering Kells. Such obsession led her to sorcery, and sorcery blinded her from Temra’s needs. Now, she is banished for it.”

And left with endless time to practice.

But that’d be a worry for later. Right now, Rohan had to follow his teacher like a wraith. He stayed a whisper from stepping on the ends of Cathbad’s dragging robes, having mastered that art in his days as an apprentice. But Cathbad’s arms were filled with the halved herbs as a portent of his next instruction – which went assumed, as eleven years of habit had Rohan falling into position at the table. The herbs would need to be sorted by their age and freshness, then bundled in tedious parcels, then hung to dry throughout the room, replacing whatever had been hanging there before. At Rohan’s conscious flicker of doubt that he, the hero of Kells, the legendary warrior Draganta, and a prince of some kind, was being asked to do his childhood chores, Cathbad slapped a ball of twine on the corner and went to look busy with something else.

Fine. So Rohan couldn’t chase him anymore.

He could still talk. From those eleven years, they knew Cathbad was trapped in here to listen. If his teacher left, Rohan would leave after him, and then Cathbad would have to hear it anyway, and without at least getting these herbs sorted and bundled meanwhile.

“You’d deny the king, then?”

Turned away as Cathbad was, Rohan could only see his back. By the flinch of his teacher’s shoulders, though, the barb had hit its mark.

“I am the king’s advisor, Rohan,” said the king’s advisor indeed. “If his majesty insisted on being taught, I would advise that he find a different teacher.”

Rohan’s head popped up.

“You know of one?”

“No.” Right. Well, he should’ve seen that coming. “But it wouldn’t be me, and there are few who would be willing to accept an assignment. Any who do would be responsible for proving their student’s progress, and not every wild boy in the street with a sword has the aptitude to learn.”

That fell neatly between interpretations, so Rohan couldn’t counter it with more than a snort. This wasn’t new for them, as Cathbad always fussed this way when Rohan wanted things his teacher thought were dangerous. But he’d been hoping that asking to learn how this magic worked before doing a jaunt of tricks would’ve calmed that worry down. Wasn’t that the promise when they met? That Cathbad would teach Rohan to use his head, and then go on with teaching magic?

Though come to think of it...

Cathbad hadn’t said that second part.

Rohan did not look forward to signing things as a prince. He shook his head at it, damply picking at the leaves, and muttered, “I wasn’t demanding it, you know. I was only wondering what would happen.”

“You are welcome to wonder,” Cathbad replied. “I’ve always encouraged that in you.” His back was still to the table, and he was stood over at the wall. Rohan remained obediently picking through his leaves. “However, you will need to learn to wonder with your eyes open and your mouth sealed. By sitting on Temra’s throne, any question spoken out loud is bestowed with new meaning to observers. Many battles have been started and lost for less than a prince asking to learn about magic, and so shortly on the heels of Maeve’s sorcery –”

“I wasn’t asking for war,” Rohan snapped.

That was rare. He’d been raised better than to cut in when Cathbad spoke. But a jolt in his spirit – panic, anger, or shock, he wasn’t sure – had forced out his words.

Rarer, Cathbad paid no mind to the offence. Instead, he hummed, “I don’t believe you would, even if word were to someday reach me and insist upon it.”

Before Rohan asked why that would happen, Cathbad had puttered towards the table again in a funny coincidence of timing. Ostensibly, he came to check Rohan’s demonstrated progress on the bundles. His face cast no judgment on it, despite the work Rohan always produced. While tolerating the first of the twined knots he inspected, Cathbad went on to say, “You aren’t the orphaned warrior I met years ago, my boy. You’re a prince, and you’re Maeve’s son. Her history will forever shape how others see you, and that will inform what they assume of your intent – however innocent it may be.”

An uncomfortable restlessness chewed at Rohan’s legs, and he had to shift to keep himself steady in his place. This wasn’t a fight, though his knots pulled tighter. Shaping how others saw him was one thing, but this was Cathbad who spoke of it. What was left for him to shape?

“If you know it was innocent, you might’ve answered,” he said, bordering on insolence.

“You may have outgrown me as an apprentice,” his teacher parried, “but not as my ward. What I tell you, I say to prepare you for your future court: as royalty, defending yourself from a rumour can do as much as confirming it. When others are convinced you have something to hide, presenting facts to the contrary more often counts as an effort to escape the truth. This is why every word you speak must be cautious of inviting such opportunities.”

Rohan frowned. This was getting ridiculous. It’d been six days since Maeve was banished, and the others’ advice had gone from managing gossip about his real mistakes, to picking signs of himself from out of the mess of who he was assumed to be, to now warning of those who’d simply decide whoever he was meant he had to be the reverse of it. He stopped fiddling with the twine for a moment, demanding Cathbad give him attention.

“All I asked is if you’d teach King Conchobar magic if he wanted,” Rohan said. “What opportunity does that ‘invite’?”

“Several, were I to look upon it with ill-fated purpose.” Sure, if someone did that – “It may be a test of my loyalty to him, to search for weaknesses among his inner circle. Or perhaps a glimpse into your belief that he’ll be arming himself like Maeve, requiring you retaliation. Perhaps you seek to investigate how much more time he has following this war, and whether that lowers his expectation of an ambush.” Clearly seeing Rohan’s expression, Cathbad shrugged. Somehow, that gesture had always suited the druid. “This is what it means to be royalty – and a king, no less. Whatever you plan to say must be assessed for how others may perceive it. Even those trying to be useful to you, and simply confusing the details, can wield a half-truth as a weapon for chaos.” With that, Cathbad waved his hand to suggest an unfathomable indifference to it. “This will be second nature to you over time. The sooner you start to learn, the better.”

Hearing ‘second nature’ put Rohan’s talk with Ivar into sharper focus. Here he was, still struggling with his first. Twining another bundle together, he muttered, “I’ve lived in Kells my whole life. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Certainly.” Cathbad untied it and re-did it for him. “Your personal history is your best defence against these mischaracterizations. Just as I would never believe a rumour of you turning to magic for war, the king wouldn’t believe a whisper of you having turned on Kells. Otherwise, he would never be so supportive towards you ruling Temra.”

Rohan let the word ‘ruling’ slide off of his back. It felt harder to ignore lately, but he was nothing if not persistent.

“But?”

“But,” his teacher continued, “you cannot have personal history with everyone. Certainly not to the same quality and depth. And King Conchobar answers to his people, as you’ll answer to yours. Should they have reason to be concerned, his belief in you will ensure he cooperates in clearing the air, but the air must be cleared. He cannot ignore their cries, nor silence them without consequence.”

His knots grew clumsier. Thankfully, Cathbad let him finish the attempt before taking it, untying it, and doing it again. With that success beneath his hands, Rohan allowed himself to sigh, “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” Cathbad said.

That wasn’t how it felt, despite the kindly pat on his knuckles.

With this moment came the lonely chance for their conversation to end. Rohan had received his ‘no,’ and Cathbad had renewed the peace. But Cathbad’s voice took on a sudden wonder of its own before they could escape into the silence.

“Rohan,” his teacher wanted to know, “why did you ask about learning magic?”

Damn.

He flicked his gaze up to see if Cathbad was staring at him.

Yes. Damn. Eyes down.

He’d had a plan to handle this. Mostly he’d meant to be so vague about the question that Cathbad would’ve moved on to the next task already. His last defence was being dull about it now, but Cathbad watching him that closely meant expecting some measure of detail. How was Rohan to offer that? Not honestly, as he hadn’t even chanced being honest with Aideen.

“I don’t know.” He did. “It wasn’t meant to offend.”

“I’m not offended,” he heard Cathbad say. “I’m suspicious.” Which was worse. He kept himself busy by minding his knots from pinching the herbs to pieces, and as if to congratulate him on his effort, he felt eyes boring into the top of his brain. The attention it pulled would’ve been Deirdre’s envy. For Rohan’s part, he suppressed his itch and flinch as Cathbad went on. “You’ve been my apprentice for years. One would think you’ve learned all there is I was able to teach. Though one might also think I had never witnessed this performance.”

Cathbad wanted his fun, now that Rohan had had ‘his’.

“There’s no performance,” he said.

“Two days, locked in my chamber,” Cathbad mused. “Lost in your thoughts, hiding from visitors – save for one.” A tap on the table had Rohan restarting his latest tie. It just as effortlessly advised that Cathbad’s Second Sight was only for ruses his teacher couldn’t see through. “And you mentioned magic.”

Half-truths, was it?

All right.

“I needed it for Angus.” Glance. Stare. Down again. “I have to ask him something.”

“Ah!” That sounded almost like a victory. Cathbad began his other kind of puttering then, in a way that wasn’t unlike a shark circling the table. “What a difficult question it’d be, to require bribing your trusted friend.”

“I’m not bribing him in a bad way,” Rohan said. “It’s how we are, and it’s not the first time I’ve done it.”

“Oh?”

“Without your magic,” he quickly said. “With Draganta. At the start – the quest to find him.” ‘Me,’ he corrected. But ‘him’ made sense. It was before they’d known he was Draganta, and before they’d known he was Maeve’s child. The twine pinched through the herbs again, and he restarted the bundle. “I told Angus I’d free him from his cell if he came along and helped me. He said he couldn’t choose between risking his life with that or rotting in jail ‘til after I said I’d leave him there.”

He still rolled his eyes. There were examples from the years, but how often did Rohan have a way of springing his friend from a cell that Angus thought he could bargain for it?

“... What... was the bribe...?”

“Hm?” Oh, Cathbad must not have heard. Rohan had a habit of mumbling from time to time. “Getting him out of his cell.”

“The bribe,” Cathbad clarified, “was the ‘risking his life’ option?”

“To help me.” ‘Incentive,’ then, but they called it a bribe. “He could help me if he was out of his cell.” Cathbad paused as though the words were in another language, so Rohan prodded him towards an understanding. “If going on the quest meant risking his life, I’d be risking mine if I went alone. Having him there meant we’d both be safe. That’s the bribe.”

Not that Angus had reason to think they wouldn’t be safe. Their first task was to find Tir na Nog. That was safe. It was just bad luck that Ivar had strung them up, that the Little People caught them for slaves, Fin Varra dropped them in a pit of trials on the pain of their death or the aforementioned slavery, and that they got sent to tame a dragon after that but before they hearing any answers about Draganta. But they got mystic weapons too, and as it stood at the time in the king’s dungeon, the most Angus should’ve expected was having to walk a bunch – like the cave with the goat and the fingers. Rohan getting him out of a cell was a bribe, as like that cave, no matter how safe it was, Angus would’ve hauled himself to Tir na Nog eventually, assuming the worst and probably finding it when left to catch up.

“I see.”

Cathbad sounded skeptical. Only because he was used to Rohan’s smaller bribes of letting Angus in to see the new powders.

“I didn’t mean to offer anything of yours,” Rohan promised. “I was hoping one day, Angus might meet another druid, and he could ask to be taught by them and I could offer a good word. Or I could arrange an audience, if he’s having trouble finding anyone.” There. This lot of herbs were finished. That was the instant Cathbad dumped a new pile of reeds in the space. “It’s the best I can do. He doesn’t want much, and I’ll only have one chance to ask. I want it going well.”

“Interesting,” Cathbad said. As the restlessness in Rohan’s legs returned, three words were aimed and fired at his heart as well. “And is that wise?”

Rohan stopped completely.

‘Is that wise.’

Ten years spent as Cathbad’s apprentice, and nothing had grown to strike such fear in him as that question. Rohan found himself surrounded by imagined walls of dirt, whisking his mind away towards a grave. In reality, his teacher calmly wiped his hands and glided to the counter, moved by the grace of cruelly knowing the answer was somehow ‘no,’ and returning with a mortar, pestle, and small basket of crumbling, rosy flowers.

“Yes,” Rohan attempted, feeling the performance start. Already his voice sounded weak to his own ears, and Cathbad’s placid hum followed that on cue. “I told you. It’s how we are.”

“Your past bribes,” Cathbad said, loading the mortar with petals, “took how long to deliver? Roughly?”

That was...

“Within reason.”

“Ah.” The pestle ground along the stone. “And were these things you gave him freely, or ones you withheld if he refused?”

That didn’t make sense.

“You can’t withhold a bribe.” What was the point of the bribe, then? “You give the bribe – or do it, depending on what it is.” Like getting Angus out of a cell. “It’s not forcing him into anything. He could take it and walk away.” Back to the hut to sleep in his cot, rather than whining the ground was hard. Yet that became Angus’ element in the end. Rohan might’ve grinned if ‘Is that wise’ wasn’t hanging in the air. “It just makes it hard not to do what I want once he has it. You should’ve seen him jump to go when I said I’d find Draganta by myself.”

It was the best way to think of it: as opening a cell. Angus would choose if he left or not, which Rohan learned back when they were boys. Getting his friend to do anything outside of his focus was a battle lost before it ever reached the field. All a bribe did was leave a key in the lock for him. Rohan couldn’t withhold that if his goal was trying to get Angus out.

Their system was quite refined, actually. He was proud of it.

Or he would be, if Cathbad wasn’t pleasantly turning petals into powder.

Rohan swallowed instead.

“I see.” He liked that even less, but Cathbad wasn’t done. “Then a ‘good word’ or ‘an audience’ is something you mean to freely give?”

Guilt twisted in him. Rohan’s fingers were tangled in the twine, but he was fraying it between his thumbs more than he was putting the cord to use. Because the truth was ‘no.’ He wasn’t planning to freely give either of those. Not as a bribe, anyway. He hadn’t lied to Cathbad about that – he would do it happily if the chance emerged, but he’d framed his interest as being on King Conchobar’s behalf for a reason. If Angus was a prince, he’d be able to put in his own word for himself, or arrange for an audience with whatever druid he could personally summon. He wouldn’t need to be waiting on Rohan for anything. That was the bribe.

“Yes,” Rohan said.

It was the shorter version of that.

Through it, Cathbad ground the flowers into their potent dust.

“Hm,” the druid said.

Then silence, save for the pestle.

Tempting his fate, and bracing himself, Rohan finished another knot. Leaving it in view of his teacher to judge, just in case he needed to deny the meaning, he delicately wondered, “What do you think?”

“I think,” Cathbad said, “that if you’re planning to trick your little friend, you’d be wise to remember he has more years of dealing with princes than you do of being one.”

There went his hope of denying it.

Rohan debated whether to argue. He was keenly aware of how many reeds were left to tie, beyond the other half of herbs still soaking in the sink. If Cathbad wanted to punish him, this chore could be stretched for hours yet. He’d nearly decided to leave it alone when an echo of those words returned from his memories. They’d been here before, him and Cathbad, long ago. And like any good performer, Rohan found himself devoted to that same script.

“He isn’t my ‘little’ friend –”

“I should hope not, for your sake,” Cathbad replied. The pestle stopped with a sharp twist of finality, and then he forced Rohan to look and meet his eyes. “You’re almost twenty, lad. You have a history with him, as he has his with you. But as I’ve just explained, when one is convinced someone else has something to hide, the facts to the contrary can often be taken as further proof.” His eyebrows, wild and white, furrowed with deep intent, and he leaned in to deliver his final advice. “Tread cautiously.”

Cathbad knew that Rohan knew.

And Rohan did not know how.

The moment vanished before he could gather himself to react, or do more than force away the harshest red he felt across his face. He didn’t manage the other bundles, so Cathbad went through went through them himself. By the time Rohan remembered to speak, the work was done and a broom was in his hand. He’d been absently sweeping all the while, but with how it looked, he might have just started.

He stopped.

“Do you think,” Rohan said, “that I shouldn’t ask him?”

“You’re going to.” Which failed to inspire any confidence. The same was true for the flash of a not-quite-smirk, not-quite-smile that Cathbad wore, and didn’t bother to conceal while tidying the stations of his chamber. “You’ve resisted it far longer than I presumed. Your right to ask should be earned by now.”

“But you think I shouldn’t bribe him,” Rohan persisted.

“Well...” Never had a shrug bloomed with such a wisdom. Staring at it, Rohan lost his holdon  the broom. His spirit as a warrior was all that avoided the crash to the ground. Cathbad waited for this problem to be over, then continued with his thought. “It seems to serve you well enough, whatever it is you call it.” A bribe. “But should you choose to go this path, Rohan, then as his friend, you should remind him of the work it takes to learn even a simple spell. He’s seen what I’ve required of you, and it’ll be no different for him. Worse, now that he’s older. I would be expect far more.”

Rohan blinked to clear the fuzz from his mind, then stammered in shock, “You’ll teach him?”

“Oh no,” Cathbad said, as scurried off with his new powder. “He’s your student.”

Ah.

Rohan drummed his nails on the broomstick, thinking of how that would go.

“If –”

“Nope,” Cathbad said.

... Right.

It’d been eight days since Maeve was banished, and Rohan had a mission to complete. But making decisions wasn’t the same as putting them into action.

The time he needed to plan this attack was time he’d also spent being pinned, brushed, scrubbed, and left stinking worse than he’d ever in his life, but to the wafting reek of stewed and oily flowers. This wasn’t meant to be a coronation, as Deirdre assured him, but the second feast demanded more ceremony than the scent of battles and dragons would bring. As such, it’d take greater effort than what Angus – and Garrett – usually did to put him into a longer bath. Not that Angus was spared from it either, but his friend took to the torment like a well-shined fish. Without needing to break and be fitted for sleeves digging into his armpits, Angus got to spend his afternoon dozing in a tub, lacking any complaint that wasn’t about Rohan taking too long with the tailors and being late to return and boil him again.

That’d been yesterday. Peaceful though it seemed, Rohan shied from using it as his chance to ask. They enjoyed their rest instead. The castle did as well, having cracked the code on keeping them out of trouble. Water for one, a shirt for the other. To think of how little Kells could’ve paid to have been like this for years... Then again, if they’d been fitting him in these outfits for that long, he’d’ve run off by now. That would’ve been a cruel way for the sun to have set on Kells’ fate.

It was the start of their seventh day that Rohan struck. He’d planned it so, committing himself, and left the hut before Angus woke. It gave him the chance to watch his friend from afar, and check for a mood fair enough to weather a talk like this. For his part, Angus suffered no hint of it. This wasn’t a tactic he would have come to expect from Rohan, whose strengths played to charging at a front line, not sneaking across the village and peering over heads. Even better, as Draganta, and with this many guests pouring into Kells, nobody else paid Rohan much mind. The pigs gave him a grunt, but only when he’d climbed through a couple of their sties. The people thought he was on official business. It took until ducking behind his second trough and nodding at the blacksmith, getting a friendly wave in return, to fully appreciate Deirdre’s insight. Being judged for how he appeared had benefits, and Rohan was making good use of them to stalk to heart’s content.

By noon, Angus had had his lunch and made several, ‘lovely’ friends among the visitors. There’d be no better mood to catch him in.

Rohan charged.

“– I was talkin’ to her!”

He gave the noble lady a flower-scented nod, but kept his hand on Angus’ wrist as they went off.

It wasn’t a good plan, but he’d been light on those lately, and he’d done his best at scraping this one together during the ‘royal grooming’. He’d sorted the location: the same as where he’d brought Ivar – and Garrett. He had the timing settled, as he was doing it now. The reason for it was covered, too. Angus would guess that something important was on, and the grumbling would fade the farther Rohan led them into the forest. In his mind, he saw the vision of him sitting Angus on the rock at the centre. There’d be plenty of midday light in the clearing, and they’d be away from the twice-anointed tree. That would keep things calm between them to start with. Calm was good. When they were calm, Rohan could...

... figure out the rest of this.

All things considered, their walk was pleasant. They were alone on this path, as the code was cracked in both directions: Rohan had realized how much privacy he’d bought by knowing where everyone else was, as that with the second feast on their horizon, the others couldn’t spare the time to try finding him and Angus here. The air’s warmth was another comfort, and felt better in his normal clothes. It was too early to change to his new ones, and Cathbad warned him to keep them tidy. They wouldn’t be tidier than ‘off,’ and that granted him freedom to bend his knees for a while longer. Good. He took great strength from his stride.

Angus, though clean, was dressed as normal. That’d been on purpose, he’d said before. He’d done their laundry, but ifany foreign maidens failed at loving every one of his finely stitched-together furs, he’d said he didn’t want them anyway.

“Being honest with a woman’s important,” Angus had announced before bed.

That rang true of every relationship, which Rohan said to compliment his friend’s wisdom.

“‘Relationship’?”

‘Wisdom.’

Still, Rohan was glad for it. Watching Angus darn a hole in his vest over the evening had made Rohan’s seem more confining, even as it laid harmlessly on his bed. Angus had told him a fancy shirt distracted from the pleasant trophies he’d fashioned out of every dead animal Rohan brought home that year. It was hard to argue, what with Angus wearing the full set of evidence. After this, though, Rohan was setting himself to asking the King for another shirt. Until then, Angus would have to make do with just his mace over his shoulder. Rohan heard its chain jingling as they marched, and without needing to look, he could picture it bouncing on every step, lighter than it appeared. Rohan’s sword was with them too, and the hand not busy shackling his friend into this journey had its thumb pinching his scabbard’s strap. They were both dressed well enough for this. Nothing to worry about. The least of their concerns, truly.

They arrived at the clearing. The light, the warmth, the leaves, the rock at the centre of the bare, dirt ground – as if it meant to be inverse of a fairy ring – and the privacy were all in place as he’d expected. So this was it. They weren’t leaving ‘til Rohan asked, and ask he would.

“Did you –”

“Let me think,” he said.

His hand was still on Angus’ wrist, and he might’ve led with his nails again. He’d never quite shaken that habit as quick as he had for chewing them, but that was why it was good to be wearing one’s own clothes. Angus’ guards first started as a strip of cloth over one of his wrists, and were fitted with more padding and leather as Rohan’s fingers got sharper and strong. That was fine, then. The worst of this walk would’ve been the walking. There still needed to be a touch more of it, as he pulled Angus to the rock at the middle.

“Sit,” Rohan offered.

He let go when Angus sat.

Angus, whose dark hair had stumbled onto a path to shadow his face from the sun, leaving only his eyes to peer up from below his modestly furrowed brow.

Angus looked sad.

Or worried. Unhappy in some sort of way. Rohan would’ve said, “It’s fine,” trying to fix it, but experience taught him that’d be the worst choice. Instead, he tried to lighten things by setting down his sword, leaning it on the side of the rock. He took Angus’ mace as well, draping the chain across his sword’s hilt. That was its version of a shoulder, so the mace was right where it’d be comfortable. Surely that helped.

If not, then Rohan would go further, taking a knee in the one grassy patch amidst the dirt. That lowered him to a gentler height and softened him in being this close. He could’ve leaned his chin on Angus’ knee from here, but respectfully abstained. He might’ve laid his hand there instead, as a gesture of company, but Angus was watching him in a such tightly coiled silence, Rohan feared the touch would snap his friend like twine – or like an herb bundled in it.

He imagined this, but with Angus having started on an empty stomach.

It could always be worse.

So Rohan began to think.

Talking with Angus was easy. It’d been so from when they met. Days would pass with the two of them endlessly finding new ideas worth folding into what they were discussing, and revisiting old ones with newer twists. But talking about something was a different mess. Rohan dreaded it, and Angus wasn’t shy with his opinion. It was wasted time better spent moving onto the next interesting thing. And they were best friends, weren’t they? Then what did they benefit, faffing about with serious business? It’d come up on its own and they would fight when it did, or it wouldn’t and they’d avoid the fuss. That was another of their systems. Perhaps its age was starting to show, but the core of it stayed sound, ‘cause their squabbles flashed past so quick and early that the matter was over long before the heat made it in. Their last big fight proved that: it happened ‘cause Angus was being ‘diplomatic’ by not jumping to earnestly call Rohan a prick. The royals had brushed off on them, and in many ways, that taught them bad habits. So if Angus was tense, and was coiled, Rohan didn’t blame him.

But they had something to talk about now. There’d be no avoiding it this time. Rohan was making sure.

Still, though. How?

“I need to ask a question.”

He put a pause between each word.

Mostly the pauses were to test for reactions. Angus could sprint at any moment, which was why Rohan tried doing these things while his friend was locked in the dungeon. Angus looked like he was locked in there now, hunched stiffly as he was, and despite the cheerful breeze and charming rays surrounding them. Again, Rohan resisted the urge to bridge their gap. That’d give a distraction, and they needed focus. He kept his arm on his propped thigh. No interruptions.

Angus didn’t interrupt.

Oh.

“It’s,” Rohan said, “an important question.” Angus continued letting him go on. Rohan scratched at his lip while thinking about it. The others’ advice was swirling somewhere in his head, but up in the clouds of his mind, out of any useful reach. It left him an empty field of personal instinct to work with. “It’s –” Or ‘spirit,’ as Ivar’d politely put it. The same spirit that got Rohan shouting in the king’s face. “It’s one I’ve meant to ask for a while. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

The thought felt strange. That was terrible timing, but it was true. Angus, who didn’t mind shouting, was strange to see as a royal in his own right, commanding servants in a castle Rohan had to picture as Temra’s. There were only so many castles he’d been to, after all, so he didn’t have a lot of examples. Tir na Nog didn’t count. That was in a cave. Would Angus like a cave better? It shared many of its traits with a dungeon, and that could go either way as a preference.

“Yeah –”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Angus repeated. His voice was quiet. “I noticed.”

Oh.

“Good,” said Rohan.

He’d been expecting more progress. His knee didn’t hurt, but he felt his first twinge of restlessness.

“Can I talk yet?” Great Lugh, yes. At Rohan’s cue, Angus threw his head to the side and back like a horse rearing, and hotly announced, “I wasn’t awake. You’ve never asked me that. I wasn’t makin’ fun of you. And you get like this every time it’s about the farm –” The farm?” “– even though that’s my life too, and I don’t get to enjoy it ‘cause you’re so sensitive about the tiniest part –”

“Angus –”

“And now ‘cause Maeve’s your mum, you’re worse –”

“Angus,” he tried again.

“– even though everyone’s only been happy for you or been wantin’ to get you over it. No, it’s my turn,” Angus snapped. He’d sat up now, his nervous hunch forgotten. With Rohan kneeling at his side, Angus had the distinct advantage. “You can’t be mad at me ‘cause I gave you an answer to a question that was shit from the start. How’m I supposed to know what ‘signs’ there are of being a prince? Why didn’t you ask the three people you know are royalty, get them to tell you the signs, then come ask me after if you’d been doin’ any of those? If you’d had any sense, we wouldn’t even’ve mentioned the farm. But it’s my fault ‘cause you blurted things out, then got yourself worked up and ran off, and even being the politest I could be while everyone’s asking, ‘What’s wrong with him,’ I’m still being punished for it. You know I could’ve left it at ‘no’? Just had the eggs? I didn’t have to say anything else. And I bet the first thing the others say when we’re back is, ‘Angus, where’d you have him all morning, he’s a prince now, he can’t be wasting the day in a forest when he’s got guests’ –”

... Oh. No. Were those meant to be Rohan’s guests?

“And see –” Angus had his finger in Rohan’s face, rambling on as he pointed. “You didn’t even think about the feast ‘til I said it now. Everyone’s busy, workin’ away, and you think you’ve gotten out’f it ‘cause you’re you, except ‘you’ is a prince, so you should be over there with them and sufferin’ through it. Now I have to get everyone agreeing it was for the best that you’re here and out’f their way, ‘cause you don’t know what you’re doing – you never do, then watch as everyone’s happy for a moment, then gets after me again ‘cause, ‘Angus, why didn’t you tell us that was your plan, you never think about anyone else, don’t you know this feast is important?’ That’s all of them, all the time, and you’re gonna say, ‘It was my fault, I’m sorry,’ and they’re gonna go, ‘That’s fine, you’ve been through a lot, but we expected better from Angus.’”

He’d brought snacks. He had one pouch of berries and another of nuts, but this felt like a moment for the berries. So Rohan got those out, waited for Angus to get a hold of himself, and when that was finished, promptly explained, “It wasn’t about that.”

“Oh,” said Angus. Rohan gave him the nuts next. With his cheeks stuffed, Angus asked, “What’d you want, then?”

“I have to ask you something,” Rohan said. “But it’s going to be strange.”

“When’s that stopped you?”

“Here,” Rohan replied. “This one’s... different.” He’d landed that pause while Angus was crunching away. The steadiness of the chews passed as permission to go on. “There’s no trick to asking it. It’s gonna be what it is. But I’ve been hoping to find a way to help you with answering.”

“I’d answer.”

“I don’t want you to have to answer,” Rohan said. This earned a slight furrow on Angus’ face, which was exactly what to expect, and what he’d been trying to avoid as much as he was able. They’d had their distraction, so it didn’t matter: Rohan reached a hand out to Angus’ knee. “I don’t want to force this out of you, assuming you know. If you don’t know, then we’ll work together on it. But I figured you know, and you weren’t telling me for a reason.”

“It’s about me?” Angus was somewhere between curious and flattered. “All right, let’s hear it.”

“It’s not – no, it’s not that simple.” This was the problem. Angus needed to take this seriously. If Rohan couldn’t count on him for that, there’d point to asking. Again, he reached for the others’ advice, and again, it escaped him. “I need your word you won’t laugh at me for this.”

“Well, you’re not havin’ that,” Angus said. He looked very matter-of-fact, and chomped on more of the berries then. “Are we done?”

A challenge.

“No, we aren’t done.” It was the right response. Angus hummed pleasantly and went on with his snack, and only flinched to get Rohan’s nails unstuck from his leg. Comfortable, he awaited the rest of Rohan’s turn. That came soon after, as the words had finally formed. “I’ll make you a deal: go as long as you can without laughing.”

“Deal.”

He could practically hear Cathbad disapprovingly ask how that was any ‘deal.’ Obviously, it was one, or Angus wouldn’t be agreeing to it. What he got in return was Rohan asking the question at all. This was why they’d never bothered to explain their systems to the others. They were the only two who’d understand the brilliance.

“And,” Rohan added, thinking ahead to how it might go, “if you can’t answer, tell me. I won’t take it as a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ But I can’t have you lying about this. It’s too important.”

“Give me a guess,” Angus chewed, already glowing with the hint of a grin underneath. Reluctantly, Rohan allowed this. It was fair. That grin broke through a bit, happy having negotiated. “Is it if I think you’d beat the witch now?”

Damn. He forgot to say ‘real guesses.’ This was a separate deal as well, so it wasn’t bound by their truce. Angus looked positively tickled by that, knowing he had Rohan in a corner.

“No.” And for emphasis, he said, “I’ve no reason for suddenly asking that.”

“Won the war, got rid of Maeve, got your armour and Battle Fury,” Angus listed, “and you have the Dragonbow, since Pyre’s not fitting in that forest.”

“I –”

... Well –

By the time Angus had finally stopped his latest shrieking, the sun had moved in the sky and they’d both aged. So Rohan snatched the pouch of nuts back. That shut Angus up enough to snarl at him, “Are you done?”

“Aye,” Angus squeaked, buried under tears.

That would’ve scared every bird and rabbit away from this place. They were truly alone at last, thanks to the deafening hysterics.

“Be serious,” Rohan scolded, and continued to scold ‘til Angus obeyed. The guess was completed, so they’d committed to the rest of this. He wasn’t letting it end with Angus taking to the rock in this clearing like a throne in a throne room. Not undeservedly, at least. “I’m gonna ask you now. You’ve had your fun, so I’m expecting better from you with this.”

He took Angus’ frown as a trophy, but Angus snuck in a final shot with, “It’d be hard to beat.”

“Hush.”

With that one word, the pressure returned to Rohan’s shoulders. The weight of it spread throughout him, and his hand on Angus’ knee slowly changed from giving reassurance to accepting it. He thought of his bribes; without noticing, he’d made it here without any of them. Surely he could offer one still. He went through the arsenal he’d spent days collecting. But his hand...

The hand he had on Angus was real. Everything else felt like promises made by someone that neither of them knew. ‘Prince Rohan,’ who swore to offer his gifts after he came into his own as royalty. The ‘Druid’s Apprentice,’ who knew any spell well enough to teach it. Even ‘Draganta,’ who they knew best, but who Ivar said would hurt their cause by forcing their way to Temra’s heart.

From out of the clouds at last descended the others’ wisdom. Deirdre warned he’d be judged for who he appeared to be. Ivar spoke to signs of his spirit revealing his true nature. Cathbad gave the cure for rumours as being a personal history. Then... Rohan didn’t need a bribe this time. If their history had taught him anything at all, it was how few people knew about why he’d gone to that forest where they met, and what they’d discussed when he woke up at the farm. They were friends because of it. Not ‘in spite of’ – ‘because’. Some relief seeped into him then. He’d been fearing something from someone he’d known almost all of his life, and who’d never upheld those fears even in the short moment they were strangers.

So.

Rohan decided to ask. Trusting everything he knew and everything they were to one another, he opened his mouth and summoned the words, “Are you a fairy?”

Angus blinked as if he hadn’t heard.

“Or an elf,” Rohan offered. “Anything like that.”

Angus blinked.

“You don’t have to answer,” Rohan reminded him. “I did say you don’t. Have to. Answer, I mean. But – you know – maybe you’ve never had a chance to say it, ‘cause I was young, and there’s never been a good time since then.”

Angus blinked.

“Assuming you wanted to.” Rohan was stuck looking up from where he kneeled, like a child pretending to be grown. “That’s why you don’t have to answer.” He was six again. “I’d like it, though. If you could tell me.”

He had to stay strong. If he did, he’d survive the blinks.

Angus turned his head and stared off and away into the distance. Rohan glanced to be sure no one was approaching, and no one was. But it meant Angus was staring into nothingness.

“It – should go without saying,” Rohan added, “I won’t tell anyone.” Be strong. “And it won’t change anything between us –” Unless it should. “It can. if you’d prefer. But it doesn’t have to if you don’t.”

Angus cupped his hands over his nose and mouth. It was done in a steady, deliberate movement, and after a moment of breathing into them, he allowed his eyes to fall shut as well.

The sun moved.

Rohan’s knee began to hurt.

The wind in the trees seemed ready to topple him over.

Angus pulled his hands a short length away at last, but left them to hover in front of his face as he carefully opened his eyes.

“If I say ‘no,’” his best friend responded, though Rohan struggled to hear him over the rising din of the breeze, “what will you do?”

“Accept it.” The answer was immediate and practised. Then, albeit less practised, Rohan followed this with, “I’d be surprised.”

“Would you.”

“Of course!” He swallowed the bile of panic. It was too early for that. He was still prepared. “D’you want the proof?”

Angus returned his hands over his nose and mouth, breathed deeply, then pulled them away for another turn.

“Yes. Stop.” The order came the moment Rohan reached for his scroll. He’d tucked it under his bracer. The order came again when Rohan revealed the scroll, and again when it was unfurled. Each time, it was spaced by Angus breathing steadily into his hands, before pulling away and telling him, “Continue.”

He didn’t know what to make of this. Angus never behaved this way, as though he were made of stone and straining not to break. Was it fury? Terror? Angus would’ve laughed by now if that’d been what it was, wouldn’t he? Rohan’s fear was spiking, but without another way to proceed, he merely did as he was told.

“It starts with Fin Varra, if I go from the bottom.” He felt compelled to apologize for the age of it. He’d been working on the same length of scroll since he’d been eight, and the words scrawled at the top by a clumsier hand – and written over with a ten-year-old’s confidence – gave the shakiest of reasons for him to be believed. His sole reason for adding to this scuff-edged parchment was to prove he’d been keeping the secret already for years. He wasn’t sure that mattered anymore, if this was going badly. “Should I...?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Angus was hunched forward, planting his elbows on his thighs, and just short of where Rohan’s hand was squeezed onto his knee. His own hands collapsed in a loose grip of each other, ready if he needed them.

Rohan allowed it.

“So.” There were too many details to force into some order on the spot. A few points had smudged on the page, but they glared like diamonds in his memory. He did best to sort through them anyway. “So my thinking’s that you’re a prince –”

“What?”

“Fin Varra knew about the prophecy, and he knows about us,” Rohan said. “He knew Lugad was my brother before I did, and he’s the one who gave us our tests, wasn’t he?”

“What?”

“Fin Varra knows who we are, and he gave us our tests of noble traits.” ‘Noble.’ That should’ve been a hint to them much sooner. “When there were four of us, there was nothing unusual with that. Two royals, two not. But then Garrett arrived, and he’s a prince, so it became three against two. Then after with Maeve, I’m a prince, so you’re the only one of us left out. And yet.” This had been first thread to unravel a long tapestry. “You were given the same test as the rest of us.”

Angus wasn’t blinking as he was before. The spark of life that’d blown into him jumped over the point to ask, “What’d you say about a ‘prince’?”

“That’s the first part. The easy bit,” Rohan carried on. “Four royals – me, Deirdre, Ivar, and Garrett. What’s the thing we have in common?” Angus stared. “We’re from different lands – but especially, we’re from different kingdoms. And that’s important ‘cause when it was us at the start, it was three of us from Kells, and one that came from across the sea. With Garrett, it’s two from across. Then after Maeve, it’s one from Ivar’s kingdom, one from Garrett’s, one from Kells, one from Temra... and then a second from Kells.” He shook his scroll at Angus for good measure. “Tell me, does that make sense to you?”

“Ye–”

“No.”

“No,” said Angus.

“Exactly.” Back to the scroll. “Now here’s where there’s proof –”

“Of bein’ a prince?”

“No,” Rohan scolded again. But he caught himself in that moment. “Well, yes, but you have to think about the lands.” He should’ve brought a map. Or drawn one. Too late, he supposed. “Four royals, four kingdoms, but five Mystic Knights. The only way of fixing that is to say fifth’s royal too, but there’s no kingdom left to be coming from unless –” The moment the ends connected on this was the moment Rohan began gathering his bribes. “Unless that fifth kingdom was somewhere in the same land as another, and the only kingdom we know to fit that description is...”

He left it for Angus to finish.

Angus didn’t.

“Tir na Nog,” he cried. “It’s under Kells! That explains how there’s two Mystic Knights from the same land, and it fits what I’ve been saying about you being a fairy! If you’re from there –”

“I’m not.”

Angus’ voice was factual.

That alone made Rohan’s blood run cold.

They shared a glance, until Rohan dropped his to the ground. The heat returned, but it stayed within his face. His hand let go of Angus’ knee as well. He felt dim holding on for so long. It wasn’t needed.

“Aye,” he mumbled. “I thought that’d be it.”

This was the path he’d meant to avoid. He started with the pattern in the prophecy to ward against it, hoping that would be more than enough to work.

It wasn’t.

Outside of his head, he heard Angus speak, sounding light and pleasant and detached from whatever Rohan had to decide. He could keep things as they were, being civil, respectful, and innocent, though that would mean giving up on how far he’d gone with this. He’d committed himself to finding an answer, but the truth of it meant he’d be putting that over his friend. Through their years at each other’s side, he’d gathered the details as best he could, going bit by bit, and stopping the instant he thought he’d tread over delicate ground. But it all felt delicate. Angus never brought this up on his own. In fact, he’d seem confused why Rohan would care. It might’ve been wrong to take that as proof of Angus wanting things hidden, but with nothing offered to him instead, Rohan had to fill the space with ideas.

So he could stop, like he normally did.

Or he could push, and cross something he hadn’t wanted to cross.

He supposed it came down to how much of this he thought Angus could weather.

That anyone could.

For just a moment, he felt like they were strangers.

“You knew your parents,” Rohan said.

Whatever else Angus was on about, he dropped it then to give another, “Huh?”

“If I’m a prince, you’ve no way to say you can’t be.” Rohan gingerly pinched his paper, finding it furled again. “That only leaves us two options, and both of them are bad. I don’t...” He squeezed. After years of keeping it safe. “I don’t want to get into this as if it’s fun. I’ve told you it was serious. It is. We can stop now if that’s as far as it’ll go.”

“Knowing my parents?”

Rohan was a fool for thinking he could use a bribe for this. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he ripped this part of Angus away by force. It wasn’t Rohan’s past to toy with, and it wasn’t fair to draw it out with a price. So forget it. This had been a mistake. He shouldn’t’ve mentioned it at all. He’d had more sense when he was six than he did now at 19, and he’d take whatever consequence Angus felt it was worth.

“Yes,” Rohan said. “That.”

“Is this why you’ve been askin’ a hundred times?”

The question caught Rohan mildly by surprise, though it probably shouldn’t have. He looked up to see Angus squinting down at him.

“Yes,” he said.

“... All right,” Angus replied, looking very confused – as normal. “Go ahead.”

“We don’t have to,” Rohan explained.

“I’m not the one who runs off once I’m asked if I know who they are.” His confusion didn’t lift, but the corner of his mouth did. Angus crossed his arms and leaned back, towering over Rohan again from his throne. “New deal: finish what it is you’ve always been getting at. I’ve been on that edge of the mystery for years.”

Rohan’s heart fell. Out came the words, “You still think it’s a joke?”

“Not really,” Angus said, leaving a lilt at the end. “It’s been on your mind, so you think it’s serious. The rest of us have a different sense of that, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re weird about other people’s families,” Angus said. “I know why. Yours’ been all you can think about. Everyone else has theirs, so you’re missing out on it, and ‘cause I’m like you – without mine – you’re thinking I’m panicking, too.” He shrugged, and had a wry smile given to it. “It’s what it is.”

Rohan didn’t trust this.

“Family’s important –”

“It is important, but you have to admit, mate,” Angus replied. “You go overboard. Not that it’s bad, just that not everyone’s doin’ the same as you. Or at least I’m not.”

Right. He remembered that.

That was the face Angus had made long ago – back at the farm, after Rohan woke up and they’d finally talked. In fact, with how Rohan was laid in a cot to rest from his injuries, Angus even sat above him now as he did at the farm then.

It was hard describing it. Rohan was staring him in the eye, yet the words still appeared to escape. Angus had a look of... intrigue, maybe, and of wanting to see how this would go, and being quiet to let it happen in case it scared Rohan off. But there wasn’t the eagerness that he got from others. The one where Rohan was sized up, being made to do a dance, all the while someone else waited on him to trip. Angus was just watching, interested. If he laughed, he laughed, but it wasn’t set in stone. It simply happened.

“Fine.” ‘Because of.’ Not ‘in spite.’ Somehow. “It’s like this: you’re either lying or you’re saying something you don’t truly know, because you can’t.” Angus’ eyes went wide for an instant, then settled with the corner of his mouth growing its newest grin. Rohan pressed on, ignoring it. “If you’re lying, you don’t have to answer. We can end this. But if you’re telling the truth, then all I can say is I thought I was born in Kells, and I was wrong.”

“Mm. There’s a chance she waddled here,” Angus said. “She’s strong. Maybe she thought it’d give you a claim to Kells’ throne.”

Maeve was crazed enough to try it.

“But we don’t know,” Rohan countered. “That’s my point. Maeve told me I was stolen from her, and there’s nothing to prove you weren’t stolen as well. I would’ve laughed at it before, but when it’s already happened to me, it’s possible for you.”

There. It was done. Angus’ parents weren’t his parents. Rohan had said it out loud, so now they would just have to deal with it.

He waited. Head low.

“Mmmm.” The sound meant Angus was considering it. “I dunno. Doesn’t mean I have to be a fairy.”

“What?” Rohan looked up. “Why not?”

“‘Cause,” Angus said. “If my parents could be anyone, they could be from anywhere. Doesn’t have to be from Kells. I could’ve floated over in a boat.”

Rohan opened his mouth to retort, then shut it as he thought that over.

“Why’d you say it like you went alone,” he asked, “and not that your parents brought you with them?”

“‘Cause you got stolen,” Angus said. “I figured we’d be doin’ the same thing.”

“I didn’t go in a boat,” Rohan snapped. “I went from Temra to Kells.”

“Temra to a forest to Kells,” Angus reminded him. “That’s if you’re believing her anyway.” He marched on to his next point before Rohan could tackle that. “The third option’s that they could just be my parents.”

Rohan shook his head.

“That circles us back to one of the first two again. You’re saying something you’re sure is true but you have no way to know, or you’re lying about some part of it.” As much as he hated to bring this up, it’d been on his scroll since he was twelve. “I’ve never asked you specifically, Angus, but... to be honest, you’ve never said your parents were human.”

“Aw – that doesn’t help me,” Angus whined. “If I can’t say who they are, I can’t say they’re human.”

“It’s not about ‘helping’ you.” Argh. “It is, but not in that way. You aren’t in trouble,” Rohan insisted. “Besides, I thought of that. You could tell me your parents were human, but still be lying as...” This was an insult. “... a changeling.”

“I do love to eat,” Angus chirped, “and showin’ up in new beds. I’m not a changeling, though. Or an elf. You’ve seen my ears.”

“I’ve seen your height,” Rohan said. “I don’t know – I don’t want to speculate –” They’ve could’ve boiled an egg in the time it took Angus to recover. Once his friend finished drying his eyes, Rohan went on. “Maybe it’s to do with why you’re out here. Maybe you were banished from wherever you were born, and you looked to me like you were six, but really you were an elf. Then you grew ‘cause you were out here with us humans. Now you’re taller than the rest of them.”

“Oh – the ‘rest of them.’ Thanks.” That was the insult?! “Hey, how old am I meant to be in this?”

“I...” Uh. “Well, I don’t know,” Rohan admitted. “Your human age for a fairy? I don’t even know how old Aideen’s meant to be.”

His head was spinning. Angus was suddenly talking too fast.

“She had nothing to say on this?”

“I didn’t ask her,” Rohan said. “And don’t tell her. I don’t want her thinking less of me.”

“You’d think she’d be delighted to hear your best mate’s a fairy,” Angus mused. “She’s a spell away from turning herself into a human for you.”

Rohan wouldn’t know what to do with that. What a terrible thing, to strip magic from a fairy for that. But it brought up the rest of what he’d wanted to say, and before Angus dashed off again, Rohan seized the chance to grind their talk to a purposeful halt.

“You aren’t curious,” he said, “about why I’d think you’re a fairy?”

Angus’ eyes went largest they’d ever had, and shot forward on the rock with a lurch.

“You’ve got reasons?”

“Yes,” Rohan shouted, offended by that. “Angus, why do you think I’m telling you all of this? There’s a million ways it make sense!” He checked his scroll. “There’s thirty-seven ways. Do you think I’d be dragging you here to tell you your parents weren’t your parents, then leaving you with that? What d’you take me for?”

“What was all that about the different lands and such, then?”

“That’s was why I thought it was real. I wasn’t going to breathe a word of it until I had some proof. But I’ve had suspicions from the start.” With that, he unfurled his scroll and went from the beginning. “‘Saw sword.’ My first point. That’s been the biggest problem I’ve had with this, ‘cause I’ve tried doing it myself and I’ve always failed. When I can’t find my own shirt in an open field of long grass, how’s a child of seven spotting my sword – covered in mud and blood and dirt – through a forest with trees and bushes, after a storm, and without even knowing I’m there?”

“I saw it,” Angus argued, getting testy. “What d’you want me to say?”

“That’s what I mean! I told everyone you’ll spot a speck of gold in a dust storm, and the only others who’ll do that are the fairies,” Rohan said. “Maeve led Fin Varra off with that, and the first thing he did after we got him back was to tell you to learn a lesson on chasing gold.”

And while everybody wanted gold in some manner of speaking, and there were people who loved it more than anything else as well, Angus would ignore stacks of stones marking a pixie field for some. Yet he’d turn more gold than that down for his test of honesty, and every other spoil he’d been offered for his wish? A desperate man would’ve taken it. Someone fuelled by greed as well. But someone who thought gold was ‘pretty’ would’ve found it tarnished by the bargain. It was amazing enough that Angus left Deirdre and Ivar yelling at Rohan for letting the pick-pocketing practice go sour, then gave their pieces back when he’d had his show.

“What’s Fin Varra want with gold anyway,” Angus said. “They don’t have merchants, and they weren’t even the ones to make our armour. That was that mountain dwarf.” Then quickly, “I’m not one’f them, either.”

“You’ve stopped listening to me,” Rohan seethed.

“I’m listening. You just had me more at the start. Go back to the part about me bein’ a prince,” Angus told him. “That’s better than sayin’ I’m a fairy just for liking gold.”

Rohan’s nostrils flared so hard from the breath he let out, he had to steady himself by putting both knees on the ground.

“It’s not that you like gold,” he spelled out. “It’s everything! You’re constantly pulling pranks. You get into everywhere to ‘look around’. Any lock you see, you pick it out of principle. You love games – your first thought for having Fin Varra help us get our weapons back was to bet a pouch of gold on it, and lie about what was inside. You love sweets, and food was one of two things you were willing to put your wish towards. I can’t count how much has gone wrong just ‘cause you love magic, but then I look at what goes right and notice I’ve never gotten a spell to work by myself – unless it was reading an incantation and throwing a handful of powder at a fire. Even then, it took the morning to release Tyrune. You blew up Cathbad’s chamber by accident, after eyeballing him from the fireplace. The curse on Kells’ castle would’ve never happened without you, and Cathbad’s never given me a lodestone to use. You think that wouldn’t’ve helped me at other times? And as if that wasn’t enough, the one time I gave Fin Varra’s scrying pool a try to look for him, I thought of finding Tir na Nog’s king, and you showed up in the reflection!”

Angus blinked. They were back to that business, were they?

Fine. Rohan was out of breath. He needed the break.

“That’s...” Angus paused for a while. “... Huh.”

“If you say something like, ‘Of course it sounds bad when you’ve set it up that way,’ I’m throwing you in the river,” Rohan swore.

“That’s a lovely thing to tell someone you’ve convinced yourself is a fairy,” Angus said.

“Are you?”

Another pause. A specific one. Rohan recognized this, and he tensed until he was frozen.

This was it.

“Well. You certainly have a list.” His friend counted on his fingers, going through it. “My parents are human, but I can’t prove it. Saw a flash of silver in a forest. I like gold, I like games, I like sweets, I like magic. We’re gonna say you called me a thief politely. Bein’ a druid’s so easy that I did it while being tucked up in a ball. Bein’ the king of fairies is so hard that you screwed up a trick we’ve watched him do over and over. And the rest was... ‘cause two people couldn’t be from Kells? ‘Cause they wouldn’t let peasants be Mystic Knights?” Angus shrugged. “I dunno. It just sounds like next you’re gonna tell me I’ve got legs, and fairies have those, so we must be the same.”

Rohan released another breath, but in defeat. He tipped his head to bear the blow, and lifting it only when he trusted himself to speak.

“That’s a ‘no,’ then?”

“To being a fairy? Yeah, it’s ‘no,’” Angus said. “But...”

He almost popped something in his neck from whipping his head up that fast.

“‘But’?”

Angus scratched his chin, sheepishly smothering a smirk, and offered Rohan a tiny, begrudged confession.

“It does seem like shit that would happen to you.” He was counting on his fingers again. “You’ve got at least one fairy you’ve made obsessed. I found you in a forest, and now you’re a prince. Your brother’s half-demon. You’ve got a dragon. The mark on your arm got you off the streets and into a castle, and pointed you out as the legendary warrior Draganta, which happened to always say you’d be. Why wouldn’t I be a fairy as well? I’m annoyed for you that I’m not.”

“It isn’t about me,” Rohan said.

“But the feast is. Not to like food,” Angus said, “but shouldn’t you be ready for that, your majesty?”

Angus was already up from his rock, and as he added his final bit, he held out his arm for Rohan to take. Rohan did, hauling himself to his feet as well.

“Is that...” Rohan wasn’t sure of the right way to ask this. “Is it over?”

“You’ve got more?”

He probably did. But as Angus himself suggested, why not ask an expert what the signs were first? Maybe he would ask Aideen.

“We’ll see.” The moment felt as though it were escaping. Angus’ hand on his arm relaxed to let him go. Without needing to think, Rohan grabbed him instead, keeping his friend from moving on. “... It’s that I thought you’d have a bigger reaction. I’ve been carrying this with me for years. You’ve really nothing else to say?”

Angus had even less of an expected reaction to that, but didn’t pull from Rohan’s grip like he had when Rohan dragged him here. In a way, it seemed to be welcomed, or at least wasn’t made to feel unwelcome.

“Rohan, I have been at your side from the day I dragged you out from a log. The first thing you’ve ever said to me was you weren’t letting me take your sword. The second thing you said was you’d let me borrow it, but only if you got to keep your hand on the hilt the whole while. After that, you went on about a witch you said you’d come to slay, and how clever she’d been, sending a storm ‘fore you’d got to her. Never mind that if I’d wanted to take your sword, I could.” That – “Never mind me having to yank you around to reach the branch with that sword. Never mind how the blind could see those clouds had been coming in for ages. And...” Angus’ latest grin was tearing their truce into pieces. “Never mind that no one who was anywhere in Ireland, no matter what boat they floated in on, ever breathed a word about there bein’ a witch, but had been saying for months that a wolf was pickin’ kids off the path, and that before you even reached the trees, you’d killed a wolf, had the still blood on your sword, didn’t mind it, then went along to find your witch and get crushed by a bit of wood.”

As dark as Angus’ eyes were, despite their relentless sparkle, Rohan could see how he’d grown red in their reflection.

“What’s... that... have to do with this?”

“Oh, it’s what I’ve been carrying for years,” Angus sang. “See – after you’ve become a king, and you’ve had your rule, had statues made, and got some coins stuck with your face, you’ll be on your bed with a full life lived behind you.” Was that meant to be grim? “Even if I’m dead by then, I’m gonna be there, waiting on your last moment, ‘cause I’m gonna sneak over, pushing past everyone, plant myself at your ear, and lean on in to whisper...” He was already leaning in, and already whispering. “... ‘Hey, Rohan?’”

The pause dragged on. Rohan suddenly realized his cue.

“... Hey, what?”

“When you killed the wolf,” Angus whispered, “since you told me everything your ‘witch’ had done, why didn’t you stop to think that maybe the wolf’d done it? Did you not know what a wolf was?”

His annoyance was immediate.

“Of course I knew what a wolf was, Angus. But I wasn’t looking for a wolf, was I? I was looking for a witch,” he snapped. “Then the tree hit me.”

Obviously, Rohan got his big reaction. They were late to the start of the feast because of that. He had to scramble into his new clothes, and since Angus had pricked him while trying to make the knees bend, Ivar caught them rushing in, having been sent out to drag them there. So horrified was the prince at what the guests might think, the three had to find a seamstress sober enough to lift the blood from Rohan’s clothes. But what mattered was that by the time they’d finally settled in, Rohan could pay attention, to the point others thought his tardiness was the plan. King Conchobar worked with it, calling it a chance to give Rohan’s entrance its proper due. Altogether, the feast went fine, except for Angus forever excusing himself to haunt the farthest stairwell, all because the funniest thing in the world was a witch.

But ‘no,’ then.

That was his answer.

Rohan could accept that. He would. It was born out of a child’s imagination anyway. What felt good was getting to put it to rest, knowing Angus hadn’t appeared out of thin air to save him after all.

The fact that there was no village Angus could show to Rohan was a scar of the war they’d won together. The magic of him being in the forest when Rohan needed him the most was dulled by taking two days to arrive. The music Angus seemed to always make was a notable talent, but Rohan liked music too. He hadn’t even bothered bringing that one up, and crossed it off of his scroll ages ago. Gold, magic, games, food – those were shallow ways to think of the Little People. He was glad he hadn’t asked Aideen for her thoughts first. Reducing her kind to only that, flattening what made them wonderful, was cruel. That, and Aideen, in an instant, would’ve told him he was wrong.

His arm lifted.

He snapped to attention quick.

On the walk back, he remembered the scrying pool felt like a coincidence. This simply confirmed it. Angus himself had said Rohan didn’t know what he was doing. And why not have a normal villager as a Mystic Knight? There’d been others who’d gone to Tir na Nog before them. Surely they wouldn’t all have been royalty. That it was true for four of the five to survive the tests was another coincidence.

Angus said ‘no’ to being a fairy or elf or changeling or dwarf, and said that he wasn’t from Tir na Nog. He’d said his parents were human. He’d weathered that without a flinch.

“You aren’t angry I asked you all this,” Rohan wondered at him at home.

“Mm,” Angus went. Though that might’ve been from Rohan dropping him face-first onto his cot. “S’fine.”

‘Fine’ meant a lot of things, though.

“You didn’t think it was strange?” Rohan would’ve thought it strange if Angus had asked him. Their words from the day poured through his mind, and his breath hitched. “When I talked about your parents...” A weight passed over him. He sat on his side of the hut like he might break it. “I shouldn’t have brought them into this. There was a line and I crossed it.”

“S’fine.”

“It isn’t,” Rohan said. “I knew better than that, and I let myself get carried away. That’s why I tried not asking you.”

That earned a rustle from Angus, as his friend drunkenly twisted his neck to find wherever Rohan had gone. When he did, he gave the impression of trying to fix Rohan with a stare. It was close enough.

“Was there – why...” That was less close. “Was’at... why you came with it?”

Rohan pondered that. He didn’t need to, as he knew his answer already. But he’d this conversation in his mind before. Just as he hadn’t asked Aideen whether Angus seemed human to her, he hadn’t wanted to delve too deeply into this part. It was his fault, though, for involving Angus’ family. Angus hadn’t ever done that to him.

“It made it easier,” he said. He hoped his softness lent it sincerity. “If I’d met your parents, maybe I would’ve imagined something else. But to be honest, I was imagining anything at all because you were my friend.”

“Aww,” Angus said, and nuzzled into his cot.

“It isn’t ‘aww.’ It’s silly.” Embarrassing. Worse. “Angus, I told you why I went into that storm, didn’t I?”

“Witch.”

“Yes, but I said why I’d wanted to find the witch.” He was sure Angus could guess. It’d all been the same story growing up, no matter where they’d lived. “They didn’t like me. I thought I’d prove myself to them somehow. As a warrior, since they didn’t think that was true.” Like he’d tried to do with the people of Temra, only to learn he’d been wrong to try then, too. “I don’t know if they noticed I went missing.”

It’d been only two days. But they’d been long, and they would’ve been his last if not for Angus.

“Pricks,” his friend helpfully observed.

“Children.” Anyway, he’d made his peace with that. He was a man now. “But I thought it meant you had a reason to like me. Something different from them. And from there, I thought...”

... Fairy.

Getting his start on a rough morning tomorrow, Angus lifted his head again. The bleariness from the sleep he’d fought left him glassy-eyed and slow.

“Pricks,” he insisted. “But. I dunno. Y’got your mark. Y’strong. Your brother’s... that –” He yawned. “If anyone’s different, why me, not you?”

“I’m human.” Another simple answer. Though Rohan tried a while to make the other way work. It hadn’t, just like a spell. “If there’d been doubt, the prophecy cleared it. It calls for a mortal without lineage who bears the mark.”

“Y’got lineage,” Angus grunted. “Maeve.”

“I’m human,” Rohan promised. “Especially after meeting Lugad, I’m sure.”

“Seen you cranky.” The tired smile on Angus’ face was what kept Rohan from worrying that was meant to be harsh. “He is half-demon, though. Maybe full-demons walk around like they’re somethin’ else.”

“Maybe.” It was possible. Rohan remembered Cathbad mentioning a few of their traits. “Destructive. Chaotic. I heard they’re rude, and they really seem to hate fairies.” He couldn’t help a sly grin growing at that. “Don’t you rant about Fin Varra’s riddles, and to his face?”

“We all rant ‘bout his riddles, mate. Be half of Ireland that’s demons, then.” Angus returned to bury his face back into his cot. “Where’s one even come from?”

“The underworld,” Rohan replied. “There could be a portal to it in Temra, like Kells has with Tir na Nog.” He hadn’t heard of a ‘demon ring’ before, but wouldn’t Maeve need a way of reaching them if she’d carried Lugad? He wasn’t sure. He’d yet to even understand how she’d paid for such a child. “I bet they have it in a forest.”

“Ha, ha.”

“I’m not calling you a demon,” he relented. But since he had the chance... “Demons are giants, you know.”

“... Prick...”

He laughed as quietly as he was able to, and let Angus get on with his long-awaited rest.

‘Giants.’ Maybe to the fairies, or those’d be quick to spot. But it spoke to how he’d far come that Rohan could set the idea aside. First his brother, and then his best friend? That wasn’t likely. What would a demon want with him, anyway?

And ‘stolen’. Rohan was already away from Maeve by the time he and Angus met, so there went any reason for it to be a way of plaguing her more.

Besides, Angus didn’t look like a demon. Those were supposed to be monsters.

Most of them.

Cathbad had mentioned that some of them were...

Rohan glanced at the other side of the hut, but only the back of Angus’ head was turned towards him.

Well, good. Rohan had his answer already. If he was going to be listening to things that Cathbad had said, this was what his teacher had warned: facts going one way, but taken as the other in an ill-fated purpose. So Rohan went to sleep as well, ending a long day in a longer chapter.

He kept his scroll where it was below his cot.

Just for the memories.

Just in case.