notice. Petra Ward designed it for me. She's one of the best in the kingdom you know.”
Not for the first time Tor wondered if they were sleeping together. It made sense, maybe he should suggest it if they weren't? Rolph was great, Ali was splendid and given their shared culture making love would have been pretty normal for them, even if they hardly liked each other, since they both knew him so closely. It was hard to think like that, but Tor shrugged, no one noticing that he did.
The stupid royal rules made little to no sense to him at the best of times.
They didn't sit at the table at first, small meal or not. The dining room wasn't one of the big ones, but Denno was basically as important a visitor as they could have at the palace, so they'd pulled out the stops. All of them. Even common sense.
The room was filled with more kinds of magic than Tor had ever seen working in one place at one time, some of them his, but a lot of them were other peoples as well. It was almost like a museum display, as if to overwhelm Denno with what they could do. The room clicked and buzzed, lights flickered and blasted at times, different, all pleasant, emotions tickled across his skin, and music, ethereal and soft, chimed from the back of the room.
It was too much and looked silly to Tor, not very tasteful at all, but Denno kept walking from one device to the next looking amazed and baffled, finally he turned to Tor and threw his hands up.
“I can see it works, but how? It's against the laws of physics and thermodynamics!”
Blinking Tor stopped for a second and tried to remember what he'd worked out about that, from the bits of science Burks had told him about as they trained and prepped for the mission a few weeks before.
“No it's not. That's the flaw in your thinking on it, you're missing one key part, so you think that it's impossible, even when you see it working. Magic is simply a complex organizational process on the quantum level, using a biological interface. What you're missing, I think, is that every object exists down to the smallest parts of reality.” It made sense to Tor, but the Brown man grimaced.
“I know that.” He said, as if Tor had just insulted him.
“Good, but remember, the human brain exists on that level too, and we can control our thoughts, which means that we can build partial structures of information on that level…”
Denno looked shaken for a second.
“But…” Then he stopped talking and walked away.
The man stopped asking him how magic worked at least.
Connie walked over and placed her hand on his arm gently to get Tor’s attention. It was a soft and gently thing, and she looked radiant, as always. Her hair had grown out a little, near collar length, and was still her normal red-brown color, it was hard to describe really, being as lovely as it was. On impulse Tor gave her a warm, but small hug. It wasn't enough to insult his wife, and the King wasn't in the room yet, being busy elsewhere for the time being, so it wasn't rubbing anything in his face. She looked at him in surprise, but took the opportunity to kiss him gently on the lips. Nothing to overt, but it got a grin from Ali who stood at his arm.
The Queen looked around the room and sighed.
“Burks suggested it. I'm mortified myself, but Mr. Brown does seem impressed. We'll shut it all off for dinner.” She looked at both of them and suddenly swooped in to give Ali a hug.
“Now, Tor dear, go away so I can chat with Alissa about you in private.”
Laughing Tor walked over to Rolph, wondering what they were really going to be talking about. He wasn't interesting enough for a conversation, he knew. His huge friend stood and watched Denno walking around with an amused expression. It was a little funny, even as the good looking man fought for control over his face. Someone had given him a clothing amulet Tor noticed, and let him set the style, a plain jumpsuit like everyone wore in Austra. The color was a simple brown and looked bland for the room, but Denno still didn't. The guy always looked good.
Rolph shook his head.
“A year ago I thought the Ancients were just a fairy tale told to children, immortal little men and women that helped guide us all in secret, like gnomes or something. Now I not only know they're real, but have met six of them.”
“Six?” Tor only counted three himself.
“You, your mother and sister Tiera, Lairdgren, Brown and Lara Gray. Six.”
“Ah. Well, I don't count. I'm still just Tor after all.” He tried to sound normal, but it came out humble and a little embarrassed. He wasn't Ancient at all, two months younger than Rolph even.
“Court Jester!” Came a familiar voice from his right, near the door, Ambassador Mutta from Afrak. His great niece and cousin. Tor stopped himself from wincing but it took work. His family tree was so convoluted it hurt his brain to think about.
Tor and Rolph both spun, smiling. The vision that walked smoothly towards them was incredible. Dark skin that was so brown she nearly looked blue, ice blue eyes and brilliant bird like red hair that stuck up several inches and fanned out just a bit all over. She was wearing a proper court dress, a deep almost purple red, which was both lovely and a subtle blending of her hairs color and the royal purple of Cordes. There was lace on it and she looked stunning enough that everyone had turned to stare, even Denno.
Mutta may have called his name, but her eyes were only for one person, Rolph, who stepped forward and bowed low to her, while she fumbled at a curtsy laughing.
“My lord,” she said through the chuckles.
“Princess Abbie.” The Prince returned.
Mutta was trying to wrangle a marriage with Rolph, which, as big a surprise as it seemed to Tor, was working. She really was approximately a Princess, though they didn't really have those in Afrak, as it had been explained to him, but she was the third person in line to rule. The first one was an Ancient, Tor's grandmother it turned out, so Abbie would never gain any more power there. Here she could be a Queen, but really, she just seemed to actually like the Prince. As a reason to get married, there were worse ones.
Tor gave her a familial hug.
“Great niece, how are things going?” She knew what he meant, even without his very direct and obvious look at Rolph, a gesture that made her smile.
“Very well. I'm here tonight for a reason.”
“A reason?” Tor said, smiling. “Sounds important.”
She just nodded and kept looking at Rolph.
Nothing was said except for small talk at dinner, a rule at the royal table, Tor looked for Karina, but she didn't attend at all, which was a little strange, since the rest of the royal family was there. After the meal was over she walked in, wearing a plain black outfit that didn't highlight her athletic figure at all, her hair straight, short and black now, instead of the near red he'd last seen and had look on her face that seemed dark and sullen. Tor stared, but she didn't look back, and didn't even wave to Ali, who was one of her best friends. Tor reached out to her, trying to find out what was wrong, but she just moped and sat looking at the table, barely noticing the room. Waves of depression came off of her. Crap.
It was Tor’s fault.
Not that she was depressed, that was the situation, her friend Yardley had been murdered and the murder had gone free, back to a life of luxury and fun. That was beyond his control. But he'd left her. He was her friend and Tor had gone off to school and just left her to sit and stew in her own salty tears, not even bothering to visit, just because he was too “busy”. He hadn’t even contacted her on the communications device, which, he realized, wanting to kick himself, he could have done daily. All her friends had left at the same time too, Ali, Sara Debri and even Trice. That had happened because they all had to follow Tor for one reason or another. Double crap.
No one talked about it or looked at her overly, as if ignoring her obvious pain would make it better. Even Ali paid attention to the King as he announced something.
Prince Alphonse was to wed Princess Abumanintali Mutta. That was good, but not the most important thing at all. Tor made himself smile and so did Karina, so at least there was enough left inside her to try and fake being polite. The wedding was to take place in a year, which was quick for a royal… anything really. If there was no reason to hurry, they just didn't.
The King smiled and welcomed Abbie to the family, and she smiled back, gave a humble seated bow and thanked him. For her that was huge, given how little the Afrak thought of men in general. She was definitely trying her best. Then if she didn't, Tor would have to take her to Two Bends so that his mother could yell at her. The rest of the evening was subdued, going into more small talk. Denno stayed with the King most of the time, but flirted
