He loved the royal baths, had spent many languorous afternoons—evenings, mornings—in them, but rarely alone. He was used to the laughter of boisterous company echoing off the stones, the playful embrace of a companion, kisses splashing on skin, but today the baths were silent save for the gentle drip of water. His guards stood on either side of the door, and a pair of attendants perched, waiting with pitchers of soap and oil, brushes, robes, and towels while Rhy strode through the waist-high water of the basin.
It took up half the room, a wide, deep pool of polished black rock, its edges trimmed in glass and gold. Light danced across the arched ceilings and the outer wall broken only by high, thin windows filled with colored glass.
The water around him was still sloshing from his ascent, and he splayed his fingers across the surface, waiting for the ripples to smooth again.
It was a game he used to play when he was young, trying to see if he could still the surface of the water. Not with magic, just with patience. Growing up, he’d been even worse at waiting than he was at summoning elements, but these days, he was getting better. He stood in the very center of the bath and slowed his breathing, watched the water go still and smooth as glass. Soon his reflection resolved in its surface, mirror-clear, and Rhy considered his black hair and amber eyes before his gaze invariably drifted down over his brown shoulders to the mark on his chest.
The circles wound together in a way that was both intuitive and foreign. A symbol of death and life. He focused and became aware of the pulse in his ears, the echo of Kell’s own, both beats growing louder and louder, until Rhy expected the sound to ruin the glassy stillness of the water.
A subtle aura of peace broke the mounting pulse.
“Your Highness,” said Vis from his place at the door. “You have a—”
“Let him pass,” said the prince, his back to the guard. He closed his eyes and listened to the hushed tread of bare feet, the whisper of robes against stone: quiet, and yet loud enough to drown out his brother’s heart.
“Good afternoon, Prince Rhy.” The Aven Essen’s voice was a low thrum, softer than the king’s but just as strong. Sonorous.
Rhy turned in a slow circle to face the priest, a smile alighting on his face. “Tieren. What a pleasant surprise.”
The head priest of the London Sanctuary was not a large man, but his white robes hardly swallowed him. If anything, he grew to fill them, the fabric swishing faintly around him, even when he stood still. The air in the room changed with his presence, a calm settling over everything like snow. Which was good, because it counteracted the visible discomfort most seemed to feel around the man himself, shying away as if Tieren could see through them, straight past skin and bone to thought and want and soul. Which was probably why Vis was now studying his boots.
The Aven Essen was an intimidating figure to most—much like Kell, Rhy supposed—but to him, Master Serense had always been Tieren.
“If this is a bad time …” the priest began, folding his hands into his sleeves.
“Not at all,” said Rhy, ascending the glass stairs that lined the bath on every side. He could feel the eyes in the room drift to his chest: not only the symbol seared into the bronze skin, but the scar between his ribs, where his knife—Astrid’s knife—had gone in. But before the cool air could settle or the eyes could linger, an attendant was there, draping him in a plush red robe. “Please leave us,” he said, addressing the rest of the room. The attendants instantly began to withdraw, but the guard lingered. “You too, Vis.”
“Prince Rhy,” he began, “I’m not supposed to …”
“It’s all right,” said Rhy drolly. “I don’t think the Aven Essen means me any harm.”
Tieren’s silver brows inched up a fraction. “That remains to be seen,” said the priest evenly.
Vis was halfway through a step back, but stopped again at the words. Rhy sighed. Ever since the Black Night, the royal guards had been given strict instructions when it came to their kingdom’s heir. And its Antari. He didn’t know the exact words his father had used, but he was fairly sure they included don’t let them and out of your sight and possibly on pain of death.
“Vis,” he said slowly, trying to summon a semblance of his father’s stony command. “You insult me, and the head priest, with your enduring presence. There is one door in and out of this room. Stand on the other side with Tolners, and guard it.”
The impression must have been convincing, because Vis nodded and reluctantly withdrew.
Tieren lowered himself onto a broad stone bench against the wall, his white robes pooling around him, and Rhy came to sit beside him, slumping back against the stones.
“Not much humor in this bunch,” said Tieren when they were alone.
“None at all,” complained Rhy, rolling his shoulders. “I swear, sincerity is its own form of punishment.”
“The tournament preparations are coming along?”
“Indeed,” said Rhy. “The arenas are almost ready, and the empire tents are positively decadent. I almost envy the magicians.”
“Please tell me you’re not thinking of competing, too.”