The King stood.
For one extremely satisfying instant, I believed I had made him do it.
“Clear the outer ring,” he ordered. “No one touches the stone. Master Ilyen?”
The woman in grey knelt beside the dais.
So much for deference.
A copper instrument appeared in her hand, slender as a knitting needle. She held it above the fading circle. Its tip bent toward the light without touching it.
“The working is closed,” she said.
“And the throne?”
“I did not summon a throne.”
That silenced several people who had been preparing to speak.
The King glanced at me.
I gave him nothing.
This was not difficult. I possessed nothing relevant to give him.
Master Ilyen moved her instrument closer to the first step. A faint blue spark crawled along the copper.
She withdrew it immediately.
“No further probing,” she said. “Not until we have examined the residue.”
“Is he in danger?” the King asked.
I disliked the pronoun.
“I am sitting here,” I observed. “You may address your concerns accordingly.”
The old man recovered first.
“Forgive us, my lord. The summoning has produced an unexpected--”
“Corvane,” the King said.
The old man stopped.
A name, at least. I had begun to resent having to categorize him by complexion.
The King turned fully toward me.
“You are in my hall. You have been brought here by a working authorized in my name. Until we understand what has happened, no one will approach you without my permission.”
A competent opening. It accepted responsibility without promising anything expensive.
“Your permission,” I said.
“And yours.”
Better.
“Might we know your name?”
Mine rose automatically.
Seventeen years of answering adults had nearly undone me in a single breath.
I held it back.
There was another name available. A name I had said until I could deliver it convincingly while half asleep on a train. It belonged to a man who had never existed, in a country whose eastern watch was at that moment still waiting for Miyata to finish describing its destruction.
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“Solvane,” I said. “The second of that name.”
I let the rest follow without haste.
“King of Aurelheim.”
Corvane studied me.
The King’s gaze moved once to the crown, then returned to my face.
Neither bowed.
A sensible pair. How inconvenient.
“Aurelheim,” the King repeated. “Your country?”
“Yes.”
“And your ruling house?”
I rested my elbow on the stone.
“Has not yet authorized an inquiry into its genealogy.”
A guard looked sideways.
Too much.
I had heard it myself: the brittle edge of a boy protecting an answer he did not possess.
I softened the next sentence.
“You will forgive my reluctance to provide a family history before receiving an explanation.”
“Of course.”
The King said it pleasantly.
I could not tell whether he had accepted the correction or merely noted the necessity of one.
Master Ilyen looked up.
Something brushed the space behind my eyes.
I went very still.
“Human,” she said. “Otherworlder. First level. The surface pattern is consistent.”
First level.
An unfamiliar phrase, delivered with the confidence of a diagnosis.
I kept my face composed.
“Identity?” Corvane asked.
“The deeper fields require an assay.”
“Then arrange--”
“No.”
The word left me before I had decided how best to say it.
All three looked at me.
Ilyen lowered the copper instrument.
“The surface reading causes no harm,” she explained. “An identity assay is more involved. Contact, usually. Or a prepared circle.”
“You may explain the procedure before proposing to perform it.”
“I would not perform it here in any case.” She glanced at the throne. “We have interfered with this working enough.”
Corvane’s expression did not change, but his attention sharpened.
The King returned to his chair.
“All newly summoned persons arrive at the first level,” he said. “Whatever abilities you possessed before, you will require instruction in how this world expresses them.”
I had apparently lost abilities I had not known I possessed.
The situation continued to distinguish itself.
“You have done this before.”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“The records can be made available.”
Corvane turned his head a fraction.
The King did not consult him.
Useful.
My collar had become damp against my neck. The room was too cold for sweating, yet I was doing a thoroughly undignified amount of it. I had been holding my hands still for so long that the muscles between my fingers had begun to ache.
I needed water.
I needed fewer witnesses.
What I wanted was to go home, but that desire had no immediate application.
“Then I will put my question to you one final time,” I said. “And I will not ask it a third.”
I had not asked it once.
The King’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He might have noticed.
It was too late to improve the line.
“Why have you brought me here?”
A murmur stirred along the wall and died when the King lifted his hand.
“Because there is a war,” he said. “And because we need help.”
No declaration of destiny. No immediate attempt to flatter me.
He was learning quickly.
“With whom?”
“The ruler of the eastern dominions. The title used here is Demon King.”
“Used here.”
“Yes.”
A careful answer.
I could have begun there. Asked what the title meant, who had chosen it, why a kingdom with so many armed men required a stranger to save it.
Instead I felt a small tremor move through my right leg.
There are limits to what indignation can accomplish on an empty stomach.
“Then perhaps we should discuss your war without the entire court listening.”
The King considered me.
“Certainly.”
Relief nearly loosened my shoulders.
Then he added, “The council chamber is warmer. Will you join us?”
I looked at the steps.
There it was.
Not a challenge he had to announce. Merely an invitation that required me to leave the high black throne and walk among the people I had been addressing from above.
Corvane waited.
The guards waited.
I could refuse, of course. Insist the hall be emptied around me. Make it very clear that my sovereignty depended upon remaining attached to a particular chair.
“Lead the way.”
I stood.
My right foot had gone numb.
For one hideous instant, the ankle refused to belong to me.
The robe concealed the adjustment. I took the first step slowly, allowing my hand to trail along the armrest as though reluctant to leave a comfortable seat.
The second was easier.
At the foot of the dais stood a girl in a faded blue jacket.
A jacket.
With a zipper.
The cuff had been repaired in thread that did not quite match. A pale rectangle marked the place where an emblem had been removed.
Her clothes were worn, foreign, unmistakably from somewhere that knew what a school uniform was.
I almost stopped.
She was looking at my crown.
Then the robe.
Then the little line of hot glue beneath the largest plastic stone.
Her lips moved.
Four words, shaped in a language I had known all my life.
*That’s a school costume.*
I missed the final step.
Not enough to fall.
Enough for her to notice.
Her eyes came up to mine.
For the first time since the light had appeared beneath me, I encountered someone who was not wondering what I was.
She knew.