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Sarelle and the Ardelay twins go to their inn. They are greeted there the following day by Ekador apparently-Serlast, who says he'll be another two days settling up his affairs and then they can all go to Welce.
Ekador packs quite lightly for someone who's leaving the country on short notice and otherwise bears negligible personality resemblance to Loel. The carriage isn't particularly crowded as they make their way back to the port to find a boat leading back to Welce.
"There are three stops to make," Kiri tells him as they drive. "Although we'll land close to Chialto, I don't think that should be the first place we go. You'll have a much smoother go of taking over as uncontested prime if you can demonstrate at least minor magical power on demand - I don't think fielding questions of your legitimacy is anyone's idea of a good time and it would be better to have more than Sarelle's word to lean on. It doesn't help that anyone but her will mistake you for sweela. The Serlast estate is a couple of days by carriage from Chialto, there's a forest on the property, it's supposed to be special to the Serlasts, and going and having a walk around it might give you an idea of how to perform some minor visible magic."
"Might not. Loel figured out how to do magic without jumping into the Marisi River," shrugs Aleko.
"It might not. But it's worth a try if you don't have an epiphany before we get there," says Kiri. "Anyway, some of your cousins are living at the Serlast estate - off the top of my head, one of Valdin's children, his younger sister, and one of his grandsons, but I don't know how you're related to the family so I don't know who they are to you. You can kick them out if you want, but I recommend getting to know them and soliciting their help with the family business, and you have plenty of room to continue to board them. The Chialto house of the Serlasts was empty last I heard, but I'd be willing to bet you can re-hire Valdin's old servants if you want them, and you're entitled to maintain your own suite at the palace, too. You can divide your time between these places more or less however you please, although if you neglect the palace then the royal family may start issuing pointed invitations, and you might want to become acquainted with Prince Isten in particular, as he is heir to the throne and it's his succession you're necessary to ratify later."
"Isten's eleven," Aleko adds. "Coru, quiet."
"Questions?" Kiri inquires. "Do you want me to write any of that down, possibly in chart format?"
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calescent
calescent
Eventually they reach the Serlast estate, park in front of the house, and disembark.
"Your forest is around the back," says Kiri. "You can be introduced to various cousins first if you want, but if you can't demonstrate any magic it might make sense to go directly into the forest first. I'm not entirely sure we ought to go with you."
pyrophyte
"Then I suppose I will go there by myself," he says. "And return when I've... done something magical."
pyrophyte
Ekador nods.
He goes around back, and into the forest. He is vaguely nervous that someone will see him and ask what he's doing there, but no one does.
There are a lot of trees. It's the first time he's found himself in a forest as such since he first noticed a difference in the way he perceived wood and paper. He finds that as he passes more and more trees, he perceives them in more and more detail. In many of them, he senses twists or knots on the interior that he knows must be the work of someone else's magic. But it isn't until he's deep in the forest that the changes start to be outwardly visible. Trees twisted into spirals, interwoven with each other, even a huge old oak with the symbols of the eight hunti blessings each embossed on a different branch, and hunti itself on a ninth.
The trees don't tell him how they were changed; he only knows that they were because it's obvious they can't have grown that way. But walking among them, he gets a sense of what was done - of what is possible. Shaping living wood into arbitrary forms, some beautiful, some strange.
He finds a tree that hasn't been worked on - there are still plenty. And he sits under it, and leans back against the solid trunk, and thinks about the intricate pattern of a lace veil he once saw. Given the medium, he certainly couldn't duplicate it on the same scale, but...
It takes a while; he loses track of time. When he opens his eyes, the sun is noticeably lower than he remembers it.
And the tree he was resting against has opened up into a swirl of wooden lace, branches splitting into twigs that twist and merge and split again. When he stands up and brushes the dirt from his coat and looks at it, it's even lovelier than he imagined.
Satisfied, he returns to the front of the house.
He goes around back, and into the forest. He is vaguely nervous that someone will see him and ask what he's doing there, but no one does.
There are a lot of trees. It's the first time he's found himself in a forest as such since he first noticed a difference in the way he perceived wood and paper. He finds that as he passes more and more trees, he perceives them in more and more detail. In many of them, he senses twists or knots on the interior that he knows must be the work of someone else's magic. But it isn't until he's deep in the forest that the changes start to be outwardly visible. Trees twisted into spirals, interwoven with each other, even a huge old oak with the symbols of the eight hunti blessings each embossed on a different branch, and hunti itself on a ninth.
The trees don't tell him how they were changed; he only knows that they were because it's obvious they can't have grown that way. But walking among them, he gets a sense of what was done - of what is possible. Shaping living wood into arbitrary forms, some beautiful, some strange.
He finds a tree that hasn't been worked on - there are still plenty. And he sits under it, and leans back against the solid trunk, and thinks about the intricate pattern of a lace veil he once saw. Given the medium, he certainly couldn't duplicate it on the same scale, but...
It takes a while; he loses track of time. When he opens his eyes, the sun is noticeably lower than he remembers it.
And the tree he was resting against has opened up into a swirl of wooden lace, branches splitting into twigs that twist and merge and split again. When he stands up and brushes the dirt from his coat and looks at it, it's even lovelier than he imagined.
Satisfied, he returns to the front of the house.
calescent
Kiri and Aleko have apparently interacted with someone in the household, either that or borrowed the stable without such expediency. They're sitting on the front steps, Kiri writing, Aleko doodling, occasionally one or the other of them giggling.
Kiri looks up when Ekador comes back. "How'd it go?" she asks.
Kiri looks up when Ekador comes back. "How'd it go?" she asks.
calescent
"That sounds pretty. Can you do something for general proving-your-identity-purposes?" She hands him a corner of notebook paper.
pyrophyte
After a moment's consideration, he makes lace out of that, too - a perfect, delicate sphere of it.
"Will that suffice?"
"Will that suffice?"
calescent
There follows fairly unremarkable introduction of Ekador to his relatives - one of them determines that Ekador was Valdin's first cousin twice removed. Ekador makes no attempt to evict them, the paper-lace ball suffices to convince everyone that he is who he is. He's conducted around the house from kierten to kitchen, and one of the cousins (not the genealogically inclined one) produces a list of Serlast holdings and who's currently managing them.
pyrophyte
Ekador reads the list and asks a few questions. He comes away satisfied that none of the family holdings are in egregiously incompetent hands.
calescent
Since there have been people living here, it, unlike the Lalindar house, is currently staffed. It can offer the prime and the visitors dinner without much ado.
pyrophyte
Dinner! Excellent.
It seems obvious enough, but he nevertheless asks Kiri afterward, "Does your itinerary have room in it for staying a night here before we return to Chialto?"
It seems obvious enough, but he nevertheless asks Kiri afterward, "Does your itinerary have room in it for staying a night here before we return to Chialto?"
calescent
"All right then. I think I'll go see if the guest room I had last time I was here is open."
And so they stay overnight, and in the morning, are refreshed and presumably ready to head to Chialto.
"Do you want to come in our carriage or just ride alongside on one of your horses?"
And so they stay overnight, and in the morning, are refreshed and presumably ready to head to Chialto.
"Do you want to come in our carriage or just ride alongside on one of your horses?"
pyrophyte
Ekador considers this.
"I'll ride one of the horses, I think. I may as well start getting acquainted with them."
"I'll ride one of the horses, I think. I may as well start getting acquainted with them."
calescent
"All right, take your pick. I'm unable to advise you on this one."
liakoura
And they're off. Aleko drives.
"Kiri theoretically knows how to drive, it's just better to have her safely enclosed if there's anything bigger than an ant to cause a bump in the road so she never practices."
"Kiri theoretically knows how to drive, it's just better to have her safely enclosed if there's anything bigger than an ant to cause a bump in the road so she never practices."
liakoura
"She's actually gotten better since we were little, mostly because she doesn't forget that she can't run, anymore."