flexibility

[calescent]

They leave Thiyec, cross Soche-Tas, and re-enter Welce.

Kiri sends a letter Jayce's way as soon as they stop in a Welchin town. It's brief - we found the Lalindar prime, we'll drop him off and my next stop is the palace so please forward my correspondence there.

The Lalindar house, on inspection, appears to be completely empty. There's a note from the butler on the dining room table stating - in appropriately formal language - that no one was paying them and so they have left, but he, the cook, the gardeners, and the maids may be contacted at the following addresses respectively if the new prime, when located, wishes to re-employ their services. Unlike the Ardelay house at the time of Elytte's death, this house as of Nerine's death contains no extended family. There's nothing to do but for Loel to move in. Kiri draws him a little map of the route between the estate and the nearest town, where he will probably want to buy groceries, and she and Aleko leave to let him plan his moat.

They're at the palace the following day.

Comments

[calescent]

"Okay, well, there are five elements. Sweela is fire and mind, elay is air and soul, coru is blood and water, torz is earth and flesh, and hunti is wood and bone. Everybody in Welce picks an element that best represents their personality, but there are also five families that each represent or embody an element - respectively, the Ardelays, the Dochenzas, the Lalindars, the Frothens, and the Serlasts. And every one of those families is headed by a 'prime' with certain element-themed powers, who is not chosen in any conventional manner of heir selection but rather by a process of idiosyncratic magic."

[pyrophyte]

"...magic," he repeats.

[calescent]

"...Do you not have any magic here? I have always vaguely imagined that even in countries without primes there would have to be something."

[pyrophyte]

"We do not," he says with extreme dryness, "have magic in Malinqua."

[calescent]

"So you haven't noticed any unusual new senses or abilities as regards - trees, wooden objects, paper, the ability to detect people's bone structure from farther away than you ought to be able to, unusual behavior of nearby ivory?" She glances at Sarelle. "You're sure this is him?"

[pyrophyte]

(The alleged prime frowns thoughtfully.)

[calendarofcrime]

"I am extremely sure that this is him," says Sarelle.

[calescent]

"Yours would be among the subtler abilities. I woke up one day to find that I had set my bed on fire, so there was little question," says Kiri. "But the previous Serlast prime has been dead for several weeks now."

[pyrophyte]

"You set your bed on fire," he says, taken aback. "In your sleep. With magic?"

[calescent]

"Yes. I have it under control now - although you should be warned that if you get within five feet of me, a little farther on a cold day, I haven't found a way to turn off the mindreading part." She holds her hand palm-up and calls a discreet little touch of flame into it.

[pyrophyte]

He stares.

"...all right," he says. "Magic."

[calescent]

Kiri dismisses the fire and puts her hand down. "Assuming Sarelle is correct, you're the hunti prime, and since your predecessor died in a duel - don't worry, there has been no ill will passed on to the rest of the family, you are not heir to a feud - that means you now own a lot of property and have a lot of non-transferable political power in Welce."

[pyrophyte]

"I see."

[calescent]

"Ideally you'd come back to Welce with us. You could appoint one of your more or less distant cousins to manage the Serlast belongings for you if you don't care to worry about it, but whenever our king dies, all five primes are necessary to ratify his heir and, if it's while said heir is still a child, to choose a regent."

[pyrophyte]

"And I cannot appoint anyone to carry out those duties for me, because... they involve magic?" he guesses.

[calescent]

"Well, the ratification does. I suppose regent selection could be done by proxy."

[pyrophyte]

"You said ideally I would come back with you. What things that aren't ideal will happen if I don't?"

[calescent]

"Miscellaneous political instability. There's been a lot of prime turnover in a very short period of time. I'm seventeen years old and, except for a fellow who's most probably on his deathbed, I have been a prime longer than anyone else alive. The five families are important to an assortment of politics in Welce, and while an appointed agent could probably smooth over much of it, an actual prime being present would help. The king is not on his deathbed, but if something happens to him, failing to orchestrate the turnover with the relevant magical ratification procedure would also not go over well with the population. And - I wish to clarify that this is not a threat, but you asked - because the only way primacy transfers is through the death of a previous prime, if anyone both unethical and in a position to suffer from this miscellaneous political instability were able to locate you, they might consider assassination an obvious solution. It's quite possible no one else will be able to find you. Sarelle was using magic and on top of that you don't look hunti at all."

[pyrophyte]

...He looks at Sarelle.

[calendarofcrime]

"As elay prime, I can more or less smell your soul," she explains. "If I could not, it would have been considerably more difficult to find you. Perhaps not impossible, but as well as being elay prime I am also particularly talented at finding."

[pyrophyte]

"I... see."

[calescent]

"I managed to find the also-missing-abroad coru prime without help," mentions Kiri. "But that was because he was affecting the weather. You have no such obvious tells. If you want nothing more than for us to leave you alone, I'd ask that you write a letter authorizing some other Serlast to manage your estate in your absence - I can make recommendations if you like - and do something obviously magical to the paper it's written on so it isn't suspected of being a forgery. And we might come back when the king dies and ask you to at least visit."

[pyrophyte]

"I detect a slight flaw in this plan," he says. "Namely, I don't know how to do anything obviously magical."

[calescent]

"It should be possible to figure it out," Kiri says. "I can probably help a little - Valdin Serlast didn't mind if I read his mind now and then, so I know bits and pieces of how the other magic works - but it's mostly pretty intuitive. You might find your magic in better or more accessible shape if you visit the forest on the estate, though."

[pyrophyte]

He sighs. "No. If the inheritance is mine, the responsibility is also mine."