Episode 113: Cornering Aadya (Konrad)

He watched her, his queen, delegate a task to his apprentice.

The things he’d done to her, in selfishness…

Now that the fog was lifted, he could see the past handful of years in the full perspective of his indiscretions and failures. All the work of building her and Meldrick towards each other, ruined.

He could see the marks of that grief on her face. She hadn’t eaten well, despite the pregnancy. Her sleep had suffered as well.

In a moment, he would further complicate her life, for the sake of demonstrating stability to the kingdom.

He drew in a deep breath, and waited, back against a tree.

When Spence departed with the strange man, Greg, Konrad stepped into the little clearing. “Do you have a moment?” he asked her.

She appraised him with a wariness he could hardly blame her for, pressing her palms together in a handshake she saved only for herself. It was her means of kneading away anxiety.

He wondered whether she was more concerned about his impressions of Greg, or about the fact that she and he had irrevocably split their paths from one another’s. There would be no more children, no more afternoon meetings in the dungeon.

If he’d had his wits, he would have gone about that transition more carefully.

He deserved to be relieved.

“Yes,” she agreed. “How are you?”

“Better,” in the way that she intended, at any rate. His healing would take years.

“I’m relieved – beyond – that you’re feeling better,” she told him. Her hands unclasped and some of her natural warmth returned to her demeanor.

He smiled. “I would advise,” he mused, gazing at her through the side of his hair, “against having a sidhe companion.” He straightened and faced her full-on. “I had a few questions, while you’re here: I’ve noticed some unexpected tension with Zero and Niels. Do you have any idea what?”

“No,” she said. The little line between her eyebrows deepened in thought. “I hadn’t noticed. I can speak with them in a few minutes. Has Nell noticed as well?”

Konrad doubted that Aadya speaking to either of them would make any significant difference. If she spoke with Talise, perhaps…but Talise had felt such a pressure lately, to never be anything shy of the perfect heir.

“He has,” Konrad said. He trudged carefully through the words while he determined what his queen needed to know. “He has his ideas as to why.”

She took a step toward him. “What are they? Is something wrong?”

Not yet. Likely, it would turn out to be his own fault, for not being present for the planning and implementation of much of the festival security.

“Bentley believes Talise and Indigo are in danger.” Imminent danger. Any hour. “He’s confident they’ll recover and that the circumstances of their danger will ultimately benefit the kingdom.”

She gazed into the distance briefly, a confirmation of his suspicions. He wondered which of the Nivernese luck royals she’d bonded to, to get their magic.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “Do you still want me to speak with Niels or Zero?”

He shrugged. It was an unnatural move for him, but he didn’t want her any more concerned than she was at present. “Not unless you feel compelled to. How are preparations for the festival?” he asked, steering her into another avenue of thought. “Corban has done a nice job arranging security in my absence.”

Corban was his backup plan if Spence fell through. He’d dated Acheron briefly, years ago, and he was close enough to much of the family to be capable of working well with them. And he was gay. Konrad preferred that Talise’s future head of security be gay, unlikely to be distracted by her.

Perhaps, given Spence’s recent plans in Sylem, he ought to flip their roles; make Spence his backup plan if Corban fell through. Yes, that felt right. Corban was far more likely to include Spence and to see his own shortcomings.

“Well,” Aadya said. She grinned at him. “The wedding ensured we are ahead of schedule.”

The wedding, where he’d demonstrated to yet more people just how incompetent he was. It was on her now to create the impression of stability and ongoing prosperity for the kingdom.

Now. He needed to get this done.

“And your guest?” he asked her.

“Yes?” Her shoulders tightened. To another, it might have been imperceptible. “He’s prepared to attend the festival. He’s going shopping after his tour for clothing.”

A tour. She’d sent Spence to give the man a tour, not to vette him.

“When he’s finished that, I’d like to meet with him,” Konrad told her.

Her tone was light, playful, the antithesis of what it ought to have been just after a divorce. “Where would you like to meet him?” she asked. “The conference room? Dining hall? Your office? One of your conference rooms?” By that, he supposed she meant a cell with cameras.

“The conference room,” he said. There was no need to treat the man as hostile. “I’d like him to show me some of his past.”

For Konrad’s part, the half the morning he’d been without his wings, without his ability to test the tenor of the minds around him, had grown from irksome to troubling. He was operating blind, when he’d come to rely so heavily on the pixie skills.

The loss of Nell’s presence in his mind was the worst portion thus far.

He knew also, for the first time, what it meant for Drey all those years ago, having his wings clipped. The sense of loss was much greater than he anticipated.

He cleared his thoughts. She’d asked which of the two conference rooms he preferred, as though the rooms weren’t beside each other. “I’ll find him, either way,” he assured her. “Aadya…why is he here?”

Her tone was still playful. “How much of the truth would you like?”

He waited and let the silence speak more than his words ever could.

She yielded: “He is looking for his sons, Jay being one of them. He irritated Meldrick in Babylon and was dropped off in the barn.”

That explained nicely why he was in the kingdom. It left no justification for her recklessness. “Had you been concealing his sons in your bedroom?” he asked.

“You’ll need to ask me in a year,” she countered.

She alluded, he assumed, to pregnancy.

“Do you have a problem,” she asked, aggressive, “with me enjoying myself? You haven’t been keen on doing that job for about a week.”

Job.

He knew better than to let his own emotions cloud this. He took an emotional step away from the situation and focused purely on the logic.

“There are safer alternatives than strangers whose motives we can only guess.”

“Apa likes him,” she argued. “I trust her.”

Apa, possibly, liked him better than Aadya did at the moment.

“Alright,” he cleaved. “I’d still like to meet with him.”

“Of course,” she said. “He is aware.” She must have warned him to watch out for the intense, off-kilter man. “What do you think of including him in the festival?” she asked. “With Giana there, I don’t want to have anyone look at me in any way except with confidence.”

He smiled slightly. Her anxieties fed well into his agenda for the festival.

“How serious are you?” he asked.

“We aren’t,” she said.

Something in her tone prompted him to give her a look which demanded more from her. Honesty, perhaps. Sometimes these looks were more instinct than skill.

“Ah,” she admitted. “We have bonds. But they’re temporary.”

Temporary bonds. He sighed. He’d once had this same futile argument with Acheron.

“Does Apa know this?” he asked, teasy.

She laughed. “Why would she care?”

Indeed.

He smiled, slight. “She has a new companion,” he revealed.

The lightness in her tone fell to something darker, heavier. Her eyes searched his face for some sign that it was a joke. “Could you repeat that, please?” she asked. “Clarify.”

He knew how much it would change for her; she loathed feeling as though anyone else had control of her life, especially where magic was involved. But he needed this dragon and the message it sent, at the festival.

The other new dragon mattered slightly less, though she still needed to be seen. At some point Konrad would need to have this same conversation with Meldrick.But the queen came first, as bride of Maelchor.

“A great silver creature,” he said. “Nearly as large as Drey’s Dancer. It arrived…some time ago.” He knew he needed to say that part, to confess they’d been hiding a mate which wasn’t Meldrick’s or Konrad’s, from her. “We weren’t sure what it meant until now.”

“Oh,” she said, more a breath than a word.

He’d hurt her.

He was confident it wouldn’t damage her relationship with Greg, long-term. She was a sensible woman, and whatever connection bound them appeared to have been all but instantaneous.

A moment ago, he’d needed Aadya to see that her actions were careless, when it came to the needs of the kingdom. She was not free to take a lover, a stranger, until she stepped down.

Now, he needed her to advertise said lover, because the kingdom needed it and the dragons had already decided he was a permanent fixture.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I would include Greg in the festival,” he told her, as a response. “Perhaps show off the dragon.”

It would be difficult for Meldrick, but the man had an ability to cope with stress and loss which he’d encountered in few others. And he had a girlfriend, besides.

With a dragon of her own.

Meldrick was lucky, in that the kingdom wouldn’t be so concerned with his stability and contentedness. He could afford to take things in their own time, which Aadya could not do with Greg.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Is there anything else you need?”

A means of undoing the damage he’d done over the last months and years. But then if he had that, there would be so much else he would undo, that he might not find himself in this place at all.

He needed rest.

“Not at the moment,” he told her. “Do you?”

Tonight, when the festival came to a close for the evening, when his rounds were complete, he would sleep. It would need that time in order to sort itself.

“When you have a moment, I would like to go over the security plan with you and Corban and Meldrick.”

“Alright. This afternoon?” As best he could tell, everyone would be free after lunch.

“Yes.” She hugged him. “I’m relieved you’re better.”

It wasn’t any of his doing. “It’s down to Nell realizing what was the matter,” he said. He would have been helpless without Nell. Helpless, and ruined.

“He’s brilliant beneath the games,” she commented.

He was. Konrad would need to find something, something more than he’d gifted in the past, to do for Nell.

“He killed me,” Konrad joked.

All the lines of her face softened. He frowned; she’d helped to bring him back, which meant she must have seen him, dead. He would have spared her that, if he could. He would have spared Nell having to kill him, as well.

Aadya began to pull away from him, then looked toward his face with a thoughtful expression. “Do you ever worry you’ll die before Nell?”

“I think it’s likely that I will,” he told her. Nell might take risks, but Konrad did as well, and he had nearly four thousand years on Nell.

She hugged him again. “Don’t worry about it.”

If only she had the means to grant that peace.

“Alright,” he said. He didn’t need her worried about his worries, he needed her focused for the festival. “I’ll see you this afternoon?”

She drew away from him this time, with an agreeable nod of her head. “Yes, and if anyone asks your name…what is it that Nell calls you?”

“Comet?” he asked, surprised. He hadn’t realized anyone had noticed. The name was largely between him and Nell.

“At least today, if anyone asks, it’s a joke. Just go along with it. Have a good day, Comet.”

“Comet,” he sighed. Perhaps he was still trapped in the butterfly conspiracy after all. “Enjoy the dragon,” he reminded her.

He turned to leave. “Please,” she called after him. “One day. I promise it’s important.”

“Another name, then,” he acquiesced. Not the one which was special to Nell.

“Such as?” she requested.

He looked back at her. “It’s your game.”

She thought for a moment, absently twirling a strand of her hair in a way that Talise might have done. They were so alike at times.

Konrad hoped this new man, this Greg, had a touch of Niels in him. She needed someone with that sort of vigor, to pull her through the grief over Meldrick. Talise had been very fortunate in her choice of husband.

“Sennae,” Aadya decided.

“Alright,” he agreed, for her. He wouldn’t have done this for another, but it gave such a light to her eyes, whatever the game meant. “One day,” he added with a smile.

“And if anyone asks about Konrad, he’s your uncle and he’s off for the day,” she prompted. She straightened and grinned. “See you this afternoon, Sennae.”

It took him a moment. His uncle, implied a difference in ages. The desire for the altered name, the question about dying before Nell, the afterthought hug…

“You deaged me?” he asked.

“The game is my price,” she confirmed.

Sennae. Perhaps it would be a little fun, especially with his security team and soldiers. Hear what was truly being said among them, about him, about the royal family. Spence…he wondered whether Spence would see through it.

Only time would tell.

“Alright,” he said.

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