Chương 65: Prince Aldric

Domrek read the letter over Kaito's shoulder and said: 'This one I can't help with.'

'No,' Kaito said.

'Crown prince. Palace access I don't have.' Domrek handed the letter back.

'What do you need from me.'

'Be here when I get back.' Kaito picked up his coat.

'Don't go near the fighting ring today. The warrant update goes live this morning. Your registration is clean, but if they're running the ring for intelligence purposes, they'll flag anyone from the Solara circuit asking questions.' Domrek looked at him.

'When did you work that out.'

'Last night.' He pulled the coat on.

'The institutional money behind the ring, three months ago when the succession crisis escalated — that's not coincidence. Someone is running it as an asset and they'll be paying attention to who shows interest right now.' He paused at the door.

'Leave Pell alone until I understand who's protecting that operation.' Domrek was quiet for a moment.

'All right,' he said. His voice was even. It was the voice he used when he disagreed with a decision and intended to follow it anyway.

'Thank you,' Kaito said, and left.

Aldric's letter had included a handwritten address at the bottom — a servants' entrance on the palace's west face, accessible from a side street that wasn't on the main approach routes. A crown runner was waiting there at the specified hour. No questions. No registration check. Just a brief walk through a service corridor and then a residential stairway that the palace's main map probably didn't include. The study was on the third floor, east-facing.

Books from wall to wall, some of them in cases, more of them stacked on available surfaces in the specific pattern of ongoing research rather than display. Maps on one table — old ones, the pre-AXIOM cartographic style that predated the System's standardized registration notation. Instruments Kaito didn't recognize on a side shelf, small and precise. Prince Aldric was standing at the east window when the runner showed Kaito in.

He was younger than Kaito had expected, which was his own fault — the Compact's propaganda murals had shown an idealized version. The real Aldric was twenty-four and looked it. He was shorter than the murals, slightly built, pale from years spent inside. His court clothes were plain for someone of his rank. He turned when Kaito entered and looked like someone who had been preparing for this meeting for a long time and was now working out that the real thing was different from the preparation.

'Kaito Haruki,' Aldric said. He got the pronunciation exactly right, which meant he'd practiced.

'Your Highness,' Kaito said.

'Just Aldric is fine. Please.' He gestured to the chairs.

'I appreciate you coming quickly. I know the timing is — complicated.' He sat down across from Kaito, set his hands on his knees, and seemed to notice he'd sat too quickly and made himself slow down.

'I'll explain how I knew.'

'That would help,' Kaito said.

'The throne room sits directly above the palace's sub-foundation Precursor layer.' Aldric's voice got steadier when he was talking about something he knew well.

'I've been monitoring the resonance patterns in the throne room's floor stones for four years. The original Precursor construction laid a notification framework into the stones — it registers specific activity in the infrastructure below.' He glanced at the instruments on the shelf.

'Those read it. Most events register as minor fluctuations. Occasional variance in the Node's pulse. Standard maintenance cycling.' A pause.

'Last night there was a designation protocol activation notification. Very clear. I'd spent eight months learning to read those signals before I understood what one looked like. When I finally saw one, I didn't need to guess what it meant.'

'You've read the Precursor Assembly's land designation protocols,' Kaito said.

'In the original notation, yes.' No particular pride in it. Just a statement.

'There's a grammar text in the royal archive's restricted section that was misfiled about a century ago as a religious calendar document. It isn't. It's a systematic notation guide for Original Layer script with annotated examples.' He looked at Kaito steadily.

'It took me two years to work through it well enough to read quickly.'

'Show me,' Kaito said. Aldric reached for a pad of paper on his desk and wrote something in eleven characters. Original Layer script, precise and clean. Kaito read it without his Sight.

'Accurate,' Sable said, in his ear.

'His notation is slightly archaic — older form than what the Precursors were using in their final period. But correct.' He nodded.

'Where did you learn to apply it.'

'The restricted archive. There are seventeen original-notation documents down there. Fourteen are administrative records I can't fully parse. Three are readable.' Aldric set down the pen.

'The land designation protocols are in one of them. That's how I knew what the notification meant when it fired.' Kaito looked at the young man across from him. Twenty-four, sheltered, no real-world capability according to everyone who'd assessed him. But he'd spent four years building monitoring equipment and two years learning a dead notation system and had been sitting in this room waiting for a signal that most people in this palace didn't know existed.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'You knew I was coming,' Kaito said.

'Not me specifically. But someone like me.'

'The Architect's return has been in the Precursor records since the Discontinuation,' Aldric said.

'It's documented in several places. The activation of the designation messenger was listed as the first confirmation signal.' He paused.

'I've been waiting for it since I was nineteen.' Kaito sat with that.

'The messenger,' Aldric said.

'What did it say.'

'A land designation. The Architect's Chosen provision — whoever I designate inherits the Precursor Assembly's claim to this territory.' Aldric's face did something careful and controlled. He already knew this. He'd been waiting for confirmation.

'Did you make a designation.'

'No.' The careful expression shifted. Something complicated moved through it and settled.

'Good,' he said. Then, as if he heard how that sounded: 'I mean — it's good that you didn't act without understanding the implications. The provision has specific activation conditions. If you designated someone without understanding those conditions, you'd be creating a legal situation that could be exploited in ways you didn't intend.'

'I didn't act without understanding,' Kaito said.

'I acted without trusting my own understanding enough to make an irreversible decision.' Aldric looked at him.

'That's better reasoning than most.'

'I build things for a living. Or I used to.' He looked at the maps on the table. He recognized some of the coastlines. He'd drawn them.

'Irreversible decisions need to be right. I'm not right yet.' They were quiet for a moment. Outside, the city was running its morning business, too far below to hear specifically.

'I want to offer you something,' Aldric said. He'd moved from the careful prepared tone into something more direct.

'In exchange for your continued absence of action on the designation — at least until we've had a fuller conversation.'

'What are you offering.'

'Intelligence.' He reached under the desk and produced a leather document case, closed, sealed with a private mark that wasn't the crown's official seal. His own.

'Three years of record-keeping. Names, amounts, contract records, and correspondence that I've been collecting on the Vanguard Compact's role in Arenval's succession over the past six decades.' He set it on the desk between them.

'Everything they've done. Everything they've been paid. The six people in the crown's court who are on their payroll. The arrangement that keeps Lady Syra as their preferred candidate and ensures Commander Rael's health concerns are monitored rather than treated.' His voice was flat and even on the last part.

'The Compact has been deciding who rules this kingdom for longer than I've been alive.' Kaito looked at the document case.

'You can't use it yourself,' he said.

'No.' Aldric's hands were still on his knees.

'If I present this documentation, I'm the interested party trying to clear my rivals. The Compact has made sure that any accusation I make can be read that way. I've spent two years trying to find a way to present this that doesn't look like political manipulation, and I can't.' He looked at the case.

'I need someone without a succession claim to carry it. Someone who can present it as independent verification rather than royal accusation.' He met Kaito's eyes.

'That's what I'm offering in exchange for your time and the absence of premature action on the designation.'

'Not the designation itself,' Kaito said.

'You're not asking me for that.'

'I'm asking you to wait until you understand everything before you decide anything.' He paused.

'What you do with the designation after that is your choice. I can't ask you to make it my way. I can only give you enough information to make it an informed way.' Another pause.

'Though I do have thoughts on the matter, if you ever want to hear them.'

'I probably will,' Kaito said.

'Not today.' Aldric nodded.

'The full briefing will take time I don't have this morning — my father's physicians have an appointment in two hours and I can't miss it without raising questions.' He looked at the document case, then back at Kaito.

'Tonight. Two hours after dark, same entry. I'll have everything organized.' He pushed the case slightly across the desk.

'And I'd like to give you this to take now — the summary document. The names and amounts. So you have something concrete before tonight in case—' He stopped.

'In case something happens to the meeting,' Kaito said.

'The Compact's new warrant protocols go live this morning,' Aldric said.

'Under both your identities. I pulled the authorization file this morning when I was reviewing palace security updates.' He looked at him steadily.

'They've been moving faster than I anticipated. I want you to have the summary regardless of whether tonight's meeting happens.' Kaito took the summary document from the case and put it in his coat without opening it. The document was thinner than he'd expected. Two or three pages. The summary of three years of work.

'Tonight,' Kaito said.

'Tonight,' Aldric said. He stood. They shook hands — the formal grip, then the prince's other hand coming briefly to clasp over it, which was either trained courtesy or genuine. Kaito found he couldn't tell the difference with Aldric, which probably meant it was both.

He was two streets from the palace when Sable said: 'Warrant update confirmed active. Both names. All city checkpoints.' He kept walking. Normal pace.

'Any adjustment to the monitoring perimeter.'

'The palace district checkpoint just upgraded to biometric registration — they're now running full class thread reads on everyone passing through, not just flagged individuals.' A pause.

'You cleared it before the upgrade activated. But going back tonight will require a different route.'

'I'll figure that out this afternoon,' he said. Then, half a block further: 'There's a message at the inn. It was left by Lady Syra's secretary approximately ninety minutes ago. She requests that you deliver the contracted document to her office before the fourth bell today.' A pause.

'Fourth bell is four hours from now.' He kept walking. He had Syra's document in his coat. He had a summary page of the Compact file Aldric had built for three years. He had a full warrant under both his names, a checkpoint perimeter that had just upgraded between him and tonight's meeting, and four hours until Syra's patience expired.

'Sable,' he said.

'Yes.'

'Which problem do I solve first.' She was quiet for a beat.

'The one that will still be a problem tomorrow if you solve the other one first.' He thought about that.

'Syra,' he said.

'Yes,' she said.

'Syra.' He turned toward the noble quarter and started working out what he was actually going to say when he got there.