Rhidea

  My dear friend Rhidea,

  I trust this letter finds you well. We have not seen one another in quite some time. I wanted to tell you of a breakthrough I made recently that will interest you greatly . . . and also a terrible piece of news. First, the news . . . My son Kallyn has gone missing. And by that, I mean . . . he has decided to seek out the ancient place of our ancestry. I needn’t explain more. We will talk soon, I’m sure. But . . . I don’t know what to tell Mydia. The poor girl is so young. She loved Kallyn, and now she cries every night and asks me where he is. I know the truth, but I can’t tell her.

  —Eivael Kalceron

  (Dri’Shal 25, 997—Dawn)

  Cae Rhidea sank into her cushioned chair with a thump. She let out a ragged breath and then sucked in another, fuller breath, sitting up straight. It didn’t matter that she was tired—she had work to do.

  Rhidea was back in her study, where she liked to be. All the pomp and politics were done for now, and her mind could be free of that. Oh, how she hated dealing with people of importance. Rebel leaders, nobles feeling slighted, military figures . . . the list went on. She rested an elbow on her oaken desk, placing a hand to her forehead in a vain attempt to stop the headache that pulsed through her temple.

  “Come on, Cae,” she muttered, rubbing her temple absently. Focus, mind, focus. There was too much to be done to spend time at her desk distracted. Sorting out affairs with the Nytaean government was only a small part.

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  Her left hand scratched idly at an old wound on her hipbone. She’d smoothed out that limp a few decades back, so it didn’t bother her much; it was just a restless tic. She eyed the scattered scrolls in the left-hand corner of her desk, the misplaced ink well and pen, a missing book. Where had she put that?

  Finally, she had all her supplies gathered and her desk straightened out. My, I’m such a mess sometimes. That thought drifted off as she stared, blinking, at the scroll that she had most recently been poring over, which still lay open before her. An old thesis on pyro-kinesis, one she’d penned years ago. She shook her head and rolled it back up, setting it carefully aside.

  Opening a side drawer in her desk, she rummaged around before finding a precious memo that had been stored in there for years. It was from the long-missing prince Kallyn, Mydia’s brother, written to their mother. Rhidea squeezed her eyes shut briefly, in pain both at her headache and at the thought that she was still hiding this from Mydia. The poor child.

  She unwrinkled the scrap of parchment and read its contents for the twentieth time. The man didn’t even know that his mother was dead.

  She put the letter down with a sigh, her mind wandering back to that day thirteen years back, when the white-haired woman had shown up in the city. Rhidea had only happened to be there, only happened to catch her on her way back from the Palace. She had caught Rhidea’s dress with a hand that looked so frail and yet had so much strength. The nameless woman had babbled incoherently, the few words that Rhidea could make out sounding like words of another language. And then . . . then she had given Rhidea the letter.

  Rhidea frowned deeply. The letter . . . why? There must be a connection. If he had really gone to Gaea, then he must have sent her back. But why her? Why to Nytaea?

  That day had been the catalyst for Rhidea’s research into the world of Gaea. She and Kallyn—and of course his mother, Eivael—had studied it together on numerous occasions, but it was a matter of scholarly curiosity. History. Even, one might say, more like myth.

  Back then, when she encountered that strange, otherworldly woman, she already knew that Kallyn had gone to seek out Gaea. They had assumed him dead. But the note, from none other than the prince himself, proved that he had found it.

  Lyn was the final piece. Seeing that girl for the first time, seeing what she could do, her strange body composition, her white hair . . . it all made sense. But she would not tell Lyn, not yet.

  Rhidea shook herself and put the note away, getting back to her studies. All in time, as Eivael had always said. All in time.