Between the Veil and Crown

Arvek 4

"Arvek!"

Niara's sudden utterance and grasping of his upper arm made him jump and spin around. As though he had not heard her, she repeated with a bit more urgency, "Arvek!"

Utterly bemused, he answered, "What?! What is it?!"

"Have you seen Selim?" she asked. Her eyes were wide and her face was pale. She wobbled slightly. Arvek pulled himself out of her grasp so he could hold her steady.

"Perhaps you should sit down," he suggested.

She tried to fight him. "I need you to answer me. Have you seen Selim today?"

Biting back a sigh, he reflected on the course of his day. Selim was not present in any part of the morning, but that was hardly unusual. "No, I haven't. He is likely out in the garden or out hunting again, as he usually is.

""I've just checked the garden, and his horse is still in the stables- no one in the stables has seen him go out." She bit her lip. "Something must have happened to him."

"Mother, he roams quite often," Arvek reminded her gently.

"Now is not the time to be roaming!" She pulled herself away from him. She put a hand out on a wall to keep herself upright. "Not after Lia made her threat."

Arvek remained silent, not sure how to answer that. It had been a couple of days since Lia supposedly left, and nothing seemed to have come of it. Life had gone back to normal.

"She has magic; if she could heal me with it, there's no telling what she could've done with Selim," Niara continued.

"No sighting of her has been reported," he said, but it sounded like a weak excuse. "That must mean she returned to the Veil. And you have seen Selim since then, have you not?"

Eyes wider, she shook her head. For a minute, they just stared at each other, Arvek grappling with comprehension of her gesture.

"You jest." It was the only thing he could think of saying.

"You would accuse me of that?!" She pushed herself off the wall and turned away. When she turned back, it was clear that she had taken the moment to compose herself. "I saw him later that evening, that day Lia left. We didn't exchange words, but I didn't think anything of it then. The next day, I did not see him at all. I, like you, assumed he went hunting. But I was in the stables today and I saw his horse still in its stall. If he left the castle, he left on foot."

Arvek took a few deep breaths. It wouldn't do to have two panic about it. Logically, it wouldn't make sense for Lia to do anything to Selim. He was the second born. And he had two brothers after him. If she wanted to carry out her threat and have it mean something, Arvek would have been the target. Or all four of them, for that matter. Arvek knew the two youngest were still present: He had seen them both before breakfast, and nothing was out of the ordinary with them there.

Besides, it would make more sense for Lia to report to the Rangers that she had not been able to secure the Veil villages for them, and cause disaster among the villages. Not go after one of the princes. It was more likely that Selim wandered off, probably to shirk responsibility, and his timing was just incredibly inconsiderate.

"Lia doing something to Selim doesn't make sense," he finally told his mother. "I will head out into the city and look for him there. Maybe Father came up with a new project for him and he's trying to vanish for a long enough period of time that Father will forget or move on."

Niara sighed in relief. The worry slowly left her face. "No, you're right. That sounds like the more likely thing. I will ask your father what he had planned, and perhaps that can give us an idea of his whereabouts, or at least how long to expect him to be gone." She gave him a weak smile. "Thank you- I apologize for the momentary lack of sanity."

She didn't give him time to respond. She gathered her skirts and made her way back down the hall, occasionally reaching a hand out to balance herself with the wall.

Arevek had given her a reassuring smile when she was looking at him, but now with her back turned, it slid into a grimace. What was that fool of a brother of his thinking? It would have been better for him to at least inform their mother that he was going to hide away until their father was done with him. He had been there; he had heard Lia make her threat. How was it that he had so much compassion for their mother that he rarely left her bedside while she was ill, but was able to disregard any of her feelings in a matter such as this? The absolute inconsideration!

He turned and made his way to the stables. He was not needed, as far as he was aware, for the rest of the day when it came to duties related to the Crown. He mentally went through some of Selim's favorite city haunts, and the handful of names he knew Selim was connected with. It was hardly exhaustive: Selim seemed to gain at least two new contacts and two new haunts every time Arvek located him in the city. To his credit, Selim likely knew more of the city and its people than anyone else of the royal family.

But still. The manner in which he was accomplishing it was not impressive.

The moment the stablehands saw Arvek enter the stables they set to work retrieving his horse and preparing it for his ride. Mounting the dapple gray, he asked the stablehand holding the horse, "You haven't, by any chance, seen my brother head out?"

"Selim? No sir," the stablehand answered, shaking his head.

"Do you know if he has been to see your family recently?"

"It has been over a month since he last stayed with my family, sir."

"Very well," Arvek said with another grimace. It would have been so much simpler if Selim turned up there. "Expect me back by evening, should anyone ask."

Without waiting for the stablehand's confirmation, he squeezed his legs and headed off into the city.