Duty-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book II ]

8

A lifetime passed Koreti by. Unable to mark the passage of time, he hardly knew the difference between wakefulness and dream.

Then he sensed himself falling backward, and a sliver of light pierced the inky darkness of the hidden library. Someone was opening the secret door.

Koreti fell forward onto his hands and knees and scrambled around to face the door. He raised an arm to shield his eyes against the light, every muscle tensed with fear; for one horrible second, he knew that the silhouette in the widening doorway belonged to his father, the vengeful emperor.

"You can come out," said Master Eovin.

Relief washed over Koreti in a physical wave. He hauled himself unsteadily to his feet, his entire body aching. The competing discomforts of a snarling stomach and a swollen bladder made him cautious of moving too quickly; he had stayed still and silent at Eovin's command for too long in that yawning night, terrified of the monsters he could not see.

Eovin's firm hand on his upper arm lent him support as he stepped over the high threshold and into the lorekeeper's study. "I'm sorry to have left you so long," he said. "I had no choice. There is a chamber pot just through that door in my private room, and I've brought you breakfast."

Prince Koreti had never been so hungry in his life. There had always been servants at hand to attend his every whim with perfect efficiency. When he came back from lessons or from play with an empty stomach, a word was enough to bring him whatever he desired. Now, one arm crossed over his aching stomach, he felt like he was dying. But no sooner had he glanced at the breakfast tray standing on Eovin's table than his bladder reminded him of another, even more urgent, need.

His face hot with shame, Koreti rushed—carefully—into Eovin's private room to make water.

When he came back, Eovin was sitting at the table, spreading butter onto warm rolls. Koreti fell into the chair across from him and snatched up a roll with one hand and two slices of bacon with the other. He began stuffing food into his mouth, not even noticing that Eovin hadn't risen when he returned to the room—a gesture of respect common to all servants and courtiers in the palace, including the lorekeeper.

Eovin watched Koreti with a patient smile. When the boy emptied his tea, he filled it again. "Careful; don't make yourself sick." Eovin himself was not eating.

"I'm starving," Koreti said. He bit into another strip of bacon.

"I knew you would be after so long alone. I'm sorry, Koreti."

For the first time, Koreti looked at Eovin's face, properly. There were fine lines around the lorekeeper's red-rimmed eyes and dark shadows beneath them, and his mouth was a thin, grim line. "Are you all right, Master Eovin?" he asked.

With a faint, sad smile, Eovin nodded his head. "I will be all right, as soon as I have seen to your safety. I have arrived at a path forward, Koreti. Do you remember what I asked you last night?"

"To trust you?"

"Do you think you can, whatever I may ask? No matter how strange or how difficult it may be?"

Koreti thought for a moment, chewing. He'd eaten enough now that his belly had stopped screaming; the gravity of his situation was coming back into focus. He had thought of nothing but his father's cruelty and anger all that long night in the hidden library, but he still latched onto a desperate hope. He looked out the lorekeeper's window; it was very early morning. "Don't you think Father might be more reasonable today? He will have had time to think on what he said. He can't have meant it."