Chapter Text
Cliopher
It often pleased his Radiancy for Cliopher to talk about his family. But his surprise was noticeable even through his usual serenity on the day Cliopher mentioned that he had a wife.
“You have never before said that you are married,” his Radiancy observed.
“No my lord,” Cliopher answered politely. “It’s not a particularly traditional marriage. She maintains a bookstore on Alinor, while I have my career in the Service.”
“On Alinor? How did that come about?”
Cliopher smiled wryly at the memory. “She had gotten into a spot of trouble with one of the local matrons, and needed to be married quickly,” he said. “She was good friends with my cousin Basil, and I was visiting him at the time.” He shrugged. “So we got married.”
“An unusual marriage indeed,” his Radiancy agreed, an interested light in his eyes. “But surely such a marriage could be dissolved in time, if it did not suit you?”
“Of course, my lord. But the arrangement suited us quite well. She could fend off unwanted suitors with her husband in distant Astandalas, and I had an extra reason to visit Basil.”
“I gather, then, that you do not know her fate any better than that of your cousin.”
“No, my lord,” he agreed quietly. “I only hope that she survived.”
The conversation moved on from there, and Cliopher breathed a private sigh of relief that his Radiancy had not asked any further questions.
The reprieve did not last of course, though his Radiancy always took pains not to pry. He had no way of knowing that some of the questions were ones that Cliopher would prefer not to answer.
“What is her name?” his Radiancy asked, after Cliopher told a story of the time he and Jullanar had caught the local constable using his authority to rig a race, and arranged for some mostly harmless but appropriate justice.
Cliopher had gone to great lengths not to mention it, but he couldn’t refuse to answer a direct question. “It’s Jullanar,” he admitted, endeavoring to keep his tone neutral.
His Radiancy clearly saw his discomfort. He quirked an amused eyebrow, but said only, “A common name in Alinor, I understand.”
It was. Though his wife was, in fact, that Jullanar. “Yes, my lord,” was all he said.
“You mentioned that your wife runs a bookstore,” his Radiancy said one day over chess.
“Yes, my lord,” Cliopher agreed. “She owned it when I met her. She bought it a few years after she returned from university.”
“Really?” A faint note of interest entered his voice, and he looked up from the chessboard to meet Cliopher’s eyes, curiosity sparkling deep within his own. As much as talking about Jullanar was always somewhat awkward, Cliopher rejoiced at capturing his attention enough for that small note. “What’s it called?”
“Elderflower books, my lord,” he said. “She told me once she’d decided on that name when she was nineteen; it was only a matter of time and resources before she could make it real.”
“She sounds like a determined woman, your wife.”
Cliopher couldn’t help smiling, remembering some of the stories she had told him about the things that hadn’t entered the songs. “She is at that, my lord.”
Cliopher had attempted many times to explain to his Radiancy that his marriage was one of convenience - she had needed a husband to avoid an awkward situation, and he had been available, unmarried, and willing to sign the paperwork. They both understood that they were free to seek other partners, and agreed that their marriage would be dissolved if either of them found someone that they truly wanted to marry.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to know if she was alive, particularly when she lived one town over from his cousin Basil, who he also hoped had survived. It was simply that compared to the great work of rebuilding the world, to the long, rewarding days working with his Radiancy, the sacrifice of not knowing did not feel so great.
His Radiancy, however, had insisted that he go to find her. Had, in fact, given him extra vacation when he’d dared to protest that he needed to save up his time to see his family. “The time difference between Zunidh and Alinor is small enough now that We can manage without you for a few weeks,” he’d said, his eyes glinting with humor. “And it would be extremely remiss of Us to not ensure that you had time to discover if your wife is still alive.”
So here he was, several days into a stagecoach ride to southern Fiellan. For the last leg, he’d had to hitch a ride with the postal stagecoach (and it had been everything he could do not to apply some organization to the packages within), and though the postman was friendly enough, Cliopher was looking forward to the moment he was no longer at risk of losing his teeth from the jostling.
They pulled into Ragnar Bella around evening, the setting sun casting a warm glow over the sleepy town. It seemed entirely untouched by the Fall, with the only obvious changes being the replacement of mage lamps with torchlight and oil.
“Here we go, good sir,” said the postman cheerfully. “You said you were hoping to find someone here? Well, good luck to you. If you don’t, I recommend the hotel right around the corner for staying the night.”
He thanked the postman politely, and made his way to Elderflower Books. It was dark, clearly closed for the day, but still fundamentally familiar. Even though little else about the town had changed, he was relieved to see the bookstore was also much as he remembered. He had a key to the building, one that he had kept safe even through the many dark years after the Fall, but it seemed presumptuous to use it when he didn’t even know if his wife was still there. After a few minutes of hesitation, he walked around to the back door and knocked, loudly enough that the resident in the upstairs flat would be able to hear it.
He waited, centering himself, drawing on all his years of patience. After a long moment, he heard someone coming down the stairs, and the door creaked open.
Jullanar was alive.
Like the town, she seemed mostly unchanged, though there were shadows in her eyes that had not been there before. But she was still the woman he’d married, looking hardly older than he remembered, only those shadows speaking of years of living in a world entirely changed. He rather suspected he did not show his additional years anywhere near as well. In fact, he might even be older than her now.
“Kip?” she asked, incredulous, hopeful. “Is it really you?”
“Jullanar,” he answered, feeling his own delight bubble up from somewhere deep inside, where he had buried all the worries and fears that he refused to admit to.
Her eyes narrowed and she took a step back. “I’m not going to invite you inside,” she said cautiously.
They had spent many nights talking about the stories and legends they had grown up with. He knew well enough the fears of the fey that needed an invitation to enter a home. Cliopher didn’t know what had transpired in Alinor after the Fall, but after crossing Zunidh, he recognized her wariness as a reasonable precaution. When you lived next to a wood on the edge of Fairyland, it was always wise to be suspicious of a good thing appearing after dark.
So rather than being offended, he simply stepped over the threshold. She relaxed immediately, and pulled him into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you,” she murmured. “I feared you were lost.”
He reciprocated the hug, grateful beyond words for her welcome. He had not been entirely sure she would be glad to see him given how long it had been. “I was worried about you too,” he admitted. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
She stepped back, giving him a critical once-over. “Things have not been easy for you, I can tell. Come on upstairs. We’ll get you settled in, and then we can catch up. I want to know how you managed to survive. I heard Astandalas was entirely lost!”
Cliopher had always had a space in Jullanar’s loft. It was hardly more than a foldout couch, a set of dishes he’d bought in Astandalas, and a few changes of clothes; it had still been enough to make it feel like he belonged. Jullanar had not gotten rid of any of it, and it felt comfortingly familiar as he helped her set up the space for him again. Jullanar brewed some tea for the both of them, and, as they had done many times before, they sat down at her table to catch up.
Jullanar wasted not time before reassuring him that Basil and Sara were alive and well, and their son Clio was “a handful who will no doubt be a terror someday.” She spoke fondly of all of them; Basil had clearly welcomed her into his family, and Jullanar was as much of a parent to Clio as Basil and Sara were. “I watch him sometimes,” she told Cliopher. “When Basil and Sara need a break, or Sara’s having a particularly bad time of it.”
Cliopher was glad for them, that Jullanar had managed to become part of a family - his family - who knew who she was and welcomed her, and that Basil and Sara had someone else to lean on.
As he had suspected, far more time had passed on Zunidh than on Alinor, even without considering the strange, stretched passage of time in Solaara itself. While Alinor had its own period of instability, it had not lasted as long for them as it had for him, though it had only recently settled. Jullanar had only aged a little next to his more than a decade, while Clio was only a few years out of his toddler stage.
It seemed that none of his letters had made it here, to her or to Basil - though he had primarily sent them to Basil. He had never wanted to bring more attention to Jullanar than he absolutely had to, so he frequently wrote to Basil and included messages for her. He was disappointed, but given the state of the postal infrastructure he had seen on his travels here, he was not surprised.
They spoke largely of the news; he told her of the challenges of rebuilding Zunidh; she told him of her adventures dealing with local cults and the like. Both of them avoided talking much about the Fall, and by unspoken agreement they put off discussing their personal stories until daylight.
The next morning, Jullanar didn’t open the shop, but instead went with him to see Basil.
St-Noire had clearly suffered from the Fall more than Ragnar Bella. What had once been a stopover on a major highway to Astandalas was now a small town on a dead end road in the middle of a fey forest, and the disrepair was clear. Nonetheless, several townsfolk were out and about, and they all gave Jullanar friendly waves and him considering looks.
Jullanar waved back, but didn’t pause to speak with anyone. Instead, she led him straight to Basil’s inn, which was, compared to the disrepair of other buildings in the town, well kept and clearly open and welcoming, decorated with flowers that spilled out of the window boxes with an exuberant joy that mirrored what Cliopher felt in his own heart.
He hadn’t even realized he was hesitating until Jullanar reached out to take his hand. He glanced over at her and she returned the look with a reassuring smile. “Come on, Kip, they’ll be delighted to see you.” She drew him forward, and they walked into the inn where Basil had met his heart’s desire.
The inside was lit entirely by the open windows. Cliopher had time to register the mostly empty common room before his eyes were drawn to the familiar profile of the man busying himself at the counter. The man looked up at their arrival; he smiled at Jullanar and started to greet her, when his eyes came to rest on Cliopher.
His face nearly split with the grin that came across his face as he came out from behind the counter. “Kip!” He came up to the pair of them, and grasped Cliopher’s arms in greeting.
“Basil,” Cliopher said, unable to pack all of his feelings into that one word, but trying anyway, as he leaned his forehead to meet Basil’s.
“We thought you were dead,” Basil murmured.
“I was afraid you were too,” Cliopher said, tears forming in his eyes.
They stood there for several minutes before Basil pulled back, tears evident on his own face. “Come on,” he said. “Sara will want to see you. And of course you’ll want to see Clio.”
Evening found them sitting around the parlor table drinking Basil’s mead and telling stories from their lives since the Fall. With Clio there, the stories stayed light; they talked about friends they had made and lost, and the resilience of their communities rather than the horrors they had experienced. Eventually Sara and Clio retired, and Cliopher was left with Basil and Jullanar to talk about the hardships of the intervening years.
It was a relief to be able to tell these stories, Cliopher realized. His family had never been interested in them, never pressed as to what he did, or what he had experienced. Before he had brought Conju home on a vacation, they hadn’t even expressed any interest in his friends. Basil and Jullanar, by contrast, were actively interested in everything. He was able to share his accomplishments, talk about his efforts rooting out corruption and reforming the worst holdovers from Astandalas.
“It sounds as if you’ve gathered a great deal of influence,” Basil observed.
“My lord has been very generous in supporting me,” Cliopher replied. “It’s really his desires that I’m fulfilling.”
Jullanar eyed him curiously. “What exactly is it that you do?”
“My full title is Secretary in Chief of the Private Offices of the Lords of State,” he answered. “Which mostly means I do whatever it is that my lord needs to have done.”
“And who, exactly, is your lord?” Basil asked, a glint of humor in his eyes.
Cliopher smiled disarmingly, “Oh, a great lord of the court. He’s been very invested in rebuilding the government to be better than that of Astandalas. I’m lucky to have found him.”
Basil just raised his eyebrows at Cliopher. “You’re avoiding the question.”
Cliopher’s smile turned wry, caught out. He had given a practiced deflection, one he used regularly whenever he went home. His family had never once called him on it. Basil, though, just looked at him steadily, waiting for an answer.
Cliopher glanced over at Jullanar and blushed. “Well…” he hedged.
Basil looked between them, then started to laugh. “Kip,” he said, “did you find your emperor?”
He felt himself flushing, unable to meet either of their eyes. Basil’s eyes were sparkling, and even Jullanar was smiling, though her expression was harder to read.
“You did, didn’t you?” Basil asked. “Are you telling me that your job is to do whatever it is that the Lord Emperor needs done?”
“It’s not like that,” he tried. “He is very restricted in what he can do. There are all sorts of taboos that surround him.”
“So he needs someone to go out into the world for him, does he? And that’s what you do for him? It sounds like you work well together. Partners, even.” From the glint in Basil’s eye, Cliopher knew full well where he was going with this. Basil, after all, had been the one he had always been able to share his dreams with.
He glanced over at Jullanar, uncertain as to her reaction. She had been accepting of his position in the Service - she’d known his job when they married. But he didn’t know how Jullanar would feel about him working directly for the Last Emperor of Astandalas. At his enquiring glance, she shrugged and smiled. “He wasn’t bad, as Emperors go,” she said. “And you clearly think well of him.” She shot him such a look that he thought his blush might have extended all the way to his toes. They had talked often about their theories of government; he knew she appreciated his political philosophies. But there was still some part of him that was giddy with the idea that Jullanar of the Sea trusted his judgment when it came to his Radiancy.
“So how are things at the feet of the sun?” Basil asked, grinning - and then they had to explain the reference to Jullanar, which led the conversation rapidly into a spirited discussion about the Lays.
Cliopher spent the next month reconnecting with his family. He split his time between St-Noire and Elderflower Books, sharing tales with Jullanar, helping Basil and Sara, and spoiling little Clio rotten. He slid into life in St-Noire more smoothly than he ever had in the Vangavaye-ve, welcomed, not as if he hadn’t changed, but as if they simply needed to get to know each other again. As strange as it was to suddenly be many years Basil’s senior, it made no difference to Basil’s friendly teasing or his welcome. It was nothing like going home to the Vangavaye-ve, but it was a homecoming nonetheless.
It was also abundantly clear that Basil and Sara had adopted Jullanar into their family. Clio greeted “Aunt Jull’nar” with as much comfort as his parents, and the villagers of St-Noire clearly considered her one of their own, proudly sharing stories of the times she had helped them deal with some fey problem or other to wander out of the woods. Jullanar had even begun to learn language from Basil, and Cliopher had the joy of teaching her the Lays as he sang them to Clio.
For a while, Cliopher was able to feel a peace that he had forgotten how to experience and, at Basil’s careful questioning, even found himself able to talk about the long journey he had made home after the Fall, and the challenges he had found finding a place for himself there.
“You’ll find your way home in time,” Basil reassured him one evening, as he found the words to articulate his fears that he had abandoned his people. “Just as the third son of Vonou’a did, when you’ve done what you need to do at the feet of the Sun.” He grinned mischievously, “And maybe you’ll be able to bring your Emperor home to meet them some day, too.”
Cliopher flushed and rapidly changed the subject, and Basil let him. Basil knew the secret desires of his heart, and while Cliopher had miraculously fulfilled one of his childhood dreams, he still hardly dared to admit to the other.
He was more than a little regretful when it came time for him to leave.
Both Jullanar and Basil had pressed him for information on how to find him in Solaara, which he provided willingly. He knew how hard intermundial travel was, especially if you didn’t have the blessing of the Last Emperor easing the way. But he still allowed himself to hope that they would come to see him.
Jullanar saw him all the way to the post office to pick up the next postal carriage. They didn’t talk much, just kept a companionable silence as they waited for the postman to finish gossiping with the postmaster.
Finally, he came out and gestured to Cliopher to join him. “Well, come along then, Mr. Mdang, no point in wasting daylight.”
Cliopher gave Jullanar one last hug before he turned to get into the carriage. “I’ll come visit you in Solaara, don’t worry,” she said. “I want to meet this lord of yours.” She pulled away from him as he stared at her, mischief dancing in her eyes. “Well, go on then. I’ll see you again soon enough.”
“How was your vacation, Cliopher?” his Radiancy asked upon his return. “Did you find your wife and cousin?”
Cliopher smiled, sure his joy came through in his voice. “Yes, my lord. They are both alive and well, as is Basil’s family.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” his Radiancy answered, a strange note in his voice. Cliopher looked up to see what expression was hidden in his Radiancy’s eyes, but he had already turned to pace away from the desk. “Now. To our work today,” he said firmly, and Cliopher busied himself with his notes.
The Emperor
Your secretary had never intended to tell you he was married.
Cliopher had always been somewhat closed about his personal life - stories of his family came rarely, and almost always when he was distracted thinking of other things. You didn’t pry, not wanting to force an answer only from obedience, but you treasured every time he relaxed enough to share a personal detail about himself. Still, it was a surprise to you when, several years into our acquaintance, he let slip that he had a wife.
We had been speaking of the tax code, a topic far too rooted in numbers for your preference, though it was salvaged by the fact that ultimately it was about politics more than money. He was waxing passionate about the unfairness of some family exception or other. “It was always a particular challenge for my wife and I. It does not consider relationships where the parties live across multiple governing regions.”
That was a topic far more interesting than the tax code, and remarkable for how you had never caught a hint of it before that moment.
“You never mentioned you were married,” you said, keeping your voice as neutral as you could manage over my burning curiosity.
He looked entirely caught out, as if he had not meant to mention her at all. He rallied quickly, spinning a story of a marriage of convenience that had blossomed into a true relationship, for all that they had never lived together – with him in Astandalas and her on Alinor. But she, like so many, had been lost beyond knowing after the Fall. Cliopher was clearly uncomfortable talking about her, so you turned the discussion back to the task at hand and I set the idea aside to muse on it later.
Once I knew of this mysterious wife of his, I could not resist teasing out the details. She had drawn out the revolutionary hidden underneath my polite bureaucrat - though I supposed he had not been so well polished in his youth.
He was remarkably circumspect about her, declining to mention much in the way of details of their life together. Some of it, no doubt, was his own customary reserve, and some, it was clear, came from the fact that his wife shared her name with a notorious rebel. I was rather amused to learn that she refused to go by a nickname, preferring instead to be called “Mrs. Mdang,” when her given name was unwelcome.
(I knew it was a common name on Alinor. But I still could not stop the spark of joy at hearing the name “Jullanar” spoken once again in my presence.)
I allowed myself the fancy that she was my Jullanar, for certainly she would have liked Cliopher, and would have been entirely at home in many of the anecdotes he shared about his wife. She even ran a bookstore, a dream that my Jullanar had held for so many years.
I could not help but ask about her. There was no answer he could give that would not hurt, and I knew it I allowed myself the indulgence nonetheless - a moment of pretend before reality settled its heavy burden on my shoulders once again. I never thought he would, instead, confirm my dreaming.
That her name was Jullanar, who had a streak of mischief and cleverness as wide as the River Oonar could have been a coincidence. That the bookstore she managed happened to have the very name Jullanar had once picked out, was so unlikely that for them to be different people would have made sense only in the most base of farces.
You were - I was - deeply baffled by Cliopher’s apparent indifference to her survival. Surely, if he had, by some fantastic fortune, married Jullanar of the Sea, he would have stopped at nothing to find her again? He cared for her, clearly. His stories were laced with the sort of affection he otherwise reserved for his cousin Basil, the Vangavaye-ve, and the postal service.
But it became increasingly clear that he was not planning to search for her. He reassured you at length that it was a marriage of convenience, that, if she had survived, she had likely assumed him dead and found a husband more suited to her.
(Would she have assumed him dead? I wondered. Had she assumed that I was dead, and so had never gone looking for me? Perhaps. I still had no idea what had happened to my friends that day. Perhaps it had been enough to stop even her from adventuring.)
I did not truly think he was indifferent to her survival. By the time I realized her identity, I had also come to understand the way he avoided talking about the things that he was most passionate about. He spoke around the topic of his marriage like it was a stray, possibly dangerous dog - approaching it, but never quite addressing it in detail - just as he spoke of his cousin Basil.
So I set out to determine the source of his reluctance to search for her.
You certainly could have asked directly, just as you certainly could have ordered him to go find her (and the thought had not escaped my notice so much as been firmly placed with the other egregious misuses of your power that were tempting, and entirely wrong). As I had no desire to force the subject however, I had to approach the topic sidewise.
The obvious answer was the difficulty of travel between worlds. Though I soon steadied the magic enough to support permanent portals, it was clear that time had broken between the worlds just as it had across Zunidh, and Alinor ran much more slowly than we did in Solaara. But even as I stabilized the flow of time, even as I began to send Cliopher to be my representative to the former territories of the Empire, he remained resistant to going to find his wife.
So. There was more there to be teased out.
I began to suspect that it was fear that held him back. For all he seemed to me determined and entirely fearless, the pattern that I saw reminded me of nothing quite so much as the way I felt about using your authority - if he did not go, he would not have to face the consequences.
He had never been a man to see to his own needs first. Combine that with his scrupulous adherence to the rules, and he had a ready made answer for why he only ever vacationed to the Vangavaye-ve - he had responsibilities to his family there, and it took an inordinate amount of time to travel to and from.
He focused on solving that problem, worrying at it continually between the other challenges involved in establishing stable world governance. I allowed myself to focus on solving the one between worlds. I could not resolve the time difference entirely, but I could mitigate it somewhat. Enough to make travel to Alinor feasible. Enough that I felt comfortable suggesting again that he take a vacation to find out the fate of his wife (my oldest friend), and his beloved cousin. I would not, of course, order him to go, but when the inevitable protest about rationing his vacation came up, you could solve that problem with ease.
“Take the extra time for a vacation. You have been working extremely hard of late, it seems only right to give you additional time away. The time difference between Zunidh and Alinor is small enough now that We can manage without you for a few weeks. And it would be extremely remiss of Us to not ensure that you had the chance to discover whether your wife is still alive.”
It was not an order. It was the closest thing to an order that I dared give. I could not risk compromising my authority by even so much as hinting that I cared about the fate of one Jullanar on Alinor. The peace of the world was still far too fragile, too dependent on my authority as the Last Emperor, for me to risk any doubt as to my legitimacy to power.
I let it be read as wanting him to go to find the people he clearly cared about, that I thought he should seek out the woman he married, even if it was purely a matter of convenience to him. He saw it as the exercise of my authority that it necessarily was, and acceded, gracefully as ever, to my wishes.
There was plenty to keep me occupied while he was away, as there always was; I did not allow myself to dwell on his absence. This was no different than any other of his vacations, I told myself, even if I anticipated his return even more than I ever had.
He returned, refreshed and alive, and full of tales about his cousin and young nephew, and almost nothing about his wife beyond a handful of domestic anecdotes. I forced myself to let the topic go. Jullanar was healthy and well, and that was more than I knew about any of the rest of my friends. I had a world that worshiped me and needed me to put it back together; it had never done me any good to dwell on wanting more than that.