Yesterday's Prince

8. A Little War: Septimus

 When Septimus arrived home, well into the early hours of the morning, his father and his 'friend' Reese were still up, waiting for him. Joyce sprung from his chair and wrapped his arms around his bedraggled son. Into his hair, his da said, "Where have you been? I thought you'd spent more time at the party, but you barely seemed like you didn't want to go at all, and now the sun is almost up!"

"I took a walk," Septimus said flatly. "I'm not going to work today. I need—"

"To sleep," Reese said. "You look half dead. Sards, boy, what happened?"

Too much, and it would be dangerous to tell them what he suspected. He thought a lot during his hours of roaming Copper Downs. He couldn't feel his feet and suspected they were rubbed raw and blistered in places. Reese was right though, he needed to rest before he did anything else.

His da made him a cup of tea, which Septimus didn't touch after he'd undressed. He collapsed into his bed, and sheer mental and physical exhaustion kept him down until mid-morning. When he awoke, Septimus stared at the wooden rafters of his room. He could hear his dad in the shop.

He flipped through the memories of the night before like an illustrated book. He was sure it was all real. Now for the fanciful conjectures. He'd read so much, and he accounted for the most obvious answers. Changelings or fae spirits were warded against in the walls of the royal palace itself. The gates of Copper Downs had wardings against the non-human things that lurked through the land. Surely, if Uther wasn't human, some other wizard would've noticed.

There could be a spell at work, Septimus considered. A wizard could be controlling Uther. That wasn't right either, he thought. Septimus met a wizard's thrall before. The experience had been unpleasant, like a person emptied out and replaced with the personality of a vegetable, or at least that's how that thrall felt to him. A thrall wouldn't have the wherewithal to pull off the performance that...that thing did.

There was something in Uther...it just wasn't Uther.

What a conclusion, he thought, but it was true. A terrible question occurred to him during his all night ramble. If that wasn't Uther, where was he? Was Uther...was he dead?

Septimus pushed himself out of bed, feeling his mind itch to get to work. He could answer that question. There were ways to tell if someone was dead or not. Usually, bits of a person were used in a ritual, and that did the trick. That won't work here, Septimus thought. Uther's body seemed quite alive, but he needed to know if Uther—some metaphysical part of him—was alive. He needed to get creative.

Septimus dug through his desk and found a stack of letters and sorted through them. It was a surprisingly large stack, as he corresponded with a great many people trying to track down new and rare books. Some of letters, though, had come from Uther. He picked up the most recent one, which was a post sent two summers ago when Uther had gone with Bjorn on his brother's official tour to meet the neighboring city-state lords.