I've learnt to live in shadows
Even without the light
I've learnt to love the battles
Only the strong survive
-- Citizen Soldier, Hallelujah (I'm Not Dead)
The Silver Palace's cells were never meant to be a permanent prison. They were just temporary holding cells for important criminals until arrangements could be made to transfer them to an actual prison.
Haliran waited impatiently for the guards to take her out of here. She couldn't escape from this cell, but there was a chance she could from wherever she was going. All she had to do was wait for an opportunity. If only the guards would hurry up and make the arrangements!
She waited. And waited. And waited. From time to time she wondered if this was part of Siarvin and Ilaran's revenge plan. Were they trying to drive her insane through sheer boredom?
A day passed. Then another. Soon a full week had passed. The only way of measuring time was in how often the guards brought her food and the doctor came to examine her arm. No one came to visit her. Haliran didn't know if she'd been completely forgotten or if this was another way for Siarvin to get revenge. If she had been in his place she would have come every day to gloat over her enemy's downfall. But he had only visited once, and Ilaran never came at all. That grated on her. Was she so unimportant that she wasn't even worth the trouble of coming to see?
When she was finally moved she got no advance warning. She woke up at some ungodly hour to find a group of guards standing over her.
"Come with us," the leader ordered.
None of them said another word. They marched her out of the palace, into a carriage, and took her to another prison without opening their mouths. No one even told her where she'd been brought. She was locked into her new cell and left to make sense of the situation on her own.
~~~~
Improbable though it seemed, everything went back to normal after Irímé stopped being a dragon. No one said any more about the fiasco at the festival. Abi's parents continued making arrangements for the wedding. Their previous arrangements had been thrown into disarray by Irímé's new job and move to Tananerl. Irímé continued to stay with his mother, but he spent almost every day wandering around the shops. Judging by his luggage, he was buying enough clothes to set up a small shop.
"Why do you need so many clothes?" Abi asked when they met for one of their weekly -- and rather awkward -- trips to a coffee shop. (Arranged by their parents, of course, who were firmly convinced they needed to spend more time together. Neither Abi nor Irímé would have found having coffee together half so awkward if they weren't forced into it.)
Irímé blushed faintly. "I don't actually need them. It's just... I've never been able to buy anything of my own. My mother used to choose all my clothes for me. So when Ilaran gave me my first month's wages in advance I decided to buy my own clothes without letting my mother interfere."
That seemed like a silly reason to buy clothes. But what do I know? Abi thought. I'm able to buy whatever I want.
After the dragon incident Abi had left Gihimayel Palace to find Kiriyuki waiting for her. She'd been questioned to within an inch of her life before she could convince her sister this wasn't her fault for once. Abi had been avoiding Kiriyuki ever since. She was also trying to avoid Kitri, who had left before the assassin and the dragon. Explaining what had happened after she left was more than Abi could bear. So far she'd only seen Kitri in passing or at social events, when no one could ask awkward questions. She'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. She was trying her best to blot the entire sorry business out of her mind.
It wasn't easy when every time she fell asleep she dreamt of the Land of the Dead. When she woke up sometimes unable to breathe, with the memory of choking as she tried to breathe the air in that throne room. When she looked in the mirror and could swear she saw an indistinct figure in the shadows behind her.
Raising Ilaran from the dead had done what the corpse at the festival and her grandmother's warnings couldn't. Abi no longer had the slightest wish to meddle with necromancy. The thought of facing Death again made her shudder.
Without her necromancy studies she looked around for something else to pass the time. In addition to Kiriyuki and Kitri she was avoiding Arafaren and Ilaran. Arafaren because he was an infernal nuisance who asked too many questions, and Ilaran because... Well, what was she to say to someone when she'd unwillingly seen most of his memories? She couldn't look him in the eye without blushing when she remembered witnessing his conversation with Kivoduin, and she felt she had to offer her condolences for Nuvildu's death even though it had happened millennia ago. So visiting her acquaintances was out of the question.
For want of anything better to do she took up reading. In a week she read more than she usually read in a year. When not out with Irímé she spent most of her time in her parents' library.
That was where Kitri found her when she finally came looking for her.
"I never thought the day would come when you'd take up a sane hobby," she said by way of greeting.
Abi put down her book and suppressed the urge to run away. "Hello, Kitri. What do you want?"
Kitri didn't answer at first. She stared at Abi as if she was a specimen under a microscope. "...Are you sick?"
"No?" Abi said, bemused. "At least I don't think so. Why?"
"You look... strange. Like you're not all there. Well, I mean, you never have been all there mentally, but now you're almost... transparent."
Abi looked down at herself. She was as solid as ever. "What are you talking about?"
Kitri shrugged. "I suppose it's just a trick of the light. Anyway, I came to say I'm going home tomorrow. I want you to promise never to meddle with necromancy again."
"I promise," Abi said, and meant it this time. "I don't think it was such a good idea after all."
"That," said Kitri with an air of profound relief, "is the most sensible thing you've ever said in ages."
Both Abi and Kitri would have been much less at ease if they had known what the future held. For better or for worse they were blissfully ignorant. Abi sincerely believed she would never attempt necromancy again. She made her promise with no intention of breaking it. She just didn't know that events were conspiring against her.
~~~~
Siarvin awoke with a jolt. It was so dark that he could tell at once it was the middle of the night. No one should be awake at this time. So what had disturbed him? He lay silent for several minutes before he realised what it was. His bed was on the other side of the room to Ilaran's, but even so he could normally hear Ilaran's breathing. Now there wasn't the faintest noise to be heard.
He sat bolt upright. His first terrible thought was that something had happened. Did necromancy have a time limit? Was Ilaran's wound more serious than he thought, even after stitching it up and using magic to heal the worst of it? He turned on the bedside lamp.
Ilaran's bed was empty.
Siarvin waited for several minutes. Ilaran didn't come back. There was no noise from the rest of the house. Mildly alarmed, Siarvin got out of bed and went to see what was wrong. When he opened the bedroom door he saw the kitchen light was on. He heard the faint crackle of paper being crumpled up. Bemused, he crossed the hall and pushed the kitchen door open.
Ilaran sat at the table, clutching a sheet on paper so tightly it looked like he would tear it at any minute. There were lines of scribbles on the paper, but Siarvin couldn't read what they said.
"What are you doing?" Siarvin asked.
Ilaran looked up sharply, as if he hadn't realised anyone was there. Odd. He was usually more alert than that, and Siarvin hadn't made any effort to conceal his presence.
"Nothing," Ilaran said. He rolled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the bin.
"Nothing?" Siarvin repeated dubiously. "Why are you awake at--" He checked the clock, "--three in the morning?"
"I was hungry, so I made myself a sandwich."
Siarvin stared. For a minute he could have sworn that Ilaran flickered in and out of focus, as if he'd become transparent for just a second. "...Are you all right?"
"Yes! Fine." His answer was far too quick and given with too much force to be convincing.
Oh well. If Ilaran wanted to get up in the middle of the night, have a sandwich, and scribble something then throw it away, there was no law against it. All the same, Siarvin went back to bed feeling ill at ease. He lay awake for an hour. Ilaran didn't come back. When he awoke the next morning he found Ilaran was still gone. Only now he'd left the palace entirely.
~~~~
It had crept on so slowly that Ilaran couldn't pinpoint exactly when it began. First he found himself becoming hungry quite a while before meals. Then he found that he still felt hungry after meals. He began eating more but the hunger never left. Now it was there constantly, a gnawing pain in his stomach that was increasingly hard to ignore.
Everyone had heard stories of ghosts that were constantly hungry. Ilaran looked up every reference he could find on them. All the books agreed that only people who had starved to death would turn into that sort of ghost. That wasn't much comfort when he remembered no one had ever been able to ask the ghosts what happened to them.
For days he tried to ignore the hunger. If he pretended it didn't exist, maybe it would go away.
But it wasn't going away. If anything it was getting worse. There was only one person who might be able to help him. The idea of asking Abihira for help was unpleasant, but he couldn't think of any other option. After all, he couldn't go to a doctor.
Maybe it was just a temporary reaction to being brought back to life. Abihira had also been in the Land of the Dead. If she was experiencing the same thing then at least he would know what to blame. And if she wasn't...
He didn't know what he'd do. But this was starting to frighten him.
~~~~
A royal visiting a foreign country would always involve a great deal of pomp, circumstance, and inconvenience for all concerned. Kiriyuki had managed to avoid some of it by leaving without warning. There were times when Mirio felt like doing the same. Then he wouldn't have had to put up with a never-ending procession of officials reminding him of what to do when in Gengxin -- all of which he already knew; he had been there before, a fact which all of them seemed to have forgotten -- and warning him not to do anything to disgrace Seroyawa. They acted as if he was a child who didn't know how to behave. Mirio forced himself to listen, to answer when he was expected to, and to agree with whatever they said.
It was a relief when he finally got on the ship headed for Gengxin. The only thing dampening his spirits was the knowledge he was in for just as much pomp, circumstance. and inconvenience when he got there.
Oh well. At least his uncle's court would be inconvenient in a different way. That was really the best he could hope for.
~~~~
The Ninth Prince's seizures came and went at unpredictable intervals. Sometimes they lasted a few seconds, sometimes they dragged on for heart-stopping minutes. By the king's orders at least two people had to be with him at all times. Usually those people were Lian and the court physician. Today the court physician was attending to the Second Prince, so the Ninth Prince's nursemaid replaced him.
Bai Jiu divided her attention between watching the Ninth Prince as he played and keeping an eye on Lian. There was something about the doctor that she didn't like, and it wasn't just that he was a foreigner. His eyes were abnormally wide and pure silver. No one who looked like that could be trustworthy.
When the Ninth Prince ran up to Lian, Bai Jiu had to suppress the urge to pull him away for his own safety. She watched in alarm as His Highness proudly held up a butterfly he'd just caught. Lian knelt down to look at it. He smiled and patted the Ninth Prince on the head. His Highness didn't object to this overly-familiar behaviour from a servant. He let the butterfly go and watched as it flew away.
"It's time for your nap, Your Highness," Bai Jiu said.
The Ninth Prince scowled and shook his head. "Don't wanna nap." He looked pleadingly up at Lian. "Play hide-and-seek?"
"No," Lian said in his oddly-accented Gengxinese. "You must rest before you go to welcome your cousin."
Reluctantly His Highness traipsed into his room and curled up on the bed. Lian tucked him in and sat down beside him. He hummed under his breath until the Ninth Prince fell asleep. Then he sat in silence, apparently absorbed in studying the painting on the wall.
Bai Jiu sat on the opposite side of the room and tried to make herself invisible while she worked on her embroidery. Once she lost her grip on the needle. It landed on the floor with a very faint clink. Lian's head immediately snapped round. For a minute he stared right at Bai Jiu with those horrible eyes. Then he looked away. Bai Jiu snatched up the needle. Her hands were shaking too badly to sew any more.