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The eldest (by ten minutes) of the Swan children, borne by the niece of the Ardelay prime, has been a suspect for her great-aunt's successor since she was five hours old.
The twins' father is a hunti fellow who makes an odd match for his elay wife and an odder one for her overwhelmingly sweela family. He comes home from his excursion to bless his twins with flexibility, imagination, and contentment for his son in his left pocket. In his right pocket are two sweela virtues, intelligence and clarity - that's a clue as to her alignment, if not a guarantee - and power.
Not every prime is graced with that particular hunti blessing in their first batch, but it's certainly suggestive.
Kiribel is possibly the most obviously sweela child of all time. She reads, she holds intensely strong opinions and defends them with more firey passion than wooden stubbornness, she seems to entirely inhabit her own mind to the point of forgetting that she's in the middle of trying to walk. Her twin is less obvious, but by the time they're seven people are guessing he's torz, and he doesn't dispute it. Their little brother is elay like their mother.
It's Kiri people pay covert attention to, because when the old prime dies, the new one is called up. The prime makes plans to start teaching her things, maybe bringing her to court, when the girl is ten.
The prime dies when Kiri is eight.
It's the middle of the night when it happens, and Kiri wakes up thinking the brightness filtering through her eyes is sunshine. It is not; she has set her bed on fire.
The accidental arson doesn't take particularly long to get under control. It's the other, less obvious power of the Ardelays that gives Kiri real trouble.
If the previous prime had the gift of mind-reading, she never saw fit to mention it to anyone. Kiri tells everybody, and screams at her parents and her brothers not to get too close to her, and weeps, inconsolable, in her replaced bed. There is a range limit. She can have company. But if someone gets within a few feet of her -
"I can feel it," she explains to Aleko, her twin, who is a safe distance across the room. "It's in your - warmness. Just stay about that far away and it won't happen."
"You can try it," she says dubiously to Jayce, their little brother, when he suggests wearing a lot of coats and mittens to obscure the warmness. That he does this in the hottest part of Quinnahunti demonstrates his dedication to hugging his sister.
But it doesn't help unless his face is covered up too, to the point where he can't breathe, so that doesn't work.
Kiri does without brotherly hugs for a month until Jayce has another idea without such suffocating pitfalls, and then she waits until Jayce is asleep, and climbs in with him, where she'll pick up nothing but fragments of dreams and only until she nods off herself. (Aleko sleeps lightly, and will surely wake up if someone joins him after he's managed to fall asleep; and Kiri talks at night; but if she sleeps first and he wears earplugs they can arrange things that way and only have Aleko sneaking back to his own bed at three in the morning half the time.)
She imagines this will work until she is at least twelve, but has no idea what she will do once it's weird for her to snuggle up to her sleeping brothers.
By this time there has been a fair amount of rumbling from various political interests that the new prime, eight years old or not, should be meeting various people, ranging from the king and queens and princes to the other primes, and Kiri is all for it. As a sort of concession to her age there is no objection that her brothers and parents accompany her to the Ardelay property in Chialto that she has inherited. They can't hug her - not without letting slip any secret that may cross their minds, and not without her nearing nausea from guilt; if Great-Aunt Ardelay did this casual invasion of everyone she met then Kiri is glad she's dead - but they can support her, with enough space between them.
Renny, her mother, has the most experience of anyone in the immediate family with politics, even if she couldn't stand the stuff and ran off with a man of no significant family at her earliest convenience. She's the one who goes shopping for Kiri's pretty new dress in sweela coral-red and other wardrobe items suitable for a newly visible prime. (Kiri dreads trying to navigate a crowd and doesn't care what she wears anyway.) She's the one who goes with Kiri to the palace. She stays five feet back as they walk in.
The king has already been immunized against the various powers of primes, so there's that.
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calescent
"Not really," he says, shrugging again.
For example: If he ran away from home, he would probably spend some time on the river flats himself. That would be an obvious choice, if he ran away from home, at least for as long as it took him to get out of Chialto entirely. But that doesn't make spending time on the river flats a reason to run away from home. It's just something he would do, if that happened.
For example: If he ran away from home, he would probably spend some time on the river flats himself. That would be an obvious choice, if he ran away from home, at least for as long as it took him to get out of Chialto entirely. But that doesn't make spending time on the river flats a reason to run away from home. It's just something he would do, if that happened.
calescent
"That's not what I meant. I mean if you can't do something now, but there's something you would do with -" She stops and starts over. "I mean, power, the ability to do stuff, it's useful, and some people seem not to want it and sometimes that seems to be because they don't much want anything, and there's some power it'd be wrong to use - like what I have most of the time - and that would also be a reason, but -" She stops again, and this time does not start over. "Never mind."
"It's useful, but... I dunno."
His highest ambition is to become completely separated from his father, so that neither of them can affect the other one at all. He can get that by waiting for his father to die and thereby becoming king, or he can get it by running far enough away, or he can get it by dying. He hasn't picked one for sure yet. But the first option does not tempt him, coming as it does with the implicit necessity of staying in his father's power for the rest of his father's life, and most likely having to be called by his father's name - King Hector, ugh - for the rest of his own life after that. Any charms that the monarchy might have are washed right out by those glaring flaws.
His highest ambition is to become completely separated from his father, so that neither of them can affect the other one at all. He can get that by waiting for his father to die and thereby becoming king, or he can get it by running far enough away, or he can get it by dying. He hasn't picked one for sure yet. But the first option does not tempt him, coming as it does with the implicit necessity of staying in his father's power for the rest of his father's life, and most likely having to be called by his father's name - King Hector, ugh - for the rest of his own life after that. Any charms that the monarchy might have are washed right out by those glaring flaws.
calescent
"You can probably change your name if you want if you are the king, you know."
"Maybe."
He's not sure it would be as uncomplicated as all that.
He's not sure it would be as uncomplicated as all that.
"It's not nice," he says.
The name feels ugly and awful whenever someone attaches it to him, and the thought of an entire adult life lived with it hanging over him makes death look attractive by comparison.
The name feels ugly and awful whenever someone attaches it to him, and the thought of an entire adult life lived with it hanging over him makes death look attractive by comparison.
calescent
"Do you like some other name more or should I just call you your highness all the time?"
He hasn't thought of a name he actually wants. 'Your highness' is unobjectionable, and so is any nickname unrelated to the name he hates.
He smiles.
calescent
Eventually the delicious food is gone.
Kiri is approached by the Frothen prime, an elderly torz fellow who walks with a cane. He says, "Hello, Kiribel."
And she says, "Hello, Alser."
"All of the primes will be meeting soon. Will you come with me?"
"Okay," agrees Kiri. "How long will it take?"
"Not long. We should be done before sunset," Alser assures her.
Kiri nods. "I'll find my way back to my rooms when we're done, Mother," she adds in Renny's direction, though she's plenty loud enough for the prince to hear too.
Kiri is approached by the Frothen prime, an elderly torz fellow who walks with a cane. He says, "Hello, Kiribel."
And she says, "Hello, Alser."
"All of the primes will be meeting soon. Will you come with me?"
"Okay," agrees Kiri. "How long will it take?"
"Not long. We should be done before sunset," Alser assures her.
Kiri nods. "I'll find my way back to my rooms when we're done, Mother," she adds in Renny's direction, though she's plenty loud enough for the prince to hear too.
"Bye, Kiri!" says the prince. He waves and departs.
calescent
Kiri goes with Alser Frothen.
She comes back to her suite shortly before the sun sets.
She comes back to her suite shortly before the sun sets.
And the prince finds his way to her rooms a few minutes after.
calescent
"Did you know," says Kiri sort of distantly when he comes close enough for her to hear, "that primes can do a weird magical hand-holding thing?"
"Nope!" he says. "Is it fun?"
calescent
"I wish they hadn't surprised me, but I'm not going to complain if they want to do it again, though I didn't think to ask if it's every time the primes are all in Chialto or just when there's a new one. It's kind of - well, it's very something. Everything's really sharp now. Valdin says that lasts a few hours."
"Oh. Wanna hug?" he inquires.
calescent
"Sure." She holds out her arms. "But you don't have to feel like that's the only way I will ever be hugged again. For some reason the other primes don't any of them seem to think mindreading is a bigger deal than what they can do."
He giggles. And hugs her.
"So what're they like? I don't know 'em that well." Because none of them has caught his attention before now, but that might change.
"So what're they like? I don't know 'em that well." Because none of them has caught his attention before now, but that might change.
calescent
"Alser is nice. Very very somebody's-grandpa-kind-of-torz. Jerist wasn't paying attention to anything going on but I don't know if that's his personality or him being really old. I don't think Nerine and Valdin like each other but they both seem to like me fine."
Hug hug! "What can they do that's as big a deal as mindreading, anyway?"
calescent
Hug. "I didn't get a lot of details - I was asking Jerist about his because that one sort of worries me but he wasn't listening and then everybody wanted to do the thing. But I think I was right that Dochenzas can be empaths, but I'm not that worried anymore because Jerist obviously couldn't care less. Nerine was thinking something about knowing how everyone's related to everyone else. I was going to ask Valdin but then we did the thing."
"Must've been some thing," he remarks.