"My experience is that it is, in practice, completely impossible to maintain opsec on something unless it is either the case that only a handful of people know any details, or that everyone involved is under a compulsion not to speak of it. If it is only you who use this method, I suspect we can keep the number of involved parties who know exact specifics - on the book-artifact and spell - small enough to maintain secrecy. It would become much harder to do this if we wished to use it for many people." 

"Well, there go half a dozen half-baked national glorification plans. People are going to notice that I turn up with wings and a tail after the first time I die, though."

"That is true. I think the animal-modification part of the spell is less key; it is survivable if They destroy all the monkeys as long as the artifact survives and can be re-linked. I do think it will not remain secret forever, but - if we can keep you from being murdered and make enough progress before your current body dies, then it might matter less when it arises." 

"Could do with some misdirection? Get a fancy crystal instead of a book for most people, that sort of thing. Make them hang out with their own monkey on a routine basis as though that matters at all."

"...Yes, I think that would help. I would also wish to design a substantially different artifact, so that a spell purpose-built to break the link on the other ones would not work on yours." 

"Makes sense to me. Like - if I want to try sticking Gifts into people's brains, which I do, I'd like to have backups for them, you know?"

"Of course. It would make it much less fraught as research. And likely would get you more volunteers." 

"I wanna stick Healing in Randi."

"Oh! That is quite brilliant, actually." 

"He's friendly and terminally ill! Very important qualities to benefit from and minimize downside risk of the experiment."

"I agree. It seems worth risking to set Randi up with the method as soon as we have tested that we can do it with you; he is enough on our side that I am almost certain he will not reveal it to any malevolent actors." 

"And it lets us hang onto Shavri, who's brilliant."

"She is! I would absolutely recruit her for - I am not sure, something or other, if she were not busy being lifebonded to the King of Valdemar." 

"Well, she won't. Instead you will be busy being lifebonded to the monarch of Valdemar and she'll be freed up to handle the heavy lifting in exotic Healing research when I am busy being the monarch of Valdemar."

“Oh?” He smiles. “How busy are you intending to keep me, exactly.”

"You'll never have a minute to catch your breath."

"Aww." He gives her the kiss that she very much deserves. :As long as you leave me still capable of building our god while I am so out of breath: 

:I'll consider it with wisdom befitting a queen: she replies, kissing him back.

Leareth scoops her up - it's so nice having a properly adult-sized body and being able to do that again - and, if her work is in a leavable state, will carry her back to their room while kissing her the whole time. 

Oh good!

Within a week everyone at Leareth's facility is in agreement that the tiny baby winged monkeys are adorable. Their wings are growing in more down so they look less like plucked chickens, and they crawl around over each other and their parents, a couple of them even trying to imitate the adults' flapping (without any effect, yet.) These ones, born with humans nearby, are also very friendly and will, if allowed, try to climb visitors too. 

They're not especially good climbers even if they have the instincts for it since they're barely monkeys any more but they can still get somewhere with determination. Belrun allows herself to be climbed by the occasional monkey.

They're even cuter when they fail at climbing things and fall down and don't seem even a little bit discouraged.

A formal letter arrives from the Senior Circle, signed by Randi. The Council - all of it, one of the negotiated agreements was that the temporary self-assembled on in Haven had proven their commitment to Valdemar and more regions ought to be represented anyway - has voted and agreed to make Belrun the presumptive heir, pending the weird arrangements she needs to be willing to set foot in the capital. There are various other details that are probably worth sending someone north to discuss face to face. 

The letter also mentions that they tried to locate Dara, assuming she was still at school in Rethwellan, and learned that in fact she had taken a semester off in order to, instead, go on a merchant run with some other fellow would-be entrepreneur. They're trying to figure out her route, but it sounds like she already should have reached Haven, so probably she kept heading further north, or maybe east to Hardorn? The Heralds on circuit are going to go talk to innkeepers in the major towns and find out. 

Well that's sort of troubling but there's not a whole lot they can do about it if Dara's gotten into some sort of trouble, she's not formally anybody's responsibility at the moment.

Vanyel sends a separate letter, asking if Belrun thinks it makes sense for him to come as the liaison about the succession arrangements, since they had other matters to discuss too. If so, how's a week from now?