BOOK ONE
CHAPTER NINE
“But wait, if he has your rhythm, does that mean you now don’t have it?” Mo asked Sasha.
“No,” she answered excitedly, “it wasn’t like that. I could tell that I wasn’t sacrificing anything. I merely shared the knowledge, and it duplicated.”
“Magnificent,” Flori said. “Can you imagine a world where knowledge may be shared with a thought? I could teach you a lifetime’s worth of magic in mere seconds.” The Prince perked up.
“I think I gave you something as well” he said, and he brought the North Star close to Sasha. It glowed brightly. “Now, we can both use the Star.” Sasha picked it up, concentrated and moved it around, as if looking for a signal, as one does with a divining rod. Then she closed her eyes and went still. The group leaned in to see what she would do.
“How?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Oh, um, I don’t know,” said the Prince. “I guess it will come to you naturally when circumstances are right. That’s how it worked for me and Mo.”
“Yes, yes of course, helping people simply came most naturally to you, Prince. Sasha, you may find you have a different relationship to the Star altogether based on your specific nature. I wager you both might learn to do more with it if we had time to practice. This is good, this is good. It means I was right about the Star connecting people; you should be able to get into the Queen’s mind.” The Prince’s resolve suddenly shrunk at the prospect.
“So North Star responds to the nature of the person commanding it?” Mo asked, upset. “Are you saying it was in my nature to want to manipulate and damage the minds of others?”
“It was in your nature to want to save your friends from a dangerous enemy,” Flori said supportively, but Mo noted the lack of outright contradiction. “In any case let’s keep practicing.”
The Prince practiced connecting to Sasha several more times, but with significantly diminishing success, depleting their hope that he might discover more nuances to using the diamond. His attempts to connect with Mo failed outright, and Flori and Cicero chose not to volunteer. Flori didn’t trust herself, and Cicero wanted nothing to do with the thing. Sasha tried to initialize a link between herself and Moriandra with no success. Their bright start led to a dim ending.
“Enough,” Flori finally declared. “It’s clear we’re not going to master this in time. All I can say is this. Prince, you and Mo both describe your first attempt using the Star as instinctual. What we have to hope is that this same phenomena will happen once you are both in a room with the Queen. We have to hope that at this point. Which means we have to focus now on a plan to get the three of you in a room together for as long as it takes us to figure out what to do. Ideas?”
They deliberated on a strategy for the rest of the night. In the end, what they came up with was risky, but not as risky as winging it. Cicero and his flowers even played an essential role. They retired to their rooms to catch as much sleep as they could before the rapidly approaching morning.
The Prince and Sasha walked towards their quarters in silence. When they arrived Sasha said, “I’ve been thinking. When you healed the minds of Barnaby and all those dragons, did you experience their thoughts and memories the way you and I did today?”
“No, I didn’t. The North Star just did the work.”
“Right. I’m wondering, how? How did it know what to return to each individual? Why did it even keep these memories in the first place? Why not just destroy them? Why would it think they would ever be needed again?”
“Maybe that’s just the way it works.”
“Maybe...”
“Orion said something funny about it. He said if he focused on it with his power, he heard noise. Not thoughts, not feelings, just a quiet steady sort of whooshing sound. He didn’t know what to make of it.”
“I wonder.” Sasha and the Prince looked out at the moonlit valley and thought about the coming day, a mixture of melancholy and anticipation running through their veins.
“You gave me something else today, more than rhythm, I mean,” the Prince mentioned, a forced airiness in his voice. “Ever since we were attacked at Flori’s, I’ve been feeling like a coward. I was unable to do anything when they came at us, unable to help at all. And I started thinking about my whole life, and how it took meeting you, how it took 25 years for me to work up the courage to get out from under my mother’s thumb, and I thought that made me so pathetic. But today I caught a glimpse of myself through your eyes, you, who lives so deliberately, and you didn’t see a life of cowardice at all. You saw kindness and conviction and, and I want you to know, you…you are…” The Prince expressed the remainder of his sentiment in synonymous kissing.
As if to make up for his frivolous magic flower trick, Cicero showed off his amazing talent for flying on the journey to San Crosette, taking his rider Flori for one hell of a trip. Jove carried the Prince, almost dropping him several times, most likely on purpose. Mo flew in hawk form, next to the tag-along golden sparrow who had followed them to the Valley of the Dragons. Orion carried Sasha and the two engaged in a conversation where the dragon answered a hundred unheard questions and laughed at a hundred unsaid jokes. Eavesdroppers could not follow along.
The group espied the Queen’s caravan approaching San Crosette, and picked a spot a couple hours ahead of it to touch down and set their plan in motion. Orion wished the group luck in their endeavor, and told them that if they ever found themselves in the Forest of El, they need only call out to him with their minds, and he would get them. He and Jove bid them goodbye and flew away.
The group went over their plan one more time before assuming their positions all over the path, each of them hidden in a strategic spot. The Prince was particularly nervous about how the day was going to shake out. If everything went right, he would have as much time as he needed to work at saving his mother’s mind, but that could only happen if they could get her away from the royal guard, a highly trained group of soldiers. It’s okay, he thought, focus on the plan, the plan is your friend. He repeated this mantra to himself quietly, until something sharp poked him in the back. A masked person wielding a crossbow stood beside him, very anti-plan-like.
“No,” she answered excitedly, “it wasn’t like that. I could tell that I wasn’t sacrificing anything. I merely shared the knowledge, and it duplicated.”
“Magnificent,” Flori said. “Can you imagine a world where knowledge may be shared with a thought? I could teach you a lifetime’s worth of magic in mere seconds.” The Prince perked up.
“I think I gave you something as well” he said, and he brought the North Star close to Sasha. It glowed brightly. “Now, we can both use the Star.” Sasha picked it up, concentrated and moved it around, as if looking for a signal, as one does with a divining rod. Then she closed her eyes and went still. The group leaned in to see what she would do.
“How?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Oh, um, I don’t know,” said the Prince. “I guess it will come to you naturally when circumstances are right. That’s how it worked for me and Mo.”
“Yes, yes of course, helping people simply came most naturally to you, Prince. Sasha, you may find you have a different relationship to the Star altogether based on your specific nature. I wager you both might learn to do more with it if we had time to practice. This is good, this is good. It means I was right about the Star connecting people; you should be able to get into the Queen’s mind.” The Prince’s resolve suddenly shrunk at the prospect.
“So North Star responds to the nature of the person commanding it?” Mo asked, upset. “Are you saying it was in my nature to want to manipulate and damage the minds of others?”
“It was in your nature to want to save your friends from a dangerous enemy,” Flori said supportively, but Mo noted the lack of outright contradiction. “In any case let’s keep practicing.”
The Prince practiced connecting to Sasha several more times, but with significantly diminishing success, depleting their hope that he might discover more nuances to using the diamond. His attempts to connect with Mo failed outright, and Flori and Cicero chose not to volunteer. Flori didn’t trust herself, and Cicero wanted nothing to do with the thing. Sasha tried to initialize a link between herself and Moriandra with no success. Their bright start led to a dim ending.
“Enough,” Flori finally declared. “It’s clear we’re not going to master this in time. All I can say is this. Prince, you and Mo both describe your first attempt using the Star as instinctual. What we have to hope is that this same phenomena will happen once you are both in a room with the Queen. We have to hope that at this point. Which means we have to focus now on a plan to get the three of you in a room together for as long as it takes us to figure out what to do. Ideas?”
They deliberated on a strategy for the rest of the night. In the end, what they came up with was risky, but not as risky as winging it. Cicero and his flowers even played an essential role. They retired to their rooms to catch as much sleep as they could before the rapidly approaching morning.
The Prince and Sasha walked towards their quarters in silence. When they arrived Sasha said, “I’ve been thinking. When you healed the minds of Barnaby and all those dragons, did you experience their thoughts and memories the way you and I did today?”
“No, I didn’t. The North Star just did the work.”
“Right. I’m wondering, how? How did it know what to return to each individual? Why did it even keep these memories in the first place? Why not just destroy them? Why would it think they would ever be needed again?”
“Maybe that’s just the way it works.”
“Maybe...”
“Orion said something funny about it. He said if he focused on it with his power, he heard noise. Not thoughts, not feelings, just a quiet steady sort of whooshing sound. He didn’t know what to make of it.”
“I wonder.” Sasha and the Prince looked out at the moonlit valley and thought about the coming day, a mixture of melancholy and anticipation running through their veins.
“You gave me something else today, more than rhythm, I mean,” the Prince mentioned, a forced airiness in his voice. “Ever since we were attacked at Flori’s, I’ve been feeling like a coward. I was unable to do anything when they came at us, unable to help at all. And I started thinking about my whole life, and how it took meeting you, how it took 25 years for me to work up the courage to get out from under my mother’s thumb, and I thought that made me so pathetic. But today I caught a glimpse of myself through your eyes, you, who lives so deliberately, and you didn’t see a life of cowardice at all. You saw kindness and conviction and, and I want you to know, you…you are…” The Prince expressed the remainder of his sentiment in synonymous kissing.
As if to make up for his frivolous magic flower trick, Cicero showed off his amazing talent for flying on the journey to San Crosette, taking his rider Flori for one hell of a trip. Jove carried the Prince, almost dropping him several times, most likely on purpose. Mo flew in hawk form, next to the tag-along golden sparrow who had followed them to the Valley of the Dragons. Orion carried Sasha and the two engaged in a conversation where the dragon answered a hundred unheard questions and laughed at a hundred unsaid jokes. Eavesdroppers could not follow along.
The group espied the Queen’s caravan approaching San Crosette, and picked a spot a couple hours ahead of it to touch down and set their plan in motion. Orion wished the group luck in their endeavor, and told them that if they ever found themselves in the Forest of El, they need only call out to him with their minds, and he would get them. He and Jove bid them goodbye and flew away.
The group went over their plan one more time before assuming their positions all over the path, each of them hidden in a strategic spot. The Prince was particularly nervous about how the day was going to shake out. If everything went right, he would have as much time as he needed to work at saving his mother’s mind, but that could only happen if they could get her away from the royal guard, a highly trained group of soldiers. It’s okay, he thought, focus on the plan, the plan is your friend. He repeated this mantra to himself quietly, until something sharp poked him in the back. A masked person wielding a crossbow stood beside him, very anti-plan-like.
To be continued in Chapter Ten...