Caelix Serpienne's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

Three days after the hatching, the news outran Caelix. His court messengers brought word from the shadowed courts: snake kin whispered of three oracles born to the sovereign. The gold child had spoken at birth. Now every court knew. Caelix sat at his marble advisor's desk, the kingdom map spread flat, the royal reports stacked to one side. He read the same page twice and heard nothing. Inbella rested nearby with the three hatchlings. The white one slept. The red one squirmed. Syl, the gold one, watched her father from her mother's arm. "You are not reading," Syl said. Her voice was small and flat. "You are waiting." Caelix looked up. She was right. He had been waiting for the one person who had not come. Slit had not entered the palace since the confession. His best friend, his advisor, the one who tracked the author down and warned him to be gentle. Slit had watched Caelix take Inbella's hand and left without a word. Caelix had let him go. He had been too full of his own wanting to see it. "Send for Slit," Caelix told a messenger. "Say the king asks. Not the king commands." Slit came at dusk. He stopped in the doorway, red tail still, arms crossed. He did not bow. "You have three heirs. The whole court knows." His clipped words landed hard. "You did not need me for that." Caelix pushed back from the desk. This was the harder thing. Harder than the egg, harder than the courts. "I needed you before the egg. Before the courtship. I did not look at you once while you stood there." He kept his eyes on Slit and did not soften it. "You found her for me. You told me to be gentle. I took your work and forgot you were in the room." Slit's jaw tightened. "Yes." "I am sorry." Caelix had never said those words to Slit. Kings did not. He said them anyway. "You kept me alive and clear-headed for years. I owe you more than a throne and three children I cannot yet name." Inbella spoke without looking up from the hatchlings. "He means it. He is bad at it. That is how you know." Slit uncrossed his arms. Something in his shoulders eased. "The court talks of your oracles like an omen. Some fear it. Some want to use it." He stepped inside at last. "You will need me for that." "I know," Caelix said. "Good." Slit came to the desk and looked down at the kingdom map. "Then we start with who is spreading the word, and why." Syl watched the two men lean over the map together. "You made peace," she said. "Now the courts will test it." Caelix set his hand flat on the map. The rift was closed. But his daughter was already right. The whispers had a purpose he did not yet understand, and someone in the shadowed courts wanted his oracles for their own.