Xara Zynthar's Arc

Chapter 6 of 16

Xara went back to her quarters and sat on the edge of the bed. The eel egg glowed on the small table, pale and restless. Tomorrow she would meet the prince alone, and she had nothing to bring him. No book. No gift. No answer to the question he had not asked. Empty hands would waste the trust she had built. She opened her travel case. She had brought little from home. A small carved stone her grandmother used to weight prayer cloths. A pouch of dried river salt that still smelled faintly of the shore. A folded square of cloth dyed the deep blue of her homeworld's night sky. These things had no price here. To her they were the only proof her world had ever been real. She thought about the person who had left the gown and the egg. They knew her. They had chosen her. She did not know why, and she was tired of owing something to a hand she could not see. She would not go to the prince tomorrow owing another debt. She wrapped the stone, the salt, and the cloth in a scrap of paper. She wrote no name on it. She wrote only, "Thank you. These are from where I was born. I hope they give you what mine gave me." She set the package outside her door before the lamps dimmed. Whoever was watching would find it. It was small. It was hers to give. Then she turned to the egg. It had cracked in the night. A thin, sleek eel curled in the shallow bowl of water beside it, its body giving off a soft green light. It looked up at her when she came close. It did not flinch. She lowered a finger to the water and it brushed against her skin, slow and calm, as if it had been waiting for her. In the morning she carried the eel in a covered glass jar to the prince's private room. She set the jar on the table between them and took the cloth off. "This is a lumen eel," she said. "They live in the shallows where I was born. When the tide goes out at night, the whole coast glows with them. My mother used to carry me down to watch." The prince leaned forward. The light from the jar caught under his chin. "It is the only living thing I have from home," she said. "I wanted you to see it. I did not want to come here with a story I had polished." He watched the eel turn in its small water. He did not speak for a long time. Then he put one finger against the glass, and the eel drifted toward it. "Stay," he said. "Tell me the rest." She sat. She had brought him something true, and he had asked for more.