The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Princes

Lark received all the amenities Iris Smelter offered with good graces except for the tailor. Able had repeatedly warned the widow that the prince would likely be extraordinarily uptight about what he'd wear when he was reintroduced to his parents. Sadly, "extraordinarily uptight" had been an insufficient description, especially when the tailor second-guessed Lark's detailed instructions about width allowance for the lost weight he'd intended to regain.

Never mind the plays that they had slipped out a couple times to see; Lark's diatribe and accompanying demonstration deserved its own epic. Yet, even as the tailor had earned a dressing down for his costly error, he was also the unfortunate recipient of redirected ire. And the poor man had been terrified, for though he'd been kept ignorant of Lark's status, Lark had more than returned to physical form. Even the guards had discussed Lark's self-imposed training regimen in impressed tones.

Certainly the activity had kept his mind occupied over the weeks of exchanging letters full of demands and compromises. And it had paid off. Lark's form, more strapping than ever, filled every inch of his hard-fought silk suit. He stood before the mirror as he donned his ivory longcoat with sumptuous gold embroidery and buttoned it from his collar to his belt, leaving the rest undone to his knees. He smoothed it at his shoulders, then turned this way and that to assure that from every angle he indeed looked magnificent.

But she looked miserable.

Able turned from the mirror to let his gaze trail out the window. Idealview, they called this, the royal retreat palace out in the highlands beyond the capital. Today it stood by that name, the distance littered with cities along the Goldscale River until the horizon curled at the edges before it could reveal the ocean. Nearer lay farms and the castle village and below the tower Able was perched within stretched a rolling field where several dozen tall horses grazed. Was it this very field that the boy prince Plaudit had been snatched from all those years ago, ultimately bringing Able to this unthinkable present?

"Has it sunk in yet that you're back here?"

"Not really," Lark replied without taking her eyes from the reflection of the hair she was plaiting. "Guest chamber, unfamiliar faces...you know. Or maybe you don't. Maybe I don't." She shakily inhaled before resetting her face like stone.

What could Able even do to help now? "Are you comfortable you understand the claim?"

Lark shrugged tightly. "Chessie and Flower like it." Able did too, or rather, he liked that the legal team Darkshoal had assembled was so confident about the majority of their demands. That was the only measure for success his experience allowed him in all this.

"Yes, but do you feel comfortable about defending it?"

"I'll have half a dozen lawyers in the room with me." Lark forced a chuckle then nodded to the folded sheet of paper on the vanity. "And the cheat-sheet, besides."

"What about the arrangements of the meeting? Would you like to walk through those?"

Lark quirked an eyebrow. "Is this for my nerves, or yours?"

Able crossed the room to lean against the wall beside the vanity so he could look into Lark's actual eyes instead of the mirrored ones. "This is my last chance to be of any help to you. Once you go in there, I am an observer again and nothing more. In fact—do you still want me in there?" Lark had waffled on this point over the past week, at times insisting she would prefer Able in a safe location should things go wrong.

She did not hold his gaze, fixating instead on her braiding. "You said if you see the discussions in person, you'll have more insights about it when you write your book, yeah? And that the book has the potential to win public opinion over to the arrangement...or not, depending how negotiations go."