For Naomi,

Saving you saved me.

My Prince has changed. Of all people I should know, it’s my sworn duty to guard his person day and night. I often find myself thinking back to when this all began. It was right here in the main audience chamber of this palace. He was barely a man, with a tousle of unruly brown hair and a smile too big for his face. I knelt. Oaths were taken. I don’t remember exactly what else was said, or what formalities were observed. I just remember the smile.

But that smile is long dead. He’s grown quiet, withdrawn, secretive. He used to be known for his exuberance, his congeniality, perhaps most of all the relationships he built with people far beneath his station. People like me. But even I don’t know what he is up to anymore. He spends days sequestered in his quarters, weeks sometimes. All his effort is bent on the study of the occult, and he spends a great deal of money ordering books, scrolls, maps, and other curious items from far afield. And here we are tonight, on an errand of such secrecy that I’m not permitted to know what’s going on. I should have seen this coming.

The silhouette of a guard in the hall ahead snaps me out of my reverie, and I raise my hand to signal Arcadius to slow down. The guard has his back to us, which gives us a moment to slip behind one of the long, billowing curtains lining the hallway. I outrank these men, but I don’t command them. I’d have half a mind to scold them over their negligence tomorrow, but then I’d have to admit the Prince and I were sneaking about the place.

Arcadius made it clear that we are not to be seen by anyone. And I was instructed to wear traveling clothes tonight, for which I’m grateful. Stealth is easier unfettered by armor, and my breasts are happy to not be crushed under a metal cuirass for once. I glance for Arcadius, see him hunched down beside me, his eyes on the guard. Despite the fact that he isn’t in the mood for conversation, I’m glad he’s smart enough to follow my lead.

As we make our way from the high, moonlit halls of the royal apartments to the palace's north tower, we make full use of my training. We control our breathing. We listen for the footsteps of the guards ahead of us and behind us. We take each step with patience. We hide in shadowed places when they pass. We do not travel through their lines of sight. Sometimes we go in haste, sometimes we are still as stones. I have my orders, I follow them, and not one soul lays eyes on us.

It is not common knowledge that the north tower contains a hidden stair to the catacombs. I’m counting on that. The palace guards don’t normally patrol near it, I know that much. But even so, I am relieved when we find the passage unwatched. It takes extra effort to push aside the statue hiding its entrance in a way that doesn’t make too much noise, just a dull rumbling of stone on stone for a few tense moments. Even then, I’m uncertain as to whether or not anyone heard us.

I spend a moment with a hand on the side of the statue’s uplifted face, holding my breath, listening intently for the sound of iron-shod footsteps coming our way, and I let out a breath of relief when I hear nothing. Beyond the smiling statue lies a narrow, pitch-dark tunnel bending sharply into a curved stairwell a few feet in. Those stairs spiral downward for hundreds of feet, reaching far beneath the lowest levels of the palace. It is one of the few ways to enter or leave undetected.

“Luck’s with us, so far,” I say to Arcadius, risking a smile.

He frowns and nods. I take a moment to study him, hoping I can find a clue to this mystery outing. His features would be boyishly handsome if his expression weren’t always so grave. Tonight it’s even worse. There is a tightness around his green eyes, and a sag to his young, slender shoulders, as if his long traveling cloak were made of lead.

That cloak flutters as he walks past me into the dark stairway, and I fall into step behind him. I am about to ask him if he brought a torch, to keep us from breaking our necks descending in the dark, when he lifts an open palm, mutters a few strange syllables. A ball of bright, ghostly flame flares to life above his outstretched fingers. It resembles moonlight, pale and blue, and it doesn’t burn his hand at all.

The sight of magic sends a little chill down my spine. I’ve seen him cast spells before, but I’m still not used to it. Few people in the world can do the sorts of things he can. Few even believe such things are possible. A great many go out of their way to insist there's no such thing as magic, even though there's evidence of it all around. If they bother to look.

Minutes pass. The only sound comes from our soft leather boots scraping lightly on the ancient stone. Questions are floating to the surface of my mind, many of them, but the growing lump of tension in my stomach prevents me from asking them aloud. I can see a sliver of Arcadius’s profile from behind, lit by the sorcerous flame. His eyes are flinty, and I can tell by the way he’s set his jaw that his teeth are clenched. The sight of him like this makes the queasy feeling in my stomach stronger.

“If I may ask, your Majesty,” I eventually say. “Where are we going?”

“To collect a purchase.”

His free hand adjusts the band of the heavily laden pack strapped across his back. My eyes shift toward it, and I frown.

“We must be going a long ways. You look like you’ve packed for quite the journey,” I say.

My words put a stricken look on his face, but he says nothing.

The stairs take us, at last, down to the catacombs. These chambers have long since fallen into disuse, dust thick on the pitted walls and floors, cobwebs stretching across the doorways and low, flat ceilings. What little remaining furniture is ruined, worn down by the crushing weight of age. I take the lead again, a hand on the pommel of my sword. Monsters have a way of creeping into places like these, and an encounter with one would be a bit less pleasant than an awkward conversation with a palace guard. Lit by Arcadius’s magic torch, I lead us through room after room, watchful for any movement.

There’s something in the corner of this room. I stop in the doorway, hold a hand up for Arcadius to halt. He bumps into my back and splutters, but now that his light is closer I realize it’s just a stack of rotting hides. I give him a wry smile over my shoulder, and find him blushing and glaring up at me.

“Sorry,” I say, and we carry on.

The catacombs date back to the days when Ecea was a republic, and the palace was a building for all to use, rather than the exclusive abode of the Imperial family. There are storehouses down here, dungeons, torture chambers, a forge large enough to outfit a legion. The third Emperor, Gordian, had the catacombs emptied and sealed after his wife attempted to use them to escape his abuses. Arcadius told me that story. In the absence of an explanation for any of this, I can’t help but start to make connections.

Arcadius walks alongside me, guiding the way down a long, straight hallway. I want to ask him what this ‘purchase’ entails, who we’re meeting with, and why it’s being done in secret, but my discipline keeps the questions leashed for now. There is supposed to be a passage down here that opens out into a network of sea caves, and it should be simple enough to find by listening for the distant rhythm of the surf. The only trouble is that the catacombs span a few square miles, one section built a few centuries after another in whatever spot was convenient at the time, making navigation a confounding effort, especially in the dark. Hopefully he’s been studying a map of this place, there are plenty of them stacked on the table in his chambers. He seems to know where he’s going, which is a good sign. As good as I can hope for, anyways.

After a search that feels like it lasted hours, we reach a junction in the hallways. Before us stands an archway with no door, and on the other side of it the man-made walls become damp, craggy fissures in the living rock. The ground grows irregular as it slopes downward. Soon we are treading through cold, sandy slush. Then the roof of the cave rises, and widens, its mouth opening to the sea a dozen feet ahead of us. Arcadius’s light floods into the cave as we enter it, undulating across its rugged walls and ceilings like the water beneath them. We begin to wade through that water, finding it ankle-high at first. Light reflects on the little ripples we make with every step, turning them silvery.

A sense of foreboding clutches at me. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing. All I know is that I am alone with my ward, who happens to be one of the most important people in the world. The most important person in mine. Someone who would be dearly missed, should I fail in my duties. I vent a breath of frustration out of my nose, squeeze the handle of my sword, and let it go for now.

As we draw nearer to the mouth of the cave, the water deepens until we are soaked up to our knees. Arcadius has the hem of his cloak gathered in his arms as he treads forward. I don’t bother with my own. I follow him toward the slender crescent of sand at the cave’s edge, around a bend, and then we climb a few feet up the jagged rocks to a large, flat stone above the tide line. Now we are out under the night sky, and despite my mood I can’t help but pause for a moment and admire it.

The stars have taken their proper places, and they seem unusually playful tonight, shimmering, winking down at us. The moons are large and bright. Stretching out to our left is Ecea, the grandest city in the world. A thousand points of orange torchlight dotting out a grid of white concrete streets, fountains, public baths, amphitheaters, forums and marketplaces, homes great and small. An uncountable row of ships sit idle along the docks, many more drifting slowly through the dark water of the harbor, on their way to or from every corner of the empire. High above us, the palace looms over it all.

Arcadius banishes his magic lantern with a flick of the hand, then he takes a few slow steps across the rock, his back turned to me, and stops. He half-turns toward me, looking up at the palace. I don’t understand the expression on his face. A wave breaks against the rock we’re standing on, splashing our ankles.

And then my Prince hangs his head, teeth clenched, and his body begins to shake with sobs.

A sudden coldness grips me at my core. My mouth feels dry, and I realize it’s hanging open. I’m racing to find something to say, but nothing good comes. It would help if I knew what was wrong to begin with, but I don’t, and it twists the knife in my stomach just standing here watching him like this. I raise a hand out of my cloak to reach for him, not knowing what I am going to do until I do it.

I grab Arcadius’s arm and pull him in against me, hugging him tight around his middle. Aside from a faint squeak of alarm, he offers no resistance. He’s so light he’s practically weightless. His tears begin to soak my tunic, and when I look down at him I see his face between my breasts.

My mind races for answers to all this, but none come. It doesn't matter though. I have him. He's safe.

The spray of the waves keeps our feet wet, and our cloaks, and the rhythmic sound of it seems to soothe Arcadius, because his sobs subside after a while. Every now and then he sniffles a little. At some point he’s wrapped his arms around me, and I don’t mind it. It’s nice, actually. This isn’t the kind of service I was trained for, but at the moment I’m happy to be of service at all. When I feel like he’s recovered enough, I carefully separate myself from him, my hands on his shoulders. He’s a head shorter than me, so I have to look down to see his face.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” I say, my voice steady and soft. “But maybe it would be better if we went back to the palace.”

He looks up at me, and though his eyes are red and dry and his face is as pale as a sheet, he’s smiling. It’s the smile I remember. When he speaks his voice shakes, but there’s more life in it than I’ve heard in years.

“I’m never going back,” he says.