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The issue is thus: Archduke Maia Drazhar, son of Chenelo Zhasan and Varenechibel IV, has resided within the walls of the Corat’ Dav Arhos for a mere hour and a half, and they’ve already bloody lost him. Thever would laugh, except no one but her would find it funny and they’d likely berate her for it.
It was a shock in the first place that when the Avar had gone to petition Varenechibel for custody of Maia (rather than having him sent into relegation with some distant Drazhadeise relative he’d never met) Varenechibel had agreed — though maybe the Avar’s presence at Chenelo’s funeral had done some of the heavy lifting there. He hadn’t attended the wedding, for neither he nor any other Sevraseched relative had been invited, so perhaps the elves assumed they had not cared? Whatever the case, it’s often far easier to force issues in person, and maybe that’s what did it.
(Thever only wishes they’d forced it sooner. She tends to wish a great many things, and very rarely does anything come of it.)
So, after some negotiations (which Shaleän insists were excruciating), Maia was sent to Barizhan on Shaleän’s ship while the Avar followed behind, electing to make the journey home entirely by carriage. Thever will have some choice words to say to him once he arrives back, because how is there sense in sending a little boy you’ve recently come into the care of, off with another stranger you claim he’s related to, while you take the scenic route by yourself? As if the poor boy needs any more instability.
(One of the many reasons why Thever never travels. Imagine what would happen if Father did that to her! With that in mind, honestly Maia bore it startlingly well.)
By the time Shaleän arrived, she was carrying the boy, so deeply asleep that he didn’t rouse even when Shaleän laughed far too loud at the mean half-joke Thever made while greeting her. They quickly arranged rooms for him and assigned one of Thever’s ladies to watch him while everyone debriefed, but not long after she’d burst in, frantic, saying he’d disappeared.
Now, everyone’s running around trying to find him, servants, ladies, Thever herself. Shaleän seemed only amused by this development, which is just typical.
Thever’s had far too much on her plate as it is. News of Chenelo’s death reached them as quickly as it could, given the distance between Pelanra and Isvaroë, and had immediately sent her into a spiral no one could retrieve her from. It’s been a fortnight now, knowing of her death and waiting for news of her son, then being shocked by Varenechibel’s apparent apathy on the placement of his son, at the same time as feeling relief that finally she will have real, tactile proof that her nephew is alive and well.
And now this.
Her hands are shaking even as she wrings them, and she keeps thinking her veil is someone walking far too closely behind her, but she cannot retire to her rooms with Maia missing, she just can’t. What if he falls into one of the underground rivers and drowns? He doesn’t know how to swim! He’d told Shaleän that himself! What if he trips down a steep staircase and breaks his neck?
What if he’s hurt somewhere, and Thever’s sitting alone in her rooms, waiting for news and scratching at her arms, doing absolutely nothing to help him? Well, then they’d both be solitary and injured wouldn’t they? Matchy-matchy, as Shaleän would put it.
It is then that she finds the door to an old ballroom ajar and cranes her neck to peek inside. It’s used mostly for storage these days, but boasts a concealed minstrel’s gallery that is one of her preferred hiding spots, and so she finds it a little amusing when she spots a little half-goblin boy peering around the room, as if he knew somehow this place would shelter him.
The boy is too small. Even taking into account his elvish blood, an eight year old should stand taller and have more meat on his bones than Maia does. Likely he's not been fed as well as he ought to have been; likely he's been too grieved to eat, lately.
Thever certainly knows the feeling.
His strange grey eyes are red rimmed, but don't blink much, and he stares around him with such intense interest that his general air of withdrawn caution cannot entirely smother it. His ears keep lifting slightly from their pinned back places against the sides of his head, and his hands fidget even as he tries to hold them still, fingers gripped awkwardly between fingers in front of him. He's trying to stay polite and not touch things that don’t belong to him, she recognises the taught behaviours.
Thever doesn't have very much experience with children — besides Ursu's little girl, who she never got to hold as a baby, was only shown to her on a handful of occasions until she could crawl reliably — but Maia isn't just any child, and she's resolute in her goal of providing for him, now that Chenelo cannot.
It does not take particularly long for Maia to notice her standing in the doorway watching him, which she approves of as much as it concerns her. He should be far too young to be so cautious; one would think he's taking after Thever without ever having met her. She supposes that ought to be fixed as well.
"How now, boy," she greets in Ethuverazhin, voice lower than she'd usually pitch it, in deference to his flighty air and their lack of familiarity with each other. Thever crosses from the doorway she's been standing in and stops just short of him, dropping into a brief curtsy, just to see what he makes of it. He was raised in relegation by a mistreated young lady of great social stature, so what was he taught? What instincts has he, now dropped into the Barizheise court?
Maia, thankfully, responds with an equally short bow, ears back but raised slightly with a curiosity his averted eyes fail to convey. "Avar'min," he says politely, softly, his Barizhan accent perfect despite the hesitation at his mouth.
Thever narrows her eyes. Shaleän said he spoke no Barizhin, but seemed to understand basic words, enough to follow introductory sentences, answer yes or no should he need to. Thever thankfully did not neglect her Ethuverazhin lessons as a girl and can carry a conversation in it quite well, should she ever need to.
Well. If there was ever quite the need.
"Who hast set thee about?" she asks him next, allowing her accent to twang on the elven words and wilfully ignoring the fact that she ought to introduce herself to the nephew she fought so hard to take in.
Maia blinks his strange eyes, hands still clasped in front of him. "Not set about, Avar'min," he tells her, still uncertain. He does not seem to heed the informality she speaks with, which is disappointing. "We were curious of our surroundings, and got lost."
"Ah," Thever nods, "tis a maze at the best of times, even when thou art not the size of the cats on thy family’s livery."
He flushes and his grey skin darkens as Chenelo's did, up his neck and at his ears, missing his face completely. Abruptly, Thever feels less confident in her abilities to conduct a proper introduction with her nephew, because grief and guilt seek to swallow her whole once more at the reminder.
"Avar'min," the boy says again, this time with worry surpassing hesitancy in his tone, and Thever focuses her gaze on his own again. He has taken a step towards her and does not look frightened, as she expected, but merely worried. "Thou lookest faint."
"My nerves, pet, just my nerves." It warms her slightly, that he would worry for someone he's just met, but he must not have had much company, confined as he was with at Isvaroë, no one for company but Chenelo and a reportedly impersonal staff. Personally, Thever thinks if she were towed about so many new places this quickly after so long in confinement, she'd throw the largest fit of her life and shut herself in her rooms for a month to ‘cool off’. Given this, Maia's doing stunningly. "Well, we ought to deal with pleasantries, yes?" We, plural, of course. She’ll speak to him in Ethuverazhin when she must, but she won’t defer to him as an Archduke, Varenechibel’s son. He will always be Chenelo’s son to her.
He steps back and nods politely.
"I am Thever Sevraseched, eldest daughter of the Great Avar, thy grandfather, older sister of Chenelo, thy mother, making me thy aunt."
Maia seems to take this in stride, only the barest flinch at the mention of his mother, a slight lowering of his ears. "I am very pleased, Avar'min."
"Auntie is preferable."
He bites his lip. "Auntie, then."
Thever nods, pleased.
"I confess I’m confused," he says next, looking puzzled.
"How is that?"
"Captain Sevraseched–" Thever rolls her eyes at the title Shaleän has no claim to leaving his mouth "–told me she was grandfather's eldest daughter."
"Shaleän lies about a lot of things," Thever says, a little testily, and seeing him droop a little, reins herself in a little. "Aye, pet, she is the eldest, but I am the first legitimate daughter. Gives me some greater standing, and a more certain claim in the dav."
"I see," says the boy, brow narrowed with thought.
"Thou likest Shaleän?" she asks next, unsure if the question is driven by envy or genuine curiosity, uncaring of the reason.
Maia seems to brighten a little, and nods, "Very much. I have never been at sea before, and she ensured we were not thrown overboard a great many times. We admit we were not quite as mindful as we could have been..."
Thever is sure she understands. Isvaroë is not any closer to the coast than Cetho is, so why would he have any caution around the water?
"And…she was kind to me." He frowns deeply after saying this, as if all-too-aware that this is a concerning thing to say. "I mean to say, the elves were courteous, of course, but Captain Sevraseched seemed to enjoy my company and was very funny."
"She is rather over-friendly," Thever says, "since she rarely finds such enthusiasm but from other sailors. Tis good she was so with thee. Thou oughtst to know of such a thing, and tis our shame we weren’t permitted to meet thee sooner.”
He seems bolstered by this, though almost immediately it turns to apprehension once more as he asks, "She hast not left already?”
“I would not know,” Thever says, raising an eyebrow, “for everyone is off looking for thee."
Maia looks suitably cowed by this. “I will endeavour to ask next time, only I did not recognise the lady in the rooms I woke in.”
“T’was only Mero, one of my waiting ladies. We did not expect thee to rouse so soon, or we would have been nearby as well.” Thever crosses to a side table with a cloth over it and perches on the edge of it. “Shaleän would not leave without a farewell. She likes her entrances and exits to match in grandness, and t’would be a shame not to have thy well wishes before she sets sail again. Besides, I assume she must wait for Father to arrive before she might take her leave.”
"She did promise to visit,” Maia says, “though she did not say when."
"Doubtless she even knows, pet, but such is a life at sea — or so I’m told."
"Seems very exciting."
"It likely is,” Thever comments mildly. She certainly wouldn’t know, but she can’t allow her petty loathings to sneak in, so she changes the subject. “Tell me, how didst thou manage to slip away? Mero has a keen eye, so I admit thou hast impressed me somewhat."
Maia shrugs now. "Twas not so very difficult. I would not have been away so long to attract notice, but I don’t recall arriving and got turned around quickly.”
“Thou wert asleep when Shaleän delivered thee here.”
He nods in understanding, “I have some practice at avoiding notice should I wish’t." Another concerning statement. "And I was hoping to find a chapel. Grandfather mentioned one when he told me of the Corat’ Dav Arhos."
A chapel? But of course. It hits Thever like the first time, that Chenelo is dead, not just very far away and barred from even a missive reaching her. If Maia is anything like her, of course he'd want a chapel. Ashevezhkho knows the elves would not have given him the courtesy of praying the way Chenelo is bound to have taught him.
Thever musters up some reserves of her strength and says, "I can show thee to it, before we return thee from whence thou camest."
"Oh, would thee?" he asks, grey eyes sparkling, like no one's ever promised him something so marvellous. She wants to rip out her hair from the root; she wants to bundle him into her arms and squeeze him until he pops.
Thever nods, face grim. "Aye. Tis of great importance, I think."
Maia adopts her expression and nods back. She does not flinch when he takes her hand and does not yank him about by it the way she sometimes does with her ladies and Kelru, when the situation allows. The contact is grounding, if a bit agitating, and she releases the boy once they reach the coast-chapel, flooded to Thever's knees at high tide, and Maia's hips, poor thing. She decides his laundry is someone else’s problem, not hers, and trails after him to the altar, where he clumsily lights a candle and begins a prayer that sounds well practiced. It fractures as he rambles on to praying for his mother's rest, that Ulis will hold her fast and look after her, that Ashevezhkho will not forget her devotee.
Thever takes a seat on a nearby bench, legs suddenly too wobbly to support her, the water chilly where it swirls about them. Perhaps it was not very wise to bring him here now, at high tide and in the chill of the early evening. Perhaps she should have promised him a visit in the morning — but then, what if she had a nervous turn in the morning and could not take him? What precedent does that set? She did not want him with the elves, for the elves damn near didn't want him in the first place, did not want his mother, Thever's sister, poor Chenelo, set aside and misused and gone now, all gone. They didn't want him, were content to set him back aside, send him away, further still from Barizhan, and would have likely continued to deny him any correspondence. But Thever wanted him, wants him still, wants any scrap of Chenelo remaining, wants him treated well. Can she treat him well? Ursu never let her hold Elthevo as a baby, and the scant few children in the Corat’ Dav Arhos know better than to approach her at the few formal events she attends, so what does she know of rearing children? What can she give Maia, really, that he could not get elsewhere much easier?
She does not hear his choked sobs cut off, nor the candle being snuffed out, nor his sloshing approach, but she startles slightly at feeling him slide up against her on the bench, his head resting on her bicep, the whole of his side pressed to hers. He sniffs slightly, and Thever forces herself to relax as much as she can, uncomfortable but refusing to deny him comfort when he seeks it, for what if he takes her discomfort for an inability to sympathise? What if he never comes to her again?
"Our mother," he says haltingly, falling into a jumble of formal and informal language, the way many children do, "she never got any letters. Didst thou not write her?"
According to Shaleän, he’d asked a similar question of Maru’var upon their first meeting, after Varenechibel agreed to Maia’s release, of course. Apparently it had been far more pointed, though, as if Maia blamed a lack of correspondence from the Great Avar for Chenelo’s death.
"I did," Thever tells him, though she wants to scream, really. "Every day, when first she left. Only, they could not be delivered."
"Oh," Maia says, and sniffs again. "Didst miss her very much?"
"Aye, like losing an arm."
He nods, hair rustling against her sleeve. "I miss her terribly," he states, voice thick. "I…I thought she would..."
When the boy starts crying again, it takes every bit of her strength not to join him. Thever thinks perhaps she'd never stop if she cried now, and she'd scare him senseless with it, no doubt. Her fits can be frightening for those around her, and while she usually wouldn’t care, Maia has become an exception. She supposes he will supply her a reason to behave, for that’s how the avarsin will see it.
Thever fists the fabric of her skirt in her hands and allows Maia to cry against her arm, dampening her sleeve, great heaving sobs wracking his too-small frame. The waves outside the chapel lap at the walls quietly, moving the water about them, swirling at her calves and his feet, poking out over the edge of the bench.
How long they sit there, Thever is unsure. Time escapes her, as it does sometimes when she is swallowed by stress. Maia cries himself into a fitful doze, arms wrapped around her elbow. The touch makes her want to scratch him away, but she restrains herself, settling for scratching at her own thigh through her skirt. Shaleän appears at the doorway of the coast-chapel at some point after the sun has long dipped past the horizon and the sky is no longer blue. She doesn't comment at all on finding them together, nor Maia's tear stained face, though her own face is uncharacteristically sombre. She wades in, unbothered as always by the low temperature of the water, and carefully extracts Maia from Thever's arm, holding him carefully up against her shoulder as though he weighed no more than a suncat. Perhaps he doesn't.
Thever refuses the hand Shaleän extends to help her up and tramps ahead of her back to the quarters Maia's been assigned. A few servants mill about, helpfully discarding of Maia’s soggy clothes and supplying new ones, braiding his hair for bed, offering to fetch Thever and Shaleän dry clothes of their own, but at that point, Thever just dismisses them, and watches the faint outline of Maia’s body in the dark move with breath, standing in the doorway again.
“Bit of a handful,” Shaleän murmurs, leaning against a nearby windowsill. “Can’t recall if Chenelo was ever so troublesome.”
“Thou wouldst not know,” Thever replies tightly, keeping her voice low.
“Aye, I wouldn’t,” she agrees. “Thou art not his sole guardian, thou knowest. Canst not blame thyself when he goes wandering. Best thou canst do is teach him where everything is.”
Thever neglects to answer, but Shaleän doesn’t take it badly, because she knows better.
Ursu is there when the first letter from the Ethuveraz arrives. It’s breakfast and there’s a few of them gathered in Thever’s quarters. Thever herself is banging around on her loom, ignoring Handsome Kelru — who’d obviously slept here overnight, though no one comments on it — as he attempts at having her eat; Maia is alternating between staggering through his own meal (still a chore six months on from his arrival at the Corat’ Dav Arhos, but one he makes game attempts at each time, nonetheless) and making faces at his three year-old cousin Elthevo, sitting on Ursu’s other side. He’d started out quite shyly, but has been gaining confidence as Elthevo claps her hands and giggles at every pair of puffed up cheeks, crossed eyes, and stuck out tongues. Ursu herself is a little amused, but tries not to show it, hoping he will be as attentive in another seven months when her next sprog comes along, not that she’s telling anyone, yet.
In any case, it’s a mild morning, fog refusing to lift from the docks of the Pelanra quite yet, when there’s a knock at the door. Handsome Kelru sets aside the plate he’s been nibbling off of and offering to Thever, and crosses the room to greet whoever’s on the other side, either not cognizant of the stir he’ll cause by answering Thever’s door in her stead, or uncaring of it. He receives a letter, gives a quick bow to the messenger, and returns to the room proper with a slightly bewildered expression.
“Are the dav runners really so used to thee receiving Thever’s mail on her behalf, Erizmed?” Ursu heckles, raising an eyebrow.
“He likes to be helpful,” Thever interjects without looking up.
“Tis not addressed to Thever,” Kelru responds, still looking a little bemused.
“Yet still they delivered it here,” Ursu muses.
“Tis addressed to Maia.”
The room falls silent, even Elthevo and Thever’s loom, both famously prone to ignoring social cues such as these, though Elthevo’s excuse is given more grace than Thever’s is.
Maia sets down his cutlery and gazes up at Handsome Kelru with no little worry in his face. It makes Ursu feel heartsick that, even after six months in their dav, he still clearly worries often about being whisked away again. She supposes his life is a history of reasons he might never feel settled anywhere.
“Tis addressed to me?” he says, voice trembling a little.
“Indeed.”
“But who would write to me? I have met few outside the dav, and none who would write.”
Kelru seems to examine the seal, and replies, “Tis from the Untheileneise Court.”
Ursu casts a glance at Thever, whose expression has grown very pinched, her eyes very wide, and then looks back at her nephew, who has shrunk back in his chair like Kelru’s just told him the letter has teeth. Surely they would not write demanding his return and address it to him? Surely a demand like that would go to the Avar first. Then again, Varenechibel has already shown very little regard when it comes to the treatment of his youngest son, and Ursu expects it would not be beyond him in the slightest to do something so cruel.
Mutely, Maia accepts the letter from Kelru, and Ursu (conscious of how many gazes are already on him) watches from the corner of her eye as he examines the signet design pressed into the wax seal before carefully prying it open. Surprisingly, it isn’t the Drazhada cat, its paw set on a crown which she knows to be Varenechibel’s seal. Rather it depicts a cat looking straight on, half of its face obscured by a second cat, facing side on. Together, it makes up one full face, two eyes present, but gives an eerie effect.
Maia smooths out the letter on the table beside his plate, and with the kind of intense focus only a child can affect, hunches slightly over it and reads. Ursu glances at her sister at one point, but Thever has eyes only for Maia, fingers twisted in the sleeve of Kelru’s doublet, restless and whispering to him occasionally. Elthevo makes an inquiring sound, apparently bereft now that Maia’s attention is elsewhere, so Ursu urges the last of her breakfast into her mouth and sets about cleaning her face and hands up.
By the time she’s satisfied, Maia is folding the letter back up, looking much less grave, expression now only a mix of surprise and puzzlement.
“Forgive me for prying,” Ursu says to him, “but is’t urgent? Have they decided to recall thee?”
“No, nothing like that, auntie,” he replies, and Ursu hears rather than sees Thever slump in relief. “T’was merely my half-brother, Prince Nemolis, reaching out to inquire on my health,” Maia continues, and something resembling a smile begins to play at his lips. “He says they were forbidden from writing to us while we resided at Isvaroë, but now that I am no longer relegated, and enough time has passed that our father has turned his gaze from the matter, he says he should like to know me better, and know I am being treated well by my mother’s family.”
Thever scoffs, “Impertinent boy.”
“Tis very good of him,” Ursu says over her, rolling her eyes where Maia can’t see at Thever’s behaviour. Honestly, Maia’s manners are spotless, so it’s good if she sometimes overrides Thever’s mulish behaviour, lest he start to emulate her too closely. “And smart to make peace with thee, an he is to inherit the throne.”
“Aye,” Thever agrees. “T’would not do allowing any resentment to fester; last thing the lout needs is an inherited grudge war.”
“Thever, he is a prince, not a lout.”
“An he were not a lout, he might have written far sooner, thinkest thou?”
“I should like to write him back,” Maia pipes up over their bickering.
“Very good,” Handsome Kelru agrees, and, pressing Thever’s hand briefly, he gets back to his feet in search of writing equipment. He returns with a sheaf of paper and a well-abused pen. “Brought thee a few pieces, so thou mightst have some room to draft, and be satisfied with thy penmanship.”
It’s a stunningly clever move, and Thever smiles very smugly, as though she can take credit for Kelru’s foresight. “Thank you, Dach’osmer Erizmed,” Maia says, bowing his head a little.
Ursu stifles a snort; really, he’s done nothing wrong by being formal, since Kelru isn’t openly courting Thever (though they certainly haven’t attempted much subtlety), but Kelru’s always so put out by it, clearly hoping for the same familiarity Maia affords his aunts. To that end, Ursu has no pity for him. If the two of them would get their acts together and marry already, it could be water under the bridge.
“Mightn’t we clear off the table?” Ursu suggests, cleaning up her own plate to be carried away and stacking Elthevo’s on top of it. “I think breakfast and correspondence ought to be their own activities.”
Maia nods in agreement and helps her clean up to the best of his ability. His cheeks have filled out some and his hands shake less, but he’s still a small, skinny thing, yet to earn a growth spurt of any kind, so there’s only so much he can do. Ursu likes the help anyway.
Living in the Corat’ Dav Arhos is much different from Isvaroë, in almost every conceivable way. He’s never for want of company or activities; he’s permitted to roam as he likes, so long as he takes a chaperone and doesn’t get into any trouble; and in the times he needs to be left alone, he can find privacy and solitude in either his chambers or the coast-chapel, the lapping salt water calming, as it had been that first night Thever had shown it to him.
She champions Maia’s every request and flights of fancy, and all his other aunts do the same, to the best of their abilities. Obviously, some of them are often away from the dav — Holitho has her votary duties, and Shaleän is rarely in Pelanra, and letters can take up to a fortnight to find her, depending on where the Glorious Dragon is making port — but Thever, Ursu, and Nadeian all do their level best to provide for him, if not dote on him.
He has a tutor, one who teaches him Barizhin so they don't all have to keep speaking like elves, along with catch-up work for all the education that hadn't been provided at Isvaroë. His aunts pick up more than a few subjects for him as well; Nadeian teaches him about politics, dancing, and court etiquette; Shaleän, when she's around, teaches him to swim, the basics of sailing, and can be prevailed upon to gab about naval history. Once she even takes him on a short trip to Solunee, and though he comes back sunburnt and with a gash down his left arm from getting caught on some rocks while swimming, he can’t recall ever being so happy. Thever watches over his writing and spelling practice, and even though her own handwriting is terrible due to her tremors, he takes any advice she gives him in stride. Additionally, she teaches him how to use her loom, claiming he ought to find something to occupy his hands. Ursu, who has two children of her own, doesn't have much time to help supplement aspects of his education, but regularly brings his cousins to visit which handily covers the scarcity of interaction with children even vaguely around his age.
The Avar is watchful of him, but indulgent, and Ursu assures Maia that he’s the same with her daughters. The only difference is that the Avar does not goad Elthevo and Laru into speaking about their interests with him by making nonchalant jabs that could be perceived as criticisms. He’s assured that the man means nothing of it, that he only wants to see Maia defending himself and the things he values, the things he’s passionate about. Thou knowest well enough that Father enjoys a little audacity, as no one will step to him nowadays, Nadeian tells him once. Confidence and follow-though are far more interesting than false modesty, anyway.
Maia continues his correspondence with Prince Nemolis, much to Thever’s feigned chagrin. Occasionally, he also exchanges letters with some of his other half-siblings, and once also with Nemolis’s own son, only four years younger than Maia. His father, the Emperor, never writes, but Maia doesn’t mind, and actually finds he prefers it that way. He wouldn’t know what to say to the man, in the same way he had not known at his mother’s funeral.
He does not think he would like to be under his gaze again, and so it comes as something of a relief that he’s not summoned to court to present himself when he turns sixteen. There isn’t even so much as a letter to acknowledge him coming of age; everyone else is of course suitably outraged on his behalf, but Maia cannot find it in himself to be offended. Varenechibel has shown no interest in him, bar a singular comment at Chenelo’s funeral, and if that’s any indication, Maia’s perfectly happy to continue on without any further influence from his father.
He grows taller, though not quite as tall as Shaleän or the Avar, and Ursu comments that likely it’s a result of food insecurity when he was young.
“We were never starved,” Maia protests, using the plural we, speaking on his mother’s behalf. “We always had something to eat.”
Ursu makes a face, one he knows well and tries not to disdain, of understanding and sympathy. “Of course, but they were not full meals, were they? Never of the greatest quality, vegetables about to go bad, no? Does not mean thou didst not eat, just that it wasn’t quite what was needed, thou seest?”
Despite this, he manages to put on enough weight later on that his bones don’t stand out too obviously from his skin. He doesn’t think he’ll ever reach the kind of mass his grandfather has, nor be as brawny as a Hezhethora soldier, but he’s uninterested in either option anyway.
In fact, it’s only at fourteen that he admits to wanting to do something that isn’t hovering about the dav for the rest of his days. Thever and Handsome Kelru are finally married, and Holitho takes some leave from her duties to be present for the occasion. In the early morning following the marriage celebrations, neither having slept, he finds himself sitting to the side with his aunt in the Corat’theziar, watching the remaining relatives and guests stagger drunkenly through dances, and Maia leans slightly into her side.
“I might like to be a votary,” he says and Holitho chortles, not unkindly.
“Wouldst thou?” she needles, twisting her finger around a lock of his hair that’s fallen loose from the hairdo Nadeian painstakingly put it up in. “Surely not of Ashevezhkho.”
“No, no,” Maia agrees, smiling, “thou hast squared the lady of the tides away most handily; I couldn’t hope to outdo thee.”
“Flatterer.”
“No, I meant my patroness, Cstheio.”
She leans her head against his briefly, and sighs out in a dreamy tone, “Wouldst be cloistered away in an observatory, dedicated to star gazing? How romantic.”
Maia rolls his eyes and pushes her gently off of him. “Thou makest it sound silly.”
“I only meant to tease thee, Maia.”
“I know.”
“Thou hast a good heart. Mustn’t let anyone take advantage of that, not even thy aunties thou lovest so very much.” Holitho punctuates this by skulling the remains of her beverage and placing the empty glass on the floor by her foot. “Chin up. Is’t what thy wants?”
“I don’t see why not,” he shrugs. “I don’t have a role to fulfill, and I’m perhaps more pious than even thee.”
She gasps in faux-shock, a hand to her heart, “Well! See if I pluck thee from the waves if thou art drowning, then!”
“Auntie Holitho…”
“Of course, I am kidding,” Holitho says, waving a hand to dismiss any lingering guilt, real or not, from his mind. “And what’s this about not having a role? Thou art an Archduke!”
“Aye, and his fourth son, to boot. Who needs a fourth son?”
“Or indeed a fifth daughter,” she intones with a sigh.
“Thou dost sympathise,” he says, patting her hand. “Nemolis shall have it well in hand, when Varenechibel goes, and Nemolis’s son is only four years my junior, so they are well accounted for.”
“Maybe so. But thou dost forget thy mother’s family! Thou art the Grand Avar’s only male relative. He might name thee heir.”
“He won’t,” Maia says immediately, and at her raised brow, continues, “He shouldn’t. I don’t want to be Great Avar — and besides, Auntie Shaleän would do far better than I ever could.”
Wisely, she lowers her voice, “Aye, but Shaleän is a woman, illegitimate, and a pirate.”
“Auntie Shaleän wants it,” he presses. “I think want plays a far larger role in the whole business than anyone makes out.”
“So thou plans to support her?”
“Thou dost not?”
A pause as they assess each other, joking disappearing from the air around them. No one still present in the Corat’theziar takes any notice of them or their conversation, either too inebriated or unobservant to care.
Eventually, Holitho says, “I plan to be very far away whensoever it occurs, so it’s really none of my business.”
“I would disagree, but I imagine t’would not stop thee.”
She examines him with her sharp, calculating eyes, and softens. She pulls him into her arms and urges him to lay his forehead on her shoulder, smoothing his hair with her palm. “Ah, pet. They would smother thee either way. If thou needst permission to go, or someone’s blessing, thou hast mine. Go to a monastery of Cstheio, if that is what thy heart says. I shan’t stop thee, and it would grieve Thever ever so much to deny thee anything. Should not have to play catch up on the freedoms thou wast owed as a child, but thou hast the opportunity now, aye?”
It’s a good notion, but many people argue against Maia dedicating himself to Cstheio. It would require permission they’d never get from the Untheileneise Court, and besides he’d have to take a vow of silence and never get leave to visit, as Holitho does. Votaries of Ashevezhkho have more lenient oaths, given their duties, so the precedent set by Holitho is an outlier to the rule.
Instead, he’s granted time to visit monasteries and study at each as he wishes. It’s not the same, but it’s as close as he’s going to get, and Maia tries to be grateful that they allowed him this, that they took his wants into account and tried to provide for them, despite restrictions. It just serves to remind him how little choice he truly has, even this far from the Ethuveraz.
Besides, surely he’d miss them all, wouldn’t he? He knows he would, and feels selfish for wanting two opposing things at once.
It comes to a head two years on from that discussion with Holitho, only four months shy of his nineteenth birthday, when he is roused in the late night by pounding at his chamber doors. Maia stumbles upright and yanks a robe on over his nightshirt, hurrying to the door.
“Auntie,” he says, worried, finding Thever in the corridor outside, erratic in her nightgown and robe. “What’s toward?”
“Thou must come,” she says, a panic in her face unlike anything he’s seen before. “A messenger from the Ethuveraz is here for thee, waiting in the War Closet.”
“From the Ethuveraz?” Maia repeats, shocked. “For me?”
“We know nothing of’t, but that we were already awake and saw him arrive. Father sent us to fetch thee. Quickly now.”
Arriving at the War Closet, Thever shoos Maia ahead of her, and enters behind him, closing the door. The elven messenger looks over at the same time as the GreatAvar, who says, “Thank thee, Thever. Get thee back to bed.”
“We’d like her to stay, please,” Maia replies, and feels her nails dig in as she closes her hand around his wrist. He doesn’t wince; he finds it grounding.
His grandfather watches him carefully for a moment and then nods, just the once, “Very well.”
“Good sir,” Maia says, turning to address the messenger. “Thou art from the Ethuveraz?”
“Indeed. Are you the Archduke Maia Drazhar, only child of Varenechibel the Fourth and Chenelo Drazharan?”
He does not flinch at his mother’s name anymore, especially since everyone in the Corat’ Dav Arhos had been fond of her, and all have had stories to tell, but hearing it in conjunction to his father’s name creates a lump in his throat. Despite this, he still manages to respond, “The same.”
The messenger prostrates himself at Maia’s feet, calling him Your Imperial Serenity, and all remaining sense seems to fly out the nearest window.
As a general rule, Nadeian avoids being in Thever's presence if she can help it. When she can't, it's just more fuel on a fire she can't remember lighting but is too invested to put out. She imagines putting it out would be something of an impossible task anyway. Thever’s dislike for her, and hers for Thever in return, is too long-standing, and their rivalry gives her something to focus on when days are slow.
She cannot, however, very well avoid her when Thever sends a page boy to summon her in the middle of the night, claiming urgency. And if Thever specifically — who cannot stand her — is summoning her, it must be urgent.
So Nadeian goes, and apparently she was somewhat of a late addition or an afterthought, because when she arrives at Thever’s quarters, Ursu is already there. She must have run here from her house in Urvekh', clothes hastily donned, hair askew, ears and neck bare of jewellery. The two of them hush when Nadeian comes in, but both are clearly agitated. Kelru is conspicuously absent.
"How now, sisters?" Nadeian says, cautious and irritated to be roused from her bed, even if it truly is a grave matter. "Tis a very late hour, thou knowest, but thy message claimed urgency."
"Tis Maia," Thever bites out, and hunches over the table, shoulders shaking. Ursu covers Thever's hand with one of her own.
"What of Maia?" Nadeian says, her nastier façade dropping at the mention of her nephew. "Ursu, explain."
"A message from the Ethuveraz arrived,” Ursu says carefully, a small tremor in her voice that would go unnoticed by those who didn’t know her. “Varenechibel and his eldest sons have perished in an airship crash, making Maia heir apparent. I’m given to understand the message from the Lord Chancellor detailed mainly funeral arrangements, but he said he was at Maia’s disposal for however he wished to proceed."
Nadeian instantly understands Thever's outburst. She feels useless, but also like if they'd left her asleep she'd have never forgiven them.
"And is he going to them?” she presses urgently. “Is he going to be their Emperor?"
"He said he needed time to think."
"Will Father allow him to go?"
"Maia is of age, and never denounced the small claim he previously had to the throne. Father has no power to intervene should Maia choose to be crowned.”
Nadeian ponders this, horrified. If Maia goes and ascends the throne, he might never again grace these halls. He’d take a new name and never be let alone by those loathsome guards elven Emperors keep about them; he’d have to take a wife very quickly, to ensure an heir of his own, and so likely his bride would be a perfect stranger to him, from an unfamiliar court, and his candidates would be rich with ambitious girls and their scheming parents. He would be pulled this way and that by any searching hand with any degree of noble standing, mocked for his appearance, mocked for his mother’s perceived faults and the perceived faults of her extended family, and even if he weathered all of that, what if someone took offence to his ascension to the throne and decided to have him killed just for being there at all?
It’s too terrible to dwell on.
On the other hand, if he abdicates, he will return to the Corat’ Dav Arhos in disgrace, and sentence a boy only a little younger than himself to the duty of ruling, and Anmura knows the gruesome repeated history of boy-Emperors.
Almost instantly, Nadeian knows it is no choice at all, not for Maia. They’d tried very hard in the last decade to teach him some modicum of self-preservation, to drill into his lovely, compassionate head that he oughtn’t throw himself into danger just because he sees someone reaching out for help. It’s never quite gone through, so Nadeian knows nigh instantaneously that Maia will go to the elves and be their Emperor and weather it all, simply because he won’t let his younger nephew go through it in his place.
She feels, abruptly, quite ill, and staggers to the nearest window to empty her stomach.
“Aye,” rasps Thever from across the room as Nadeian gags on stomach bile, “in that we are agreed.”
“We cannot send him to them alone,” Nadeian says once she’s recovered herself, wiping her mouth with the cuff of her robe’s sleeve. “Isolation was their greatest weapon against Chenelo, and we cannot allow them to use it against Maia, not again.”
“Quite,” Thever agrees thinly, “but Father will not allow me to accompany him, of that I am certain.”
It’s no question of Ursu or Holitho going in her stead; they both have their own responsibilities keeping them in place. Nadeian knows it falls to her, even as it pains them both, therefore she tries to broach it carefully:
"I know thou likest me not, and I own that I am to blame for some of that, but for Maia? Thever, sister, we are aligned in our wishes for him."
Thever rolls her eyes, but it does not deter Nadeian in the slightest.
"Let me fetch Elret, and we will petition Father to let us and a few Hezhethoreise men accompany Maia to the Ethuveraz. Wilt be thy eyes and thy ears, and protect him as best we are able. I know it is paltry, but tis a better plan than demanding to accompany him thyself, which thou knowest Father would never allow."
"It would only make me hate thee more," Thever snaps, little true venom in her tone.
"But then thou wouldst not have to see me," Nadeian retorts, regaining a little of her usual mean teasing.
"I promised to protect him," Thever says next, swaying into misery again.
"And thou hast," Ursu cuts in, trying to be soothing.
"Not enough, I now see. I thought I couldst never hate Varenechibel more than I did for what Chenelo went through. I expected to celebrate his death. How is it I hate him all the more for dying? How could he ruin even that?"
"Csaivo knows," Nadeian intones, lowly.
Thever says sharply, "Spare me."
She rolls her eyes at Thever’s aggression, "I really shall not miss thee."
Ursu makes a long-suffering face at Nadeian, as if to say must thou really bait her right now?
"Talkest not as if thou already hast leave to go," Thever moans, and then sags against Ursu's shoulder like the strength to stand up straight has all gone out of her. Ursu, well practiced, catches her just above the elbows. "Oh, fine," Thever says, brittle, "go entreat him if thou feelst that thou must, but don't act as though thou art doing me some great favour."
"Sweet talker," Nadeian tuts, glad to pretend at rivalry when her heart still feels sick with dread. She turns and leaves without another word, striding quickly back up the halls to find her husband who's lucky enough to be sleeping through this bullshit, so she might then drag him into it.
The Avar agrees to Nadeian’s proposal, with the understanding that the Hezhethora will be at Maia’s command and not hers or Elret’s, so there’s already some semblance of a plan when Maia emerges from his chambers, pale and drawn. In the War Closet, where everyone’s gathered in tense little groups, he announces he will not only travel to Cetho, despite the impossibility of arriving in time to attend the funeral, but will also ascend the throne.
Maia thinks of his mother, how she had quietly disdained the court, how she had clearly never wished for him to be there, even though it would have been the only destination (bar further relegation) afforded to him if he were ever permitted to leave Isvaroë. He thinks of her and feels heavy.
The Untheileneise messenger, one Csevet Aisava, turns out to be a courier from the Lord Chancellor’s office who volunteered to run the message into Barizhan himself, rather than allowing it to go through slower, more official channels.
“If your Serenity wishes,” Aisava says, once Maia’s intentions are made clear, “we can go ahead to the border with a message of your imminent arrival, and arrange transport to the Ethuveraz for when you join us.”
“We would appreciate it,” Maia agrees, finding himself charmed by the man, though instinctively he knows he shouldn’t be. “And, if you could, perhaps try to stall things a bit? We don’t know the Lord Chancellor, so we cannot judge his character for ourself, but we cannot possibly attend the funeral if the service is not delayed.”
Aisava bows his head, “Indeed, Serenity.”
“We did not know our father and brothers well,” Maia says to him, trying to be diplomatic in his word choice. “And we should not wish to dishonour them with our absence. Furthermore, we intend to ascend the throne, and it looks badly on us to not observe the passing of our predecessor. We hope the Lord Chancellor will understand and aid us in this.” There was no mention of plans for a coronation in Uleris Chavar’s message, and it indicates a level of disrespect Maia cannot ignore that the Lord Chancellor might assume he would abdicate. If that’s truly the case, he wants to prove him wrong.
For the first time since their meeting in the War Closet, Aisava smiles, and he looks quite pleased by what Maia has said. “Consider it done, Serenity. Thank you for your faith in us. We will see you at the border.”
Preparations for his departure speed by from there.
Maia packs the few essentials he can carry easily on horseback and then by airship (much to the Avar’s smouldering chagrin), with instructions for the more frivolous of his belongings to be sent along later, in the daylight hours, and the whole while he tries not to think on the future he’d foolishly believed he could have. Studying at monasteries and making his own offerings to Cstheio; attending the opera, which he loves despite the simulated violence, with Nadeian and her ladies; visiting Ursu and his cousins in the Urvekh'; helping Thever choose a design for whatever she weaves next; taking afternoon rides with Kelru when the weather’s good; visits to Solunee with Shaleän; on and on and on, until he feels on the verge of tears. It’s not right that before he thinks to mourn his father and brothers and everyone else who perished in the crash, he is mourning the self he must now leave behind out of duty. Maia wishes he had time to light candles in the coastal-chapel and pray to Ulis, so he might make peace with the feeling, but there’s barely time for packing. The sooner he gets to the Ethuveraz, the better.
He is not truly fit for travel when he gets to the entrance hall, and he knows he looks it, but no one here will care and no one he might encounter on the journey will have cause to know him as the new Emperor. His farewell is bleak in its size, just that of the main household and the few staff they saw fit to wake, most still in their sleeping attire.
Maia is aware that his hair must be coming loose from its sleeping braid, but Thever only confirms this by reaching to fix it instead of reaching to embrace him. Kelru, standing just behind her, wisely says nothing. She focuses furiously on the braid alone for a long moment before Maia covers one of her hands with his and she stills.
“I would not see thee off, but I cannot part in anger,” she whispers. “Tis just like her. I send thee where I sent her. I send thee back.”
“Auntie.”
“Tis not fair. They squandered thee when they had thee. They do not love thee.” Thever looks up, orange eyes like the center of coals still burning, with all of the same molten heat. “Couldst still abdicate.”
“And abandon my nephew to a regent's reign? Thou knowest I cannot.” Her lip curls like she wants to argue, to deride a boy she’s never met in order to stall Maia, but she does not seem capable of voicing the words. Maia squeezes her hands. “That I could take thee with me, and not disrupt thy entire life by doing so.”
“That I couldst go,” she replies, angry tears spilling over, “and not be a burden to thee.”
“Even on thy worst days, thou art not a burden. Thou art my aunt, and I love thee.”
“I love thee,” she echoes, hoarse.
“Thou wouldst not like it, anyway,” he tries to joke. “I would not have thee there. But I swear, I wilt see thee again.”
“Oh, Maia.”
A clutching hug to tide them both over, and Maia doesn’t want to pull away, but he knows the airship will not wait, and he has such a ways to travel to reach even that.
The rest of his farewells are made in short order, everyone as aware as he of the tight schedule he’s on. Nadeian and Elret are even more brief in their farewells to everyone, the Hezhethora guardsmen waiting by the boats to the exit all armed and waiting.
It feels almost correct that Maia should leave the Corat’ Dav Arhos as he came to it — with great haste, almost dreamlike with how sudden and strange the circumstances are. He has no memory of entering the underground palace for the first time, for he had been carried from Shaleän’s ship still unconscious and only saw the Chadevan sea a week hence, hanging off Thever’s arm.
Now, travelling up the river to the exit, he takes the brief lull as an excuse to admire the star-painted ceiling, and the corresponding carving of Cstheio on the wall, and prays briefly for her guidance in whatever comes next.