Aralim and Hayan had spent the last few days exploring the city of Rema—for the last few weeks, Miresh was reviewing and training things she had already learned, so Aralim had no useful research to provide her. This day they had found an amphitheatre where a priest recounted old stories of Tag’na’s reign and an open-roofed meat deli where they enjoyed the Emperor’s purse. The stories were more like proverbs and the meal more like a small feast.
Narr kept his distance… and his silence. The Blade wore inconspicuous clothes, and had replaced his great sword with a weapon that would draw less attention.
Even after the long day, they still made it home before Miresh. A few of the servants had the dinner table prepared with candles, plates and silver wear, and a crystal pitcher of wine. Narr waited in the foyer, visible through the door, while Aralim and Hayan sat at their places and chatted about the day. Aralim met the guard’s eyes for a moment, but Narr just looked back at the doorway again. There had been no incidents yet with their security and no word from Rattar about his progress in apprehending Master Ma’kreo the merchant.
A moment later, the door opened. Ko’nagar led Miresh and her guards inside. “Can I fetch you anything, mistress?” the head servant asked.
“Can you make something special for the meal? A treat for me?” Miresh asked. Aralim blinked.
“Anything, mistress,” Ko said with a bow.
Miresh smiled. “I once had a honey dough with cheese, and it was delicious.”
“We have those ingredients,” Ko said. “What sort of cheese?”
Miresh shrugged. “Any!” she exclaimed. She started to walk across the foyer, and Aralim opened his mouth to ask about her unusual request. Before he could someone else spoke up.
“Little miss,” Narr said, with a bob of his head.
“Hi Narr,” Miresh replied, with a small smile. She tossed her hair as she looked back into the dining room.
“He talks to you?” Aralim exclaimed.
Miresh shrugged and sat down. “Yes, he does,” she said. A servant poured her honey mead and she took a drink.
Hayan shook his head. “Does he not like us? Did we offend him?”
“No, no,” Miresh said with a smile. “The Emperor told me I could talk to him.”
A long pause followed as Aralim and Hayan regarded Miresh in stunned silence. Aralim broke it by asking, “And, how often does the Emperor talk to you?”
Miresh put down her cup of mead, and swung her feet under her chair seat. They barely reached the floor. “Mostly just in passing, when Rattar and I are in the Iron Palace. He’s only come to chat once or twice.”
“He must have many interesting things to say to you, being so old and powerful.” Aralim looked at her with a small smile. The Eternal Emperor came to her for conversation…
“Mostly, he just offers tips for casting,” Miresh said. The servants began serving dinner, bringing out a platter of sliced fish, seasoned with ginger and cloves, and an enormous loaf of tapioca bread. Miresh lowered her voice until they left and then said, “And he knows everything about what’s going on with Yakalaka.”
Aralim nodded. He’d expected as much. “Does he also know that you thought we actually should steal the dagger, when she first asked us?”
Miresh paled. “Oh… I don’t know if he does or not…”
“It was just a joke,” Aralim said, quickly. He broke off a piece of bread and put it on his plate along with asparagus from a small steamed bowl and generous helping of fish. “I guess I’ll need to ask the Emperor about Narr.”
On cue, the big warrior looked across the foyer and into the dining room. He didn’t express any particular emotion about Aralim’s joke, and then returned his sight to the door in front of him.
“How was your day today? Did Rattar give you anything new to work on?” Hayan asked.
Miresh shook her head. “But, guess what? It’s my birthday today!”
Aralim paused, with his straight utensil halfway to his mouth, a chunk of pike nearly in his mouth. “Really?” he asked. “You’re, what, twelve now?”
Miresh nodded proudly, smiling ear to ear.
“Congratulations!” Hayan said. “And have a great year!”
“If you’d told us sooner, I’d have planned something perhaps,” Aralim said. Suddenly, her request for honey bread for dessert made more sense.
“No, no,” Miresh said, smiling. “It’s fine. I don’t have any idea what I would want planned.”
“Do you want anything? A gift? We should get you something. We’ve been adventuring together for almost a year now,” Aralim said, smiling. It had been an incredible year, too. He was so far from his homeland, but felt like he was precisely where he should be. Of course, as a Walker of the Path, he felt that way everywhere he went.
Hayan put down his cup. “We can literally have anything we ask for, I think. Especially if the Emperor comes to chat with you.” He laughed.
Miresh finished eating her mouthful and smiled. “I saw Mistress Athanu, the woman we stayed with our first couple nights in Rema, at the Iron Palace. She has a beautiful big reed cat, named Soki. She’s very smart, and soft, and… I’d love to have one. Is that too much to ask?”
“You want a cat?” Aralim asked.
“If it’s alright,” Miresh said.
On the Path, people with power decided what was alright. If Miresh wanted a cat, she should have a cat. “You have to choose one then,” Aralim said. “One you’re drawn to, not one that anyone else chooses.”
“I will,” Miresh said with a smile.
Hayan smacked loudly and then asked, “How old are you now?” He was sporting a longer beard now, as he prepared for his role of Stable Master in the stage production. Aralim had asked him more about it, since Hayan had once told them he’d worked as a dancer. In truth, he’d always been a performer, regardless of the role. He had worked for a troupe in Old Numa. Ghanam and Paraclar was not a musical.
Their young friend piped up proudly. “I’m twelve now.” Miresh was apprenticed to someone nearly ten times her age, and had been visited recently by someone more than twenty times it. “And I’m very far from where I was when I turned eleven.”
“Lantern town?” Hayan asked.
“Yes! I met Aralim a couple months later,” she said. “It’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?”
Aralim nodded and took a sip of his ale. A servant brought Miresh her honey bread and she dug into it voraciously. “Would you like to go for a walk? Like those old days?”
She paused, her mouth full of sweet taste and her eyes wide. She composed herself as she finished it and then said, “I’d like that very much. We don’t spend as much time together as we used to.” She timidly sliced off another piece of pastry, using the end of her small fingers to raise the flakey crumbs to her mouth with a shy smile.
After dinner, they both bore their lantern staffs through the foyer. “Narr,” Aralim said with a dry smile.
The big man looked at him, then down at Miresh. The twelve-year-old tipped her head toward the front door. “We’re going for a walk.”
“I’ll accompany,” the man said. His voice was soft and the bubbly Numa accent seemed entirely absent. His broad chin and square beard lowered. “From a distance.” He turned to the closet, but Ko had already withdrawn the enormous cloak the guard wore. He took it from the man with a bow of his head.
Aralim sighed. It was a little strange that Narr refused to speak to any of them but the apprentice mage. But when he looked down at Miresh, holding the door open for him, he smiled again. They walked outside together, and closed the door behind them. Aralim gave Narr a wink as he shut the opening in the guard’s face.
In silence, they started down West Corid Avenue. A warm breeze brushed against Aralim’s brown robe, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. He missed this, walking in the streets with their lanterns and their friendship. “How are you doing?” Aralim asked, as they left a busy intersection.
“Good,” Miresh said. “I’m excited. For getting a pet. I’ve always wanted one.”
“Really?” Aralim asked. “You haven’t mentioned it before.”
Miresh nodded. “Travelling that much isn’t a good place for an animal. We didn’t always know where our food was coming from next.”
“That’s wise,” Aralim said. They kept walking. Aralim glanced back over his shoulder. A group of butchers walked behind them, still wearing bloodstained aprons. Behind them was a peddler’s wagon. Narr’s head was visible over it, calmly following far behind. This walk was almost like, before, but not quite. It didn’t bother Aralim though—Narr was on the Path whether he knew it or not.
They soon entered a wide town square, with an enormous cherry tree growing on their corner of it. Tiny pink leaves scattered the ground, strewn about the cobblestones in every crevice and corner. Miresh held out her hands as the breeze pulled more petals down and laughed as she caught one. She turned back to Aralim and her smile faded. “I haven’t had another vision yet,” she said, quietly. “When we were walking on the roads and sailing on the ships, we were always hoping for another. But it’s been half a year, hasn’t it?”
“Rattar will teach you about visions too, won’t he?” Aralim asked.
Miresh nodded. “Yes, that’s true,” she said. “Everything has been so exciting, that I forget sometimes to be patient.”
Aralim couldn’t advise her in this matter—she was further on the Path than he, and she would have to learn whether it was patience that would bring her further or force. Aralim was just trying to learn his own way now. He looked at the cherry tree and the setting sun that cast streaky shadows through its boughs. Rema still seemed like the best place to do that. Miresh was more gifted, more powerful and more helpful than anyone he’d met before in all his journeys.
“This was a good idea,” Miresh said. “Let’s keep walking, down to the riverfront.”
“Good,” Aralim said, smiling. He followed her.