Spellforged Scion

The palace held its breath.

For a heartbeat it seemed one loud word might banish him back into the dark.

Then voices broke, servants wept, guards saluted, and the hall surged with joy.

Caedrion smiled where he must, nodded where it was demanded, but all the while the faint pulse of the artifact at his chest reminded him he was not free.

A leash, she had called it.

Six months. No more.

Sylene cut through the crush with a soldier's authority, carving space for Aelindria at his side.

She clung to him, face pressed to his chest, unwilling to let go even as Sylene ushered them into the solar and slammed the door on the noise outside.

Only then did Caedrion see her clearly.

Time had not paused when he was taken.

Where once he had traced a secret swell, now her belly rounded full beneath her gown, the unmistakable weight of life.

The sight staggered him more than any spell.

"You're staring," she whispered, laughing through tears.

"At a miracle," he said, and meant it.

They sat together before the fire.

Aelindria guided his hand to her stomach, and the child answered with a small, fierce kick.

For months he had been trapped beneath the sea in a palace older than memory.

Now, this simple touch was what anchored him.

"I missed the quickening," he said softly.

"You are here for the rest," she told him. "That's what matters."

She did not press him for answers. When he spoke, it was carefully chosen truth.

"I was confined. Not harmed. Not permitted to leave. Watched closely."

He paused, the memory of endless marble halls pressing at the edge of his tongue.

"It is a place older than our histories. Too old, and very alone."

Her hand tightened over his.

She heard the weight in his words, but left what he avoided unspoken. "And you are home. That is enough for tonight."

He leaned and kissed her temple, grateful for her mercy.

Malveris entered later, his staff quiet on the stones.

The magus studied him like a page half-blurred. "May I test the wards?" he asked.

Caedrion allowed it.

Light shimmered across his shoulders, caught at his chest, and recoiled.

"Anchored," Malveris murmured. "Not bound, but not free either. As if a promise written into your flesh."

"Six months," Caedrion said. The artifact throbbed once against his sternum.

The old man's lips thinned. "Then every hour must be spent like coin. But not tonight. Tonight you eat, you sleep, and you remember what it is to be mortal."

Aelindria smiled faintly at that. "A prescription I will enforce."

Sylene smirked from the door. "Soup first, questions later."

They ate together, hot stew and bread fresh from the ovens.

Servants hovered, nobles begged for an audience, but Sylene barred the door.

Caedrion gave answers when pressed, never lies, only omissions.

He told of ancient stone that sang, of waters that carried voices like bells, of walls etched with runes that rearranged themselves depending on the path one walked.

He left out the throne carved from shell, the silk bed that breathed like a living thing, the queen who whispered his name as though it were a prayer.

Aelindria frowned at the sight of his wrists. "You've grown thin."

"A diet of only fish and kelp will do that to a man…." he answered.

"Tomorrow," Sylene said, "we'll address all that has happened since your disappearance. I must say it is a miracle that we have held everything together considering your disappearance occurred at the worst time imaginable…."

"Tomorrow," Caedrion agreed. Tonight belonged to peace.

The next morning dawned pale and silver.

Caedrion walked the garden paths with Aelindria on his arm, frost crunching beneath their boots.

She leaned into him with the weight of her child, her voice steady.

"You've missed so much. The guilds feared the worst. Mother kept the other houses at bay. Even Father prayed aloud. I never thought to hear it from him."

"I owe them more than thanks," he said.

"You owe yourself a breath," she replied. "Take it today. Just today."

He nodded, though the words six months echoed like a drum in his chest.

The day unfolded in fragments, small and human.

He spent time with his family. Dining with them, speaking of tales from the shivering sea. Spinning mythos of what really lie beneath.

But some things could not be said.

By afternoon, he sat alone with Aelindria in the solar, reading sagas aloud while she rested against him.

The child stirred beneath her hand, and his own followed, feeling the pulse of life that tethered him more securely than any ward.

"Tell me something you liked," Aelindria said, half-asleep.

He hesitated, then allowed himself one truth.

"There is a stair that spirals twice and ends in a chamber with no straight lines. If you sing there, your voice comes back braided with itself, as though a chorus sang with you."

Her lips curved. "And something you did not like?"

"The way light lies to water," he said. "It looks like welcome, until you reach for it."

She smiled faintly. "That sounds like half the lords I've ever met."

At dusk, Sylene returned with petitions whittled to a few essentials, guild, watch, the burgeoning industry, and the other human houses that for now were cowed into submission.

Caedrion gave orders sparingly, postponing what could wait, signing what could not.

When the hall emptied, he climbed the parapet with Sylene.

Snow sifted sideways through torchlight, the city lying silver below.

"How many truths did you swallow today?" she asked.

"As many as would wound without need," he said.

"And how many lies did you tell?"

"None. I let silence carry what words would have broken."

Sylene nodded. "Good. Truth builds scaffolds. Lies rot them. We'll need scaffolds."

He rested his hands on the stone, staring east.

"We'll need ships, furnaces, engines that can stand against the sea. We'll need artisans who can learn what they've never seen, fast enough to impress something that does not care about our pride."

Her mouth twitched. "So an easy spring."

"Moderate," he said. "With the occasional storm."

A runner came, breathless. "My lord, Lady Aelindria bade me tell you that she wishes to see you in the atrium."

Sylene waved him away before Caedrion could muster formality. "Go. I'll glare at the remnants of house Ignarion alone."

Caedrion found his way to the Atrium.

Aelindria laughed softly as she wrapped her arms around Caedrion's shoulders and planted a kiss on his lips. Whispering in his ear of memories nearly forgotten with the passing of time.

"Do you remember little brother? How when we were young we used to sneak off here, and pretend we were married, and had a family of our own?"

Her hand shifted to her stomach which now swelled with child.

"To think it would come true after so many years… It's absurd…." she whispered.

"It's perfect," he said.

That night, when the snow lay thick and the palace stilled, Caedrion lay awake listening to the sounds he had promised himself he would never forget: the drip of melted ice into the eaves, the uneven tread of the watchman on the wall, the crackle of pine in the hearth.

He did not think of the other sounds, the whisper of silk, the voice that had called him beloved in a palace beneath the waves.

"Tomorrow," he whispered to the ceiling. "We start building."

Beside him, half-asleep, Aelindria murmured, "Tomorrow."

The artifact pulsed once against his chest, faint and patient, like a distant bell counting down a debt.

He covered it with one hand, then slid that same hand to rest on Aelindria's belly.

Between those two heartbeats, he allowed himself this one day.

Tomorrow, he would be everything else.

Thoughts stirred beneath his conscious mind as he drifted off into sleep.

Not of the abyss beneath the waves.

But of the designs he was drafting before he had been plucked away from the world above.

Months had been stolen from him. Months where he could have perfected the power supply issue with his weapons.

He was so close to building batteries that could recharge the enchantments without exhausting his magical supply daily.

And yet, now? How many months were taken that could have been used to prototype, perfect, and produce such designs?

It was a shame. But he did not have time to linger on it.

Tomorrow would come, the sun would rise with it.

And with the new day he would once more be thrust into building.

Building a new world on land, and building for the expedition in the sea below.

Things had suddenly become more complicated then he could have ever imagined they would be when he first awoke on this very bed less than a year ago, and found himself thrust into a fantasy world.

And unfortunately for him, it would appear that father time had become his enemy.

Six months… and so much to do.