Vacant Throne

Alyssa woke up much too early. She had a headache. Her throat felt a little sore and her eyes were dry.

The woes of having stayed out way too late. Perhaps she should have expected it, but Rokien and Worrik had sat around talking with each other for hours. The topics they covered ranged from joyous assurances that they were both alright to mournful recounting of the deceased—names Alyssa hadn’t recognized, for the most part. She really felt awkward listening in on them. Most of the time, she sat off to the side, resting on the ground with Fela and the draken while trying to avoid falling asleep. The only times she contributed to their conversation were when Rokien or Worrik directly addressed her. Usually by way of thanks.

Nothing that she really needed to be there for, but she stuck with them anyway. Mostly to ensure that, when they went back to camp, there wouldn’t be any troubles with the guards because of a second minotaur appearing out of nowhere.

They could have gone back to the camp to talk were it not for Lueta hovering over them.

Alyssa could tell even without anyone saying it. Neither minotaur wanted to part ways with the giant snake. For Rokien, Alyssa imagined that any familiar face was a welcome sight. Even if Lueta was, in his own words, stand-offish. Simply seeing that his community had more survivors might have filled him with hope that some of the others who had been unaccounted for had escaped alive. Worrik, Alyssa imagined, had it even worse. Lueta had been his hunting partner before. In recent weeks, Lueta had been his only tie to the world. The giant snake had been his protector, had brought him food at a time when he was unable to acquire some on his own, and had been his only companion.

That had been the part of the conversation when Alyssa had felt the need to speak up. Namely, she had felt the need to ensure that Lueta did not get closer to Illuna. Volta should be able to help. Volta should be able to assist in reuniting them on a more permanent basis. Until then, Alyssa didn’t want to jeopardize or otherwise panic the currently peaceful situation between the humans and the monsters.

By the time Lueta was off to find the oasis, the minotaurs safely back in the camp, and Alyssa in her room getting ready for bed, her mother was just starting to get up for the day. Alyssa remembered her promise to herself to say something to her mother, but… she was just too tired to have even a moderately long conversation. Collapsing on her bed, she went right to sleep.

Only to be awoken halfway through the afternoon by an excited Irulon.

“Your eyes are glowing,” she said, clearly pleased.

Alyssa just sat on her bed, blinking several times to try to get rid of the sleep in her eyes. The sun was coming through her window, bright and yellow. Strange because the sun didn’t shine through her window in the mornings. Which, Alyssa’s sleepy mind said after a moment of confusion, means that it isn’t morning. Her room was empty save for Irulon and a slumbering Fela, the latter of whom was thankfully not cutting off circulation to her legs for once and was instead sprawled out on a separate bed. As far as Alyssa could tell, Fela had taken no notice of a certain princess despite Irulon making no attempts at hiding her presence.

“So, you encountered Tenebrael again, I presume?”

“Yeah, I… Can I have like five minutes to splash some water on my face?” Trudging through a marsh all night, even though she hadn’t really gotten down into it all, left her wanting to take a bath as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she doubted Irulon would let her have the spare time for that at the moment, judging by how she was practically hopping from foot to foot in excitement while making an attempt at keeping her stoic expression in place.

“No.” Irulon’s tone was flat and final.

Alyssa couldn’t disparage her for being excited about this given its relation to her very mortality, but…

“I hate to break bad news,” Alyssa started. “I spent a few hours last night trying to create simple sunglasses and wound up with nothing to show for my efforts aside from some lumps of metal and glass. A living body is a lot more complex than sunglasses. And Tenebrael disappeared again immediately after we connected.” Which reminded her… With all the reunion and subsequent exhaustion, Alyssa had never tried calling the dumb angel back. “She didn’t even leave a note,” she added, dragging her phone off the tabletop. Alyssa typed out a quick text message to see if the angel would respond before focusing back on Irulon.

The princess did not look daunted by the bad news in the slightest. Rather, her eyes lit up. “But you did manage to create something?”

“Yeah, I guess. You, uh, want to see?”

“Please.”

Alyssa nodded, closing her eyes. She found it really hard to reopen them. Her eyelids were just sticking together so pleasantly that she could easily see herself flopping back down to her pillow. What is the time? How many hours of sleep did I actually get? But she knew that Irulon was still standing over her. After showing off a ball of glass, Irulon would leave and she could go back to sleep.

So she forced her eyes open again. Irulon had taken a few steps closer, clearly intent on watching the process. Alyssa clasped her hands together. For a moment, she thought to simply make a ball of glass. But that wouldn’t really prove anything one way or another. Even with as tired as she was, there was no point in doing something if she wasn’t going to do it right. So Alyssa focused on glasses again. Simple glasses this time. A metal frame. No flexible joints. Clear, untinted, and unrefractive glass. Metal and glass. Something that her grandfather might have worn in old photos of him. That was all she saw in her minds eye.

Pulling her hands apart, she could feel something between her palms.

Something round and decidedly not glasses-like at all.

Alyssa sighed as she opened her eyes and looked down at the ball of metal in her hands. It was about the size of a softball, but weighed a good deal more. She turned it over in her hands, checking its uniformity. As expected, it was all metal. She supposed there could be some glass on the inside. Cracking it open would be the only way to check. Even with her spells, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to do that. And if it was a solid ball of metal, it would probably ruin most tools that tried to accomplish that task. Maybe Guillem’s workshop piston thing could do it. But that was a long way off.

Wan expression on her face, Alyssa held up the ball of metal for Irulon’s inspection.

To her surprise, Irulon looked absolutely thrilled. Her eyes were wide and she had a ravenous smile on her face as she accepted it from Alyssa. She clearly wasn’t expecting the weight as she had to readjust her grip before lifting it up.

“It was supposed to be sunglasses,” Alyssa said, just in case Irulon thought she had intended to make a hunk of iron.

“Fascinating. You didn’t speak a word. Nor did you have any spell card, runes, or other magical elements around you.”

“There might be something on the inside of my palms? Not inside my skin, but just on the palms of my hands where you couldn’t see. I can’t see for myself. Keeping my eyes open doesn’t seem to work at all. Possibly because I have to visualize what I want to make. If my eyes are open, I get too much visual information and it doesn’t work? Not really sure. Only experimented for a bit last night.”

“It’s fine. It’s fine. We can test such things.” Irulon looked up from the metal ball. “Create another for me.”

Nodding as she closed her eyes, Alyssa decided to try something different. Instead of a pair of sunglasses, she decided to go with something that was roughly the same shape. A baseball had a strange pattern to the ball and the stitching, so she decided against that for the time being. But a racquetball ball was smooth and all one material. She pictured a blue rubber ball.

Taking a breath, she slowly pulled her hands apart. Glass and metal were both cold to the touch. This, however, wasn’t. That wasn’t to say that it was hot, but it didn’t feel like metal or glass. And it didn’t feel like it was leaking either, so she got a bit excited.

Opening her eyes, her excitement diminished. It wasn’t a blue ball, that was for sure, but rather a midnight black. It was extremely smooth too, more like a super bouncy ball than the relatively rough surface of a racquetball. But, giving it a squeeze, she found that it gave. It was hollow. And it felt like rubber. So… partial victory, she decided. Holding it up for Irulon’s inspection, Alyssa said, “This one is almost what I had in mind. The color and texture are wrong though.”

“Hm. It’s light,” she said, weighing it against the metal ball.

“It’s used for a game. You use these rackets to smack the ball against a wall. It bounces off and you have to hit it again. The rules and objectives are a bit more complicated than that, but…” she shrugged. Irulon was probably less interested in Earth sports than she was interested in the ball and its creation.

Irulon carefully set both the iron ball and the rubber ball on the side of the bed, lowering both down with far greater care than Alyssa thought they deserved. At least in the case of the racquetball ball. The iron ball might damage the bed, or Alyssa’s feet, if dropped from too high.

“Again, please. This time, if you would try to keep your hands as far apart as possible so that I may see the actual creation process.”

“Another rubber ball?”

“Something simple. Whatever you feel comfortable with.”

Nodding, Alyssa closed her eyes again. This time, she decided on a simple glass ball. She had made them before so it shouldn’t be difficult. The clarity of the glass might help Irulon see something as well.

Keeping her hands apart was tougher than it sounded. It was just her natural instinct to clasp them together. But, she supposed that it wouldn’t be possible to continue making things as she was doing. Not if she eventually had to make a full living body. Unless she was going to make a child-sized body, she wouldn’t be able to stretch her arms wide enough to create the whole thing between her palms. Alyssa tried simply putting one hand on the back of the other and then push her creation out.

It worked. She could feel it working. But it didn’t feel nearly as smooth. Opening her eyes, she found herself surprised to find a crystal ball clinging to her palm. The moment she recognized that it was essentially ignoring gravity to stick to her hands, it fell into her blanket-covered lap. She picked it up again, glad it hadn’t slammed into her kneecap or something equally painful, and turned it over. Despite how strange it had felt coming out, it was a neat sphere of glass. No deformations like she had expected from the feeling.

Shrugging, she handed it over to Irulon. “It looks about like how I wanted it to look.”

“Fascinating.” Although Irulon took the glass ball, her eyes lingered on Alyssa’s outstretched hand for a moment before looking to the ball.

“Did you see something on my hands?” Alyssa asked, looking at them. There didn’t appear to be anything strange, but she hadn’t seen herself actually create the ball.

“Indeed. Your supposition was correct. Magic circles formed on your palms, but there was something off about them.”

Alyssa frowned, glancing up from her hands. “Off? What was wrong with it?”

“Not positive, exactly. It would help if I saw a proper one. All I know is that something about it just didn’t seem like it was done correctly. Give me a few minutes to think on this. I suppose you may eat now. Come find me after you’ve finished.”

“Thanks for granting me permission, your highness,” Alyssa said with only mild sarcasm.

Irulon didn’t respond save to pick up all three of the material balls. She had a bit of a difficult time. Both the glass and metal spheres were heavy. They were all sized just awkwardly enough that holding two in one hand wasn’t that easy. Keeping in with her prideful nature, Irulon decided to avoid losing her dignity by juggling and instead pulled up her spell tome, flipped through it, and cast a simple Levitation spell on them. With them trailing behind her, Irulon headed out of the room and down the hall toward the stairs.

For just a moment, Alyssa considered flopping back down into her bed, dragging the blanket up over her head, and going back to sleep. Creating matter hadn’t increased her exhaustion, but it hadn’t lessened it either. She could feel her eyelids drooping as she stared at the open door. Sleep was so enticing…

But she knew that, if she didn’t head up to meet with Irulon soon, the princess would come looking for her. At that point, she could kiss a meal goodbye for half the evening. Given that she hadn’t had anything upon returning to Illuna after dealing with Lueta and the minotaurs, she was feeling pretty hungry. So she mustered up enough willpower to throw her legs over the side of her bed and get to her feet.

Fela snorted, rolling over but staying asleep. Alyssa saw no need to wake her given that she wasn’t related to Irulon’s inquiries. The hellhound, and the draken too, had done well the night before. They deserved whatever rest they got.

After splashing some water over her face, Alyssa headed down to the guild’s tavern.

She found Kasita waiting for her at the usual table. There didn’t seem to be a vital emergency going on. Kasita would likely have woken her up before Irulon had done so if that were the case. As such, Alyssa didn’t feel bad about grabbing a quick meal before heading over to say hello.

“Your eyes are glowing again. Have a fun night out?” Kasita asked as soon as Alyssa took her seat.

“Met a giant snake. Reunited a pair of brothers. Met a certain someone,” Alyssa said, pausing to tap at her temples. “Didn’t create new problems for myself as far as I can tell. I’d say it was an enriching and productive time. How about you?”

“Bored myself to death listening to conversations. I don’t know how Claire does it. Most humans, even ones that are supposed to be important, are really really boring for the majority of their day.”

“Anything to worry about?” Alyssa said between bites of roast on bread.

“All the Yora people are going to clear out by morning.”

“Anything to worry about?” Alyssa said again, this time with a bit more concern in her voice.

“I don’t think so. Not as far as I could tell. They have apparently lost enough resources here already and don’t want to lose more. Will Yora be back in weeks or months? Possibly. But for now, they are retreating with nothing to show for their efforts.”

Alyssa felt her muscles relax in her neck and arms. She hadn’t even realized just how tense she was. They hadn’t ended up being that big a problem, but the fact that they weren’t going to be causing even minor distractions going forward was a relief. Still… “Would you keep an eye on them until they really do get out? Just to ensure that nothing changes between now and then.”

“They were packing up when I left. Apparently, they’re going to have one more meeting with Martin. Some kind of farewell. A customary farewell, likely over a meal. Nothing dangerous like usurpation.”

“The fact that you felt the need to clarify is not reassuring. You have spell cards, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Make sure you’re in that meeting and make sure nothing happens to Martin. Both for his sake as well as that of the monsters.” Martin and Volta were the best bets for the monsters. Maybe for humanity’s long-term acceptance of their inhuman counterparts. Having either harmed would be a disaster.

With the pit sealed, demonic activity at an all-time low, the monsters settled, Yora out, and the Astral Authority gone, things in Illuna looked to be settling down. They still needed to hear back from Brakkt, but he had yet to Message her so there probably weren’t any major worries with the infected they had found. It was entirely possible that the Astral Authority had simply missed one. Angels weren’t omnipotent so the Astral Authority couldn’t be.

Kasita stood, stirring Alyssa from her thoughts. “Well, better get ready for this meeting. It’s supposed to start soon. Maybe I should check in on the food. Claire was worried about poison being a thing.”

“Good idea. And good luck. Let me know how it goes. I’ll probably be up all night helping Irulon if you get some time to join us.”

“After the Yora guys go to sleep, I probably will. They’re boring enough while awake,” Kasita said with a mild groan as she started walking away. “Can’t stand being there at night. See you later.”

Offering the mimic a parting nod, Alyssa focused on her meal. She had to eat quickly before Irulon came to find out what was taking her so long.

Though that wasn’t the only reason Alyssa focused on her meal. If Irulon really could offer some ideas as to what she was doing wrong, she might finally be able to make some sunglasses. Getting everyone in the guild’s tavern to stop staring at her would be worth it.