It didn't take Ari long to figure out that old Rikensk sagas were some of the most depressing and gruesome works he'd ever heard in his life. He was sitting in the library, listening to Herr Hallessen read it aloud. Herr Hallessen was purposefully making his voice deep and dramatic, although it was hard to take him seriously— a portly man who had less inclination toward violence than a newborn child, reading a story about a vengeful warrior. The warrior's name was Einar, and he spent half of the saga lamenting over the deaths of his sons and the other half cutting down their murderers like a woodsman would trees.

"And when Einar found that he was alone on the hill, he went into the woods and took in his hand a pole of hazel," said Herr Hallessen, pushing his reading glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "Then he took a horse's head and affixed it to the pole, cursed his enemy for a coward, and stuck the pole deep into the earth."

Ari cringed. A horse's head? he thought. The horse didn't do anything wrong. At least they didn't do that anymore, although duels were hardly any better.

Herr Hallessen looked over at him. "I think maybe that's enough for today."

"Thank you," said Ari, reaching over to close the book.

"Violent man, that Einar. Although they did kill his sons."

Not as violent as Aleksander. He was still shaken by that, if he was honest with himself. He'd almost gone to meet a killer— a butcher— and all he'd thought was how clever he was to find a way around his mother's rules. He'd had to rely on the word of a man he hadn't spoken to in years to find the truth.

Not that he necessarily trusted his father, but even when he had first seen Aleksander, the man had made him wary. The eyes... flatter than a river pebble and so very cold. He had dismissed it, especially once his mother began to torment the man, but there was clearly something to it. Was that 'something' what his father had said? Now that was what he intended to find out.

"Are you all right?" asked Herr Hallessen, which startled Ari a little.

"Yes, I'm fine," he said.

"Are you sure? You look a bit pale." When Ari nodded, he smiled and said, "The old stories make me a little ill too, if it makes you feel better. But it is part of our history, and so it's important to learn."

"But how will I use this when I'm king?"

"Well..." Herr Hallessen looked up toward the ceiling in mock thoughtfulness. "Imagine that you decide to duel someone, but they aren't there and you need to tell the community of their cowardice."

"I'm not going to duel anyone! I could kill them." Or they could kill me.

"That's true. And in seriousness, there is a purpose to reading old tales: maybe technology and ideas advance, but people do not, and we often find ourselves in the exact same type of conflict. If you can put yourself in Einar's situation, you can compare how he reacted to how you would react, and you can learn from it."

Ari didn't think he'd ever be in the situation of holding four dead sons in his arms, but he nodded anyway.

"Now, off with you," said Herr Hallessen. "It's time for my breakfast."

Breakfast was a sacred tradition as far as Herr Hallessen was concerned, second only to church. Ari grinned a little and left him to it. He had his own plans for the day anyway.

The council room was upstairs, so he took the steps two at a time until he reached the landing. If he hurried, he could put his ear against the door and catch the end of the meeting, so he ran down the hall, taking care not to slip on the marble floors. He could hear voices drifting out from underneath the door at the end of the hall; whatever they were discussing must be heated. There was no doubt in Ari's mind that his mother's opinion would come out on top. It always did.

Pressing against the polished white door, he listened to the debate inside.

"—risk, Rådgiver Jelen," someone said.

"One worth taking." There was his father's voice, cool and amused. "Both to crush their fighting force and their spirit."

"Is this to help the war effort or to satisfy your petty need for revenge?"

There was a silence, followed by a comment from his father that was too low to make out. A clamor of voices started up, each trying to make their opinion heard over the others, but Ari could only catch a few individual words here and there.

"Enough." His mother's voice cut through them all, and Ari couldn't help but flinch even though it wasn't directed at him. "We will focus our forces toward the capital rather than their little fort. If we want to crush their fighting force, Rådgiver Jelen, then we should control the larger cities."

"As you say, my queen."

"Then this meeting is at an end."

Before the doors could swing open, Ari ducked behind a marble bust on a pedestal— Ulrik the First, his supposed great-grandfather. It wasn't the best of hiding places, but the majority of the advisors probably wouldn't notice. Between the pedestal and Ulrik's beard, though, at least he was mostly hidden.

He heard the doors creak and saw shiny black shoes step into the hallway. Crouching lower, he watched as the advisors passed him, their eyes straight ahead. His father was the last one to leave, and it seemed like he was going to walk right past Ari too— but then the corner of his mouth curved upward and his eyes flickered over briefly before he continued down the hallway.

What is that supposed to mean? he thought, but he couldn't ask his father about it now.

Once there was no one left in the hall, Ari stood and walked into the council room. His mother was facing the window, the early morning sun turning her hair to gold and gleaming off of the bracelets that covered both forearms.

"Mamma?" he said.

Without turning, she said, "Were you eavesdropping?"

"I..." He lowered his head a little, even though she couldn't see him. "Yes."

"Ari," she said with a sigh. She sounded more disappointed than angry, which he supposed was a good thing, but still... why was she disappointed? He was trying to learn, be a better king in the future.

"I— I wanted to apologize for what I said. After your meeting with Aleksander. I still don't agree, but what I said..."

She faced him then. Without a word, she closed the gap between them and drew him into her arms. "No, I should be the one to apologize," she said, and Ari's mouth drifted open a bit.

Did she just say...?

"I was wrong," she continued, running a hand through his hair. "I brought you into this too early. I should have known you were still too young."

Ari closed his eyes. I am not too young! he wanted to shout. He had been able to handle what his father had told him; he wasn't an infant anymore—

Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to calm down. If he wanted any answers, he couldn't let this turn into what it had become last time. "Can we just talk?" he asked. "No shouting, just open?"

She let go of him and closed the doors before walking over to the table, where she pulled out the chair at the end and sat. He followed, sitting in the chair directly to her right.

Resting her folded hands on the table, his mother asked, "And what would you like to talk about?"

He looked at his shoes. "Well... Aleksander, actually."

"Ari—"

"I just want to know about him! Who he is, where he comes from—"

"Is this why you apologized? Simply because you wanted to lead the conversation here?"

"Mamma!" He could feel heat blooming in his cheeks, angry because she had assumed that of him and embarrassed because she wasn't entirely wrong.

"You'd like to know about Aleksander? The only thing you need to know about him is that you should stay far, far away from him."

Aleksander requires a firm hand, she had told him. He's dangerous. Well, he knew that now, and he knew why, but he'd had to get the information from a man he only acknowledged because of the blood they shared. His mother would never tell him that he and Aleksander were related, he knew. She'd never tell him why the man was so dangerous. She would only ever tell him that he was too young, too idealistic to handle the truth.

He remembered the last time they had spoken and he wanted to scream— this, here and now, was no different from then. She was going to say that he just wasn't old enough for this, and that once he grew up a little more, he'd understand that the world was a complicated place. He was never going to be what she wanted, and he knew it, and he hated it.

He was angrier than the last time, and he could feel it building, building into something...

His mother's eyes narrowed. "Listen, Ari—"

He shoved his chair back and stood. "No, you listen for once. I am king. You're just regent, and once I'm old enough, you won't be ruling any longer. So you need to tell me what I have to know so that I can be a good ruler, unlike—"

"Ari."

They were both breathing hard; both were watching one another with narrowed eyes, and both had their nails digging into their palms, although in his mother's case, her nails were sharp enough to draw blood. This anger stretched between them like a rope across a chasm, the only connection between one side and the other.

"I do not want to do this," she said, voice low, "but I will. You are only a boy, and you don't know what's best for you. I do. And so when I tell you not to pry, it's for a good reason. I have told you repeatedly that this is not a matter that concerns you, and I mean it. Do you understand?"

"No, I don't!" He gripped the edge of his chair hard, knuckles white. "If you want me to do something, then the least you could do is give me a reason!" Tell me the truth. Just the full truth for once, that's all I want, just the truth—

"I have. He's dangerous—"

"I'm telling you that it isn't enough."

"You're telling me." Her voice was cold and biting like a knife's edge, and Ari was tempted to step back. "I think there's been enough of this, Ari. You are king, yes, but I am your mother and I won't tolerate disrespect from you—"

He was done. Done with her, done with this, and so he did the most disrespectful thing he could: he walked out of the room. Even if she came after him, and he didn't think she would, then he just wouldn't listen to whatever she said.

The further and further away he got, however, the harder it was to ignore: there was still something between them, still something tying them together, and he didn't know what to do with it. It was the strangest feeling, burrowed behind his heart, distant and yet so very close... liked a wired message, coming from far away and yet able to travel so quickly.

What is this? Something about it was familiar, but when had he ever felt anything like this before? The question gnawed at him all the way back to his room, and even after he closed the door and flopped into his chair, it was still cycling through his brain: What is this? What is this?

Ari opened his sketchbook and grabbed a pen, dipping the steel point into the open inkwell on his desk before putting the tip to paper. He didn't focus on any particular subject, merely let his hand guide him as he drew whorls and patterns and dots all across the page.

What is this?

It wasn't until the page was almost entirely filled with ink that he remembered.

Himself, much younger, sitting outside next to his mother, tossing small handfuls of snow into the air and giggling as they came down. It had been the first time he'd been allowed outside in ages because of all the storms and he'd been thrilled the moment the doors had opened. He had just thrown another bit of snow when he felt it— the same tug behind his chest, the same connection. And his mother had smiled, begun to hum... and then that tug had snapped and her eyes had widened in horror.

"Ari," she'd whispered, face ashen. "What did you just do?"

He hadn't understood, not the feeling nor her reaction to it. He had just been... happy, and she was looking at him like... like...

"You can't do that," she'd said, and grabbed him by the shoulders. "You can't, do you understand? Do you understand?"

"But I made you happy."

"That's not what this is about. You can never do this again, or they will hurt you. They'll— they'll know—"

She was pale and shaking; he'd never seen her like this, and so he nodded, eyes round. He had never done it again.

Until now.

Not super thrilled with how this turned out, but... well.

Rådgiver: Advisor, Councillor. I have a hard time with this pronunciation too... Rawd-YIH-vuh. I don't know, I'm learning German but I find Norwegian to be a little difficult with the letters...

Anyway. Oh, the historical stuff-- always excited to talk about the history. The old saga is based (a little loosely) on Egil's Saga, an old Icelandic one, and the custom of fixing an animal's head to a stick is called a nithing pole. It was sometimes used when people did not show up to duels, or if the user wanted to curse someone, in which case you'd carve runes on it. It actually has been used in modern times, though-- poles with cod heads were used to protest Iceland's prime minister in 2016. I suppose that's one way.

Next chapter is going to someone who's pretty hard to write, but I think it'll be fun.