Page 47 of The Prince's Fealty

Distantly, he recognized that up until he’d started accepting Fealty, he’d been in a magical coma and been exhausted by standing up. That reality seemed very far away right now.

He needed to get through all this Fealty, and if they stopped for breaks all the time, that wasn’t going to happen. With more and more people describing what to do and what happened to those around them, they’d gotten the actual pledging down to a fine art. It took about fifteen seconds. Tor’s mouth was getting a bit sore from smiling at everyone, but he didn’t want any of them to feel like he wasn’t fully welcoming them, or like he didn’t take their Fealty as the gift it was.

Occasionally, someone had a question for him, and even though part of Tor chafed at the delay, urging him to go faster and faster so that he could go after his family, he always made himself slow down and listen to them and answer as best he could.

On a handful of occasions, someone decided they couldn’t pledge their Fealty after all. Tor assured them that he understood and would be here if they changed their minds.

Assuming the theory that Istila had espoused was correct, then the land needed the Fealty, but hopefully there was a margin for error. If eighty or ninety percent of people pledged their Fealty, would the remaining percentage still be protected? Would it continue to throw off the land or the weather? In a minor or major way?

A slither of unease ran through Tor at the idea of basically experimenting on an entire realm, but he didn’t know what else they could do. This was all theoretical, but it was having real-world consequences, and they had to try to figure it out by testing what worked and what didn’t—hopefully in an organized enough manner that the results would be clear.

That seemed like something that Pel would like to organize and keep track of, didn’t it?

All of Tor’s attention was on the people who were pledging their Fealty to him, but periodically Pel or Bavil or one of the others would stop by with more food or drink or to check to see if he was feeling all right.

There was always the presence of Beluna, Cavun, or Denil just behind him. Tor certainly hoped that no one was considering attacking him, but given that he could be seen to represent everything the exiles had run from, he thought the caution was warranted.

Istila had told them that the most vehemently opposed, those who had been determined not to pledge, hadn’t come. That would mean something else to sort out, assuming Tor was able to come back here—but there was no point thinking about that now.

If he died fighting Nostex or Fernila or Yomil—or whoever was actually behind this—or Varex had him executed for treason, then it would definitely be a waste of time to be concerned about the exiles who didn’t want to pledge their Fealty to him.

Tor fell into a routine, accepting pledge after pledge after pledge. Most everyone seemed to understand the urgency—or maybe they had their own urgency, given that they’d been pushed to their limits by the climate, to the point of trying to flee and nearly dying in a landslide.

Tor found his attention turning to the weather and the land even as he continued to accept the Fealty of all those around them. They were still in Tond, but they were awfully close to the exiles’ land.

Tor had always thought it was a metaphor or simply a silly saying, the idea that a happy ruler meant a happy land (or prosperous or strong, depending on the speaker). But what if it really was literal? What if the magic needed to connect the people to the rulersandto the land? What if they’d known that once, but it had blurred with time, until they were left with easy sayings that people didn’t take at face value now.

Take care of these people, Tor told the land, feeling like a fool, but since he was doing a lot of foolish things these days, that wasn’t so unusual.Support them and help them flourish. If I can, I’ll be back, and I’ll keep supporting you and them. We’re so much better when we work together.

He had no idea if that would help, but he was pretty sure it couldn’t hurt. He sent a quick prayer winging up to the goddess that he was doing the right thing. He couldn’t see how she’d want a different outcome or why she’d want people to suffer, but he’d never claimed to be an expert when it came to the goddess’s will.

(Nevertheless, it felt weirdly like he was the one fulfilling her will at the moment. Maybe that was just ego on his part. He wanted to help, and he could only pray that the magic, warmth, and certainty pooling in him was what she was envisioning, that this was the support that these people had been missing for twenty-five years.)

When was the last time that someone had taken so much Fealty one by one as he was doing? Even when they’d made the peace accords, it had only meant the other rulers pledging their Fealty to Tor’s mother. She must have accepted Fealty from those who had chosen to leave the other realms and come to Alossa. Perhaps there had been as many then, although even at that strange time in their history, they probably hadn’t all arrived to pledge to his mother at exactly the same time.

Tor frowned to himself as he tried to remember.Hadthere been a ceremony where they’d all come and pledged? He’d been ten, and he hadn’t been paying that much attention. Standing there and watching people do something he couldn’t see really wasn’t his idea of a good time—then or now, to be honest. But he understood better now the impact it was actually having.

Had his mother felt filled up like this? Had Varex? Or had they been overwhelmed in the first few minutes of such a huge transfer, and then it had settled in them like it was always supposed to be there?

Tor felt more like a vessel being slowly filled—only he hadn’t felt empty before. Tor should definitely have paid more attention to magical theory as a child. But honestly, he’d just wanted to throw magic at his brother, and Varex had been happy to throw magic back.

Sometimes, Tor missed the simple days.

And then he sucked in a sharp breath, freezing as he saw the red-haired, freckled young man in front of him—the young man who looked awfully nervous and wasn’t quite meeting his eyes.

Through a throat that felt suddenly like it was lined with glass, Tor croaked, “Ondun?”

The man nodded, suggesting that even though it had been two years, Tor wasn’t imagining things.

“Your Highness.” He cleared his throat and looked unbearably awkward. “We can explain—”

Tor didn’t give him the chance to explain; he flung his arms around the other man, holding him close.

“By the goddess, I thought you were dead!”

Chapter Eleven

Tor