Page 62 of The Night Prince

“Truly, King Aquilan,” Michael said, blinking rapidly as if he had fallen into a trance, too, “Helgrom is not overstating it.Your voice… It is remarkable.”

“You are very kind,” Aquilan said.Only then did he slowly release his hold on Declan’s hand.The trembling had stilled and his glass was full to overflowing. “But there are many better than I, especially with the higher notes on the Forever Hunt.”

“I would have you sing thesecondhalf of it.”Helgrom gestured with his pipe towards the Sun King.

Aquilan turned towards Helgrom and the loss of his regard was like a shadow crossing over the Sun.Yet, despite that, Declan found he could move again.He swiftly went around the Sun King towards Rhalyf who had rather regally held out his own half empty glass.Rhalyf’s eyes tracked Declan as he came around with the wine.

What have I done to annoy him?

But even as Declan thought that, he realized his obvious mooning over the Aravae king had most likely been unseemly at best and unforgivable at worst.Aquilan wasn’t a normal person even though he acted as if he were. Likely, there were rules about staring at the Sun King or something like that.Looking into the light of Heaven, so to speak.The light that had suffused the Sun King was gone now.The Dawn’s candles burned brightly.Had it ever actually gone dark like he had seen?Or maybe that was another illusion like the voice in his mind.

“What do you mean the ‘secondpart’, Helgrom?”Aquilan asked, his voice alight with interest.“I have never heard of this!”

Helgrom’s bushy eyebrows rose.“Truly?Well, perhaps not.”

“Why perhaps not?”Michael asked, waving off Declan’s attempts to pour him wine.

With a cough, Helgrom said, “Because it is a veryUnder Darkinterpretation of the story.”

“Which is?”Aquilan tilted his head to the side.

“That the song is about the Night King,” Helgrom answered after a long moment.

“Fancy you knowing so much about Vex!”Rhalyf exclaimed, but there was a note of almost alarm in his voice as if he wished Helgrom were not so knowledgeable.

“The Draesiwen and Kindreth alliance lasted thousands of years, Rhalyf,” Helgrom answered with a half shrug.“He officiated my great-great-great grandmother’s wedding.He was… our friend.”

“Until he wasn’t.I wouldn’t have thought tales of Vex–good ones, at least–would have made it down to your generation,” Rhalyf pointed out.

“Now I am truly intrigued!”Aquilan’s eyes brightened even more.If that was possible.“Tell me this tale!”

“Well,” Helgrom rumbled and began tamping more tobacco into his pipe as he spoke, “some have said that the Night King is one of the participants in theForever Hunt.”

“Vex?”Aquilan’s forehead furrowed.“Is he supposed to be Elashor then?”

“Depends.You see, Vex was said to have taken all credit for his magical prowess and honored not the gods at all,” Helgrom stated.“His magic was so much greater than any who had come before that it was considered heresy to say such a thing, of course.He, of all people, should be thanking the gods.But no.He looked only to himself.”

Aquilan nodded slowly.“That was certainly true of Elashor.His gifts were his own.Refined from millennia of training and use.”

“And the stag represented the great magics that Vex still sought–stillseeks–in the Under Dark.He turned away from the Sun and the sky, from the mountains and the forests, and headed deep underground to seek the unfindable.To chase the uncatchable.To hunt the impossible,” Helgrom said.

Declan found himself lingering as Helgrom spoke, fascinated not so much by the story, but by Aquilan's reaction to it.If he had thought the Sun King would be peeved that evidently a favorite tale of his involved the Night King, it did not show on his face.

I’m doing this for Finley.Not myself.He would kill me if I did not learn this story of Vex for him,Declan told himself.That is why I linger here.

“Ah,” the Sun King said, tapping his chin, “yes, yes, I can see that interpretation working quite well!”

“Ah, but that is not the only Under Dark interpretation.You see, others think thestagwas Vex,” Helgrom explained as he lit the rich, brown tobacco in his pipe.He blew out a perfect smoke ring.

“The stag?”Aquilan’s eyes went wide.

A nod from Helgrom as he puffed at his pipe and stroked his beard.“Vex was truly blessed by the gods with magic far greater than any other elf.And it was those that were jealous of him who chased him.”

While Declan could never imagine Aquilan being jealous of anyone–how could he?--he had no trouble whatsoever believing other Aravae were capable of it.They were brilliant, beautiful and wondrous.But drinking, especially, could reveal darker truths in any person’s heart.

“And so they hunted him down… or tried to,” Aquilan remarked softly.“And he was forced to leave the sunlit world for the Under Dark to protect himself?”

Another nod.“So they say.But it is a very Under Dark explanation, as I said.”

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