Chapter 43: Father Won’t Leave Me Alone, Will He

Chapter 43: Chapter 43: Father Won’t Leave Me Alone, Will He

Reven had retreated to his private quarters in the training wing to work through the pattern search data in relative peace, the constant hum of activity elsewhere in the outpost finally quieted enough that he could actually focus properly, when the secure terminal in the corner of his room chimed with an incoming transmission carrying a priority encryption he hadn’t seen activated in months.

He crossed to it with a familiar, weary resignation already settling into his shoulders before he’d even accepted the call, some old, practiced instinct recognizing the specific frequency long before the hologram fully materialized into the shape of a man he’d known his entire life, dressed in the formal, understated uniform of palace household staff.

"Your Highness," the man said, bowing his head slightly, the honorific landing with the particular weight it always carried whenever someone bothered using it directly, a title Reven had spent years deliberately avoiding hearing spoken aloud at all. "Forgive the interruption. His Majesty has requested your immediate return to the palace."

Reven pressed two fingers against his temple, already feeling the beginning of a headache building behind his eyes. "Of course he has," he said, something dry and exhausted entering his voice. "And did he happen to mention why, or is this simply another summons issued purely on the principle that I’ve been away longer than he’d prefer?"

"His Majesty did not specify a particular reason, Your Highness," the man said carefully, clearly well practiced in delivering messages he understood carried more weight than their actual content suggested. "Only that your continued absence from court has become a subject of increasing concern among several of the ministerial council, and that he wishes to discuss the matter directly rather than through further correspondence."

’Increasing concern among the ministerial council,’ Reven thought, something bitter twisting behind the exhaustion. ’Meaning the council has started asking uncomfortable questions about why the crown prince has spent the better part of a year stationed at increasingly obscure frontier outposts instead of anywhere near the succession politics he’s supposedly meant to be preparing for.’ He’d built an entire, careful architecture of excuses over the years to justify his continued absence, training assignments, classified reconnaissance postings, anything that kept him usefully, plausibly occupied somewhere far enough from the palace that nobody could easily verify exactly what he was doing or why.

"Tell my father," Reven said finally, choosing his words with careful, deliberate precision, "that I’m currently engaged in matters of considerable strategic importance to the Empire’s frontier stability, and that I’ll return to court once those matters have been appropriately resolved."

The man on the other end hesitated visibly, clearly uncertain how much pushback he was permitted to offer against a message from the crown prince himself. "His Majesty was quite insistent, Your Highness. I don’t believe ’once matters have been resolved’ will be considered a satisfactory answer."

"It’ll have to be," Reven said, something sharper entering his voice now, the earlier exhaustion curdling into something closer to genuine frustration. "Father won’t leave me alone, will he. Not for a single month, not even when I’ve made it perfectly clear how important my current work here actually is." He dragged a hand down his face, exhaustion pressing in from multiple directions at once now, the search for Rafayal, the mounting pressure from House Miller, and now, apparently, his own father’s escalating impatience all converging into the same narrow window of time. "I have other things to do right now, considerably more urgent than reassuring a ministerial council that I still exist. Relay my message exactly as I said it, and inform His Majesty that I’ll contact him personally once I have the bandwidth to actually engage with whatever concerns he’s currently entertaining."

"Yes, Your Highness," the man said, though his expression suggested he fully expected this particular message to land considerably worse than Reven’s tone implied he understood. "I’ll relay it as instructed."

The hologram flickered and cut off a moment later, and Reven stood alone in the sudden quiet of his own quarters, the weight of the conversation settling heavier than he wanted to admit even to himself. ’This is exactly the kind of complication I didn’t need right now,’ he thought, crossing back to his terminal and pulling the pattern search data back up, though his focus had already fractured considerably from the interruption. ’Father’s patience has never been infinite, and I’ve already stretched it considerably further than I probably should have, staying out here on the frontier under increasingly thin pretenses while an entire ministerial council presumably wonders why the crown prince refuses to come home and actually behave like one.’

He thought, briefly, about the classified file Yegard had discovered, the credentials tracing back to a clearance tier nobody at this outpost had authorization to view, and felt a fresh wave of frustration at the reminder of exactly how carefully he’d constructed his own concealment. Nobody here knew who he actually was. Not Yegard, despite all his considerable investigative resources. Not Rafayal, despite weeks of increasingly intimate proximity that had, at multiple points, come dangerously close to revealing the truth entirely. Certainly not the ministerial council currently growing suspicious back at the palace, who understood only that the crown prince kept disappearing to increasingly obscure postings without any clear explanation for why.

’I promised him I’d tell him everything, eventually,’ Reven thought, the memory of that particular conversation surfacing with fresh, uncomfortable weight now that Rafayal himself had vanished before that promise could ever be fulfilled. ’And now he’s gone, and my father is demanding my return to court, and I genuinely don’t know which crisis is going to force my hand first.’ He sat back down at his terminal, forcing himself to refocus on the pattern search data despite the mounting pressure now bearing down on him from multiple directions at once, and found, somewhat grimly, that the two problems weren’t nearly as separate as he might have preferred them to be.

If his identity ever became public knowledge, whether through his father’s mounting impatience finally forcing an official announcement, or through some other channel entirely, every single dynamic currently surrounding the search for Rafayal would shift instantly and irrevocably. House Miller would no longer be dealing with a mysterious, classified instructor of uncertain origin. They’d be dealing with the crown prince himself, someone whose interest in their missing heir carried implications considerably beyond simple personal attachment, political weight that could either dramatically accelerate the search through sheer available resources, or complicate it beyond recognition as every faction in the Empire suddenly recalculated their own interest in Rafayal’s whereabouts based on the crown’s apparent stake in the matter.

’Not yet,’ Reven thought, the same reluctant conclusion he’d reached every single time this particular consideration surfaced. ’Not until I find him first. Once he’s safe, once whatever protection I can offer him is actually secured and stable, then I’ll deal with my father, with the council, with whatever consequences come from finally stepping back into the role I’ve spent years carefully avoiding.’ He pulled the search parameters back into focus, forcing his attention properly onto the work at hand despite the mounting weight of everything else currently pressing against him from every direction.

The terminal chimed again a moment later, and Reven glanced up, half expecting another message from the palace, another attempt to drag him back toward obligations he’d spent considerable effort avoiding. Instead, it was Yegard, requesting an urgent, in-person meeting regarding new developments in the pattern search, and Reven felt something sharp and immediate cut through the lingering frustration of the earlier call, a fresh, focused urgency replacing it almost entirely.

’Later,’ he thought, already rising from his seat, the palace’s demands folding neatly back into the careful, compartmentalized corner of his mind where he’d kept them buried for years now. ’Whatever my father wants, whatever the council’s concerns actually amount to, it can all wait. Finding Rafayal cannot.’ He crossed toward the door, already anticipating whatever new information Yegard’s summons might carry, and left the weight of his own royal obligations behind him without a second thought, exactly the way he had every single time this particular conflict had surfaced before.