Chapter 541: Wider Reach

Matthias adjusted to the secure medical room considerably better than Arion expected.

By the time Victor finished the first round of examinations and permitted him to sit somewhere other than beneath three scanners, Matthias had been given clean clothes, proper shoes, and enough time in a shower that one of the medical staff eventually checked whether he had fallen asleep beneath the water.

He had not.

Apparently, after nearly a century with soil embedded into a body no longer entirely human, forty minutes beneath hot water simply seemed reasonable.

When Arion entered the secure sitting room later that afternoon, Matthias was dressed in dark grey trousers, a plain black shirt, and a knitted jacket someone had found in the medical stores. His long hair had been washed but not cut, leaving it falling in loose black waves nearly to the middle of his back, while the years he had spent transformed had left surprisingly little visible damage now that Arion had restored him.

He looked perhaps forty-eight.

Maybe fifty.

Not like a man who had served an emperor dead for ninety-nine years.

Matthias was examining the tablet on the table.

Arion stopped near the door.

"You know how to use that?"

Matthias glanced up.

"Mostly."

That was not the answer Arion expected.

He crossed the room and sat opposite him.

Matthias returned his attention to the screen, swiped to the next page with slightly too much pressure, then frowned when he accidentally enlarged the document.

"I dislike that."

Arion reached across and corrected it.

"Pinch inward."

Matthias watched his fingers.

Then copied the movement successfully.

"Hm."

Arion studied him.

"You are taking this remarkably well."

"The tablet?"

"The century."

That earned him a quiet laugh.

Matthias set the device down.

"I did not wake this morning believing Dominic still sat on the throne."

Arion leaned back.

"You knew?"

"Not exactly."

Matthias rested his forearms against his knees, looking far more comfortable with the conversation than Elias had been when Arion first questioned him.

"The knights are not isolated from one another the way humans are. We do not share every thought, and we certainly do not experience one mind, but impressions travel. Strong memories. Fear. Changes in territory. New people entering the forest. Sometimes knowledge follows them."

Arion glanced toward the tablet.

"Technology?"

"Yes."

"You knew what a tablet was because younger knights had seen one."

"Some had used them before infection. Others saw patrols carrying them. Drones were more difficult at first."

"You understood those too?"

"Eventually."

Matthias smiled faintly.

"The first time one flew over us, several younger beasts attempted to eat it."

Arion stared at him.

"That still happens."

"Then perhaps technology has not evolved as much as I assumed."

Arion laughed despite himself.

Matthias’s expression softened at the sound, but his attention remained unusually sharp, taking in the room, the cameras, the recessed lighting, and every movement behind the reinforced glass without appearing overwhelmed by any of it.

He understood far more than a man from Dominic’s era should have.

Not perfectly.

He had asked why the wall monitor had no physical controls and spent several seconds staring at an automatic door the first time it opened for him, but the concepts did not frighten or confuse him because somewhere inside the forest he had spent decades absorbing pieces of the changing world through everyone who entered it.

"You have a wider connection than Elias," Arion said.

Matthias nodded.

"Much wider."

"Why?"

"Age."

"That simple?"

"Mostly. Time changes the infection. The older knights sink deeper into it, but we also become more connected to what it holds."

Arion’s expression hardened slightly.

"Is that why you could speak to me more clearly?"

"Yes."

Matthias tapped one finger against his temple.

"Elias was still fighting himself. He wanted to remain Elias so badly that most of what passed through him felt like noise. I stopped fighting a long time ago."

That sounded considerably darker than the calmness with which he said it.

Arion remained silent.

Matthias noticed.

"Do not misunderstand. I did not want to disappear. I simply learned that if I fought every instinct, every thought, every presence around me, I would go mad."

"So you listened."

"Yes."

"And that gave you access to more."

"Much more."

Arion considered that.

"How much do you know about me?"

Matthias’s brown eyes settled on him.

"More than Elias did."

"That is not an answer."

"No."

Arion waited.

The old soldier smiled very slightly.

"You are impatient."

"So was Dominic, apparently."

That changed Matthias’s expression for the first time.

Something warm passed through it.

"He was."

Arion leaned forward.

"You knew immediately who I was."

"Yes."

"Not merely that I was royal."

"No."

"How?"

Matthias looked toward the dark glass wall separating them from the observation room.

"There were changes in the forest long before you entered it as an adult."

Arion went still.

"When?"

"When you were a child."

Matthias continued before Arion could interrupt.

"The beasts found royal blood again. Corrupted royal blood. Sigma blood."

Arion’s jaw tightened.

"My infection."

"Yes."

"You knew."

"The forest knew."

The wording bothered him, but Matthias spoke as though it were simply the most accurate description available.

"At first, it was weak. A child surviving something he should never have carried. Then your dominant expression activated early."

Arion stared at him.

"You know about the induced rut."

"I know something happened that changed you enough that the infected felt it."

Not details, then.

That was slightly better.

"After that, the searching changed. Some beasts still moved during August, but the old ones knew there was a possibility again."

"A controller."

"A successor."

Arion disliked that term almost as much as king.

Matthias apparently noticed.

"You can choose another word."

"I intend to."

"You are still what you are."

Arion gave him a flat look.

Matthias looked almost amused.

"So you knew I existed for more than twenty years."

"Yes."

"Why did none of you come?"

That question removed the amusement.

"Because you were not awake."

Arion frowned.

"I was very much awake."

"Not to us."

Matthias searched for words.

"You had the corruption, but you did not reach back. We could feel you sometimes during periods when your pheromones changed sharply, then you disappeared again."

Arion thought of suppressed ruts.

Black pupils. Sharpened teeth. The darker scent beneath his vetiver that Dean had remembered long before anyone understood its meaning.

"And Veyra?"

Matthias nodded.

"That woke you properly."

Arion felt a chill move across his shoulders.

"Snake Island."

"I do not know that name. I only know there was a moment when every old knight in the forest felt the same thing."

"What?"

Matthias looked directly at him.

"You."

The room went quiet.

Arion understood now why Elias had said the attacks stopped because the infected knew where their king was.

Arion rested one hand against the arm of his chair.

"And when I entered the forest later?"

"You reached them."

"The beasts."

"All of us."

That was new.

Arion’s gaze sharpened.

"You heard me?"

"Not words. At first."

"But later?"

"When you commanded them to sit, the pressure went through the entire connected territory."

Arion thought of that day, his mind slowed by Claudia’s sleeping agent while enormous beasts surrounded him and every person nearby prepared for violence.

Apparently it had traveled considerably farther than the clearing.

Matthias leaned back.

"Then you began changing them."

"The dogs."

"The first twelve."

"And the wildlife."

"Yes."

"You knew all of that?"

"We felt the structure change."

Arion exhaled slowly.

Elias had known fragments because he remained close enough to himself that the collective barely reached him.

Matthias had spent nearly a century inside it.

He had become something closer to an archive.

That was going to make Victor insufferably excited.

Arion glanced toward the observation glass.

"He is listening, isn’t he?"

"Victor?"

"Yes."

Matthias smiled.

"He is breathing too loudly behind the wall."

Arion stared at him.

"The room is soundproof."

"I know."

That answer did not help.

Matthias’s expression grew more serious.

"You should understand something before you bring more knights out."

Arion’s attention returned immediately.

"The older we are, the more we know."

"And the harder it may be to restore you."

"Yes."

Matthias looked down at his perfectly human hands.

"But there is another difference."

"What?"

"When you called, I heard you from much farther away than Elias could have."

Arion waited.

Matthias raised his eyes again.

"If you call properly, Your Highness, I do not think you will need messengers anymore."

He paused.

"The entire forest will hear you."