Thurvishar was half-through a translation of an ancient Joratese text - one of his dustier tomes from home, entirely dense and engrossing - when a distinct feeling of presence cut through his verb conjugation. The wards on his apartment vibrated thickly with magic and were entirely unbothered; whatever had arrived hadn't disabled them. Thurvishar finished up his current sentence before deliberately setting his pen to the side, in no particular hurry to turn around. Beings that could waltz through his wards weren’t just uncommon, but blisteringly powerful, and there was no point in feigning anger or shock. When he turned to face the trespasser, his expression was calm.
“Knocking is a social norm here,” he said, in that annoying voice he frequently deployed when irritated: flat, devoid of emotion, bored, utterly unreadable.
And then he recognized the stranger waiting behind him framed in a window by one of his larger bookshelves: a man of average height, average weight, shabby, friendly demeanor, tanned white skin, reddish-gray hair, a patchwork tsali cloak. He could have been anyone, really. He wasn’t particularly handsome, or notable, unless you knew - and Thurvishar knew.
Sandus, the Emperor of Quur. Dead, buried nearly a year before.
And Thurvishar’s father.
Thurvishar and the Empress had been kidnapped by Gadrith D’Lorus, a rogue noble from one of the Emperor’s many Houses. Gadrith had had use for the baby, who was so gifted magically, but the mother he had murdered and tossed away like any trash. Thurvishar had been adjusted and hidden in plain sight, his eye-color altered and his age augmented by three years - three years he’d never get back, three years that had been wrenched from him until he could see his father on the street, and his father would walk right past him without recognition. They had never been united.
Emperor Sandus smiled. “I interrupted your work, didn’t I?”
Something like that. Sometime in the past few moments, Thurvishar had forgotten how to breathe. It couldn’t be - it was a trick. A mimic, he thought, or some insidious little mind trick designed to bring him to heel. He had sat through the former Emperor’s funeral, had listened to three hours of speeches from various politicians, had seen the Emperor’s body lowered into a tomb built for two - although they had never found his murdered wife, not after she had disappeared nearly twenty-three years before, had been snatched away, she and their newborn son…
He blinked. Sandus was still there, although it was obvious now that he wasn’t entirely there. A hologram, perhaps - you could clearly see the rows of books behind him. Sandus scratched the side of his arm, waiting. It was then that Thurvishar knew that this had to be Sandus, had to be his father, not a spell or a mirage at all. Everyone always got the Emperor wrong. They had some perception that he must wear his crown of gold and carry that heavy scepter of Quur around at all times, never mind that he had been just another common farmer before the battle in the Arena that had won him the crown. Artists always painted him glowing in gold, with a fierce brow, with thundering presence - not this plain-faced, sharp-eyed man who looked ready to go till a field somewhere.
Thurvishar cleared his throat, gestured to the leather armchair to the side of him. “It’s not important work, your Majesty. Please, have a seat.” Should he… bow? That was protocol. Empress Tyentso had told him Day One to get off the floor, stop sucking up, and prove that he wasn’t just another D’Lorus brat, but that was Empress Tyentso, and he had no idea what Emperor Sandus might want with regards to decorum.
But Sandus waved off the chair, and when Thurvishar made a move to bow, he shook his head, flexed his fingers. “No, no— absolutely not, don’t make a fuss. I’m not here in any political capacity.”
Thurvishar tilted his head, and waited, not voicing the obvious question of then why are you here?
Sandus looked behind him, fingers barely brushing against the spines of Thurvishar’s personal library. “You— I’m sorry, this is—“ He turned back, and pressed the full brunt of his gaze against the other man. “Did we… meet? Before. Before I knew.”
Thurvishar felt his face color, adrenaline surge. He waited until his hands weren’t shaking before he took a sip of the lukewarm tea at the side of his desk. “Once.” The teacup clattered against the saucer. “I was thirteen. You were introduced to all the Lord Heirs of the noble Houses. We spoke briefly.”
“You were right in front of me,” Sandus said, “and I didn’t see you.”
Thurvishar made the noise of an animal caught in a trap. “There were spells-“
“Your eyes. Yes. I noticed.” Sandus coughed, cleared his throat. “D’Lorus black, all the way through. Permanent?”
Thurvishar nodded. “He knew I’d figure out how to remove the glamour, otherwise.”
“Even so.” Sandus sighed, and took a few steps closer until he was so very close, touchable even. Thurvishar did not move. “You look so much like her.”
Thurvishar had no memories of his mother, being a baby when she had been killed. He’d seen the royal portraits of course - a tall, dark-skinned woman with a quiet smile, intelligent gold eyes. The thought that he looked like her - even through Gadrith’s glamours - made his lips quirk into a grin.
“And nothing like me,” added the Emperor, shaking his head with a snort of amusement. “Not a bad thing, mind. You may have gotten lucky there.”
Thurvishar waved him off. “If I live through this apocalypse nonsense, I think I'd like to be a farmer like you.”
“There you have it.” The Emperor’s smile faded, just a tinge, like a watercolor dissolving under a watery brush. “Thurvishar. That's what you're going by, now? That name he gave you?"
"I have my reasons," Thurvishar said, and didn't explain them. Unlike Sandus, he wasn't dead. The war went on.
"Thurvishar, then." Sandus pursed his lips. "I looked for you. I looked for you and your mother for years…”
His son regarded him with an expression caught between joy and despair. “I never blamed you. Not once. It wasn’t your doing.”
“You were gaeshed, weren’t you?” The Emperor was pacing now. “Gaeshed, so you couldn’t say a word. I knew House D’Lorus was rotten, knew they had a reputation for gaeshing their servants, but I didn’t put a stop to it.”
“You made it illegal,” Thurvishar said, uncertain why he was trying to make this man who had had all the power in Quur and still managed to fuck up feel better.
“I should have conducted more raids. Maybe I could have…” Sandus stopped talking, then, lips pursed. “Thurvishar.”
“Yes, your majesty?” He wasn’t going to call the man ‘father’. He couldn’t.
“Are you— are you happy? At least?”
And Thurvishar thought he might be able to lie, but then Sandus’s sharp gaze caught him yet again and he thought: oh, that’s where his power is. Such a strange, plain, intelligent man. “Happier,” he finally said, “but obviously the business with Kihrin has a way of keeping that temporary. And I don’t know how long I’ll be here in Vallo. But I intend to use the time wisely.”
“I wish—“ And again, Sandus interrupted himself, looked disgusted. “Well. There’s no point in wishing anymore, is there? And my time here is short.”
“You’re leaving?” Thurvishar asked, a stab of anger warming through him. “Already?”
“Limited time,” Sandus explained with a sort-of smile. “But I want you to know: I don’t know you. Unfortunately, things being what they are, I won’t know you. But your mother and I are so proud of you. So proud. Neither of us were perfect people, and there’s so much that we would have done differently had we known what would transpire. But if you’re the result of our actions, our stupid, short-sighted actions… and you’re the best thing that could have come out of all of that.”
Thurvishar, who was terrible with emotion on a good day, sat like a bump on a log, numb. He didn’t know what he could say in reply, what he should say. There wasn’t anything to say. This man was a stranger, a daydream, and he had had so many fantasies growing up of the Emperor seeing him, of the Emperor knowing him, and saving him from Gadrith, from the spell which bound him silent and pliant. But the Emperor had died the same day that his captor had. There was nothing to be done about it now.
And yet something about the apparition’s words felt warm and safe, like an amber charm. Unable to speak for once in his life, Thurvishar nodded, a track of saltwater edging down the side of his cheek.
“I know you’ll do great things,” said Emperor Sandus as he began to fade into the morning light. “But more importantly, I know you’ll do good things. We love you, son. We don't have to know you to do that much.”
And Thurvishar D’Lorus was left sitting by himself in his library, struck silent, seen.