The day Kev finally asked the question was an unusually gloomy day on the island of Skiy; they’d been sitting in the palace’s study, going over expenses and production, crops and sea and stones, for the last quarter. Grey lowering skies promised future wetness, though the rain had not yet burst into being.

The branches scraped at the study windows like bones; he’d not had time to ask anyone to trim them. Perhaps that had been the impetus, he thought, for the sudden query.

Rill looked up, light glinting from his spectacles; he gazed at Kevane severely. “That,” he said, “is a dangerous thing to ask.”

“I know,” Kev said, defeated by the glare. “I only meant -- never mind.”

Rill sighed. He was only two years older than Kev, tidy and dark and scholarly, with temptingly graceful fingers and wrists: a contrast to Kev’s indeterminate blond-brown often-windblown hair and broad hands and height.

Kev had been interested, in an unfocused on-and-off way, long before the desperate flailing of this past year and his inheritance; he’d never got round to doing anything about it, in part because he had a hazy sense that it’d be awkward to flirt with his father’s household minister and in part because Rill was precise and orderly and meticulous to an extent that always felt vaguely like a critique. His family had been in service to the rulers of the island for generations; he’d taken on the position as household minister only five years before, stepping into the same role his grandfather and great-grandmother had previously filled in their turns. Kev sometimes suspected that the Sapphire Palace, seat of the Lords of Skiy for eons, would fall apart if Rill’s family ever retired from it.

“You must know,” Rill said now, “that it would be a blasphemy for you to investigate the subject. Even to think of it.”

“I know.”

“It is what we do.” Rill pushed up his spectacles. His eyes were dark as his hair, ink-pools that gave nothing away. “We give our dead, when they pass from us, to the lords of the sea. We do not ask questions. We do not venture into their realm. We remain safely on our land. And in exchange they allow our island to prosper. You vowed at your coronation to respect that bargain. Your ancestors have always respected it.”

“I’m not a schoolchild,” Kevane snapped. “I know. Just -- forget that I asked.” He looked back down at the scattered farmland reports and wheat production estimates, wondering what he had expected. Wondering why he could not let the question go.

“But I cannot,” Rill said, after a moment. His voice was carefully steady in the way of a man venturing out across creaking ice, where one overly emotional step might fracture the world.

Kev looked up, astonished.

“My grandfather,” Rill said, “is dying.” This time he took off his spectacles, ran his hands across his face, through his hair. Black strands stood out in the wake of the motion, tugged free from smoothness. “He will not have long. Through his own choice. He does not eat, or speak, or leave his bed. I believe that, when he became finally too fragile to serve Skiy as he always had, he no longer wished to go on. And I believe that he desires this. But I ...” He stopped, glanced down, searched for words amid the paperwork of grammar-school construction and bridge-repair expenditures. “I have never known anyone in my family to die before. And I have found that I ... I do not want to lose the person who taught me to play hunting-stones and the exact length of time to brew the perfect pot of hibiscus tea. And if I must, if it’s happening, I want to know where they’ll take him.”

In all the years they had grown up near each other, and learned their respective duties in their respective family’s orbits, and now worked together in the halls of the Palace, Kev had never heard Rill speak of anything so personal. He had not known his flawlessly organized household minister had been hiding hurt, or grief, or anguished heretical ideas.

He managed to say, “I’m sorry,” and meant it. He knew about loss. He knew about grief. He remained astounded at the presence of the words, spoken aloud: I want to know.

He thought, then: at least mine was a surprise. My father. Here and gone, not lingering.

He could not imagine what Rill felt, knowing, watching, day by day. Asking the same question Kev himself had, night after night.

“Yes.” Rill took a breath, let it go. “Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.” Their eyes met, for a moment. The rain began, soft as a fallen mourning-veil.

“Is there anything I can --”

“Yes,” Rill said. “You can never speak of this conversation again.”

“But --”

“If it were my choice I would stand on the shore and hold him back,” Rill said. “I would ask questions. I would follow, rather than leave him alone on a beach for the sea-lords to take. I would at least know where he goes, and whether he will be honored there. I’ll listen to you, if you ask the same questions. But those are words we will not say outside this room.”

“If we both ask -- if we don’t know what might happen, if we could at least try --”

“No.” Rill had his spectacles back on, glass hiding his naked eyes. “I said that I would. I will not be responsible for the breaking of the compact between the sea and Skiy. I will not be the person selfish enough to stay behind, to witness the sea-lords setting foot on earth, to decide that my pain is worth more than our island’s prosperity. I can choose to do what we have done for ages without question. And I will choose that, rather than face the prospect of destroying our world. Do you understand?”