At the Feet of the Sun (Lays of the Hearth-Fire, #2)

by Victoria Goddard

It was as hard to dance properly, but not nearly as visually spectacular as the Fire Dance. Though perhaps Cliopher was a trifle biased on the subject.

His Radiancy was a great mage, and the subtle magic of space and organization—nothing near as flashy as the infamous poet Fitzroy Angursell’s splendid and storied Bag of Unusual Capacity—had never failed.

okay wait does he still not know at this point??? this is implying he doesn’t but also putting them on the same level which is sillyyyy to me

“No, sir: you don’t understand. You were the man from the proverb—the person I’d always been told not to imitate—the man who came looking for the sea—and then I learned that you found it.”

Cliopher flipped through the stack to see that the Ouranatha had, in fact, done what not a single other government body in his entire career had ever done, and accepted the first iteration of a budget.

hahaha

He wished his Radiancy were there.

as you always do baby girl!

How he wanted his Radiancy to be there, sitting with them, sharing such a meal, such a conversation, such a life with him. One day, he told himself. One day.

yup!!

and decided to figure out what the recent rumours of the return of Fitzroy Angursell were about. There had been a lot of them of late, ever since his Radiancy’s departure on his quest.

hm i wonder why!

He distinctly recalled Aioru laughing through half the report of “and Fitzroy Angursell is supposed to have been in the First Emperor’s tomb this whole time, can you imagine?”)

this is much more enjoyable after reading the return LOL

His Radiancy had always been particularly sensitive to the rumours of their activity,

I WONDER WHY

Why had his Radiancy decided to pretend to be Fitzroy Angursell?

i wonder why!

Of course his Radiancy was actually the notorious outlaw and trickster poet Fitzroy Angursell. Of course he was.

ooooh i don’t remember him just coming to this conclusion. love this

He said, precisely, “Can we talk about Fitzroy Angursell for a bit?” Ludvic let out a great breath. “About time.”

PLS

His Radiancy had trusted Cliopher to run the world in his absence, but he hadn’t trusted him with that.

baby girl please

(That was a lie. He had spent his life looking for something he’d never been able to find there.)

and you just learned he’s both ur future QOR and ur idol

Daydreamed he’d be the one to find him; even to rescue him.

you did tho!!! you rlly did

“You’re counting out cousins of yours who have families like that, aren’t you?”

they know him too well

For a moment Cliopher wished this moment would extend, suspended out of their real lives, a moment of friendship between them, more solid than almost any other.

it will!!!

“When was I humming Aurora?” Cliopher asked, stung.

oh my god i didn’t realize he didn’t realize this till BOOK TWO

Surely he hadn’t been acting the whole time? Surely that—that friendship, if he dared call it that—surely it had not been fake?

:( bitch he’s in wuv with you

“You did help him,” Ludvic replied gently.

yeah baby girl he’s right

The new lord magus was very likely to be a lady, given the way that historically the lords magi of Zunidh had alternated with each succession.

very avatar coded

He wondered briefly why his Radiancy had always preferred male attendants.

pls??? are you implying for gay reasons???

He did not need to chase that viau, seek that sea, any longer. There were other seas to seek, to find, to sail. He could be content with them. (All of this was a lie.)

yeah literally LOL if anything this makes everything even better for you bruh

He found himself silently reciting a passage from Aurora to keep himself settled, and stopped short with an internal dislocation. And then, carefully, consciously, with the greatest deliberation, he started silently reciting the Lays instead.

ur acting like aurora is a song y’all both danced to and now ur broken up or smth LOL

You are very different than you used to be, and yet far more yourself than you ever were before.”

“I don’t object to selling a few pieces. At some point one’s walls fill up.”

real asf

Cliopher was suddenly … glad, yes, glad was the word, that he’d never actually invited his Radiancy to live with him.

bruh

Fitzroy Angursell, newly released from his gilded prison (his oubliette, as his Radiancy had once called it: Fitzroy Angursell is in an oubliette, he had told Cliopher, when he lay in his canopied bed recovering from a heart attack), was never going to want to … confine himself like that.

he’s literally dreaming of having a home rn

For a moment he didn’t know what she meant, and his thoughts wandered once more to his Radiancy—to Fitzroy Angursell—and his poetry.

suzen: that was sexy we should have sex kip: ah yes my bff fitzroy and his cool ass poetry i love

Sex had never been a great preoccupation of his, and if he and Suzen hadn’t already had that sort of relationship he doubted the activity would have occurred to him.

so real mr asexual! edit on second read: bitch it literally didn’t occur to you, you were daydreaming about fitzroy instead!

His formal hand had been used as the model for two type-fonts, as well as the Secretariat’s short-hand and archival scripts; the poem looked, he thought, good.)

the nerdiest behavior ever

Rhodin snickered. “Oh, don’t be coy! How else would you attend your secret assignations?”

assignations is a crazy word choice. like HELLO do you think they are FUCKING?

“I swept it regularly while his Radiancy was in residence, naturally,” Rhodin said. “For … spies?” “Of course not—no one else knows about it. But it would hardly have stayed secret if he got his hems dusty.

I was already bribing half a dozen people to provide me with all the details.

i love him sm

and he adores you, of course. He wouldn’t want you to think he’d forgotten about you as soon as he went out the door.”

tehehehehe

Despite everything, he still wanted to sail to the House of the Sun and bring home a new fire, a literal new fire, a flame of the sun.

and you shall

he had wanted to find a new island,

and so you shall

He wanted to have Fitzroy Angursell look on him, on Cliopher Mdang who had devoted his life to his—to his Radiancy’s—service— No. That was not one of the dreams he could fulfil.

uh huh

“Or is it because your memories were blotted out when the Merrions granted you enlightenment?”

oh what a silly man

“Did you ask for yourself?” Cliopher felt his hands curling again, as if he needed to stretch them after a long day of writing. He didn’t have to answer. He didn’t. Rhodin was his friend, who had offered him his own dreams, his own wants, who had trusted him with his own secret yearnings. “No,” he said plainly, if quietly. Rhodin nodded, entirely unsurprised, and set his hand on the door. Before he opened it, he said: “You’re allowed to.”

so true bestie!!!

The Ouranatha told me off for worrying about it once; apparently it makes things worse.”

this is so silly haha

All of this had been making sense.

so true bestie!

Each time I see you communicate silently, telepathically, I myself come a little closer to the secrets. I regret that you must keep your soulmate secret. But I understand,” he added sincerely.

oh shitttt future bindi here: i don’t think this is actually anything LOL

Rhodin gave him a small smile. “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? To help each other along the way.”

“It was a long journey,” he said,

master of under selling things

He wanted…oh, why couldn’t he have that house with all his friends nearby, his cousin alive and well and home from Alinor? Might as well dream of that voyage to the House of the Sun!)

when literally both of these things are gonna happen LOL

All that time on the boat, and suddenly I can only think about philosophers from uni.” “To our regret,” whispered Toucan.

“Cliopher. We love you as you are. Let yourself be yourself.” As if it were that easy.

🥺🥺🥺

gave Cliopher a look that he took to mean he was to be good and not cause a ruckus—though since this was Rhodin and not Ludvic, there was also an amused,

it’s fun how there are two characters who do similar jobs but do them very differently

“Historically, most of the islands would have fanoa—trading—relations with other islands

ooo it’s interesting they use this word to mean that