Chapter 559: Summer Plans

By the beginning of summer, Theodore had decided walking was no longer an accomplishment.

It was transportation.

This realization created problems for everyone.

The Crown Prince Palace had already been thoroughly secured for a crawling infant, but crawling had at least required Theodore to remain relatively close to the floor. Walking allowed him to reach drawers, low tables, curtains, Boreas’s water bowl, and anyone foolish enough to assume that turning their back for several seconds remained safe.

Matthias adapted first.

He began following Theodore with the patient awareness of a soldier escorting an unpredictable dignitary through hostile territory, rarely interfering unless the child actually approached something dangerous.

Dean considered the comparison increasingly accurate.

"He has your confidence," Dean told Arion one morning while Theo crossed the family sitting room with both arms lifted slightly for balance.

"He has your complete absence of caution."

Dean looked up from the correspondence on his tablet.

"That is objectively false."

Arion caught Theodore before he collided face-first with the edge of an armchair.

Theo laughed.

Arion looked at Dean.

Dean returned to his tablet.

Family visits had become easier now that Theodore was older, healthy, and delighted by almost anyone willing to pay attention to him.

Rina came most often.

She arrived one afternoon carrying a cloth bag large enough that Dean immediately became suspicious.

"No."

"I haven’t done anything."

"You brought a bag."

"That is how objects are transported."

Arion, sitting on the terrace with Theodore balanced between his knees, looked toward his sister.

"What is inside?"

Rina placed the bag behind one of the chairs.

"Nothing relevant."

Theo saw her.

That ended the interrogation.

He pushed himself upright against Arion’s legs, took four determined steps across the terrace stones, and nearly launched himself into Rina’s knees.

She caught him beneath the arms.

"There is my favorite prince."

"You have several brothers," Arion said.

"I was talking about Theo."

"That somehow made it worse."

Rina kissed Theodore’s cheek while he grabbed the pendant at her throat.

The bag later proved to contain eight small stuffed ducks.

Dean allowed two into the nursery.

The remaining six mysteriously appeared in Arion’s office over the following week.

Castor’s visits were louder.

Theo found him fascinating, possibly because Castor had discovered that exaggerated expressions could produce almost unlimited laughter. By the third visit, Theodore had begun recognizing him from across the room and immediately demanding attention with both arms raised.

Castor interpreted this as evidence that he was the favorite uncle.

Nobody bothered correcting him.

Otto and Minerva came together whenever schedules permitted, although Otto still behaved as if being emperor represented an unreasonable obstacle between himself and his first grandchild.

"You can abdicate," Arion suggested when Otto complained about another meeting cutting his visit short.

Otto handed Theodore to Minerva.

"Do not tempt me."

"You have been threatening that for years."

"And one day you will regret doubting me."

Minerva adjusted Theo on her hip while the child inspected the small brooch at her shoulder.

"You are both staying where you are."

Otto sighed.

Arion smiled.

Theo had learned by then that his grandfather was particularly susceptible to being followed.

Whenever Otto attempted to leave, Theo toddled after him.

The first time it happened, Otto reached the doorway, heard uneven little steps behind him, and turned to find Theodore pursuing him with complete confidence.

The emperor missed his meeting by eleven minutes.

Nobody in the family was surprised.

Between those visits, palace work, and preparations for the approaching August birthdays, Arion continued returning to the restricted territory.

The restoration program expanded slowly.

Victor refused to allow anything resembling a production line, and Arion agreed despite finding the pace frustrating. Each restored knight needed several days of observation before they attempted another, partly because nobody knew whether repeated use affected Arion and partly because every infected body responded differently.

Two more were restored successfully before July.

The first was Tomas Hale, a former border patrol officer infected eleven years earlier.

The second was Mira Sen, who had disappeared during a civilian evacuation eighteen years ago and woke in the medical unit demanding to know whether anyone had saved the dog she had been carrying when she was attacked.

Nobody knew.

Matthias eventually found an old evacuation record confirming that a brown shepherd mix had been recovered by another family and lived another thirteen years.

Mira cried harder over that than she had over returning to human form.

The older knight originally scheduled before them was postponed.

Victor made that decision after preliminary monitoring showed his corrupted structure reacted sharply even to distant exposure from Arion.

The man had been infected for more than sixty years.

Every time Arion extended his pheromones toward him, the knight’s body began attempting to change before Arion deliberately initiated restoration, producing unstable fluctuations in heart rhythm, glandular activity, and body temperature.

Victor ended the examination after twelve minutes.

"Not now."

Arion looked through the reinforced observation glass at the elder beyond it.

"He wants out."

"I know."

"Matthias believes he can tolerate it."

"Matthias is not a physician."

From the other side of the room, Matthias said, "I have learned this."

Victor ignored him.

"We wait until August."

Arion frowned.

"Why August?"

"Because historically their physiology destabilizes differently during that period, and because whatever connection exists between you and the forest appears strongest then. If I am going to let you attempt this, I want every possible advantage."

That placed the procedure after Arion’s birthday.

And Theo’s.

Dean approved immediately.

"Good."

Arion looked at him across the dinner table that evening.

"You didn’t even pretend to consider it."

"The man has survived sixty years."

"He has been suffering sixty years."

"And waiting another six weeks so you don’t accidentally kill him is reasonable."

Theo sat between them in his high chair, crushing a piece of soft pear with intense concentration.

Dean glanced toward him.

"Also, you are not spending your son’s first birthday inside a secure medical facility."

"My birthday is the same day."

Dean looked at him.

"Yes. I remembered the unfortunate scheduling."

Arion smiled.

Preparations had already begun despite both parents insisting they wanted something small.

That request failed the moment Minerva became involved. Then Rina. Then Nero sent a message asking whether godfathers were entitled to approve the cake.

Dean answered no.

Nero sent twelve designs anyway.

Otto wanted a formal family portrait because the birthdays were shared.

Castor wanted outdoor games.

Rina suggested ducks.

Arion rejected that immediately.

Matthias, surprisingly, advocated for simplicity.

"The little prince will remember none of it."

Dean looked at him gratefully.

"Exactly."

Matthias continued, "Therefore the celebration is for everyone else."

Dean’s gratitude disappeared.

Arion laughed.

By mid-July, the palace calendar had acquired a blocked weekend for a family celebration, a formal dinner for Arion, a smaller morning gathering centered on Theodore, and enough visiting relatives that Zyon quietly asked whether Arion wanted to relocate his office temporarily.

"No."

"Your family will find you."

"I know."

That evening, Arion returned to the residence to find Theodore asleep across Dean’s chest on the terrace, one bare foot sticking out from beneath a thin summer blanket.

Dean had fallen asleep too, his tablet abandoned beside him.

Boreas lay across the doorway.

Ducky occupied the chair opposite.

Arion stopped before disturbing any of them.

There were still knights waiting in the forest.

An elder whose restoration would require risks they did not yet understand.

An ancient infected presence sleeping somewhere farther north.

All of it could wait tonight.

Arion crossed the terrace quietly, lifted the tablet before it slid from the cushion, and sat beside his mate and son.

August would come soon enough.