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Mister sun, sun, mister golden sun, please shine down on me.
Ignis Scientia was five when he earned the post of Prince Noctis’ advisor. The day after the letter came in the mail, heavy with the seals of the royal family of Lucis and full of narrow, flowery script that he could barely read, his mother Olive had called him down from his attic room and sat with him on the roof. Ignis curled up at her side, breathing in the scent of fresh coffee and bread that always seemed to cling to her skin, and watched her fingers form a perfect circle around the rising sun.
Mister sun, sun, mister golden sun, hiding behind a tree.
Her voice was hoarse, dry with a cough as old as Ignis’ memory of her, and she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, but Ignis didn’t care. He held his hands in front of hers, blocking the patch of sun with his fingers splayed like branches.
The front door opened, and a small, dark figure stepped out onto the driveway. Miriam Scientia ran her hands through her wavy black hair, and called out in the thick accent of northern Tenebrae.
“If Ignis falls to his death a week before he meets the prince,” she shouted, “I won’t be the one who tells the king, Olive.”
“Is that jealousy I detect?” Olive asked. “There’s enough roof for everyone, Miri.”
Miriam’s lips pursed. “You can enjoy the roof all you like,” she said. “That means more celebratory coffee cake for me.”
“Mum, no,” Ignis cried, rising to his feet. Olive grabbed him around the middle to stop him from slipping, and nudged him towards the window.
“Go, Ignis,” she said. “Save yourself.” She laughed, high and wheezing, as Ignis scrambled through the attic window.
In the end, there was enough cake for everyone.
“I wish you could come with me,” he said, when he was down to picking up thick crumbs with his fingers. Miriam sighed and ruffled his hair.
“We will,” she said. “Your mother just needs to get better first.”
“Which she can,” Olive added, “because the new health plan you—“ She stopped, and Ignis looked from her to Miriam, trying to interpret the tense look in his parents’ eyes. He knew that his position gave them access to the kind of doctors who worked out of Insomnia, the ones who could fix whatever was eating away at Olive’s lungs, but neither of them wanted to mention it. They never talked about the money, or the status, or the retirement benefits that they were both getting, even though it was Ignis who was getting the job. They just said—
“I mean,” Olive said, “while Ignis is making his new friend at the Citadel, we’ll have the time.”
“Then we’ll head straight to you, little bean,” Miriam said, and lifted the rest of the cake into a tin. “Promise.”
The car from Insomnia came to the door two weeks later. It looked like a black beetle, all slick and shiny next to their scraggly attempt at a sylleblossom garden, and Ignis helped Miriam put his bags in the trunk while the driver, a man named Cor Leonis, spoke to Olive at the front door. He had a sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder, and a medal on his chest that showed he’d served in the war. It must’ve been a recent deployment, Ignis considered. He looked pretty young, for all that he stood like an old soldier, all stiff and unapproachable.
“Be good to Uncle Basil, love,” Miriam said, wrapping an arm around Ignis’ neck to pull him into a hug. Ignis squirmed.
“I will.”
“Hey!” Olive’s crow-like shout made Ignis jump. “Don’t start the waterworks without me, you two.”
Ignis laughed weakly as Olive’s sensible flats crunched over the driveway. He was lifted up between them, even though he was much too old to be held anymore, and squeaked as they fought over who had the right to kiss his cheek. Sergeant Leonis didn’t pay them any mind, just walked to the passenger’s side of the door and waited patiently until they were done.
“Mind your uncle,” Olive said, as Miriam buckled Ignis into the passenger’s seat.
“Don’t neglect your lessons,” said Miriam.
“Be nice to the prince, little bean,” Olive said. Ignis’ face flushed pink at Sergeant Leonis hearing his nickname. “He only just lost his mother, poor thing. All alone in that big Citadel—“
“Olive.”
Again, there was another silent exchange. This time, Olive won. Miriam sighed and adjusted Ignis’ collar.
“I’m sure you’ll be very good friends,” she said. Olive handed Ignis a small paper box, which he set dutifully on his lap, and there was another round of hugs. By the time the door closed and Sergeant Leonis turned on the engine, Ignis was almost relieved. Goodbyes were exhausting.
He waved at the window until the car turned the corner, and the two small forms of his parents disappeared behind a copse of trees.
It’ll be a two week drive to Insomnia,” Sergeant Leonis said, after a few minutes of silence. He glanced over, and Ignis straightened his shoulders. “Maybe longer. Can’t drive at night once we’re out of Tenebrae.”
Ignis nodded. The daemon-warding lights that hung from globes along Tenebrae’s major roadways cut off as soon as they reached the border. He’d heard of daemons before, but he wasn’t sure he had any desire to see one in person, and the thought of being out at night, in the dark, sent a shiver through his skin.
“You’ll be safe,” Sergeant Leonis said, as though sensing his discomfort. “There are plenty of hotels, and I’ve been fighting daemons since I was a little older than you.”
Curiosity got the better of wariness. Ignis turned to stare. “No, really?”
“Ramuh strike me if I lie,” Cor said. If Ignis looked carefully, he almost looked like he was trying not to smile. “Picked up my first sword at ten.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and leaned down to check the height of the sun. “I should tell you that the king gave me permission to provide you with the intel—ah, information—you might need…”
“I know what intel means, sir,” Ignis said. “It’s short for intelligence.”
The sergeant gave him a curious look. “Well. Just in case, if you have any questions? I’ll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.”
Ignis sat in silence for a moment, mulling it over. There was so much he wanted to know. Did the crystal really power the entire city? Was it true that you could see the light of it shooting up between the Citadel spires at night? How many zoos did Insomnia have? Were there any gardens or fruit tree orchards like there were in Tenebrae, or was it all stone and concrete and steel? How many members of the Lucian council were nobility, and how did the council work when the king was always the one who made the final decision?
He took a breath, and his fingers curled on the paper box.
“What’s Prince Noctis like?” he asked.
When Sergeant Leonis’ now woefully dusty car hit the main highway of Leide and the first billboard advertising the capital of Lucis came into view, Ignis was on good enough terms with the sergeant to demote him to plain Mr. Leonis. He couldn’t call him Cor, though, no matter how much he insisted. It just felt wrong.
The paper box had turned out to be full of tiny candy stars, which Ignis had been slowly whittling down on his own since Mr. Leonis wasn’t interested in sweets. After a few weeks of driving, they’d stuck together in little clumps, and he had to keep wiping his fingers on a damp handkerchief in order to not cover the whole car in sugar.
They stopped at a giant garage for a minute to refuel and have the car washed, and Ignis sat quietly under an umbrella with a juice box while the owner forced Mr. Leonis to scrub down the car himself. When they got back in the car, Mr. Leonis was grumbling, but in the pleased sort of way that Miriam did every time Olive made a terrible joke.
Ignis went over what he had learned about Prince Noctis during their long, slow drive.
He was four and a half years old. He had his mother’s face and his father’s dark hair, and tended to go running off at all hours despite his nanny’s best attempts at keeping him corralled. His father often had to deploy Crownsguard to watch the halls just in case they found him trying to make his way to the throne room. When he first learned to talk, he tried to babble the ear off of anyone who passed him by, but he was quieter, now. He cried if his toys were taken away, and had names and personalities for each of them.
Ignis wondered why, if Prince Noctis seemed so desperate to talk to people, Mr. Leonis never mentioned anyone talking back.
An hour later, after a harrowing walk up what felt like a thousand stairs and through more security than he cared to go through again, Ignis approached the Lucian king.
King Regis looked older than he did in the painting Olive kept on their kitchen wall. His hair was still dark, his beard trim, but there were lines at his eyes and around his mouth, and Ignis had to keep his hands clenched together to stop them from trembling. Mr. Leonis had whispered to Ignis that they’d picked out a smaller receiving room instead of the throne room, to make things easier for him and Noctis. Glancing around at the cavernous ceiling and the wide walls, Ignis couldn’t imagine how big the throne room had to be.
The prince stood at King Regis’ side. He was small for his age, with rounded cheeks and a stubborn set to his mouth, and he shifted uncomfortably in his well-tailored suit. Ignis flashed him a brief smile, and the prince’s lips twitched.
“Ignis Scientia,” the king said, and Ignis jerked to attention. He bowed low, and the king inclined his head. “I trust your trip here was uneventful?”
“Yes, Majesty,” Ignis said. One or two of the other people in the room—council members, Ignis suspected, by their robes—gave one another uneasy looks. Had he said the wrong thing? Ignis frantically ran through the crash course in titles that he and his mothers had gone over when he was preparing for his entrance interviews. Should he have said Your Majesty? Sire? Was the bow too low? Too high?
“Prince Noctis,” King Regis said. “Say hello.”
Prince Noctis stumbled forward. He looked at Ignis, then back at his father, and back at Ignis again.
Stage fright, Ignis thought. That was the word for it. He was only four, after all, and here he was in a room full of people, having to speak on cue. Ignis decided he’d have to break the rules and speak first. He bowed again.
“Good afternoon, your highness,” he said. “My name is Ignis Scientia. I’m to be your advisor-in-training.”
He remained in his bow, waiting for Noctis to nod, or speak, or make a gesture that could give him leave to stand up again.
“No,” Noctis said, and Ignis’ stomach twisted in knots. “No,” he said, in a louder voice.
It felt like the air was draining out of the room.
Ignis looked to the king, who was doing a very impressive job of hiding his surprise. The people behind him, however, were not: Their expressions ranged from disapproval to barely-concealed interest, and Ignis almost stammered out an apology before he took a closer look at Noctis.
The prince was a picture of misery, his bottom lip trembling under his teeth, face drawn, high spots of pink on his cheeks. Ignis thought of what his mother had said when he was leaving home a few weeks before. Poor little thing. All alone in that big Citadel…
Ignis straightened up. He wasn’t there for the people behind Noctis, watching them like they were players on a stage. He wasn’t there for the king, either, not really. He was supposed to be there for Noctis. Just Noctis.
“Let’s do it over,” Ignis said. He stuck out his hand, and someone in the crowd let out a hiss of distaste. “My name’s Ignis. My favorite color’s purple, I can swim across a whole pool while holding my breath, and I’m kind of scared of Kenny Crow.”
Noctis stared at his outstretched hand. “He scares me, too,” he said, in a small voice.
“It’s the eyes, isn’t it?” Ignis asked. “It’s like they follow you.”
“Yeah.” Noctis smiled, just a little, and took Ignis’ hand. “Hi, Ignis.”
“Iggy,” Ignis said. “That’s what my friends call me.”
“I guess mine call me Noct,” Noctis said. He stepped closer, letting their arms drop, but kept a firm grip on Ignis’ hand.
“Hello, Noct,” said Ignis. “It’s good to meet you.”