by Gwynn White
An older woman—her mother, he guessed—walked at her side. She must have noticed his attention.
A hiss, then she whispered, “Natalia, look away. Never make eye contact. Especially not with him.”
The mother tugged Natalia closer to her side. And then they both curtsied.
Meka couldn’t have felt more unwanted, more alien, if he had just landed from a distant planet. A heavy ache of loneliness settled on him. He turned away from them and continued down the passage with Grigor.
They reached the narrow, winding staircase leading to their apartment in one of the turrets. The treads were worn and slippery, lethal if the walker wasn’t careful. He had slipped and hurt himself more than once on the stone. The stairs spilled onto a landing that led into a sitting area with only two sagging sofas, a shabby side table, two desks with wooden chairs, and a bookshelf filled with nothing that interested Meka.
The room might have once been grand; now it just looked worn, dated, and untidy. No servant visited here, and neither he nor Grigor had any interest in housekeeping.
Two doors opened off the sitting area. Given that the chambers both had bathrooms, he assumed they had once been bedrooms. Now, the room without a balcony was used as their schoolroom. The one with a balcony, he and Grigor shared.
Grigor entered their bedchamber, and Meka followed, slamming the door in the guardsmen’s faces. This was one place their watchdogs didn’t follow them. With the only other exit a fourth-story balcony, Lukan probably assumed neither he nor Grigor were stupid enough to attempt escape.
Grigor whooped and leaped on his unmade bed. Arms outstretched, he jumped up and down, his fingers brushing the faded black, red, and gold bird mural on the ceiling.
Laughing like a child, Meka joined him. Together, they jumped back and forth from Grigor’s bed to his.
“I have been dying to do that,” Grigor yelled.
“What? Jump on the bed?” Meka yelled back through his laughter.
“No. Use our titles like they mean something—other than that we are cursed. We should have done it ages ago.”
Meka considered adding that Lukan would probably go mad, but he didn’t want to break the mood. He was tired of being watched. Listened to. Chained to a post like a dog.
Grigor plopped down onto his bed. Out of breath with laughter, he said. “Now, that thing I wanted to show you.”
He reached under his mattress and pulled out a thick book with a falcon on the cover. The book Lukan had asked about?
All humor forgotten, Meka slid down next to him for a closer look.
Grigor picked at the cover of the heavy tome and then looked up at Meka. “I told Tao I had read all the falconry books in the schoolroom. That was a lie. I never read this one.”
Meka pulled a face. “I can see why. It should have been called How to Be Three Inches Taller. I bet it doesn’t even have pictures. Is this what Lukan was talking about?”
“Yes. I was terrified he would take it away. This book is different than anything else I have ever seen.” Grigor pulled it open and showed Meka the neat print.
Unlike the books Meka was used to, each letter was identical in size and tone. He frowned, then grabbed the book for a closer look. “This wasn’t written by hand.”
“I know. But how else could it have been done?”
Meka gnawed his lip as he flicked through pages. “I dunno.”
“Me neither. Anyway, while interesting, it’s not what I wanted to show you.”
Grigor brimmed with excitement as he pulled out a faded, palm-sized painting of three young men, no older than the two of them, if Meka had to guess. Grigor held it up for Meka to see.
Meka leaned in close, then snatched at the picture. He stared at it for a long moment, unable to believe what he was seeing.
“I felt the same when I first saw it.” Grigor gave him an encouraging smile.
Meka laid the painting flat on the bed so they could both see it. He brushed one of the faces with a grubby finger. “Lukan.”
Grigor nodded. “Instantly recognizable. Even without the scar on his cheek. But the other two?”
Meka’s eyebrow rose, not ready to admit to what he was thinking.
Grigor pointed to the boy standing on Lukan’s right. About the same age as Lukan, he sported a sardonic smile and a ruby next to his eye. Only one man in the palace wore a ruby. Count Felix, Lord of the Household and Lukan’s closest advisor.
This boy looked nothing like old Felix. Meka shrugged, immediately losing interest in the stranger.
That left the younger boy. The one neither of them had yet acknowledged. He held a falcon on his arm. It looked just like Bird.
Grigor stared at Meka with intense brown eyes, waiting for him to speak.
Finally, hoping that saying the words out loud would change the truth, Meka whispered, “Cut the hair. Get rid of the skins and that diamond, and he looks identical to Tao.”
“You noticed?” Grigor’s voice cracked with excitement.
“How can I not?” Meka’s hands trailed to his own shoulder-length mess of silvery-blond hair. The simple act sent shivers up and down his spine. He swore. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. But he’s another version of me.”
“Of us.” Grigor pulled Meka around to face the dirt-spotted mirror.
Meka looked at their almost identical narrow faces, high cheekbones, and pointed chins. The only differences between them were their eye and hair colors. He held up the painting.
The likeness between them and the boy in the painting was impossible to deny. The only anomaly was the missing diamond in the face of the Tao they knew. If he was the same person as the boy in the picture, where had it gone? Meka’s diamond had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. Removing it would be as painful as ripping out a toenail.
Yet, Meka could not resist asking, “Is it possible that he’s our Tao?” Despite the incredulity he felt, his voice carried hope. “Maybe our real father?”
Having Tao as a father would be a dream come true. All his life as he had fished in that lake, he had wondered why Kestrel and Lukan hated him so much. They must have, or why else did they spend no time with him?
Oh, in the last month or so since the axing of the guardsmen, Kestrel had tried to spark a couple of conversations with him, but with nothing to say to her, he had brushed her off.
Grigor smiled. “Some names are written on the back.”
Meka flipped the painting over, irritated at himself for not thinking of that. The Avanov boys: Axel, Lukan, Tao.
The air wheezed out of Meka as if Grigor had punched him. “You—you’ve had this all this time, and you’re only showing me now?”
Every muscle in Grigor’s body tensed. “You weren’t ready to see it. Neither was I ready to show it to you.”
No matter how much it hurt, Meka knew he was right. A sigh, and he dropped his eyes to avoid any conflict.
Grigor took his hand. “I’m sorry, Meks. For everything.”
A shrug from Meka. His go-to answer when he was hurt, scared, or deflecting. “We were both idiots.”
Grigor fiddled with the only remaining button holding his shirt together. “I’m thinking of asking Kestrel for information about our father—our real father.”
“Kestrel?” Meka scoffed. “She won’t tell us anything.”
“Hasn’t she been trying to talk to you?”
“Yeah. But what of it? I got nothing to say to her.”
“I’m thinking she might finally be in the mood to acknowledge she has two sons.”
Meka gave a derisive snort. “Any chance we can discover a new mother while we’re at it?”
“What do you think this is? Fairyland?” Grigor took the photo, slipped it back into the book, and hid them both under his mattress. Then he stood. “Lead the way, Meka.”
Meka opened their bedroom door and pushed through two of their four guardsmen. As usual, the other pair waited at the landing.
Witho
ut saying a word—why should he? He was supposed to be a prince, after all—he led Grigor down the slippery steps that led into the palace.
And then he stopped. He had no idea where his mother’s apartment was located. Refusing to show any embarrassment for that lack of knowledge, he turned to the closest guard. “Take us to Princess Kestrel.”
It turned out to be a long walk. But the deeper they went into the palace, most of which Meka had never seen before, the more opulent the furnishings became.
When the murals on the walls glinted with more gold leaf than paint and the carpet squelched under his feet like silk, he guessed he was nearing the chamber Kestrel shared with Lukan—or rather, that Lukan shared with her, seeing as she was nothing more than his mistress.
They stopped at a pair of huge white-and-gold doors. Meka knocked.
“What is it?” a petulant voice called out. It sounded like Kestrel. “It’s barely even day.”
Meka’s eyebrows rose. It had to be at least three in the afternoon. He opened the door and peered into the room.
Dressed in a sheer black nightgown, Kestrel sat at a cluttered dressing table, contemplating her face. Without makeup, her skin looked sallow and lined. Her black lace nightdress ended halfway up her thigh, giving him an uninterrupted view of her pale legs.
Meka gulped and then looked up at her face in the mirror instead.
Kestrel glanced at his reflection and Grigor’s, and then her eyes flickered back to her own image.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was flat and disinterested. Then her eyes widened, and she spun to look at them, exposing more skin than Meka ever wanted to see on a woman her age—let alone his mother.
Now, if it had been Natalia wearing that nightdress . . .
He forced his mind away from that unproductive avenue as Kestrel gushed, “Come in. Nice to see you.” She waved at two easy chairs in the bay window. “Sit.”
Meka—and Grigor—remained standing. Then it struck Meka that she might be more amenable to answering their questions if he took up her offer. So he sat. Grigor plunked down on the shiny satin chair opposite him.
“Something to drink?” Kestrel’s eyes darted to a table in the corner of the room. An empty crystal decanter and two glasses waited on a gold tray. She licked her lips. “Tea? Or—”
Her nose scrunched as if she had no idea of what teenage boys drank.
Water was the simple answer, but Meka had no intention of sharing that. “We wanted to ask you some questions about our father.”
“Why me? Ask him yourself. Right now, he’s hosting a luncheon for the Sixteen, but he will be available this evening, I suppose.”
Meka took a deep breath and then blew all caution to the wind. “You don’t understand. Our real father. Biological.”
Kestrel’s mouth actually dropped. She snapped it closed and sniffed in a breath. “Emperor Lukan is your father.”
“You sure about that?”
Kestrel’s face scrunched. Perhaps that hadn’t been the most tactful way of asking if, about sixteen years ago, his mother had been mistress to more than one man. Especially when he could see faded bite marks—Lukan’s teeth, he assumed—under the lace that barely covered her breasts.
“What Meka means is that we don’t even look like Lukan,” Grigor butted in, coming to the rescue. Grigor’s entire attention was focused on her face, as if he, too, was trying to avoid seeing his nearly naked mother.
A hollow laugh from Kestrel. “Have you considered that you may look like me?”
Meka—and Grigor—gave her a flat look. Then Meka tried again. “Who is Tao?”
Kestrel blanched, her face becoming so white, so rigid, it could have been wax.
“We know he is somehow related to us,” Grigor said. “We’ve seen a picture of him.”
Silence.
“Yes,” Meka added, hoping to jog Kestrel out of her rictus. “And when we compare ourselves to it, we can definitely see the resemblance.”
More silence.
“I think he’s our real father.” There, Meka had said it. Now all that remained was for her to reply.
A hard swallow from Kestrel. “Emperor Lukan is your father.”
“Then who is Tao?” Grigor demanded, impatience leaching into his voice. Not a good sign, given his brother’s volatile temper.
Meka touched Grigor’s leg to calm him and then said to Kestrel, “We know Tao exists. We know he’s an Avanov. Please tell us what you know about him.”
Kestrel stood and stumbled across the room to the empty decanter. Her fingers brushed the crystal knob, then pulled away. She faced them. “Tao was Lukan’s brother. He ran away to Kartania. Before you were even born.” A pause. “H-he died there.”
Grigor squinted at her. “He died? You sure about that?”
“You doubt me?” Kestrel eyed the empty decanter again. “I am your mother. Why would I lie to you?”
Grigor leaned forward. “When did he die? Exactly?”
“I—I . . . why is this important? Isn’t it enough to know he’s dead?”
Meka swept her questions aside for the rubbish they were. “What’s he like?”
“Why the interest?”
Good question. What to say? Meka pulled what he hoped was a disarming smile and, hiding his self-disgust, ingratiated, “Mother . . . please . . . did he have any hobbies? Falconry, maybe?”
Kestrel frowned, and her eyes glazed over. She was quiet for so long, Meka thought she had forgotten them.
Grigor started to rise from his seat when she spoke.
“He was spineless and weak. He put his love for the low-born above anyone else in his life. He kept a falcon. Now go to . . . the lake . . . or wherever you are supposed to be.”
Meka stood, barely aware of Grigor following behind him as made for the door. Kestrel had lied. No, worse, she had mixed lies with truth, making it even more difficult to know the facts.
The Tao Meka knew was anything but spineless and weak. But he did own a falcon. And had a son called Nicholas. Tao said Nicholas had grown up in the forest. Just like a low-born. The story about him dying in Kartania had to be a lie. But what about her comment about Tao putting the low-born first? Is that what he had done with him and Grigor?
As Meka’s hand reached for the door handle, his steps faltered. Didn’t we matter to him? Or was the low-born Nicholas all he cared about?
Grigor leaned in and whispered, “Walk. Let’s get back to our room so we can talk.”
Meka pulled himself from his daze and was about to open the door when it flung open, almost bowling him over.
Silver scar gleaming on his face, Lukan glared at him. The few times Meka had seen Lukan since the slaying of the guardsmen, he had been struck by how much the emperor seemed to loathe him. The feeling was mutual.
“What are you too doing here?” Lukan demanded.
Grigor eased in front of Meka. It wasn’t necessary, but Meka still appreciated the gesture.
Grigor’s voice wavered as he spoke, “Talking to our mother, sire.”
Lukan’s eyebrow flickered. “I see. Interesting.” His scar seemed to fade back into his cheek.
To Kestrel, he said, “You invited them?” The scar pulsed again. “You aren’t even dressed!” He strode across the room, scooped a dressing gown off the bed, and tossed it at her. “Get that on. Now.”
Kestrel looked down at herself as the dressing gown fluttered to the floor at her feet. Her face flushed. Hand clutching the lace at her breasts, she stooped to pick up the gown and quickly pulled it on. “I—I was getting ready when our sons called on me. We had an . . . interesting discussion.”
Meka’s heart plummeted. No good could come of Kestrel telling Lukan about their questions.
He glanced over at Grigor and saw agreement on his brother’s face.
Why hadn’t they thought of that before they came here? He opened his mouth to say it hadn’t been that interesting, but Lukan shoved both him and Grigor out of the room and sl
ammed the door behind them.
Meka was about to lean his ear against the door when two of their four guardsmen lined themselves up with the men protecting Lukan and Kestrel’s apartment. Their message was clear: No one would be eavesdropping today.
Not even flaunting Grigor’s grand title would shift them. Meka shrugged, giving a good show of nonchalance, and then led Grigor back to their apartment to wait for the axe to fall.
But the farther he walked, the more his façade slipped. What did it matter what Lukan thought when Meka’s father, his real one, hadn’t cared enough about him and his brother to choose them over Nicholas?
And worse, unless Tao came back, there was no way he would ever find out either. The thought almost brought him to tears.
Chapter 31
“How can you appear half-naked in front of two sixteen-year-old boys?” Lukan demanded, unable to believe Kestrel could have been so stupid. Or so cruel.
He strode up to her to smell her breath, but no trace of chenna hung over her. It made her actions even more outrageous.
“T-they’re my sons,” Kestrel stuttered, as if that made it right. “I’m their mother.”
“You were their incubator. Dragon’s ass, you couldn’t even keep them inside you for a full nine months.” Kestrel flinched, but it didn’t stop him yelling, “They are two boys who never interact with people other than an elderly tutor and a few brainless guardsmen. How do you think they are going to react to seeing you with your tits hanging out? Or don’t you care that I’m struggling to keep them in check?”
Tears flooded Kestrel’s eyes. “Don’t you want to know what we spoke about?”
Lukan shook his head to shift his fury. Felix’s words about his heirs being their only weapon against Dmitri—and now Tao—had gnawed at him all through lunch with his councilmen, robbing him of his appetite. Until he completed his Burning, he needed his heirs if they gave the Sixteen comfort. He had ended the meal with the Sixteen early to talk with Kestrel.
“What did they want?”
Kestrel’s throat bobbed. “Perhaps we can sit?”
“Just get on with it. I don’t have all day.”