by Jenn Lyons
And the illusion fell.
He looked exactly the same as the Manol vané man I’d seen in the vision, the one who’d struck that final blow for his queen. The clothes were different, but that was all. He certainly didn’t look like Terindel the Kirpis vané, the man who’d led his forces against the Manol vané.
But I knew it was him.
Terindel had been killed by a black-skinned Manol vané, and since he’d been wearing the Stone of Shackles at the time, he’d survived—in the body of the man who’d slain him.
“When that trinket around your neck was first given to me,” Terindel explained, “I never wanted to use it. It would save my life but at the cost of my throne. That’s the problem with ‘royalty,’ you know. It rests on the laughable idea that your body, your bloodline, is worthier of virtue than your skills, your intellect, your soul. And the Stone of Shackles doesn’t care about bloodlines. I became, literally, the thing I hated: one of those impure Manol vané.”
“Wow. Uh, so . . . do you still think . . . uh, I mean . . .” I cleared my throat.
“Am I still screamingly racist? No, I like to think I’ve gained a bit of perspective.” He set down the cup, sheathed his sword. “You are never more vulnerable than in the moments after your soul switches with your killer’s. The stone doesn’t come with you, and many of the skills that we rely on for survival, from swordplay to spellcasting, are tied to the training and talent of our bodies. As soon as I realized what had happened, I ran. I didn’t have time to pick up the Stone of Shackles, but my new body was already wearing Chainbreaker. Important lesson there: you’re not immune to the effects of a Cornerstone just because you’re wearing one of the others.”
I nodded. That too made sense. Lyrilyn hadn’t taken the time to pick up the Stone of Shackles either. Or if she had, she’d only had time to tuck it into my swaddling clothes. “What about Valathea?”
He glanced over at the borrowed harp. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your queen. Your wife. She was supposed to be taken to safety.”
Terindel’s jaw tightened. “She was betrayed. They sentenced her to the Traitor’s Walk.” He paused. “I think we’re done here. You should rest.”
“I think I’m going to go have another chat with the Old Man.”
Doc stared at me. “That’s not wise.”
I stood up from my chair, intent on running back to the beach.
“You can’t leave,” he told me.
“Watch me,” I snapped. Then my body betrayed me. The whole universe tilted on its axis, flipped, and spilled me down against that smooth rock floor.
50: THE LORD HEIR’S WIFE
(Talon’s story)
Kihrin arrived back in his rooms in a rage. All the simmering frustrations and anger that had boiled inside of him for months overflowed in a torrent. How could any man be so unfeeling? Therin didn’t care. Therin was an emotionless monster with no regard for his so-called family. Therin had told him the D’Mons weren’t a real family, but until that moment Kihrin had thought it was just hyperbole for the new kid. Now he believed. As long as Therin had Darzin around to tyrannize the lives around them, the old man never needed to dirty his own hands.
Kihrin felt a homicidal urge to destroy, but his rooms had been secured against petty vandalism. There were few chairs, and the cloth draperies made unsatisfying victims. The supply of pottery broke nicely, but was soon exhausted.
Then Kihrin saw the harp.
It sat just where Therin’s servants had left it, right where he’d ignored it ever since its arrival. It squatted like a malignant vulture, overseeing death and pain and hate. The High General had said its name meant sorrow. Well named, since it was the cause of the greatest sorrows of his life. He advanced on the harp, picked the thing up in his hands, raised his arms high—
“If you destroy that, darling, whatever will you play for the High General?” Alshena D’Mon’s voice called from the doorway. She walked inside, fanning her face. She was always fanning her face to keep her plaster-thick makeup from running. “Not that I particularly care, ducky, but I do think you’ll regret this in the morning.”
Kihrin caught his breath and lowered the harp. Her sharp voice cut right through his soaring anger. He felt weak. “I didn’t hear you knock, Lady.” He looked away. Kihrin was in no mood to deal with his father’s tipsy wife and her barbed jokes.
Alshena smiled. “I didn’t. I’m a terribly rude creature, but I do believe I heard the sound of breaking pottery.”
Kihrin looked over at the heaps of damp soil and broken porcelain. “Yeah. Uh—I was just—redecorating. I’m fine. I don’t really want company right now, if it’s all the same.”
Alshena raised a well-lacquered eyebrow. “Of course,” she agreed. “I only came by to thank you.”
“Thank me?” Kihrin leaned against one of the four-poster tree trunks of his bed, his equilibrium gone.
Alshena nodded. “Yes, I might have been concerned when I saw Darzin follow you out after dinner—” To his complete surprise, she looked embarrassed. “I admit your conversations with both my husband and father-in-law were rather loud, and could be heard quite clearly from down the hall. I hope Darzin didn’t hurt you too badly.”
Kihrin looked at his feet. “Oh. No. Just a split lip. I have a salve for it.”
“Thank you.” She said the sentence as if its utterance hurt. “It’s not easy to stand up to my husband. You’re either very brave or very stupid, and though I haven’t quite decided which yet, I have decided I like you.” Her eyes were glassy bright from all the wine at dinner.
Kihrin sat down on the bed. His tongue felt thick and immobile. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite.
Alshena nodded, and turned to leave. At the door, she paused to face him once more. “I didn’t believe you were Darzin’s son until tonight.”
Kihrin looked up at her with a stricken expression. “But now you do?”
Alshena looked around the room. “May I come in? I know you didn’t want company, but I find I really do.”
“Well, someone seems to have, uh . . . dropped some dishes. It’s kind of a mess.” He looked around for a chair, but the room wasn’t designed for entertaining.
He was about to suggest they go to the patio when she pointed. “I’ll sit on the bed.”
“What would people say?”
“Nothing, unless you tell them,” Alshena replied. “And you don’t strike me as the gossipy type.” She sat on the green linens and arranged her agolé around her legs. Kihrin fought the urge to tell her it was proper for a lady to pull her agolé down when she sat, not up, but the flash of leg had given him an uncomfortably strong mental image of the rest of her—he was still fighting off demon flashbacks.
“Do you have anything to drink?” Alshena asked once she was positioned to her satisfaction. “I could use a drink in the worst way.”
Kihrin paused. He shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m sorry—I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a wine cabinet hidden around here somewhere . . .”
“Go look. I’ll wait, ducky.”
He stared at her for a moment, but Alshena showed no inclination to leave, and seemed oblivious to his feelings on the matter. She picked at the bark of one of the corner posts with a long red-lacquered fingernail.
Kihrin sighed, and looked for something he could give her so she’d go away. After a few moments, the young man returned with a wine bottle and two glasses. “I found this.” He poured one glass, but as he began to pour the second Alshena stopped him, leaving the second glass with only a small amount of sparkling gold liquid.
“I am old enough to drink,” Kihrin reproached her.
Alshena smiled sagaciously. “I’m sure, but why don’t you read the label of this excellent bottle of wine you’ve found?”
Kihrin studied the bottle. The writing on it was unfamiliar to him, a strange spidery script. “I can’t read this.”
Alshena nodded. “It’s
vané.” She took the smaller second glass and stared at its contents critically. “There’s more than enough here to—how would your friends say it in the Lower Circle?—‘knock me on my ass,’ I believe.”
Kihrin stared at the glass like it held snake venom. Finally, noticing the faint mocking grin on his stepmother’s face, he shrugged and took a sip.
It was fire, then a shivering rush of euphoria. A wave of excitement raced through him, lighting every inch of his body’s nerves to the experience of being. He smelled the soil from the pots and the rose hips and lemon peel of Alshena’s perfume. Then the feeling faded as the sip ended.
“Damn.”
Alshena beamed. “Strong stuff. I suppose I should thank Lady Miya for this next time I see her.”
Kihrin looked up from the wineglass. “Lady Miya? Did she put this here?”
Alshena shrugged. “I have to assume. These rooms were hers once, after all.”
He frowned and shook his head. “These rooms belonged to the High Lord’s late wife.”
“Lady Norá? Yes, they did.” Alshena coughed. “And Miya was Norá’s handmaiden. Then Norá died and Miya took over these rooms, and your mother Lyrilyn was her handmaiden. Look at this bed and tell me that a vané didn’t sleep here.” She gave him a look suggesting he was being very naïve indeed.
“So why did she give it up? Why aren’t these still her rooms?”
“That, my young stepson, is one of the other great scandals of House D’Mon.” She sipped the wine just a little, expressing an obvious shiver of delight at the effects. “You see, when Lady Norá died, Darzin must have been, oh, ten years old? It’s been well over twenty-five years. Anyway, Lady Norá died giving birth to his brother, Devyeh, and the priests of Thaena wouldn’t Return her.”
“That’s not unusual,” Kihrin said. “They refuse people all the time.”
“Yes, but Therin had been a priest of Thaena—before he’d looked around one day and found eight people in line ahead of him had all mysteriously died.* That was what made him High Lord. Did you know that? Anyway, and here he is, High Lord of the Physickers, and his wife dies in childbirth? And his goddess won’t bring back the only woman he’d ever loved? He severed all ties with the priests that day, and crawled into a bottle to nurse his wounds.”
“This was the Affair of the Voices?”
“Just after,” Alshena said, “and the House just about fell apart. We came very close to not having a House D’Mon.”
He snickered. “Oh, the tragedy. What saved the House?”
“Who. Miya. She moved into these apartments next to Therin and started issuing orders, claiming they had come from the High Lord himself. Most of the healers knew it was a lie, but everyone was so desperate they went along with it.” Alshena paused in the middle of her tale and added, “Now think about that piece of information, my sweet. Lady Miya comes off as an angel made flesh, but she ran this house like a general for two years and we moved up in rank during her tenure. I will never underestimate that woman; saints do not prosper in this town.”
“You told me she was a sheltered veal calf.”
“I lie a lot. It’s part of my charm.” She winked at the young man.
He laughed and shook his head. “She had the suite decorated like this?”
“I’m not really sure. It was before I married Darzin. It could be that she did, or it’s possible that Therin ordered it as a sort of thank-you for her assistance. But by the time I came onto the scene, this suite was already vacant.”
“Do you know why?” Kihrin tucked his legs up under himself as he sat on the bed across from her.
“Darzin likes to say Therin came to his senses and realized he was letting the house be run by a slave and a female too, so he took back his power and put her in her place. Personally, I don’t think she would be seneschal if Therin had just wanted to punish her for daring to save this House from extermination.”*
Kihrin narrowed his eyes. “But that’s not what you think happened.”
Alshena stopped fanning herself. She clicked together the ivory blades of the fan and set it down on the bed next to her. “I think they fought over your mother.”
Kihrin started back, surprised by the unexpected answer. “Lyrilyn?”
Alshena nodded. “Yes. They were friends. Miya didn’t like the attention that Darzin was giving Lyrilyn and told Therin to put a stop to it, and Therin refused.”*
Kihrin looked away. “Of course.”
“After that, Lyrilyn ran away. It caused a huge rift between Miya and Therin. Lady Miya moved out of this suite, which was then boarded up. The next year I married Darzin in an arrangement made between House D’Mon and House D’Aramarin. Today she runs the household and Therin—”
“Therin runs House D’Mon?”
“I was going to say hides in his rooms from the rest of the world, but sure, that works too.”
“How old were you?” Kihrin asked. “You know, when you married my—when you married Darzin?”
Alshena pursed her lips. “Sixteen.” Then she laughed. “Darzin was different then. He was handsome, charming, devastating. He—he was a stubborn young rake who didn’t care who you were or what your position was. He told people what he thought of them, and be damned the consequences.” She turned her stare to him. “A lot like you, dear.”
Kihrin scowled as he drank more of the wine. “I don’t want to believe I’m related to either of those bastards. I don’t know who I hate more: Darzin or his father.”
Alshena stood up from the bed and began to pace. She moved until she stood behind Kihrin. She smoothed down his hair, gathered it in her hands, and placed the gold locks over his right shoulder. Then she knelt over his left shoulder and whispered, very softly, “Do you know why Darzin beats Galen?”
Kihrin turned his head and stopped, realizing the gesture put his face provocatively close to hers. “He’s a bully?”
“No,” she said, still caressing his hair with her hand. “It’s because he wants a son who’s like him. Ruthless. Smart. Hard. Things Galen will never be. I love my son but I know his faults. He will never be what his father wants. How could he be? He’s had it beaten out of him.” Then Kihrin heard her intake of breath, and a ragged, gasping sigh.
He realized Alshena was crying.
His reaction was immediate and instinctive. Kihrin turned and put his arms around her. Although her proximity still produced troubling and uncomfortable flashbacks, he tried his best to ignore them. After a second’s hesitation Alshena hugged him, and openly cried against his shirt. He let her sob, patting her hair with one hand while his other fist tightened into a ball around the bedsheets. Kihrin’s whole world was filled with the rose and citrus scent of her skin, the pressure of her body through the suddenly thin fabric of her dress.
He reminded himself, repeatedly, that she was Galen’s mother, twice his age, and he didn’t like her. Unfortunately, she was soft and warm and clung to him in all the right ways, and Kihrin was more than a little drunk himself.
Finally, Alshena drew back. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I just—it’s so difficult sometimes.”
“I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be married to that monster,” Kihrin said.
“It’s not like I had a choice. Oh dear, look how you’re trembling!” She sniffled and wiped away her tears using the hem of her agolé, which pulled it far enough off her to reveal jeweled undergarments and little else.
Kihrin used the brief reprieve to stand up and walk away from his stepmother. He crossed his arms over his chest and inhaled deeply. “It’s not because of you,” he said.
Alshena wiped her face. Strangely, the makeup had the effect of aging her, and with less of it she did not seem nearly so old as before. Kihrin found it shocking: he was used to thinking of her as an unattractive, horrible clown creature. She was younger and prettier than several of the more successful whores who had worked at the Shattered Veil.
“Hmmph,” she said. “A word of advice, dea
r boy: when a woman sees a man go to pieces like that in her presence, the last thing she wants to hear is, ‘It’s not because of you.’”
“There was a demon prince,” Kihrin tried to explain. “He did things . . . put things in my mind . . . I can’t . . .”
She blinked at him. “You’re joking. You must be joking.”
“It’s—” He looked away, embarrassed.
“I wondered why you weren’t sleeping with any of the slave girls,” she commented.
Kihrin’s head snapped back up. “You’ve been tracking that?”
She sniffed. “Of course we have. The first step to hooking you up with some appropriate and politically well-connected young lady is establishing whether you do, in fact, prefer young ladies.” She paused. “Tishar and I were starting to wonder.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He rubbed his arms. “You and Tishar can rest easy. I prefer girls. Usually. I mean—” He shivered. “Oh damn.”
“Quite so, from the sounds of it.” Alshena wiped the last of her makeup off her face. “What a lovely change of pace. Now we can go from awkward and uncomfortable silences discussing my husband and what a monster he is, to awkward and uncomfortable silences talking about your problems with sex.” She raised an eyebrow. “I assume you can perform—I mean—you’re not—”
He glared at her. “That is not the problem.”
“Oh good. Excellent.” Alshena smiled. “Then I know exactly what you should do.”
“You do?” Kihrin asked.
“Oh yes.” Alshena D’Mon examined the bottle of vané wine, then filled both of their glasses.
She said, “You should have another drink.”
51: THE ROCK GARDEN
(Kihrin’s story)
No. Stop right there, Talon. My turn again. And I warn you right now: if you try to describe the rest of that evening, I’m not playing anymore, no matter what kind of threats you make.
Are we clear?
Good.