In another place, another time, born to different parents, Terah Graesin’s evils would have been meaningless, for she was merely obliviously selfish. She had desires, and others existed to fulfill them. Her betrayals were casual because she barely gave them a thought. Had she been born a miller’s daughter, the damage she did would have been confined to jilted lovers and cheated customers.
“I thought Logan and Rimbold had told me everything about you, Kylar Drake, but they could have warned me how handsome you are,” Terah said, flashing white teeth that somehow reminded Kylar of a shark.
For some reason, the comment flustered Kylar. He’d always considered himself very average-looking, but looking into her eyes, he knew—knew—that she meant what she said, even if she was saying it aloud to flatter him. He blinked and began blushing and whatever it was that made him see into Terah faltered and disappeared. She chuckled, and it was a low, acquisitive sound.
“And such beautiful eyes,” she said. “You’ve got eyes that make a girl think you can see right through her.”
“I can,” he said.
“Is that why you’re blushing?”
That, of course, made him blush harder. He glanced back to Terah’s ladies-in-waiting. They had dropped back. Apparently they knew that when Terah approached a man she wished to do so alone, but they were laughing prettily, no doubt at his expense. He caught a glimpse of one of them who didn’t seem to be enjoying the comments, but then he lost her.
“Tell me, marquess, what do you see when you look in my eyes?” Terah asked.
“It would be highly indiscreet for me to say, Your Highness,” Kylar said.
For an instant, her eyes filled with hunger. “Marquess,” she said gravely, “a man risks his tongue for speaking indiscreetly to a queen.”
“Tongues should be used to commit indiscretions, not to discuss them.”
Terah Graesin gasped. “Marquess! You’ll have me blushing.”
“I’d be content with having you.”
Her eyes dilated, then she pretended to cool. “Marquess Drake, I consider it my duty to know the nobles who serve me. You will attend me in my chambers.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Her voice softened. “Wait ten minutes. The guards will allow you through the door. I expect your . . . discretion.” He nodded, smirking, and she paused. “Have we met? There’s something about you that seems so familiar.”
“Actually, we did meet once.” During the coup. “I’m sorry I didn’t make more of an impression on you.” Six inches into your heart would have been about right.
“Well, we’ll remedy that.”
“Indeed.”
She slipped away and Kylar saw Lantano Garuwashi fifteen paces away, staring at him. Kylar’s throat constricted, but though he didn’t look pleased, Garuwashi made no move toward him. Kylar looked around the room blankly, forgetting why he’d come in here in the first place. A girl broke away from Terah Graesin’s circle and whispered to the guards at one of the doors. She turned. His eyes took in the large eyes, perfectly coifed hair, clear skin, full lips, narrow waist, and lean, firm curves. It was Ilena Drake. She was one of the queen’s handmaidens. Kylar had the sense of dislocation. He’d looked away from a little girl for a moment and found a woman in her place. Ilena Drake was stunning. As she pointed him out to the guards to tell them to let him through to see the queen, her eyes suddenly met his. Her face was a mask of disappointment and disgust.
She thought she was being used to help her big brother cheat on her friend, Elene. She thought he’d become a marquess and was so enrapt by the idea of bedding a queen that he’d left everything else behind. Worse than the anger was the monumental disappointment in her eyes. Until now, Kylar could do no wrong in Ilena’s eyes. He had been the slam. Until now.
Queen Graesin, having made her excuses, left the room. Kylar turned away.
Rimbold Drake disengaged from a conversation and was limping toward Kylar, leaning on his cane. His eyes went from Kylar’s face to his hands, and the rings that weren’t there.
“She’s beautiful,” Kylar said.
“She looks like her mother Ulana did twenty years ago. Albeit with more fire,” the Count said, proud despite his grief. Ulana Drake had been as much of a mother to Kylar as he had allowed. She had been a woman unfailingly graceful. She had seemed to grow only more beautiful as the years had passed. Kylar told the Drake as much.
The Count’s jaw tightened, and he closed his eyes, mastering himself. A few moments later, he said, “It’s enough to tempt a man to curse God.” His eyes were stony.
Kylar opened his mouth to ask a question, then closed it. In the next room, through the crowd listening to the bard, he saw a gorgeous blond in a blue silk dress cut so low in back it barely covered her butt. Kylar’s breath caught. For a mad moment, he thought it was Elene. Damn guilty conscience. Daydra and her perfect ass moved deeper into the crowd as if looking for someone. And you told me you gave up working the sheets.
Drake seemed to come back to himself. He cocked an eyebrow at Kylar. “Yes?”
Coming back to himself, Kylar realized another good reason to keep his mouth shut. “Nothing.”
“Kylar, you’re my son—or can be, if you say the word. I give you permission to be tactless.”
Kylar wrestled with that. “I wondered if it’s harder for you when this shit happens. Sorry. I mean, I think what happened with Serah and Mags and Ulana is awful and senseless, but I don’t expect the world to make sense. I wondered if it was harder for you, since you think there’s a God out there who could have stopped it but didn’t.”
Count Drake frowned, pensive. “Kylar, in the crucible of tragedy, explanations fail. When you stand before a tragedy and tell yourself that there is no sense to it, doesn’t your heart break? I think that must be as hard for you as it is for me when I scream at God and demand to know why—and he says nothing. We will both survive this, Kylar. The difference is, on the other side I will have hope.”
“A naive hope.”
“Show me the happy man who dares not hope,” Drake said.
“Show me the brave man who dares not face the truth.”
“You think I’m a coward?”
Kylar was horrified, “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sorry,” the Count said. “That wasn’t fair. But come, if she’s following the usual routine, Her Highness will be expecting you soon.”
Kylar gulped. Drake knew? “Actually, I uh, did kind of want to ask. . . . How much do you know about my gifts?”
“Is this the place to speak about that?” Drake asked.
“It’s the time,” Kylar said. There were three men, six women, and two servants eyeing him. Of those, only one servant—certainly a spy, though whose was anyone’s guess—was within earshot, and he couldn’t remain within it for long without rousing suspicions. Kylar caught the man’s eye and the force of his stare sent the servant scurrying for another plate of canapés. “I see guilt,” he said quietly. “Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes I can even tell what a man did.”
Count Drake blanched. “The Sa’kagé would kill for such a power.” He raised a hand to forestall Kylar’s protest. “But given that you’re not interested in blackmail, to me it sounds like a terrible burden.”
Kylar hadn’t thought of it that way. “What I want to know is what it means. Why would I have such a power, or gift, or curse? Why would the God do such a thing?”
“Ah, I see. You’re hoping I can give you some kind of justification for regicide.”
Kylar glared bloody daggers at the spy returning with a full platter of hors d’oeuvres. The man abruptly changed course, nearly dropping the platter. “The existence of such an ability suggests something about my purpose, doesn’t it?”
Drake looked pensive again. “That depends on what you see. Do you see crime, or sin, or simply feelings of guilt? If crime, do you see all crimes from murder to setting up a market stand without permission? If you’re in another cou
ntry where an action that’s illegal here isn’t illegal, will a man crossing the border look different? If you see sin, you’ll have to figure out whose definitions of sin apply, because I guarantee that my God and the hundred gods don’t agree, or even Astara with Ishara. If what you see is feelings of guilt, does the madman without a conscience appear cleaner than the girl who believes that her parents died in an accident because she lied about finishing her chores?”
“Shit,” Kylar said. “How come everyone I know is smarter than me? Whatever it is, I see the unclean. I want to know if that implies that I have a duty to do something about what I see.”
“Trying to derive ought from is, are you?” Drake asked, smirking.
“What?”
“She may deserve to die, Kylar, but you shouldn’t kill her.”
“Everyone will be better off if I do.”
“Except you, and me, and my daughter, and Logan, and Momma K, and everyone who loves you.”
“What do you mean?” Kylar was caught off guard.
“Logan will put you to death, and losing you will hurt us deeply.”
Kylar snorted. Some loss. “Sir, thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and everything you tried to do. I’m sorry I cost you so much.”
Count Drake bowed his head and closed his eyes, leaning heavily on his cane. “Kylar, I’ve lost my wife and two daughters this year. I don’t know if I can bear to lose a son.”
Kylar squeezed the man’s shoulder, marveling how fragile it felt. He looked into the count’s eyes. “Just so you know,” Kylar said, “you pass.”
“I what?”
Kylar gave the man who’d once single-handedly introduced and abolished slavery in Cenaria a lopsided grin. “Whatever I see—guilt or whatever—you don’t have it. You’re clean.”
A look of stunned disbelief shot across Drake’s face, followed by something akin to awe. He stood transfixed.
“May your God bless you, sir. You certainly deserve it.”
48
Dorian and Jenine were sitting together in the garden. He had dismissed his retainers, and for a time, they had sat without speaking. “I’m sorry I killed that Vürdmeister,” Dorian said.
Jenine looked up, surprised. “Why? Because it upset me, or because it was wrong?”
After a moment, Dorian said, “I could have dealt with him in a manner less . . . brutal.”
“He was responsible for those aethelings, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Dorian said.
Jenine plucked a red flower with six petals, each bearing a purple starburst. Khalidorans considered a blooming starflower an omen of great good luck, because they bloomed only once every seven years. Conversely, a dead starflower was the worst luck. In this garden, they bloomed constantly, but each bloom would die within hours of being plucked. The vir was not good at sustaining life.
After regarding the flower in her fingers for a long minute, Jenine said quietly, “Milord, I’m sure you know that my father was a fool. What most people don’t know is that my mother was brilliant. My father feared her, and he tried to marginalize her so she wouldn’t grow more powerful than he was. She knew it, and she let him because she didn’t care to turn her mind to politics. It was too rough, too dirty, too brutal for her. My father made a thousand mistakes in ruling, but my mother’s might have been bigger because she chose not to rule. I lost the man I love, a man who would have been a great king, because of that. So I’m not going to turn away because ruling is messy. My people will deserve better of me. Nor will I settle for the soft hypocrisy of criticizing you as you face threats I can barely imagine.”
“I don’t want to rule simply because I enjoy power. If it’s for that, then it’s for nothing. I want to undo everything that my father and his fathers have made of this country. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if it can be done.”
A quick scowl passed across her face, but she didn’t speak for a few seconds. Dorian waited. Finally, she said, “Milord, I see you usually being so decisive, so strong, and then the next moment, you’re in here, apologizing to me for something you had to do. Maybe you could have done it differently, but so what? There was an immediate threat and you dealt with it. I’m trying to tell you that you don’t need to be weak for me. I’ve seen enough weak men in my life. I guess my question is—and it’s probably the same question your people have—are you going to be king, or are you just trying to stay alive until you can run away?”
Her words caught him. He hadn’t once thought of himself growing old as Godking. Had that been because he couldn’t remember even a fragment of prophecy with himself as an old Godking, or because he’d been afraid to throw in his lot wholeheartedly with this land? He hadn’t thought about how things would be even a year from now. In thinking for such a short term, he’d ignored problems. He hadn’t done anything to seal the highland tribes to him. He hadn’t moved against Neph. He hadn’t moved against the aethelings. If Jenine saw his hesitation as weakness, how many others did, too?
“I am king,” Dorian said. “And I will be until the end of my life, however long that may be.”
“Then rule as you must to be king.”
“Do you have any idea what that means? Here, with these people?” Dorian asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But I trust you.”
Dorian had thought of Jenine as naive. But he’d been wrong. Jenine was inexperienced. There was a difference. And she might well yet be horrified by what experience taught, but her eyes were open. Nor did she have an overflow of sympathy for the people who had killed her husband and her entire family. But a monarch had to be hard, didn’t he?
Nodding as Jenine rose to go make more preparations for their wedding, distracted by his own thoughts, Dorian reached out with his Talent to lay a small weave on the starflower to preserve it. It was a simple weave and could make even the most delicate flower last a month. But Dorian had forgotten how much vir had been used in growing the flower. Vir and Talent touched and warred and the flower turned black and limp in Jenine’s hands.
Dorian cursed. “I’m sorry, milady. You’ve given me much to consider. You are wise beyond your years. Thank you.” He plucked another starflower and wrapped it in vir for Jenine. It would last a few days, but then he’d simply pick another.
The royal guards let Kylar pass without comment. Ilena Drake stood near the door, arms folded under her breasts. “I’m sorry,” Kylar told her.
“How could you do this to Elene?” she asked.
He walked past her and strode through quiet corridors, up the stairs to the queen’s apartments in a fog. The ka’kari flicked out of his hand into the form of a dagger, then sucked back in. Out, in, out, in. Was it always this simple for Vi? Some flirtation, a little innuendo, and your deader isolated herself, arranged your entry, and helped keep your presence secret? After the lengths to which Kylar had gone for some kills, walking in an unlocked door seemed like cheating. The guards hadn’t even taken the dagger from his belt.
Leaning against the door frame, he breathed deeply. He’d seen so much death in this place. Terah Graesin’s room was Garoth Ursuul’s old room. There had been statues of dead girls in the room bare weeks ago. What had they done with those statues of flesh made stony? If he ever found Trudana Jadwin, he would make Hu Gibbet look kind.
Such bloody, bloody thoughts. Kylar knocked.
There was the scuffing of bare feet on marble, and then Terah Graesin opened the door. Kylar was surprised she was still fully clothed. She stepped close and kissed him softly, luxuriously, their only contact in their lips. She moved slowly backward, sucking on his lower lip. He followed, letting her take the lead. She closed the door and stepped into his embrace.
“We’ll have to be quick,” she said, in between kisses on his neck. “I can’t miss my own party, but if your tongue is half as talented as you suggest, I guarantee to reciprocate very soon.” She giggled wickedly.
What surprised Kylar was how easy it was. Terah was taller than
Elene, and her lips not as full, but teasing her was the same. He traced fingertips down the backs of her arms, then, feigning growing passion, slid one hand to the back of her neck and the other to soft curve of her buttock. From the interplay of starched stiffness and yielding flesh, he could tell she’d removed her undergarments.
He lifted an eyebrow and she giggled again. “Like I said, quick and clean. Later we can do long and dirty.”
You poor bitch, you don’t even know what this is. What was he doing? Why didn’t he end this sad farce? Finish the job, Kylar.
Kylar closed his eyes as Terah pushed him onto the bed, but as soon as he did, he imagined Vi standing beside the bed. She looked pissed. Kylar’s eyes flew open as Terah crawled over him. She tugged her neckline down. “Kiss me,” she said.
Vi seemed to be standing right there, her eyes flaming, daring Kylar to do it and feel her wrath. The image made no sense, but that didn’t make it any less powerful.
Terah made a pouting sound and tugged her dress lower, brushing her bare breast against Kylar’s face. His ear felt suddenly hot. Sickness and revulsion washed through him. His stomach cramped.
There was a wordless scream of animal rage from the doorway. Kylar blinked his eyes furiously, trying to clear away the black spots swimming in front of them. Terah barely sat up before a body collided with her, knocking her off of Kylar.
Kylar fell off the bed and staggered to his feet. As his vision cleared, he saw Luc Graesin on top of his sister, pummeling her with his fists and screaming obscenities. Finally, his chest heaving, Luc pulled himself off of her. “You killed Natassa,” he said, drawing a short dagger from his belt. “You killed our sister.”
“No,” Terah said. “I swear.” Blood was pouring from a gash across her eyebrow and her lips were fat and bloodied from Luc’s fist.
The last piece of darkness Kylar had seen in Terah’s eyes fell into place. “She sent a messenger to the Godking,” Kylar said, “telling him Natassa was traveling to Havermere, and she arranged for there to only be two guards with her.”