“So, High Lord Cedric lying to the Council about Raverí’s fate is a problem for him just as much as it would be for your father, but let’s be realistic, it happened twenty years ago. I rather suspect the Council would just as soon let that be water down the river. But Thurvishar isn’t Ogenra. He isn’t god-touched. The eyes are faked, and the test results were too. If you were to test Thurvishar right now, he wouldn’t have the tiniest trace of royal blood in him. He would, however, test as half-vordreth with a hell of an aptitude for magic.”
“Why—” Jarith blinked. “Where would High Lord Cedric have even found a half-vordreth? The only vordreth I’ve ever even heard of is—” He stopped looking concerned and began to look horrified. I’m guessing he was mentally going over the stories his father had probably told him about Emperor Sandus and his wife, Dyana—his vordreth wife.
“That brings me to my second letter,” I said as I laid it, still sealed, on the desk in front of him. “Which, to save you time, I’ll simply explain is from the High Priestess of Thaena herself, verifying that she cannot confirm that either Emperor Sandus’s wife nor son are actually dead because neither soul crossed beyond the Second Veil. You know who else never made it fully past the Second Veil? Gadrith D’Lorus. A fact which I can confirm, because I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”
“What?”
“Gadrith D’Lorus faked his death. A lot of High Lord Cedric’s crazy, inexplicable behavior starts to make a lot more sense once you realize that he’s still taking his marching orders from his son Gadrith. But Gadrith isn’t perfect, and he’s screwed up this time.”
“There’s no way Gadrith is still—”
I held up a hand. “Hear me out. Thurvishar isn’t Gadrith’s son. Thurvishar is Emperor Sandus’s son. Why did Gadrith lie? I honestly don’t know. It might be because of the prophecies that he and Relos Var seem to be so obsessed with, or it might just be that Gadrith thought Thurvishar was too young to eat at the time.* Fortunately, the truth is easy to confirm: because if I’m right, Thurvishar is both gaeshed and half-vordreth. That is eminently testable.”
Jarith narrowed his eyes and studied me. Then he walked over to a cabinet and proved he’d lied earlier by pulling down a bottle of brandy. “And how do you know what Gadrith looks like?”
“Raverí showed me.”
He poured himself a shot and didn’t offer me any. “And how do you know she’s really Raverí D’Lorus?” He wrinkled his nose. “Not that I can imagine anyone volunteering to be hunted as a witch and a traitor.”
I grinned and held up a third letter. “This one’s from your uncle Nikali.” I tossed it over so it slid to a stop next to the second letter on the desk. “He said you’d know it was really from him.”
He gulped down the rest of his drink and walked back to the desk. “I’m not going to lie, Kihrin, you’re starting to scare me. What the hell have you been up to while you were away?”
“Oh, we so don’t have time for that.” I gestured toward the paper. “Do you believe me? At least enough to pull Thurvishar in and run those tests? Keep in mind he won’t come willingly if he realizes what you’re doing. I’m sure he’s been ordered to keep Gadrith’s secrets hidden by any means necessary.”
Jarith didn’t answer right away. He broke the wax seal on the letter and read it. I had no idea what wording Doc had used, but it must have been persuasive. He set it down and nodded. “I’ll see it done.”
74: THEFTS AND MURDERS
(Talon’s story)
“What are we doing?” Sheloran D’Talus asked Kihrin, later.
He pointed down from their vantage in the tower. “This has one of the best views in the whole Blue Palace,” he told her as he watched through one of the ship’s glasses that the guards kept there. “We’re watching a spy.”
“A spy?” Her red eyes went wide. “How dangerous! Who is he?”
“He? Maybe it’s a she…” Kihrin said.
They’d discarded their wings in a corner of the watchtower where they wouldn’t interfere with their movements, and Kihrin had removed the heavy feathered shirt. “Is it a she?” Sheloran questioned coyly. “And is she fabulously seductive?”
He shook his head. “No. Sadly, no.” He pointed. “The little man in the staid clothes. The one with the shaved head.”
Sheloran peered through the spyglass. “Isn’t that a Voice of the Council?”
“That makes him especially dangerous,” Kihrin agreed.
“Well, he’s leaving,” the young lady announced, disappointed that there would be no sexy, dangerous, covert shenanigans.
Kihrin reached over and took his turn at the spyglass. Caerowan was talking to various nobles, one after another, and then the Voice of the Council met up with a group of servants and led them away from the party.
He was heading toward the Private Court, off-limits to all but family.
Kihrin closed the spyglass and helped Sheloran to her feet. “I’m afraid our game may have just become serious. Would you do me the favor of finding the guard?”
The woman raised her chin. “What shall I tell them?”
“We have intruders in the Prince’s Court.”
When Kihrin reached the court, there was no sign of Caerowan or any of the men that Kihrin had seen accompanying him. The young D’Mon prince cloaked himself in shadows and looked for any sign of the intruders. No matter what the Voice’s perceived rank, this was a part of the palace in which he was unquestionably trespassing.
He heard a scuffle, a muffled curse, and homed in on that noise. As he came around a corner, he saw one wall of the Hall of Flowers had been magically breached. It was now background to a lattice of glowing green energy, a circle of glyphs and sigils, through which he could see a hallway of rough brick and cobblestone.
Two men carried a wrapped triangular package through the opening while a third man supervised. Green energy leaked from his fingertips as he worked to keep the magical portal open. Caerowan was last in line.
That package. Kihrin’s heart skipped as he realized what it was. It was a harp. It was his harp.
They were stealing Valathea.
“Hey!” The shout was out of his lips and he was running.
The two men carrying the harp vanished through the opening in an instant.
“Abide,” Caerowan told the Gatekeeper.
The Devoran priest lingered as the young man raced up to them.
“You son of a bitch. That doesn’t belong to you!” All thoughts of stealth vanished from the young man’s mind.
Caerowan reached out with a hand, grabbed the wrist Kihrin was using to hold his sword, and twisted. Kihrin flew over Caerowan’s head and landed on the tile floor. Caerowan put a knee to the young man’s chest and bent down. “She will be returned to you, Your Majesty.* This I swear.”
“You’re crazy,” Kihrin said as best he could while struggling to draw breath in his lungs.
“Sadly no.”
The pressure on Kihrin’s chest released, and Caerowan ran through the portal, the mage who had opened it following a second later.
Kihrin rolled to his feet and chased after, but there was no sign of the gate. He turned at the sound of footsteps running fast in his direction. “Guards! Guards, there was a theft—”
The soldiers stopped and looked at him oddly. The lead man bowed. “M’lord, your presence is required immediately. It’s your mother.”
Kihrin was at a loss. Who did the man mean? Ola? Then he realized they had to mean his stepmother, Alshena D’Mon.
“Show me,” he said.
* * *