“Ow,” I said. Khaemezra had healed my wounds, but everything hurt—a sore, achy, pulled-muscle hurt.
“You’ll be happy to know you’ll live,” Khaemezra said, sounding amused about the matter.
“At least for now,” Teraeth said. “No telling what the future holds with your talent for getting into trouble.”
“Right, because I asked for this.” I swung my feet out of bed and wrapped the robe around my middle, although it was a bit late for modesty. I attempted to ignore Teraeth and concentrated on his mother. “I should say thank you for saving me from that gaesh attack, but I have to go back to my favorite question: what do you people want from me?”
She smiled. “A better question: how did you survive disobeying a gaesh when no one ever does?”
I hesitated. “What? Wait, but I…” I cleared my throat. “I thought that was your doing?”
Khaemezra shook her head. “Oh, no.”
“Then how—” I put my hand to my throat. The necklace of star tear diamonds was missing, probably reclaimed when they had removed the robe. The Stone of Shackles, however, remained.
She saw the gesture. “Yes, I suspect it was the stone too. It protects its wearer, although it doesn’t do much to mitigate pain. You might wish you were dead.” Khaemezra continued, “Juval was the one who gaeshed you, wasn’t he?”
Yeah, I wasn’t going to fall for that twice. “Don’t be silly.”
Teraeth frowned. “Then why—”
Khaemezra held up a hand. My gaesh charm dangled from her fingers. “You may answer honestly, dear child. I’ve removed the previous prohibitions.”
Teraeth must have given her the gaesh while I was unconscious.
“Oh, well in that case, sure, Juval had someone summon up a demon and that’s who gaeshed me.” I waited for a second, but I didn’t seem inclined to go into convulsions, so I continued. “Juval was furious when he realized he’d been tricked into committing high crimes against the Quuros Empire. It’s not like they’d just smile and dismiss putting a Quuros prince in the rowing galley for a season as ‘just a misunderstanding.’ I convinced him that if he killed me, the priests of Thaena would just lead the Quuros navy to his sails even quicker. He figured ripping out my soul also solved the problem.”
“Being gaeshed doesn’t rip out your soul,” Teraeth snapped.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. “Is that personal experience talking? You’ve been gaeshed? Or have you just gaeshed a whole lot of people? I bet it’s the latter one, huh?”
“The Black Brotherhood doesn’t engage in slavery.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “The kind auctioneers back in Kishna-Farriga might beg to differ. Didn’t you have reserved seats?”
“We buy vané slaves to free them, not to gaesh them,” he retorted.
“Is that so? Is that what your mother here did with Miya? Freed her? And how do you finance an operation like that? Good intentions? Or do you have a couple dozen more star tears back home?”
“No, but if you’d like to keep stealing them back, we could work something out.”
“Quiet, both of you.” The old woman clucked her tongue. “Teraeth, go upstairs and ask the Captain how many days until we reach Zherias.”
He glared at me a moment longer, his expression righteous. “We don’t sell slaves.”
“Whatever you say, Master.”
“Teraeth, go.”
He nodded to his mother, his brow furrowed. He spared me one last parting glare and left.
I looked sideways at Khaemezra. “He’s adopted, right?”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “He has chosen to take after his father.”
That stopped me. I’d asked rhetorically. Teraeth was clearly not Khaemezra’s blood kin. “Night and day” was an apt metaphor for the pair. He was one of the Manol vané. She was a Kirpis vané.
At least, I thought she was. A woman who lived and breathed illusions could look like anything she wanted.
I grimaced, rubbing damp palms on the fabric of my robe. “I can’t trust you. I know where those star tears came from.”
“As do I: the hoard of the dragon Baelosh.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The hoard of the dragon Baelosh,” Khaemezra repeated. “Where they were stolen by Emperor Simillion. After he was murdered, the jewels were locked up with all the other priceless artifacts, in the center of the Arena in the Quuros capital. Centuries later, Emperor Gendal gave the necklace of stars to a striking Zheriaso courtesan whose beauty matched the night sky, and she used the jewels to buy her freedom. When her former owner, a man named Therin, was off having adventures with his friends, he used the necklace to save the life of a vané woman who was about to be executed. He offered to trade the necklace for ownership of the woman’s gaesh—and his vow that she would never return to the Manol.” She smiled. “That’s how the necklace came to me.”
“So you don’t deny that you sold Miya—” I halted. “Execution? She was going to be executed?”
“We call it the Traitor’s Walk. The condemned is gaeshed and forced into the Korthaen Blight. It may sound like exile, but trust me, it’s a death sentence. No rebirth. No Returning.”
“And you thought, ‘Why not make some metal on the side?’”
She scoffed. “I’d have sold her for a handful of glass beads and a broken twig if it meant she didn’t end up spitted on a morgage pike, while demons feasted on her soul. I was there when she was born. I watched her grow up. Watching her die would have broken my heart.” The sadness in Khaemezra’s eyes seemed too heartfelt to be anything but genuine.
“You … you know Lady Miya then?” I had assumed their relationship was more … professional. I mean, Dethic the slaver back in Kishna-Farriga “knew” me, but I don’t think he’d have gotten broken up by the idea of my death.
She didn’t answer at first. She turned away and looked to the side and I …
I recognized that gesture, that look. I’d seen it before, even if the two women looked nothing alike. Khaemezra didn’t look like Miya any more than she looked like Teraeth, but something about their manner was so alike, that I recognized the connection immediately.
“Holy thrones, you—” I gaped. “You’re related to Miya.”
She blinked and turned back to me. “How observant. Yes. She was my granddaughter.”
Oh. OH. “How could you? To summon up a demon and watch as it ripped out part of your granddaughter’s soul…”
“Oh, no. I’m not like your Captain Juval. I didn’t order some lackey to summon a demon,” she said. “I gaeshed her soul myself. I used that.” She leaned over and tapped the Stone of Shackles at the base of my throat.
I stared at her in horror. “No, you can’t—this can’t—”