When Ola looked through the green beaded curtain into her bathing room, she found Kihrin stripped of his torn, stained clothes and lounging in her special copper tub. Lantern light flared off motes of dust and sparkled on the bathwater, which soap, fragrant oils, and blood had colored milky pink. Kihrin had scrubbed his bronze skin to a bright red, pressing so hard with the sea sponge he had scratched himself in places. His neck was ruddier than the rest of him, contrasting with the blue tsali stone.
Her baby boy was talking with the new dancer. To Ola’s surprise, the girl was still dressed. She hadn’t helped with the bath at all, which Ola thought strange, given how Kihrin had been mooning after her.
Ola scowled, her thoughts troubled by dark memories of an ill-spent youth. She pushed the expression from her face, straightened her shoulders, and inhaled. Ola entered with all the flamboyance of a Reveler-trained circus performer. “Ah! Yes! Here is a feast for my poor darling boy.”
Ola gathered a small folding table, which she set up next to the tub.
Kihrin laughed. “Don’t you think that’s too much food?”
The whorehouse madam smiled. “I brought a little of all the day’s specials from the kitchen.” She waved her hand over the tray of food like a waiter presenting the meal. “We have hot peppered goat with strips of fresh voracress, mutton with leado sauce wrapped and grilled in the traditional banana leaf, nakari marinated yellow fish with mango, fried bezevo root fingers, coconut rice, heart of palm, and pieces of bitter melon with chocolate.” Then, as if she’d forgotten, she added, “And some of my Kirpis grape wine. It will relax you.”
Morea gave Ola a startled look, so the whorehouse madam added, “I know, I know. I mostly save it for rituals,* but I’ve always liked grape wines more than the local rice or coconut wines when I’m trying to relax.”
Kihrin lay back against the tub. The window light reflecting in his eyes danced and skipped. “I don’t eat this good on my naming day, Ola.”
She chuckled. “You might if you ran into demons more often. You should try the yellow fish. That’s nakari powder from Valasi’s, not from Irando.” Ola cast a knowing glance at Morea, and the girl blushed and looked away. Everyone knew nakari powder was made from aphrodisiacs.* That was the whole reason a place like the Shattered Veil Club served it.
Ola teased the girl for Kihrin’s benefit but he never so much as glanced at Morea when Ola mentioned Valasi’s. She frowned. Surdyeh had been upset, but for the first time Ola wondered just how bad it had been out there.
Kihrin picked up the goblet from the tray, paused with it at his lips, and then lowered it. He reached for the fried bezevo fingers, long deep-fried wedges of sweet root, and leaned back against the copper rim again. “Tell me about the day you found me, Ola.”
Ola blinked. Of all the … why did he want to hear that story? Why did he want to hear that story now? She flicked her fingers at him and snorted. “You know this story.”
The boy grinned as he ate. “Morea hasn’t heard it yet.”
“You want me to tell tales? At a time like this?”
Kihrin set his goblet on the floor, on the opposite side of the tub from Ola. He cast a meaningful glance in Morea’s direction. “You always used to say that times like this are the best times to tell stories. Good luck, remember?”
The look told Ola everything. She knew Kihrin liked the girl, but she had no idea he liked her that much. And yet, here he was, obviously enchanted, for the first time in his life holding back. A girl like Morea had probably never known a man who gave her any consideration or courted her feelings. He was trying to impress the girl, and so, he was letting her set the pace. Her smile for her adopted son was warm and sentimental.
“She hasn’t heard it yet,” Ola repeated in a teasing mock. “She don’t need to hear it, either.” Ola looked up at Morea, whose eyes were uncertain and clouded. “Well, child? Do you need to hear a story while you give him a bath? And why the hell aren’t you bathing him, anyhow?”
“Because I told her not to,” Kihrin said, and gestured to the plate of food. “Morea, this is too much for me. Eat something.”
“Bright-Eyes…”
“Go on, Ola, give us a story. Tell me about my mother.” He paused. “I suppose I could tell it…”
“You’d never tell it right. You weren’t there.”
“I was there,” Kihrin corrected. “I may not remember it, but I was most definitely there.”
“You are an uncontrollable rogue. I don’t know what I was thinking the day I picked you up from that park.”
“Tell me the story anyway,” Kihrin teased. “Even though I don’t brush my hair and I don’t obey—”
“And you don’t do your chores—” Ola added with a huff.
“And I’m never up and dressed by the first bell—” he agreed.
“And you’re a thief—” she accused.
“And I drink too much—” he confessed.
“And you’re far too young to be such an incorrigible womanizer—” she yelled with increasing volume.
“And I’m a terrible burden on my father!”
They both shouted the last line together, ending in hails of laughter that resulted in Kihrin leaning forward, coughing. Ola whacked Kihrin a few times on the back when it seemed like he might choke. Finally, Kihrin reached for his goblet of wine and took several long gasping droughts before his lungs settled.
Morea had her hand over her mouth too. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.
“All right,” Ola said, as much to Morea as Kihrin. “I’ll tell you the tale.” To Morea she said, “He’ll be sixteen years old this New Year’s, and it will be sixteen years ago, this New Year’s, that the old Emperor of Quur died.”
“What was his name?” Kihrin asked, with a wink to Morea, who looked startled as a lamb upon realizing the tigers were not going to eat her after all.
“Gendal,” Ola answered. “Do you want me to tell this story or not?” She straightened her agolé for emphasis. “Yes, it was sixteen years ago, and Gendal had been murdered. We knew it was murder, because murder, my dear girl, is the only way an Emperor of Quur can die.”
“No risk of an accidental death?” Kihrin asked. He leaned his head against the copper side of the tub, smiling.
“Not even if he tripped on a rock and fell over Demon Falls,” Ola replied with grim authority.
“He can’t catch the pox?” Kihrin asked.
“Quite immune,” Ola answered.
“Could he have eaten something poisonous?” Morea asked. She bit her lip but the whisper of a smile played at the corners there.
“That’s the spirit, girl. No, he could not. Not even Manol black lotus could hurt him,” came Ola’s firm reply.
“And when he grows old?” Kihrin pretended to be skeptical.
“From the moment the Emperor places the Great Crown of Quur on his brow”—Ola raised a solitary finger upward and poked at the heavens—“he is immortal. He will never age, he will never be sick. No, the only way the Emperor can die is by violence—by murder.”