A Kirpis vané* stood at the entrance to the garden.
Unlike the other vané he’d seen back at the Kazivar House, this vané wasn’t in pain, wasn’t being tortured. She was extraordinary: light brown skin dusted with gold, with eyes like blue sapphires. Her hair started out the color of blue Kirpis pottery glaze but darkened along its length. By the time it reached her calves it was the same dark blue as her eyes. She gleamed. Her brightness made the gardens seem dark and the sky overcast.
She’s in the House colors, Kihrin realized, and then wondered if the coloring could possibly be natural.?
“I have arrived to escort your rediscovered son to his chambers, but I see perhaps you’ve decided he will not be in need of such compartments. Shall I order the guards to prepare a dungeon cell instead?” Her voice cracked with sarcasm sharper than any whip.
Darzin cleared his throat. “The boy has a temper.”
“The blood of House D’Mon runs through his veins, does it not?” The vané’s gaze slid over the garden with displeasure before coming to rest on the cowering slave girl and the body of the trainer. She frowned at the physicker stooping over the body. “How badly is that man injured?”
Darzin look confused for a moment, then snorted. “Oh, he was injured very well—fatally, in fact. The boy has a talent for killing.” He motioned the guards away from Kihrin, who hauled himself to his feet with murder still hot in his eyes.
“As the father, so the son,” the vané woman said.
Darzin laughed. “Good one. And here I didn’t think you vané had a sense of humor.”
“We do not, Lord Heir. May I escort the young man to his rooms?”
“In a minute.” Darzin turned and punched Kihrin in the face, sending him to the ground. “That was for splashing coffee on my shirt.”
“I wish I’d done more. Fuck!” Kihrin touched the side of his jaw.
“Watch your language.” Darzin grinned. “I do like you, boy. You have a proper D’Mon fire in your heart.”
“You have a strange way of showing your affection.”
“I’ve been told that before. And one more thing…” Darzin unsheathed the gold sword at his side and crossed over to the slave, still crouched on the floor and sobbing.
“No!” Kihrin leapt after him, but the guards were ready that time.
The crying slave never realized what happened. Darzin’s sword entered her back and exited through her front. She gave a single short scream and collapsed near the body of the dead trainer.
Darzin turned back to Kihrin with a cruel smile. “The penalty for killing a House guard is death. And since I can’t kill you, I have to make someone pay for your crimes, don’t I?”
“You son of a bitch!” Kihrin screamed.
“No, that would be you, my son,” Darzin laughed. “Just remember every time you throw a tantrum I’ll make sure an innocent person dies. I think you’ll run out of sanity long before I run out of slaves.”
Kihrin seethed without a word, his eyes never leaving Darzin’s.
“He’s all yours, Miya. Perhaps you can teach my baby boy some manners.”
“Such was exactly your father’s intention, Lord Heir.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Darzin’s face. “Of course it was.”
Miya turned to Kihrin. “Shall we walk? Or do I need the guards to carry you?”
Kihrin jerked himself away from the guards. “I’ll walk. Anything to get away from this monster.”
“As you wish. Follow me.”
31: TYENTSO AT THE BEACH
(Kihrin’s story)
I found Tyentso sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean, her hair a sandy curtain whipped in front of her face by the wind. She’d summoned up a trail of glowing mage-lights to illuminate the way from the camp to the beach, but otherwise sat alone and in the dark, staring out at the sea, unsmiling.
I’m pretty sure she was not thinking fondly about past lives.
She saw me climb the switchback steps and raised an eyebrow at the bottle of wine under my arm and the two ceramic cups in my other hand.
“Now how did you manage to rate clothing of a nonblack hue? Who do I have to bribe?”
Tyentso looked at her white chemise. “Initiates aren’t allowed to wear black.”
I blinked. “You’re joining them?”
“I’m thinking about it. I don’t have many other prospects. However, if anyone shows up claiming that I’m their long-lost queen, you let me know.” She patted the grass next to her, offering me a seat.
“Maybe I should join—I’ll just have to make sure to flunk all my classes.” I poured us both a cup of wine and handed her one. “Feel like entertaining company?”
Tyentso looked perplexed. “Why aren’t you down there in a tangle of limbs? That seems like very much the sort of thing you would enjoy.”
“Don’t be so quick to assume. Why aren’t you down there in a tangle of limbs? Wouldn’t you like the change of pace after all those years of dirty, unwashed sailors?”
She snorted. “Please. There wasn’t a single man on The Misery I’d have touched except to shove away, and the feeling was mutual.” She considered the wine in her cup. “Honesty compels me to admit I’m intimidated by our new vané friends. They are all so…”
“Pretty.”
“Exactly. Far too pretty.” Tyentso sniffed the air as if smelling something off. “I would feel, I don’t know, like they felt sorry for the poor ugly witch. I doubt I’ll ever find myself in the mood for a pity fuck, but if I am, please do me the favor of slipping some arsenic into my tea.”
“You’re not—” I stopped when she glared at me. Tyentso’s glare could slice a man to ribbons at twenty paces and turn him into a toad besides.
“Don’t go all soft on me, Scamp. As it happens, I grew up in a house with mirrors.”
I looked back over my shoulder, thinking of the Thriss back at the party. “Okay, but I don’t think they care.”
“Horse shit. Everyone cares.”
“I don’t know. When Teraeth had his arms around you back there when the ship was sinking, did you get the feeling he thought you were too awful to touch? Or did I just imagine the way you two were looking at each other?”
Tyentso drained her cup and refilled it from the bottle. “Gods, you saw that? Damn vané held me like he was rescuing his one true love. I thought maybe he was just hard up for a woman, but that was before we arrived on the island and I saw all these little nymphs.”
I thought about Kalindra. Hell, I thought about me. “He has different standards, I think.”
“The one nice thing about looking the way I do is that when a cute bit of something wants into your pants, you don’t have to guess whether they have an ulterior motive. The answer is yes.” She tucked her legs under her chemise and leaned on one arm. “But they would like you down there. You’re not hard on the eyes. You should play.”