She sat down on the edge of the bed and motioned for him to join her. “There is so much…” She took a deep breath. “There is much I may not say. So much the gaesh will not allow me to communicate. I can tell you this: in all the time I knew Lyrilyn, she was never pregnant.”
“What? Wait, but I thought—” Kihrin swallowed. He felt uneven, unsteady. It occurred to him it had been a long time since he’d eaten.
“Darzin claims Lyrilyn was your mother, but you must not forget that Darzin will lie as suits his vast ambitions. He is not to be trusted.”
“You don’t need to tell me.” Kihrin scowled. “You’re saying she wasn’t my mother? Then who was?”
Miya started to say something and then shook her head. “I cannot say. And while I know such an answer is not one you wish to hear, it is also not a pressing worry. This demon-summoning matter is. Please, tell me of this fiend.”
He wanted to shout. He wanted to demand answers. Instead he rubbed his arms and tried not to think about his rumbling stomach. That made him aware that he was wearing a shirt in rags. Fighting to keep from blushing, he walked over to the closet. “He said his name was Xaltorath.”
“Ompher guide me,” Miya breathed. “That is no minor demon.”
“It took Emperor Sandus to banish him,” Kihrin told her. He pulled out a shirt so ornately embroidered that it would have cost him all his profits from a year of burglaries. He put it back and pulled out another one, even worse. He suspected all the clothes would be the same, so he picked one at random and dressed himself. “But it was Darzin who summoned him. He was looking for something called the Stone of Shackles.”
Silence.
Kihrin turned back to face her. She sat there on the bed, staring at a wall, her expression unreadable.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked her.
Miya looked at him with eyes the same blue as his, the same blue as Darzin’s, but she was vané and they were both human. Some magic must have made them that color, but he supposed that was true for the D’Mon family. God-touched eyes.
“What is it?” Kihrin asked.
“You wear the Stone of Shackles,” Miya said in a flat voice. “The gem you wear around your throat is the Stone of Shackles.”
His hand went to the tsali stone around his neck. “What? How?”
She looked down at her hands. “It’s my doing. I gave the necklace to Lyrilyn. She must have had enough presence of mind to give it to you.” She smiled sadly. “My sweet dove. Loyal to the end.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “If I’m wearing this stone that Darzin wants so badly, why didn’t he take it? I was stuck in bed for a week while Master Lorgrin healed my heart.”
“The Stone of Shackles cannot be removed by anyone but its wearer. Darzin cannot steal it from you. By free will alone may it be given away. As I did to Lyrilyn, and, I must assume, Lyrilyn did to you. So she kept me that promise at least. She did protect you, even if she could not smuggle you to the Manol.” She closed her eyes and held her breath for a moment, as if expecting pain, then opened her eyes and exhaled.
Kihrin felt like he was a child again, full of questions. “Why would she take me to the Manol Jungle? I’m not vané—” His voice died in his throat.
Miya’s motherly attention wasn’t what gave her away, for Kihrin had grown up around Ola. He was used to that look from a woman who wasn’t his birth mother. Rather, it was Kihrin’s years spent in the Lower Circle, his years with the Shadowdancers, spent in the company of people who cared nothing for each other—unless there was profit in it for them. Even if Lyrilyn had been Miya’s closest friend, Kihrin didn’t believe the vané would give up so great a treasure on her handmaiden’s behalf. Butterbelly had offered fifteen thousand thrones for the necklace. Butterbelly, who wouldn’t have offered a fair price to Tavris himself if the god had wanted to fence a dragon’s hoard.
No, he couldn’t believe Miya would do that for Lyrilyn’s newborn child.
But for her own baby?
She was so beautiful, so wild. So other from everything mundane and human. Yet if she were his mother, he would have inherited more than the blue eyes. That ombre blue hair seemed like a truer flag of allegiance. Blue eyes proved nothing. Everyone in House D’Mon had blue eyes, just like everyone in House D’Aramarin had green eyes.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask: Are you my mother?
Miya reached over and took his hand. “You are not full vané, but you have vané blood in your veins through your D’Mon lineage. You could claim sanctuary with our people.” She squeezed his hand. “Kihrin, what happened at the Shattered Veil Club was not your fault.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she continued. “If Darzin summoned Xaltorath, it was but for one purpose: to divine your location. A demon of such power is strong enough to find someone hidden by magic, even someone hidden by a magic as strong as the Stone of Shackles. Whether you had stumbled upon Darzin by chance or fate, the result would have been the same; Xaltorath would track down what he was sent to hunt. I do not think Darzin would have had any desire or patience to keep your father alive so he might protest your removal. Darzin and Darzin alone shoulders this responsibility, not you.”
“Darzin wasn’t looking for me though,” Kihrin said. “I surprised him. He hadn’t expected Xaltorath to attack me.”
Miya smiled, a quirking at the corners of her mouth. “How refreshing. He is not yet omniscient. So the demon was ordered to find the stone itself. I wonder for what purpose Darzin could desire its possession.”
“I don’t know. For nothing good.” So Darzin had been lying about everything. He hadn’t gone to the priests of Thaena to have Surdyeh Returned, he hadn’t given the Stone of Shackles to Lyrilyn, and Darzin probably hadn’t loved or even married Kihrin’s so-called “mother” at all.
Miya leaned over and kissed him on top of his head. “Eat something, bathe, and come out of your room. The High Lord has assigned you tutors, and there are matters of etiquette you must learn.”
Kihrin pulled his legs back under him. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it—” He shuddered. “It would feel like letting that bastard win.”
“Darzin?”
“Yeah.” For a moment, he thought about telling Lady Miya about Dead Man too, but he decided it was best if he kept that secret a while longer. If he was right, and Dead Man was the High Lord, then he was her master anyway.
“Listen,” Lady Miya told him. “Mourn for those you have lost. Hold them in your heart and never forget them. Trust none of us in this house of pain. But if you wish their deaths to have meaning, if you wish to one day have your revenge against Darzin, you must not sit here. You must take everything you have learned in the Lower Circle, in Velvet Town, and you must apply that skill to dealing with those around you and staying alive. Please. Believe me when I say neither your mother nor your father would wish you to throw your life away in grief.”
“My father—” He looked away.