“Anyway, that might explain how you met her, but it doesn’t explain how you knew she was important to me.”
He made a scoffing sound and looked away for a moment. “That’s one of those questions you probably don’t want to ask. You won’t like the answer.”
“Teraeth—”
“I could wax poetic about reincarnation and destiny and how some souls are tied together through lifetimes. Alternately, I could remind you that you’ve been spending your nights in bed with my ex-girlfriend and you talk in your sleep.” Teraeth held out his hands. “Pick the answer that makes you more comfortable.”
My gut twisted. “Kalindra told you.”
“Kalindra told me,” he agreed. “I recognized the description. Look, I understand that we haven’t given you a great deal of reason to trust us…”
“Yeah, that part where you told me only a fool would, didn’t help.”
He smiled. “My mother—” Teraeth paused and looked down at his hands. “Khaemezra has never been very good about just explaining matters. You see her as a priestess, but in her heart, she’s a soldier, a general. Her instinct is to only give out information if it’s strictly necessary. I know how frustrating that can be. I used to rail against her reticence, demand answers. I was so eager to rebel against her that I—” Teraeth broke off and gave the far wall that same distant stare.
“You what? Finish the sentence. I want to know what you did.”
“I nearly doomed all of us,” Teraeth finally said, bringing himself back to the present. “Don’t be the idiot I was. We are here to help you. Please accept that help.”
“Even if that help is from a bartender?”
The thing about anger—especially the thing about righteous anger—is how addictive it is. I didn’t want to let go of it. I didn’t want to calm down. I wanted to be furious, and here Teraeth was being sympathetic and reasonable. He made me irrationally angrier.
Teraeth shook his head. “Whoever he is, I’m quite sure that he is more than a bartender or he’d never have gotten away with speaking to Khaemezra like that.”
I paused. “Or speaking to you like that. What’s the deal with your father?”
“It’s none of your business.” The answer was habit, instinct, and as soon as he said it, Teraeth’s expression closed off, but he didn’t amend the statement or correct himself.
I pressed my lips together into a tight line. If we hadn’t just gone through this, maybe he could have said that and I wouldn’t have cared. Was it any of my business? But I’d been kept too long in the dark about too much, been the last person to know. They knew everything about me, and I knew nothing about them. That had become intolerable.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s none of my business. But you’re going to tell me anyway. You’ll tell me because you want to be my friend and you want me to feel like I can turn to you for help. Don’t act like your mother.”
We stared at each other.
Teraeth threw up his arms and walked away, but only a few steps before he turned back. “Fine. You know how your family name is D’Mon because your father’s family name is D’Mon?”
“Just answer the damn—”
“I am. Let me finish.”
I stopped myself. “Okay. Go on.”
“Well…” Teraeth held up his hands. “We vané do the same thing. Only we choose a parent and that parent’s family name becomes the first syllable of our name. There aren’t that many vané, so for us lineage isn’t something separate that we skip in casual conversation. My name starts with ‘Ter’ just as my father’s name starts with ‘Ter’ and his grandmother’s name started with ‘Ter’ and … you get the idea. It’s nothing mysterious. When you hear a vané’s name, you have a pretty good idea who their family must be too.”
“Wait. Wait. You’re telling me your name isn’t Teraeth at all? It’s … ‘Aeth’? ‘Raeth’? How does that even work?”
“This is why I didn’t want to talk about it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “My name is Teraeth. Family name and personal name. They’re never separated. Before I knew who my father was, I took my mother’s signifier, Khae. After I found out who he was, I changed it. I took his name, not to honor him, but to remind myself of his sins.”
Now that was interesting, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking intrigued. “Sins? Is that why Doc reacted like I’d just set fire to his tavern?”
“Did he?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Who’s the most famous vané you’ve ever heard of whose name starts with ‘Ter’?”
“I don’t know a lot of vané…”
“I promise you’ve heard of this one.”
It took me a minute. Then I remembered my stories, told on Surdyeh’s knee. “Wait … Prince Terindel? Terindel the Black? The guy who was demanding human sacrifices from the locals in Kirpis? There’s a song about him. Hell, I think there’s a play…”
Teraeth laughed ruefully. “Terindel wasn’t demanding human sacrifices. That was just a story I—never mind. The Kirpis is home to the largest ariala and drussian deposits on the continent. The Kirpis vané owned them; Quur needed those mines to fuel their war against the god-kings. Atrin Kandor made up an excuse to justify taking the land. Easy as that. And now … now Terindel’s my father.”
“And you took his family name over Khaemezra’s?”
“Like I said, I wanted to remind myself.” He shook his head. “And people think Thaena doesn’t have a sense of humor.” He cleared his throat and walked over to the musical instruments. “What did you used to play?”
“A harp,” I said, frowning at his heavy-handed change of subject, “which for some reason the slavers didn’t feel fit to let me keep.”
Teraeth blocked my path again. “If you need a harp, we can always have one brought over from Zherias.”
“Thanks, but I don’t really feel like waiting six months for another ship to return.”
He smiled. “It wouldn’t be six months. Maybe an hour or two.”
I stopped and narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Ynisthana is at the heart of an old magical gate system, not too dissimilar to the one that runs through Quur, although ours is a lot smaller. One of the routes goes from here to Zherias. It’s not something we advertise or use often for security reasons. For you though?” He shrugged. “I’m sure Khaemezra would make an exception.”
I crossed my hands over my chest. “Are you seriously suggesting that Khaemezra’s had a way to get me off this island the whole time?”
Teraeth tensed, likely because he sensed I was back on the cusp of losing my temper. “Yes, but at a high cost. It might take the Old Man a few days to realize you aren’t here, but when he finally does, he would probably blow up in a literal way. If we were lucky, he’d just erupt the volcano at the center of the island, but he’d probably start attacking cities in Zherias and the nearby coast. Maybe even go as far south as Kishna-Farriga. Thousands would die. And then he’d start searching for you. He knows your aura, and he can fly.”
My mouth dried. “Someone should do something about him.”