Galen D’Mon was fourteen years old when Kihrin joined House D’Mon. And while Galen couldn’t remember every year of his existence, he also couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t afraid. Fear was his constant accessory, never unfashionable, never forgotten. He lived his life much as soldiers on the front do, always expecting the ambush, always fearing the next attack. No street urchin from the Lower Circle was as skittish as Galen D’Mon.
He was a handsome lad, but he didn’t know it. He was talented and intelligent, but didn’t know that either. Instead, he knew he was a failure. He knew his mother, Alshena, spoiled him, and therefore he was soft, weak, and womanly. He knew he would never be clever enough, strong enough, cruel enough, or brave enough to please his father. He knew he was not the sort of scion his father Darzin wanted, and he knew firsthand that his father met disappointments with violence. Being his son did not spare Galen. Far from it; being Darzin’s son meant he was subject to his father’s cruelty more than any other. The irony of being a D’Mon, after all, was that one was never far from a healer. There was no need for a man like Darzin to hold back.
Anything could set his father off. If Galen did not obey an instruction he would be beaten, but if he obeyed too timidly he would be struck for being meek. His father mocked him if Galen dressed too fashionably (never mind that his father always wore the latest trends), but slapped him and sent him back to change if he caught Galen “dressing like a commoner.” He was beaten for being impertinent and beaten for being shy. Galen always did well in his studies, but his father cared little for his scholastic achievements and forbade sending “his heir” away to the Royal Academy in Kirpis to study magic.* Galen excelled at horsemanship and fencing, but he could never do well enough to earn a single word of praise: only the admonishment that the heir to the D’Mon name should do better and Darzin himself had been much superior at the same age.
So, when Galen was informed he was no longer heir, that he had been replaced by a previously unknown son of Darzin’s, his reaction was not anger, bitterness, or despair at fate’s fickle cruelty.
Instead, he felt relief.
Finally, the duty and responsibility of living up to the D’Mon name might fall to someone else—anyone else. If Galen was a failure as an heir, surely, he was good enough to be a second son. No one expected much from second sons.
The next morning, Darzin invited him to breakfast in the Conservatory and disabused Galen of his na?veté.
“Try to become his friend. Earn his confidence,” Galen’s father said as he attacked a piece of fried pork belly with a knife and fork. “But you must never forget this boy is your enemy.”
“I thought he was my brother,” Galen said. He was sweating from the heat in the Conservatory. It was always blistering hot there. The association had become so intense over the years that Galen couldn’t step one foot into the room, not even during the cool of evening, without feeling nauseated.
“What does that have to do with anything?” his father snapped, and cuffed Galen’s head for emphasis. “He’s a whore’s son and a bastard, a thief and a murderer. Don’t for one minute think he’ll look at you with any sort of sibling affection. Do you see that stain right there?” He pointed to the floor with his knife.
Galen looked. A single dot of dark red marred the otherwise spotless floor. He didn’t think it was tomato sauce. “Yes, Father.”
“He killed a man right there,” Darzin told him. “Killed him clean. Didn’t hesitate.” Darzin made a succession of quick stabbing motions with the knife. “He’d have done the same to me if given a chance. He’d do the same to you.”
“You must be proud of him.” The words slipped from Galen’s mouth before he could stop them.
Darzin paused with a cup of coffee halfway to his lips. “Don’t give me that tone, boy.”
“Yes, sir,” Galen said. He frowned and picked at his food: baked wheat cakes with imported apples cooked with cinnamon and fried strips of seasoned pork belly. The sight made his stomach turn. He didn’t think the cakes would be so bad normally, but the temperature in the room was so hot and the pork was so greasy. He would have rather had some nice bland sag bread with fresh fruit and mint, maybe a nice glass of yogurt and rice milk. He was pretty sure he could keep something like that down, but it was commoner’s fare and his father would not allow him to eat street food.
“He’s a wild one, I’ll give him that,” Darzin continued. “If he wasn’t—” Darzin paused as he speared a slice of apple. “A wild one, without a doubt. You’d think a boy raised in a velvet house would be more effeminate, but not that one, no. Killed that guard smooth as buttering a piece of bread. He’d make a hell of a killer with a little training.” Darzin looked thoughtful for a moment as he chewed. He gave Galen a hard stare. “My father never gave a damn about any of his children and he still doesn’t. I made myself a promise I would never be like that. You know that’s why I’m so hard on you, don’t you? Because I care. I want you to be the best.”
“Yes, Father.” With great effort, Galen didn’t sigh or act like he had heard this speech before. He would have preferred his grandfather’s indifference to his father’s loving attention.
“The boy’s in a murdering frame of mind right now. I understand why, but he needs to calm down. What happened with that blind old man was a mistake, nothing more. It wasn’t personal. You can help. Your sisters and your cousins are all too young. You’re the only person in the family close to his age. Put him at ease. Be nice to him. Show him some kindness. He could use a friendly face.”
“A friendly face that tells you everything he says?” Galen asked.
Darzin smiled. It was one of the first genuine smiles Galen ever remembered his father directing at him. “That’s my boy.”
43: THE DRAGON’S DEAL
(Kihrin’s story)
This rock? I won’t deny the tenyé pattern has been changed. Something’s been done to it.
Seems like a sucker’s bet though. First you threaten my parents and now you say you’ve been on my side the whole time? How stupid do you think I am?
Don’t answer that question.
All right, Talon. I’ll continue. But only because I’m gambling that the small part of you that’s Surdyeh is still on my side.
It may be a sucker’s bet, but it’s all I’ve got. Where did I leave off?
Have I talked about my deal with the Old Man? No? Okay.
We’ll pick it up there.
* * *
So, because I’ve never believed in being stupid in halves, I walked down to the beach to see the Old Man.