This was all wrong.
My companions shared none of my reservations. They plowed through all opposition. There were a few more bright flashes, a few more restarted narrations, as I failed to stop attacks. I was certain these would have been no problem at all for the Kirpis vané king I pretended to be. Never had I been so aware of how little Darzin had taught me of fighting techniques. Six months of training with Kalindra and Szzarus was not enough to make up for a lifetime where I had never touched the hilt of a sword, except to steal it.
My guards pushed open massive doors carved with jungle animals and hunting birds, all surrounding an enormous carved tree whose inspiration needed no explanation. The halls were empty, but any vané who might have guarded them had already thrown themselves into defense of the palace elsewhere. We walked through unimpeded.
Finally, we reached a hall deep inside the tree itself. At the far end of the hall, branches from the main tree had been sculpted and trained until they formed a chair. A woman sat in the chair, composed and calm.
Her skin was black, so dark it looked blue at the highlights, and her hair was a dark green fall of silk that reminded me of the underside of a fern. Her eyes were green and brown and all the colors of the hallway they reflected. She wore a gown of green silk and feathers that looked like it had been woven from dreams.
“Khaevatz,” I said, the word escaping my lips so thoroughly without my intention that for a moment I thought someone else had said her name. She was a figure out of legend, a name whispered even in Quur with reverence, fear, and awe. She was as old as the world itself, alive to see the rise of every nation, god-king, and monster.
Surdyeh used to say that when Queen Khaevatz finally died, the whole world wept at her loss.*
She tilted her head, regal and almost painfully gorgeous. “Terindel. Shall we finish this at last?”
I nearly choked. Teraeth’s father, Terindel? That was the wrong name …
Sir Rabbit made a gurgling sound as a Manol vané revealed himself and sliced open the white-skinned vané’s throat.
They had one last ambush prepared for us.
I shouted and swung at the assassin, but he was obscenely fast. Clos ing in on him was suicide, but I managed to distract him with the hilt of a thrown dagger while one of my men took care of him with a spell. More Manol vané appeared, more defenders giving their lives for their queen. Which they did, but the Manol vané took everyone they could with them.
I wouldn’t have survived. A dozen times over I wouldn’t have survived. Although each time I died I began again, free from injury, my body felt like I had swung every blow and dodged every arrow. I was tired. No, that was too light a word. I was exhausted.
At last I was alone in the throne room with Khaevatz, who had not moved a hair’s breadth from her seat the entire time.
“Surrender!” I called out. Surrender was the proper thing to ask, right? She didn’t die here. I knew Khaevatz didn’t die here. It would be centuries yet before she breathed her last.
“Poor little king,” a man’s voice mocked. “How bitter the gall must taste, to have traveled so far, conquered so much, and yet still lose.”
I blinked. The image of Khaevatz wavered, then broke like a stone tossed into the reflection on a pond. The stone in question was a Manol vané man, stepping through the illusion of the queen and walking down the steps toward me.
It was Teraeth.
“Ter—” The word died on my lips. No, this was not Teraeth. They looked enough alike to be brothers, yes, but the voice was different, the posture, the manner. This was a man with the green-gray eyes of a hurricane-tossed sky and hair as black as the ocean depths. He held a single sword in his hand, and his open shirt gave me a glimpse of the emerald-green tsali stone around his neck, the very same stone Doc wore.
“Queen Khaevatz sends her apologies, but she can’t be in attendance. She’s meeting with your brother, Prince Kelindel—soon to be King Kelindel, I believe—over what should be done about the whole Emperor Kandor business. He’s quite willing to put the entire vané race to the torch to make up for your crimes.” The man strode down the steps toward me. His smile was malice. “I’ve been honored with the privilege of ensuring that Prince Kelindel’s path to the throne is clear. Congratulations. You’ve united our peoples after all, if not in the way you had in mind.”
I had no more chances to protest or ask questions. Whatever my role in this weird reenactment of ancient vané history, this man was coming at me with a weapon.
He meant business.
He swung at me. I ducked while I tried to bring up my sword. I felt a razor-hot burn against my arm, his sword sliding down to nick at a weak spot in my armor. Normally that would be enough to start the scene over, since the Manol vané seemed so fond of poisoned weapons.
It didn’t.
I rushed forward, hoping I might throw him off by attacking. He took a step to the side, swung at me, and I saw my opening.
I stabbed for it, seeing the feint too late. His look was contemptuous as his sword ran me through.
My vision went black.
There was no flash of light that time.
48: FAMILY DINNER
(Talon’s story)
Aunt Tishar (technically Kihrin’s great-great-aunt) peered at him from across the table. “Darzin mentioned you’re a musician.”
She looked younger than Therin—in her midtwenties, surely—and Kihrin reminded himself that she was old enough to be Surdyeh’s grandmother. The vané traits were pronounced on her; it wasn’t difficult to believe her mother had been pure-blooded. Her hair sparkled golden and her eyes were so pure a blue they seemed unnatural.
She looked a lot like Kihrin.
The resemblance wasn’t as close as that painting of her brother Pedron, but it was there. In her appearance, Kihrin traced the origins of his own blue eyes, his own yellow hair. She was, like her long-dead brother Pedron, proof that claiming Kihrin as a D’Mon wasn’t a mistake.
Dinner was the only meal that brought the whole family together, eaten in a grand dining room large enough to swallow armies. Kihrin had been dismayed to realize how large his new family was. There were easily a hundred people present with some right to the D’Mon name, spread out over a dozen tables whose position indicated their proximity to the heights of favor and power.