Therin narrowed his eyes. “No. Thief. Pedron didn’t grow up in the Upper Circle. His mother smuggled him out of the palace before her death, and he grew up in the Lower Circle. When he was reclaimed by House D’Mon he’d already formed the Shadowdancers.” He waved a few fingers dismissively. “Gadrith D’Lorus had believed that the prophecy referenced Ogenra children of various noble houses who were later claimed and made legitimate. Children who would overthrow the Voices and ‘quiet their sting.’”
Kihrin whistled. “Gadrith D’Lorus? Gadrith the Twisted was part of this?”
“Oh yes. He was the ‘wizard.’ There were a few others, all dead now. I never thought Gadrith did a particularly good job of shoehorning people into the prophecy roles he wanted, but there’s no reasoning with someone who thinks they’re the Chosen One.” He sighed. “It makes me sick to think that Darzin was helping that disgusting little cabal.” As he stared into the fireplace, Therin’s eyes were haunted with an emotion that Kihrin had never seen in a D’Mon’s stare: shame.
But shame was not the feeling that rose within him. He turned on his grandfather and said, “So how long do you intend to keep covering up for Darzin?”
Therin’s eyes flicked back over to Kihrin. “I have been liberal with you. Do not push your luck.”
“Someone has to,” Kihrin retorted. He wiped more blood off his face with the handkerchief. “I’m curious: what’s it going to take before you do something about him? Hard proof that he’s broken the gods’ own laws? How many people will he have to kill or torture? I’m starting to get the idea that when people talk about a fate worse than death, what they mean is someone unlucky enough to end up as one of your son’s slaves. Do you have any idea what he does to them?”
“He owns them. He can legally do what he likes.”
“Sure, and he ‘owns’ his children too, and obviously the fact that he beats his own children whenever the whim takes him doesn’t seem to bother you. There’s plenty of Lower Circle thugs with no more education than the gods gave fish who would be embarrassed to treat their own blood that way. So what’s the line that Darzin has to cross? I really want to know. Torture? Murder? Rape?”
“Enough!” Therin shouted, throwing his glass to the ground where it shattered in punctuation to his rage. “Don’t you dare speak to me in this way.”
Kihrin sneered. “What are you gonna do, old man? Hit me too?”
Therin’s jaw worked noiselessly, as he stared at Kihrin.
The young man shook his head. “I guess I take after you more than Darzin, because just like you, I can be pushed to the point where I don’t care anymore. That bastard took everything I loved from me. Everything. But don’t go patting yourself on the back because you protected me, because you let him do it—”
“I never—”
“You did!” Kihrin screamed. “He summons demons and he murders people and he commits treason and you cover it up … What is that possibly going to teach a man like Darzin—except that he can do whatever he feels like and you’ll always be there to clean up his shit? And you can sit here and feel sorry for yourself, at your great nobility and restraint in dealing with your rabid dog of a son. Well, you know what? You made that rabid dog the way he is, so there’s nothing noble about your refusal to put him down.”
Therin did not reply, but he looked mortally wounded. Slowly, he slumped down in the chair, his gaze on the floor. Kihrin found himself growing angrier, and his desire to lash out grew more intense.
“I hope you’re proud of your boy,” Kihrin spat. “As far as I’m concerned, you deserve each other.”
After Kihrin left, Therin sat there and stared at the unlit fireplace for several hours, only leaving to fetch a new glass and bottle of liquor. He was still there when Lady Miya finally came looking for him, and put him to bed.
49: CRITICAL LESSONS
(Kihrin’s story)
When I woke, I lay facedown—drooling onto the black rock floor of the training room. I ached all over. My arms, my neck, my shoulders, my thighs, and my calves. Every part of me felt like I was back in the rowing galley of The Misery.
I groaned and raised my head. Doc sat a small distance away. He’d thrown out the tea and replaced it with a bottle of wine, and he had poured a cup for himself. He was staring at my borrowed harp, although given the unfocused gaze on his face, he wasn’t seeing the harp at all.
When I made a sound, Doc looked over, saw me, and stood up. He didn’t look happy.
“That was pathetic,” Doc said as he walked over. He didn’t offer me a hand up. “How many times did you die? Three dozen? Four? What was Darzin teaching you? The most efficient way to impale yourself on your enemy’s sword?”
I almost defended Darzin, but I stopped myself in time. My so-called father had only trained me in fighting so he’d have an excuse to punish my lack of progress. “You drugged me. Let’s talk about the fact that you drugged me!”
“I told you I wouldn’t go easy on you.”
I took a deep breath and bit back on the impulse to start shouting. The drugging wasn’t the important part, anyway. “I’m familiar with riscoria weed. It doesn’t cause visions like that. How did you do that?”
He seemed pleased I’d noticed, and he tapped the green tsali stone around his neck. It was the same stone the Manol vané had been wearing, the one who’d taunted and killed me in the vision.
The exact same stone.
“Chainbreaker,” he said.
I blinked. “I’m sorry. What?”
Doc chuckled at my confusion. “You wear the Stone of Shackles. I wear its brother, Chainbreaker. You and I are part of a very small and exclusive club with only eight members in the whole world.”
I traced the stone around my neck. “Eight? There are eight of these?”
“Yes. Each with its own powers, gifts, and curses.” He pursed his lips. “So let’s talk about your training.”
“No. I want to talk about the Stone of Shackles and Chainbreaker. I want to talk about that illusion you put in my mind.”
Doc sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore.
The tip of his sword pricked the skin of my neck so quickly I’m not sure I saw him move as more than a faint blur. “You want real? This is real, young man.” A small drop of red welled up on my collarbone, just above the Stone of Shackles, which burned ice-cold in case there was any doubt of my teacher’s earnestness. “What is real is that you have entered a world that hates you and is only too glad to leave your decaying corpse slapped across the garbage heaps of life. What is real is that you have neither the training nor the skill you require to survive until your next birthday. What is real is that hiding in a cave from monsters like Relos Var is no way to have a life at all.”
“I can’t leave,” I spat back, although I didn’t lean forward the way I might have otherwise, in consideration of that sword. “You can’t have missed the dragon out there. He’ll kill me if I try to leave.”
Doc laughed in an unfriendly way. “The Old Man isn’t going to kill you. You wear the Stone of Shackles.”
“I know that! But that’s not going to stop—” I paused.
“You don’t even know what that means, do you?”