Alshena smiled. “I didn’t. I’m a terribly rude creature, but I do believe I heard the sound of breaking pottery.”
Kihrin looked over at the heaps of damp soil and broken porcelain. “Yeah. Uh—I was just—redecorating. I’m fine. I don’t really want company right now, if it’s all the same.”
Alshena raised a well-lacquered eyebrow. “Of course,” she agreed. “I only came by to thank you.”
“Thank me?” Kihrin leaned against one of the four-poster tree trunks of his bed, his equilibrium gone.
Alshena nodded. “Yes, I might have been concerned when I saw Darzin follow you out after dinner—” To his complete surprise, she looked embarrassed. “I admit your conversations with both my husband and father-in-law were rather loud, and could be heard quite clearly from down the hall. I hope Darzin didn’t hurt you too badly.”
Kihrin looked at his feet. “Oh. No. Just a split lip. I have a salve for it.”
“Thank you.” She said the sentence as if its utterance hurt. “It’s not easy to stand up to my husband. You’re either very brave or very stupid, and though I haven’t quite decided which yet, I have decided I like you.” Her eyes were glassy bright from all the wine at dinner.
Kihrin sat down on the bed. His tongue felt thick and immobile. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite.
Alshena nodded, and turned to leave. At the door, she paused to face him once more. “I didn’t believe you were Darzin’s son until tonight.”
Kihrin looked up at her with a stricken expression. “But now you do?”
Alshena looked around the room. “May I come in? I know you didn’t want company, but I find I really do.”
“Well, someone seems to have, uh … dropped some dishes. It’s kind of a mess.” He looked around for a chair, but the room wasn’t designed for entertaining.
He was about to suggest they go to the patio when she pointed. “I’ll sit on the bed.”
“What would people say?”
“Nothing, unless you tell them,” Alshena replied. “And you don’t strike me as the gossipy type.” She sat on the green linens and arranged her agolé around her legs. Kihrin fought the urge to tell her it was proper for a lady to pull her agolé down when she sat, not up, but the flash of leg had given him an uncomfortably strong mental image of the rest of her—he was still fighting off demon flashbacks.
“Do you have anything to drink?” Alshena asked once she was positioned to her satisfaction. “I could use a drink in the worst way.”
Kihrin paused. He shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m sorry—I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a wine cabinet hidden around here somewhere…”
“Go look. I’ll wait, ducky.”
He stared at her for a moment, but Alshena showed no inclination to leave, and seemed oblivious to his feelings on the matter. She picked at the bark of one of the corner posts with a long red-lacquered fingernail.
Kihrin sighed, and looked for something he could give her so she’d go away. After a few moments, the young man returned with a wine bottle and two glasses. “I found this.” He poured one glass, but as he began to pour the second Alshena stopped him, leaving the second glass with only a small amount of sparkling gold liquid.
“I am old enough to drink,” Kihrin reproached her.
Alshena smiled sagaciously. “I’m sure, but why don’t you read the label of this excellent bottle of wine you’ve found?”
Kihrin studied the bottle. The writing on it was unfamiliar to him, a strange spidery script. “I can’t read this.”
Alshena nodded. “It’s vané.” She took the smaller second glass and stared at its contents critically. “There’s more than enough here to—how would your friends say it in the Lower Circle?—‘knock me on my ass,’ I believe.”
Kihrin stared at the glass like it held snake venom. Finally, noticing the faint mocking grin on his stepmother’s face, he shrugged and took a sip.
It was fire, then a shivering rush of euphoria. A wave of excitement raced through him, lighting every inch of his body’s nerves to the experience of being. He smelled the soil from the pots and the rose hips and lemon peel of Alshena’s perfume. Then the feeling faded as the sip ended.
“Damn.”
Alshena beamed. “Strong stuff. I suppose I should thank Lady Miya for this next time I see her.”
Kihrin looked up from the wineglass. “Lady Miya? Did she put this here?”
Alshena shrugged. “I have to assume. These rooms were hers once, after all.”
He frowned and shook his head. “These rooms belonged to the High Lord’s late wife.”
“Lady Norá? Yes, they did.” Alshena coughed. “And Miya was Norá’s handmaiden. Then Norá died and Miya took over these rooms, and your mother Lyrilyn was her handmaiden. Look at this bed and tell me that a vané didn’t sleep here.” She gave him a look suggesting he was being very na?ve indeed.
“So why did she give it up? Why aren’t these still her rooms?”
“That, my young stepson, is one of the other great scandals of House D’Mon.” She sipped the wine just a little, expressing an obvious shiver of delight at the effects. “You see, when Lady Norá died, Darzin must have been, oh, ten years old? It’s been well over twenty-five years. Anyway, Lady Norá died giving birth to his brother, Devyeh, and the priests of Thaena wouldn’t Return her.”
“That’s not unusual,” Kihrin said. “They refuse people all the time.”
“Yes, but Therin had been a priest of Thaena—before he’d looked around one day and found eight people in line ahead of him had all mysteriously died.* That was what made him High Lord. Did you know that? Anyway, and here he is, High Lord of the Physickers, and his wife dies in childbirth? And his goddess won’t bring back the only woman he’d ever loved? He severed all ties with the priests that day, and crawled into a bottle to nurse his wounds.”
“This was the Affair of the Voices?”
“Just after,” Alshena said, “and the House just about fell apart. We came very close to not having a House D’Mon.”
He snickered. “Oh, the tragedy. What saved the House?”
“Who. Miya. She moved into these apartments next to Therin and started issuing orders, claiming they had come from the High Lord himself. Most of the healers knew it was a lie, but everyone was so desperate they went along with it.” Alshena paused in the middle of her tale and added, “Now think about that piece of information, my sweet. Lady Miya comes off as an angel made flesh, but she ran this house like a general for two years and we moved up in rank during her tenure. I will never underestimate that woman; saints do not prosper in this town.”
“You told me she was a sheltered veal calf.”
“I lie a lot. It’s part of my charm.” She winked at the young man.
He laughed and shook his head. “She had the suite decorated like this?”
“I’m not really sure. It was before I married Darzin. It could be that she did, or it’s possible that Therin ordered it as a sort of thank-you for her assistance. But by the time I came onto the scene, this suite was already vacant.”