“No, it was stupid,” Darzin corrected. “He bled to death in bed one night when she bit off his testicles. Everyone has their limits. Break a slave, yes. Make sure they know their place, absolutely. But only a fool pushes a slave so far they have nothing to lose by killing their master—and then gives them opportunity to do just that.”
“I thought we were talking about wives.”
“Just between you and me, there’s not much difference.” Darzin sheathed his sword. He slid a dagger out of his boot and threw it. The blade sank into the wood of the tree, severing the silk scarf holding Kihrin tight.
The boy rubbed the skin of his wrist, scraped raw in the struggle to free himself. He looked at Darzin with suspicion in his eyes. “Why aren’t you angry with me?”
Darzin feigned surprise. “Angry at you? Gods above, boy, I’m proud of you.”
His “son” stared at him in horror.
Darzin bit down on the urge to laugh and continued with an expansive wave of his hand. “Why, this was very well done. Sleeping with another man’s wife is a mark of pride and distinction—for everyone but the other man, of course. You are finally starting to act like a royal. Any other woman and I would have been patting you on the back and complimenting your technique. You bypassed many of the common blunders—for instance, you weren’t in her rooms, thus greatly lessening the chance, under normal circumstances, that her husband would walk in. And those little love marks you left on her—even if her husband never found out who did it, he would know she had been raped or seduced. Either way it’s a black mark on his honor.” He paused. “The bondage was an odd choice. Was that my wife’s suggestion?”
Kihrin shook his head. “Mine.”
“Why?”
The boy shrugged. “I like it that way sometimes.”
“Huh. Everyone has their tastes, I suppose, but I recommend you stamp down on that fetish. It’s never a good idea to leave yourself vulnerable. Tie your partner up. Don’t let them do it to you.” Darzin sipped his water for a moment while his son picked himself out of bed. “Speaking of which, I see we run to similar tastes in our women. Not so surprising, but you should take some basic precautions.”
Kihrin’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not an idiot. I have a ring from a Blue House…”
Darzin rolled his eyes. “I meant about not killing them.”
The horror returned to the young man’s eyes. “Killing—!”
“I saw what you did to Alshena. Now, her tastes run rough herself, and I’m sure she was goading you on every inch of the way. But don’t try to deny you have a dark streak in you, that you don’t enjoy the pain as much as the pleasure.”
Kihrin turned away. “No! I—” But the denial seemed to stick in the boy’s throat.
“You can find yourself in trouble if you go too far,” Darzin told his son kindly. “I know. I’ve been there myself. It can be a real dilemma. Be gentle with other men’s wives and save your true passions for the slave girls. Nobody cares what happens to them. You know—I will even do you a favor. I have a batch of slaves I’m sending off to the Octagon for resale this afternoon. Most of them are a bit threadbare, but only by my standards—the girls are lovely and well trained. I’ll give you a couple. You can take your pick.”
The boy looked up at him with eyes so full of equal parts hope and despair Darzin almost laughed out loud. Really, the lad made it too easy.
Then those blue eyes hardened to ice, and Kihrin said: “Other men’s castoffs don’t interest me, Father. Only other men’s wives.”
Darzin was torn between the desire to laugh and the desire to hit him. Kihrin was such a little—
Such a D’Mon. So much like Darzin himself that he sometimes thought he was looking in a mirror. No, he corrected himself. Not like me. Like Pedron. Like Pedron reborn. For a moment, Darzin found himself chilled. He almost shuddered, and instead pushed dark memories from his mind.
Darzin smiled. “Suit yourself. You seem to prefer learning things the hard way.” Darzin walked to the door, sidestepping the small puddle of blood.* “Oh,” he said as he paused at the door. “It should go without saying, but I’ll do so anyway: touch Alshena again and I won’t kill you, I’ll kill her.” He grinned. “It’s about time I traded in for a younger wife anyway, so I’d love the excuse.”
He left his son like that, looking after him with eyes as flat and cold as the still surface of a distant lake.
Just like Pedron. He would have to be careful with that boy.
Dark streak indeed.
53: SPEED TRAINING
(Kihrin’s story)
I returned to training with Doc. Seasons followed each other in quick succession while I lived and died a thousand times in illusions crafted by Chainbreaker. All the while I tried and failed to find a way past the Old Man. I understood now that he didn’t have to kill me, but offered a threat worse than death. No matter how much progress I made under Doc’s tutelage, no sword would free me from the dragon.*
“If only I was better at magic,” I whined to Tyentso one day as we both ate lunch. I rarely saw her outside of meals anymore: my lessons with her had faded even as Doc’s had increased. “I have no damn talent at all.”
Tyentso snorted. “If that were true, you’d never have seen past the First Veil, Scamp. Most poor fools never do.”
A year on Ynisthana had been kind to Tyentso. Her skin had lost the leathery texture it possessed from years at sea. Her hair, no longer cracked and dry from the salt spray, hung lustrous and shiny. She’d put on weight from an island routine that encouraged her to eat regular meals, and muscle from the heavy exercise. Her face had a blush of color that had been missing when she served on The Misery.
True, her nose was still sharp enough to cut a man and her chin was a spear point, but the creases on her forehead were mostly gone. I think no one had been as surprised by the transformation as Tyentso herself. She was bemused to find her company sought out by members of the Brotherhood for something other than study.
“I know one spell. One! And it doesn’t work on the Old Man. I’ve tried. He can still see me.”
Tyentso swirled her spoon in her bowl, frowning. “Magic isn’t just a matter of memorization, Scamp. You have to change how you see, change how you think. You are forcing your will on the universe. Not one in a thousand people can cast the simplest spell.” She let her spoon fall into the bowl. “Anyway, dragons aren’t creatures who know magic, they are magic. Worse, they are magical chaos vortexes. It would be difficult to use magic to fool one.”
“Doc did it.”
“Doc is using an artifact. Yours would work on him too, you just wouldn’t like the result.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, Ty, you’re doing a lousy job of it.” I pushed my bowl away. “How did you learn? Did it take you years of staring at a candle or trying to make a leaf move?”
To my surprise, Tyentso blanched, took a deep breath, and looked away. “No.”
“Well? What then?”
She stood up. “It wouldn’t work for you, Scamp. I don’t recommend it.”
I cocked my head in surprise. In all the time I’d known Tyentso, she’d never dismissed a question with no explanation. She never shut me down without an involved lecture on why I was being stupid.