The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

8. Cousin

The next morning, a servant arrived to help me dress and groom myself. Ridiculous. Still, it seemed appropriate to at least try to behave like an Arameri, so I bit my tongue while she fussed about me. She did my buttons and shifted my clothing minutely as if that would somehow make me look more elegant, then brushed my short hair and helped me put on makeup. The last I did actually need help with, as Darre women do not wear cosmetics. I could not help feeling some consternation as she turned the mirror to show me all in paint. It didn’t look bad. Just… strange.

I must have frowned too much, because the servant grew anxious and began rummaging in the large bag she’d brought with her. “I have just the thing,” she said, and lifted out something that I thought at first was a party masque. It certainly looked like one, with a wire eyeframe attached to a satin-wrapped rod. But the masque itself was peculiar, seeming to consist only of a pair of bright blue feathery objects like the eyes of a peacock’s tail.

Then they blinked. I started, looked closer, and saw that they were not feathers at all.

“All the highblood ladies use these,” said the servant eagerly. “They’re very fashionable right now. Watch.” She lifted the frame to her face so that the blue eyes superimposed her own rather pretty gray ones. She blinked, lowered the frame—and suddenly her eyes were bright blue, surrounded by long, exotically thick black lashes. I stared, then saw that the eyes in the frame were now gray, staring blankly and fringed with the servant’s own very ordinary lashes. Then she put the frame back to her face, and her eyes were her own again.

“You see?” She held the rod out to me. Now I could see the tiny black sigils, barely visible, etched along its length. “Blue would look lovely with that dress.”

I recoiled, and it took me another few seconds to speak through my revulsion. “Wh-whose eyes were they?”

“What?”

“The eyes, the eyes. Where did they come from?”

The servant stared at me as if I’d asked where the moon had come from. “I don’t know, my lady,” she said after a flustered pause. “I could inquire, if you like.”

“No,” I said, very softly. “There’s no need.”

I thanked the servant for her assistance, praised her skill, and let her know I would have no further need of a dressing servant for the remainder of my stay in Sky.

Another servant arrived shortly afterward with word from T’vril: as expected, Relad had declined my request for a meeting. As it was a rest day, there was no Consortium meeting, so I ordered breakfast and a copy of the latest financial reports on my assigned nations.

As I studied the reports over raw fish and poached fruit—I did not dislike Amn food, but they never seemed to know what to cook and what to leave alone—Viraine dropped by. To see how I was doing, he said, but I had not forgotten my earlier sense that he wanted something of me. I felt that more strongly than ever as he paced about my room.

“Interesting to see you taking such an active interest in governance,” he said, as I set aside a sheaf of papers. “Most Arameri don’t bother even with basic economics.”

“I rule—ruled—a poor nation,” I said, draping a cloth over the remains of my breakfast. “I’ve never had that luxury.”

“Ah, yes. But you’ve taken steps to remedy that poverty, haven’t you? I heard Dekarta commenting on it this morning. You ordered your assigned kingdoms to resume trade with Darr.”

I paused in the midst of drinking my tea. “He’s watching what I do?”

“He watches all his heirs, Lady Yeine. Very little else entertains him these days.”

I thought of the magic orb I’d been given, through which I had contacted my nations the night before. I wondered how difficult it would be to create an orb that would not alert the person being observed.

“Have you secrets to hide already?” Viraine raised his eyebrows at my silence, amused. “Visitors in the night, secret trysts, conspiracies afoot?”

I have never possessed the innate talent for lying. Fortunately, when my mother realized this, she taught me alternative tactics. “That would seem to be the order of business here,” I said. “Though I haven’t tried to kill anyone yet. I haven’t turned the future of our civilization into a contest for my amusement.”

“If those small things trouble you, Lady, you won’t last long here,” Viraine said. He moved to sit in a chair across from me, steepling his fingers. “Would you like some advice? From someone who was once a newcomer here himself?”

“I welcome your counsel, Scrivener Viraine.”

“Don’t get involved with the Enefadeh.”

I considered whether to stare at him or feign ignorance and ask what he meant. I chose to stare.

“Sieh seems to have taken a liking to you,” he said. “He does that sometimes, like a child. And like a child, he’s affectionate; he amuses and exasperates; he’s very easy to love. Don’t.”

“I’m aware that he’s not truly a child.”

“Are you aware that he’s killed as many people over the years as Nahadoth?”

I could not help flinching. Viraine smiled.

“He is a child, mind you—not in age, but in nature. He acts on impulse. He has a child’s creativity… a child’s cruelty. And he is Nahadoth’s, blood and soul. Just think about that, Lady. The Nightlord, living embodiment of all that we who serve the Bright fear and despise. Sieh is his firstborn son.”

I did think about it. But strangely, the image that came most clearly to mind was Sieh’s utter contentment when I’d put an arm around him that first night. Later I would understand that I had already begun to love Sieh, possibly in that very moment. Some part of me agreed with Viraine: to love such a creature was beyond foolish, edging into suicidal. Yet I did.

Viraine saw me shudder. With perfect solicitousness he came over and touched my shoulder. “You aren’t entirely surrounded by enemies,” he said gently, and so discomfited was I that for a moment I actually took comfort from his words. “T’vril seems to like you, too—though that isn’t surprising, given his history. And you have me, Yeine. I was your mother’s friend before she left Sky; I can be yours as well.”

If he had not spoken those last words, I might have indeed considered him a friend.

“Thank you, Scrivener Viraine,” I said. For once, thank the gods, my Darre nature did not assert itself. I tried to sound sincere. Tried not to show my instant dislike and suspicion. Judging by his pleased look, I succeeded.

He left, and I sat silent in his wake for a long time, thinking.

It would occur to me shortly thereafter that Viraine had warned me off only Sieh, not Nahadoth.

I needed to know more about my mother.

Viraine had said he was her friend. Everything I knew of my mother said this was a lie. Viraine’s strange mix of solicitousness and nonchalance, his callous help and false comfort—no. My mother had always valued people who were straightforward in their dealings with others. I could not imagine her being friendly toward, much less close to, someone like Viraine.

But I had no idea where to begin learning more about my mother. The obvious source for information was Dekarta, though I had no desire to ask him for the intimate details of my mother’s past in front of the entire Salon. A private meeting, though… yes. That would suffice.

Not yet, though. Not until I understood better why he had brought me to Sky in the first place.

That left other members of the Central Family, some of whom were more than old enough to have remembered the days when my mother was heir. But T’vril’s warning lingered in my mind; any of the Central Family who truly had been friends to my mother were off doing family business, no doubt to keep themselves apart and safe from the viper pit that was life in Sky. No one who remained would speak honestly to me. They were Dekarta’s people—or Scimina’s, or Relad’s.

Ah, but there was an idea. Relad.

He had refused my request for a meeting. Protocol dictated that I not try again—but protocol was a guideline, not an absolute, and among family protocol took whatever form its members permitted. Perhaps a man used to dealing with someone like Scimina would value a direct approach. I went in search of T’vril.

I found him in a spacious, neat little office on one of the palace’s lower levels. The walls glowed down here, even though it was a bright day outside. This was because the lower levels of the palace were underneath the broadest part of its bulk and cast into perpetual shadow as a result. I could not help noticing that I saw only servants on these levels, most of them wearing the blood sigil that looked like a simple black bar. Distant relatives, I knew now, thanks to Viraine’s explanations. Six generations or more removed from the Central Family.

T’vril was giving instructions to a group of his staff when I arrived. I stopped just beyond the open door, listening idly but not interrupting or making my presence known, as he told a young woman, “No. There won’t be another warning. When the signal comes, you’ll have one chance. If you’re still near the shaft when it comes…” He said nothing more.

The grim silence that fell in the wake of his words was what finally caught my attention. This sounded like more than the usual instructions to clean rooms or deliver food more quickly. I stepped closer to the doorway to listen, and that was when one of T’vril’s people spotted me. He must have made some sort of signal to T’vril, because T’vril immediately looked my way. He stared at me for half a breath, then told his people, “Thank you; that’s all.”

I stood aside to let the servants disperse through the doorway, which they did with a brisk efficiency and lack of chatter that I found unsurprising. T’vril had struck me as the type to run a tight ship. When the room was clear, T’vril bowed me inside and shut the door behind us in deference to my rank.

“How may I help you, Cousin?” he asked.

I wanted to ask him about the shaft, whatever that was, and the signal, whatever that was, and why his staff looked as though he had just announced an execution. It was obvious, though, that he preferred not to speak of it. His movements were ever so slightly forced as he beckoned me to a seat in front of his desk and offered me wine. I saw his hand tremble as he poured it, until he noticed me watching and set the carafe down.

He had saved my life; for that I owed him courtesy. So I said only, “Where do you think Lord Relad might be about now?”

He opened his mouth to reply, then paused, frowning. I saw him consider attempting to dissuade me, then decide against it. He closed his mouth, then said, “The solarium, most likely. He spends most of his idle time there.”

T’vril had shown me this the day before, during my tour of the palace. Sky’s uppermost levels culminated in a number of platforms and airy spires, most of which contained the apartments and entertainments of the fullbloods. The solarium was one of the entertainments: a vast glass-ceilinged chamber of tropical plants, artfully made couches and grottoes, and pools for bathing or… other things. T’vril had not led me far inside during our tour, but I’d caught a glimpse of movement through the fronds and heard a cry of unmistakable ardor. I had not pressed T’vril for a further look, but now it seemed I would have no choice.

“Thank you,” I said, and rose.

“Wait,” he said, and went behind his desk. He rummaged through the drawers for a moment, then straightened, holding a small, beautifully painted ceramic flask. He handed this to me.

“See if that helps,” he said. “He could buy himself bucketsful if he wanted, but he likes being bribed.”

I pocketed the flask and memorized the information. Yet the whole exchange raised a new question. “T’vril, why are you helping me?”

“I wish I knew,” he replied, sounding abruptly weary. “It’s clearly bad for me; that flask cost me a month’s wages. I was saving it for whenever I needed a favor from Relad.”

I was wealthy now. I made a mental note to order three of the flasks sent to T’vril in compensation. “Then why?”

He looked at me for a long moment, perhaps trying to decide the answer for himself. Finally he sighed. “Because I don’t like what they’re doing to you. Because you’re like me. I honestly don’t know.”

Like him. An outsider? He had been raised here, had as much connection to the Central Family as me, but he would never be a true Arameri in Dekarta’s eyes. Or did he mean that I was the only other decent, honorable soul in the whole place? If that was true.

“Did you know my mother?” I asked.

He looked surprised. “Lady Kinneth? I was a child when she left to be with your father. I can’t say I remember her well.”

“What do you remember?”

He leaned against the edge of his desk, folding his arms and thinking. In the Skystuff light his braided hair shone like copper rope, a color that would have seemed unnatural to me only a short time before. Now I lived among the Arameri and consorted with gods. My standards had changed.

“She was beautiful,” he said. “Well, the Central Family are all beautiful; what nature doesn’t give them, magic can. But it was more than that with her.” He frowned to himself. “She always seemed a little sad to me, somehow. I never saw her smile.”

I remembered my mother’s smile. She had done it more often while my father was alive, but sometimes she had smiled for me, too. I swallowed against a knot in my throat, and coughed to cover it. “I imagine she was kind to you. She always liked children.”

“No.” T’vril’s expression was sober. He had probably noticed my momentary lapse, but thankfully he was too much the diplomat to mention it. “She was polite, certainly, but I was only a halfblood, being raised by servants. It would have been strange if she’d shown kindness, or even interest, toward any of us.”

I frowned before I could stop myself. In Darr, my mother had seen to it that all the children of our servants got gifts for their birthing days and light-dedication ceremonies. During the hot, thick Darr summers, she had allowed the servants to take their rest hours in our garden, where it was cooler. She’d treated our steward like a member of the family.

“I was a child,” T’vril said again. “If you want a better recollection, you should speak to the older servants.”

“Is there anyone you’d recommend?”

“Any of them will speak to you. As for which one might remember your mother best—that I can’t say.” He shrugged.

Not quite what I’d hoped for, but it was something I’d have to look into later. “Thank you again, T’vril,” I said, and went in search of Relad.

In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.

My mother—

No. Not yet.

In the solarium the air was warm and humid and fragrant with flowering trees. Above the trees rose one of Sky’s spires—the centralmost and tallest one, whose entrance must have been somewhere amid the winding paths. Unlike the rest of the spires, this one quickly tapered to a point only a few feet in diameter, too narrow to house apartments or chambers of any great size. Perhaps it was purely decorative.

If I kept my eyes half-lidded, I could ignore the spire and almost imagine I was in Darr. The trees were wrong—too tall and thin, too far apart. In my land the forests were thick and wet and dark as mysteries, full of tangled vines and small hidden creatures. Still, the sounds and smells were similar enough to assuage my homesickness. I stayed there until the sound of nearby voices pushed my imagination away.

Pushed sharply; one of the voices was Scimina’s.

I could not hear her words, but she was very close. Somewhere in one of the alcoves ahead, concealed behind a copse of brush and trees. The white-pebbled path beneath my feet ran in that direction and probably branched toward it in some way that would make my approach obvious to anyone there.

To the infinite hells with obviousness, I decided.

My father had been a great huntsman before his death. He’d taught me to roll my feet in a forest, so as to minimize the crackle of leaf litter. And I knew to stay low, because it is human nature to react to movement at eye level, while that which is higher or lower often goes unnoticed. If this had been a Darren forest, I would have climbed the nearest tree, but I could not easily climb these skinny, bare-trunked things. Low it was.

When I got close—just barely close enough to hear, but any closer and I risked being seen—I hunkered down at the foot of a tree to listen.

“Come, Brother, it’s not too much, is it?” Scimina’s voice, warm and cajoling. I could not help shivering at the sound of it, both in remembered fear and anger. She had set a god on me, like a trained attack dog, for her own amusement. It had been a long time since I’d hated anyone so fiercely.

“Anything you want is too much,” said a new voice—male, tenor, with a petulant edge. Relad? “Go away and let me think.”

“You know these darkling races, Brother. They have no patience, no higher reason. Always angry over things that happened generations ago…” I lost the rest of her words. I could hear occasional footsteps, which meant that she was pacing, toward me and away. When she moved away, it was hard to hear her. “Just have your people sign the supply agreement. It’s nothing but profit for them and for you.”

“That, sweet Sister, is a lie. You would never offer me anything solely for my benefit.” A weary sigh, a mutter I didn’t catch, and then: “Go away, I said. My head hurts.”

“I’m sure it does, given your indulgences.” Scimina’s voice had changed. It was still cultured, still light and pleasant, but the warmth had left it now that Relad clearly meant to refuse her. I marveled that such a subtle change could make her sound so different. “Very well; I’ll come back when you’re feeling better. —By the way. Have you met our new cousin?”

I held my breath.

“Come here,” Relad said. I knew at once he was speaking to someone else, perhaps a servant; I couldn’t imagine him using that peremptory tone with Scimina. “No. I hear you tried to kill her, though. Was that wise?”

“I was only playing. I couldn’t resist; she’s such a serious little thing. Do you know, she honestly believes she’s a contender for Uncle’s position?”

I stiffened. So, apparently, did Relad, because Scimina added, “Ah. You didn’t realize?”

“You don’t know for sure. The old man loved Kinneth. And the girl is nothing to us.”

“You really should read more of our family history, Brother. The pattern…” And she paced away. Infuriating. But I did not dare creep closer, because only a thin layer of branches and leaves separated me from them. This close, they would hear me breathing if they listened hard enough. All I had to count on was their absorption in the conversation.

There were a few more comments exchanged between them, most of which I missed. Then Scimina sighed. “Well, you must do as you see fit, Brother, and I shall do the same, as always.”

“Good luck.” Was this quiet wish sincere or sarcastic? I guessed the latter, but there was something in it that hinted at the former. I could not tell without seeing him.

“And to you, Brother.” I heard the click of her heels along the path stones, rapidly fading.

I sat where I was against the tree for a long while, waiting for my nerves to settle before I attempted to leave. My thoughts, too, though that took longer, as they whirled in the aftermath of what I’d heard. She honestly believes she’s a contender. Did that mean I wasn’t? Relad apparently believed I was, but even he wondered, as I did: why had Dekarta brought me to Sky?

Something to ponder for later. First things first. Rising, I began to make my careful way back through the brush—but before I could, the branches parted not five feet away, and a man stumbled through. Blond, tall, well-dressed, with a fullblood mark: Relad. I froze, but it was too late; I was standing in plain sight, caught in midcreep. But to my utter amazement, he didn’t see me. He walked over to a tree, unfastened his pants, and began voiding his bladder with much sighing and groaning.

I stared at him, unsure what to be more disgusted by: his choice to urinate in a public place, where others would smell his reek for days; his utter obliviousness; or my own carelessness.

Still, I had not been caught yet. I could have ducked back down, hidden myself behind a tree, and probably gone unnoticed. But perhaps an opportunity had presented itself. Surely a brother of Scimina would appreciate boldness from his newest rival.

So I waited until he finished and fastened his clothing. He turned to go, and probably still wouldn’t have seen me if I hadn’t chosen that moment to clear my throat.

Relad started and turned, blinking blearily at me for a full three breaths before either of us spoke.

“Cousin,” I said at last.

He let out a long sigh that was hard to interpret. Was he angry? Resigned? Both, perhaps. “I see. So you were listening.”

“Yes.”

“Is this what they teach you in that jungle of yours?”

“Among other things. I thought I might stick to what I know best, Cousin, since no one has seen fit to tell me the proper way Arameri do things. I was actually hoping you might help me with that.”

“Help you—” He started to laugh, then shook his head. “Come on, then. You might be a barbarian, but I want to sit down like a civilized man.”

This was promising. Already Relad seemed saner than his sister, though that wasn’t difficult. Relieved, I followed him through the brush into the clearing. It was a lovely little spot, so meticulously landscaped that it looked natural, except in its impossible perfection. A large boulder, contoured in exactly the right ways to serve as a lounging chair, dominated one side of the space. Relad, none too steady on his feet to begin with, slumped into this with a heavy sigh.

Across from the seat was a bathing pool, too small to hold more than two people comfortably. A young woman sat here: beautiful, nude, with a black bar on her forehead. A servant, then. She met my eyes and then looked away, elegantly expressionless. Another young woman—clothed in a diaphanous gown so sheer she might as well have been nude—crouched near Relad’s lounge, holding a cup and flask on a tray. I made no wonder that he’d had to relieve himself, seeing this; the flask was not small, and it was nearly empty. Amazing he could still walk straight.

There was nowhere for me to sit, so I clasped my hands behind my back and stood in polite silence.

“All right, then,” Relad said. He picked up an empty glass and peered at it, as if checking for cleanliness. It had obviously been used. “What in every demon’s unknown name do you want?”

“As I said, Cousin: help.”

“Why would I possibly help you?”

“We could perhaps help each other,” I replied. “I have no interest in becoming heir after Grandfather. But I would be more than willing to support another candidate, under the right circumstances.”

Relad picked up the flask to pour a glass, but his hand wavered so badly that he spilled a third of it. Such waste. I had to fight the urge to take it from him and pour properly.

“You’re useless to me,” he said at last. “You’d only get in my way—or worse, leave me vulnerable to her.” Neither of us needed clarification on who he meant by her.

“She came here to meet with you about something completely different,” I said. “Do you think it’s a coincidence she mentioned me in the process? It seems to me that a woman does not discuss one rival with another—unless she hopes to play them against each other. Perhaps she perceives us both as threats.”

“Threats?” He laughed, then tossed back the glass of whatever-it-was. He couldn’t have tasted it that fast. “Gods, you’re as stupid as you are ugly. And the old man honestly thinks you’re a match for her? Unbelievable.”

Heat flashed through me, but I had heard far worse in my life; I kept my temper. “I’m not interested in matching her.” I said it with more edge than I would have preferred, but I doubted he cared. “All I want is to get out of this godsforsaken place alive.”

The look he threw me made me feel ill. It wasn’t cynical, or even derisive, just horrifyingly matter-of-fact. You’ll never get out, that look said, in his flat eyes and weary smile. You have no chance.

But instead of voicing this aloud, Relad spoke with a gentleness that unnerved me more than his scorn. “I can’t help you, Cousin. But I will offer one piece of advice, if you’re willing to listen.”

“I would welcome it, Cousin.”

“My sister’s favorite weapon is love. If you love anyone, anything, beware. That’s where she’ll attack.”

I frowned in confusion. I’d had no important lovers in Darr, produced no children. My parents were already dead. I loved my grandmother, of course, and my uncles and cousins and few friends, but I could not see how—

Ah. It was plain as day, once I thought about it. Darr itself. It was not one of Scimina’s territories, but she was Arameri; nothing was beyond her reach. I would have to find some means of protecting my people.

Relad shook his head as if reading my mind. “You can’t protect the things you love, Cousin—not forever. Not completely. Your only real defense is not to love in the first place.”

I frowned. “That’s impossible.” How could any human being live like that?

He smiled, and it made me shiver. “Well. Good luck, then.”

He beckoned to the women. Both of them rose from their places and came over to his couch, awaiting his next command. That was when I noticed: both were tall, patrician, beautiful in that flat, angular Amn way, and sable-haired. They did not look much like Scimina, but the similarity was undeniable.

Relad gazed at them with such bitterness that for a moment, I felt pity. I wondered whom he had loved and lost. And I wondered when I had decided that Relad was as useless to me as I was to him. Better to struggle alone than rely on this empty shell of a man.

“Thank you, Cousin,” I replied, and inclined my head. Then I left him to his fantasies.

On my way back to my room, I stopped at T’vril’s office and returned the ceramic flask. T’vril put it away without a word.