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Killen inclined his head, eyes intent. ‘I know her name. My mother said she died in mysterious circumstances when she was very young.’
Kamilla nodded. ‘She was a great woman famed for her kindness, beauty and an intense distrust for the spotlight of the court and her marriage. Disliking pomp and circumstance, she often travelled under a pseudonym to escape it all. When K’Elisa was three, K’Etit slipped away on a holiday without an entourage to Kythnia. She took her children and never planned to return to the King. Rumours say she had a lover there. However, word of her anonymous escapade was leaked to her foe, who sent a certain ruthless khora, k’Uchen, after her. He approached her at her accommodations and sunk a stiletto koya into her chest, and she died. Her youngest child, your mother, was found crying by her side with Kaadiq, then five, watching over her. She was brought back to Katáne for a state funeral, but her assassination on Kythnia only stoked up the fear and mistrust Katánians had for the moon city. K’Etit was charitable and well-liked, a blameless target and as a result of her murder, unrest, shock and mourning swept Kos and reprisals were threatened against Kythnia.’
Killen’s hawkstone blazed. ‘Who ordered her murder? Who was her enemy?’
‘Kalila.’
His eyes widened. ‘Why do you believe that?’
Kamilla gave him a sad smile. ‘I found a holo in our eyrie’s library, hidden in an archive she thought I hadn’t access to. It was from the same Katánian khora, k’Uchen, confirming he’d done her bidding.’
‘My grandfather was aware of this concerning your stepmother?’
Kamilla shook her head. ‘Nada, he did not.’
Killen cursed under his breath. ‘Why the hell did she do it?’
‘To take out the one person who brought rational thinking to the throne room. Tempest Light listened to K’Etit. She had some sway with him, and he loved her in his twisted way. She encouraged him to speak to the Kythnians; in fact, she was their intermediary.’
‘So the rumours that she had a lover on Kythnia were untrue?’
‘I don’t think so. It was the story Kalila whispered to besmirch K’Etit’s name, to rile up the old King even further against Kythnia and all it stood for.’
Silence fell between them for a moment.
‘Now that you know, what will you do?’
Killen turned to her. ‘What can I do?’
‘You can avenge your grandmother for one. And my father and any other fokkin’ person she’s managed to get rid of in the name of power.’
He raised a brow in surprise at the gritted anger in her voice. ‘You’re encouraging me to kill Kalila in retaliation.’
Kamilla’s eyes were a calm oasis, her jaw set. ‘Naam. Before she slays you.
‘Tis what I’ve come to expect daily,’ Killen grumbled.
‘The woman you see is not Kalila,’ the Koel said with urgency. ‘The one who married my father, cruel as she was, has been replaced by something worse. But it can’t be any old slaying. It has to be a firestorm incision.’
Killen jolted. ‘A what now?’
‘I believe that a particularly nasty node of dark íkan has taken hold of my stepmother’s soul. She leaks it from every pore. It has to be dug out of her. Blading her would let the kízakan she has infested inside her flow out and cause even more harm. The incision has to be followed by scorching, which can only be done, from what I understand, by the wearer of the hawkstone. And the holder of the sacred axillae using a yet unknown íkan spellbinding to flame it out. The searing would kill her, but it’d also stop the miasma she has within her from spreading.’
‘Hotdamnfokkinhellandfeathers,’ Killen cursed. ‘Every freakin’ time I think I’ve got a handle on Katáne, it fokks me right back.’
Kamilla shook his head at his angst. ‘Your return was foreseen. The war to claim the throne, too. It’ll be bloody and flamed, but it’ll be righteous, and you’re the King for it.’
‘Who foresaw me? You?’
‘Naam. Among others.’
‘Any of your visions indicate when I’m meant to take on this righteous war and how I’ll win it?’
Kamilla shrugged.
‘Thought so,’ Killen murmured. ‘I agree we need to be careful with Kalila’s extermination. The hawkstone confirms that her existence has more purpose, as if she’s meant to lead me somewhere.’
‘Ah, the paradox of íkan. To have light, we must have darkness; none can exist without the other.’
