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Malgasi,Kel thought. So the Ambassador had arrived. He thought of what Charlon had said:She’s here to try to talk Conor into marrying that girl, the Princess.And he had been right enough, in his clumsy way. They would be swarming soon enough: Malgasi now, then Kutani, Sarthe, Hanse, and the rest. All of them, he thought, with a weary smile, underestimating how stubborn Conor could actually be.
Kel trudged up the stairs of the Castel Mitat to the rooms he shared with Conor. There were Castelguards posted at the door, as usual; Kel nodded at them and slipped inside, closing the door soundlessly behind him.
Conor was asleep on his bed, a shaft of moonlight falling crosswise upon him. He was in shirt and trousers and, for some reason, one shoe. Kel half wanted to shake Conor awake, to demand of him the manner in which he had somehow managed to pay off his debt. But curled half upon his side, his arm beneath his head, Conor looked young and careless in sleep, and vulnerable.Wrists, eyes, throat:Kel was acutely aware, as he sometimes was, of all the places Conor could be hurt.
When they were younger, Kel had felt every bruise on Conor’s skin as a weight of guilt, a failure on his own part to protect, to be the Prince’s shield, his unbreakable armor. That had been a time when he had thought Conor kept no secrets from him. He knew better now.
Conor rolled onto his back with a sigh, though he did not wake. Kel sank down upon his own bed, staring into the dark. Had it done him any good to uncover Conor’s secret—the debt, the connection to Prosper Beck? Conor had repaid the money without his help, and Kel had learned nothing from Beck.
Not yet, at least. And if he wanted more information, he would have to betray Antonetta. But that pathway was a dark one. Was it not part of his duty to Conor to betray Antonetta—to take her necklace if that meant he might learn more about protecting House Aurelian? Was that not where his duty lay, even if he did not like it?
He lay awake late into the night, his thoughts running in circles. One thing he was sure of: For the first time, what he knew his duty to be clashed with his own sense of what was right. Curious—he had not realized Kel Saren still had his own sense of rightness, buried under everything he had learned since his first arrival at Marivent.
The Sorcerer-Kings looked upon the small figure of Adassa atop her tower, and they laughed. She was but one person, they said among themselves, and they were an army; she was young, and they were experienced. It would not take long to destroy her.
But the fire of the Source-Stone that Adassa held was greater than any they had imagined, because its power came from willing sacrifice. As the armies of the sorcerers threw themselves against the walls of Aram, they found the very land turned against them: Pits of burning fire opened at their feet, and walls of briars sprang up from the ground to block their steps. Whirling pillars of sand and fire scoured the desert and scattered their soldiers.
For two days and nights this battle raged without slowing, and Adassa remained upon the tower of Balal, and it seemed she would never tire. The sorcerers came to Suleman and they said, “This cannot be won with magic alone. She is a woman, and she loves you. Go into the city and climb the tower and strike her down with your sword. Then we will have Aram.”
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings,Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
Kel spent most of the next day feeling as if he were being driven slowly mad. For some reason, he had thought that the moment Conor had the opportunity, he would be eager to tell Kel that he had repaid his debt to Prosper Beck.
But it did not seem that was the case. To be fair to Conor, there was little opportunity. When Kel woke in the midmorning, Conor was seated at the small porphyry table, his hands outstretched as one of the housemaids painted his nails in alternating shades of silver and scarlet. He was also in the middle of arguing about something with Mayesh, who was pacing the floor.
“Lowering tensions with Malgasi would be ideal,” Mayesh was saying. “But we do not want to find ourselves too closely bound to them. Their ways of doing things are antithetical to Castellane’s.”
“I thought we merely wished to secure the promise that we could continue to use the trader roads that run through their country,” said Conor, flexing his fingers as the housemaid put away her little pots of paint. “Beyond that—” He winked as he saw that Kel was awake and sitting up. “Good morning,” he said. “It is early yet, and already you owe me; I prevented Mayesh from waking you an hour ago.”
He certainlylookedat ease, Kel thought, as someone who had recently paid off a large debt might. But then Conor was an expert at projecting an air of ease, whether he truly felt it or not. A few weeks ago, Kel would have said he alone had the skill to see through Conor’s pretenses. Now he was no longer sure.
Mayesh looked dour. “One forgets,” he said, “quite how long it takes to prepare for these state dinners. Kel, get yourself up; the tailors will be here any moment to fit you and Conor for your evening clothes.”
Kel yawned and began to clamber out of bed. “I had rather hoped everyone had forgotten I’d agreed to attend in the first place.”
“Not a chance,” said Mayesh. “Lest it slip your mind, Sena Anessa, the Ambassador from Sarthe, will also be present. As she is fond of Kel Anjuman, you will be in charge of distracting her while the main business of the event—smoothing relations between Castellane and Malgasi—goes on unhindered.”
She is fond of Kel Anjuman.Not,she is fond of you.But Mayesh was right, Kel thought, as the tailors arrived, and Conor got lazily to his feet. Kel Anjuman was not Kel himself. Sena Anessa did not really know him, but a construction of him, and that was where her fondness lay.
“I told you you couldn’t get out of it,” Conor said. He grinned the way he once had when he and Kel had been young and had been caught stealing tarts from Dom Valon’s kitchens—amusement mixed with unrepentance.
Mayesh excused himself, and the tailors went to work, fluttering around both Kel and Conor like anxious doves. Clothes, too, were political in the world of the Palace. Conor had to be fitted for an outfit that would pay tribute to Malgasi while retaining the honor of Castellane. He could not wear the silver and purple of Malgasi, obviously, but neither could he wear red. A deep burgundy had been settled on: a silk shirt, a fitted, gold-embroidered waistcoat of wine velvet, trousers of linen and brocade, and wrist-cuffs ofblood-red rubies. He had been discouraged from wearing his swan-feather cloak, and was displeased about it.
Kel was given far more neutral colors to wear: pale grays and blanched linens, the colors of ash stirred into cream. They were colors that said:Pass me over; do not see me.
He buckled his leather vambraces, with their cleverly hidden blades, beneath the sleeves of his dove-gray coat, despite complaints from the tailors that it would ruin the lines of his clothes. “It is a state dinner, Sieur Anjuman; surely you do not need these weapons!”
Kel only stared coldly. “I would prefer to keep them.”
Even after the tailors left, hurrying to make the last alterations to the clothes before evening came, there was no chance to speak to Conor alone. Kel took himself to the tepidarium while Conor was attacked on all sides: his hair trimmed, his eyes smudged with kohl (which would please Lilibet), his jewelry and coronet chosen, and a series of small stars painted in silver along his cheekbones. Kel was relieved to escape all that; Conor had a reputation to keep up, but no one much minded what Kel Anjuman looked like as long as he was respectably attired and clean.
By the time the tailors returned with the final iterations of their clothes, Domna Talyn, the Palace Mistress of Etiquette, was there, reminding them both of key phrases in Malgasi they would need to know that night—how to greet the Ambassador, how to send regards to Queen Iren Belmany, how to inquire after the well-being of Princess Elsabet. “I learned a phrase from a Malgasi gentleman the other night,” Conor said, adjusting his glittering crown among the dark waves of his hair. “Keli polla, börzul.”
Domna Talyn gasped. “That isobscene,Monseigneur.”
“But it does show a command of the language, I think,” said Conor, looking innocent. “Don’t you?”
At this point, Kel gave up. He was not going to have an opportunity to speak to Conor on serious matters tonight, and Conor was not in a serious mood regardless. He would wait until tomorrowand try to pry the truth out of Conor then (without giving away his own knowledge) and in the meantime, consider tonight a dead loss.
