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Siranos shrugged. “As you like.” He tossed them on the altar—the coins left in them spilled across the surface, getting hopelessly mixed up. At Kadou’s flinch, he held up both hands defensively. “What’s that look for?”
Kadou said nothing, only started fumbling the mixed coins into the purses.
Siranos sighed. “Look, Kadou,” he said, putting his hands on the altar and leaning forward. “I think we’ve stepped on each other’s toes once too often and—”
“Has he?” Tadek said brightly. “Has he stepped on your toes? Goodness, when was that?”
Siranos half frowned at him. “I am attempting to make amends.”
“Are you? Whatever for?”
“I don’t wish for there to be any bad blood between us,” he said frankly. “He is my daughter’s uncle, we are family—”
“We’re not,” Kadou said. “She’s not yours.”
Siranos turned to him. After a long moment he said, “Zeliha said she was. I see no reason to disbelieve her.”
“You’re thebody-father,” Kadou said.
Siranos’s finely shaped brows drew together and he pursed his lips with frustration. “I beg your pardon,” he said, and now Kadou could hear how carefully he was speaking. “I believe I told you before that I don’t understand what the difference is.”
Tadek put his hand on Siranos’s arm. “Why don’t you come out into the hall? Leave His Highness to finish his prayers, and I’ll explain it.”
Siranos shook him off. “Thank you, no. I’d like to have a conversation with Kadou.”
“You’re never going to have claim on her,” Kadou said, more sharply than he intended.
“But Ihaveclaimed her,” he replied with humiliating patience. “Zeliha admits that Eyne is mine; I believe her, and I want her to be mine. She doesn’t have to be a—do you even have a word for it? We’d saynothos. Or . . .bâtarde,in Vintish?” He drew himself up. “If you are trying to protect your sister’s heart, I think that is admirable, but I have been thinking that perhaps I won’t return to Oissos after all—I will stay. I want to be in Eyne’s life. A child should have two parents.”
“Whatfor? She has me.” But Kadou realized with a sudden clarity that Siranos wasn’t just misunderstanding what a body-father was—he misunderstood what anunclewas. Even if Zeliha had deigned to share claim on her child,Kadou’sclaim on Eyne would always far outweigh Siranos’s, just by dint of the fact that he was Zeliha’s brother.
Siranos huffed. “She could have a father andthreeuncles, and an aunt,” he said.
“What?” Was Siranos’s understanding of the language really that poor? Where had the misunderstanding happened? “I have no other siblings.”
“Ihave two brothers and a sister. She should know them too—”
“Whatever for?” Tadek said, sounding just as bewildered as Kadou was.
“Your siblings are not uncles and aunts to Her Highness,” Evemer rumbled. “Your family has been granted no claim.”
Siranos stood up and rubbed his forehead. He muttered something under his breath—Kadou thought that it was an oath or a curse of some sort, but his near-fluency in Oissika did not include vulgar language. “I am planning to stay,” he said, even more carefully patient. “I—” He shook his head, laughed. “I’ve been loyal to my family for all my life, and they’ve never been anything but wretched to me. I’ve only just realized this recently. It’s better here. I’m staying.”
Kadou didn’t have time to deal with this, nor the energy. “That’s between you and Her Majesty,” he said. “If that was all . . . ?”
If that was all?was a rote phrase his etiquette tutors had drilled into his head, which was supposed to hint that the conversation was over and that someone should imminently excuse themselves. Siranos evidently had not had this lesson from his own tutors. “You think I’m not sincere?”
“Perhaps you could finish this conversation later,” Tadek said more firmly, gesturing to the door.
Siranos spared him a single frustrated glance. “Call off your dogs, Kadou. I didn’t think you were so arrogant as to—”
“You will address him asYour Highness,” Evemer said.
“More importantly, you will refrain from calling my kahya and armsmandogs,” Kadou snapped.
Tadek gave Kadou a polite half bow. “Highness, I’ll escort Master Siranos to the door, shall I?”
“Please.” Thank the gods for Tadek.
