Chapter 6 #3
“We will be traveling very soon. Will you be able to ready everything?” I studied the glass in front of me, rubbing my thumb over a droplet of water.
“Of course.” Nohe nodded, turning it into nearly a bow before straightening. “Is there anything else you need, Your Highness?”
“What happened to the rest of the servants from Turtle House?” I asked. “General Saxu gave us some idea, but his focus was on other things. Did any others survive the fire?”
Nohe wet her lips. “There were not many of them left in the palace when the fire began.”
Good. That meant many of them had fled like so many others after we left, hopefully back to their homes, or even to the city where they might have blended in. Hopefully General Bemishu had been more gracious with his prisoners than General Kacha had inside the palace.
“And those that were inside the palace?” I asked.
“Some died.” Nohe glanced at Homisu, who was studiously looking at the stone floor. “But those that survived with us decided to seek their fortune elsewhere once we were clear of the capital.”
I released a slow breath, feeling some relief, even as I knew Nohe was purposefully keeping some of the tragedy from me.
She hadn’t given exact numbers of how many had been killed, how many had survived, and how many had scattered like a herd of deer fleeing at the crunch of dry leaves under a hunter’s foot.
“What about Nuti? And Tilo? They worked in the bathhouse?” I asked.
“They escaped,” Nohe said, she fidgeted and I felt a stab of worry that she was lying, but then she raised her chin. “I know you were quite fond of Nuti, so I gifted her with some coin from the Turtle House lockbox before she fled.”
“That was good,” I said. “She was a help to me when I was new to the palace.”
I started to ask another question, even though I knew this line of inquiry was like taking a knife to both Nohe and me and hoping to cut out the infection along with the flesh.
But a soft tap at the door interrupted me. I frowned, and one of the other servants jumped into motion, opening the door, her eyes moving down as she looked for the interloper.
Stiffening, she said, “Prince Hallu.”
“I’ve come to see Consort Airón. Is His Highness available?” Hallu’s voice was soft, and the servant glanced back at me before turning her gaze abruptly to Nohe.
I nodded, gesturing the boy in. Irad?o looked between the door and me before moving to an armchair in the corner of the room next to a window. Homisu bowed, moving back into my bedroom to, I assumed, get back to the complicated task of organizing and repairing my clothes.
Nohe walked to the door, gesturing the other two servants away. They fled quickly, and she bowed Prince Hallu into the room, subtly indicating for him to take a seat across from me. Moving to the sideboard, she poured him a glass of water, placing it in front of him before excusing herself.
A cool breeze entered the room, and I saw the dark flap of wings as Terror settled on the ledge where Irad?o had just opened the window.
Within a few moments, Dawn and Ratcatcher had joined him, each jostling for position.
I returned my gaze to Prince Hallu, who sat impossibly straight, his feet hanging nearly half a foot above the floor, his spine not touching the back of the couch.
“Prince Hallu,” I finally greeted, belatedly realizing that, as his social superior, I needed to speak first. “It is extremely late.”
Hallu flinched, and I realized that my words would be taken as criticism rather than concern in the Imperium.
“I apologize for the hour. Is it too late to speak? I should have… Mother says if we’d been home, at the Mountainside Palace, we should have been at your wedding, and I could have shown you respect.
” I could hear Koque in his words, the politeness, the delicacy, the way each one was carefully chosen for best effect.
“In no way can I blame you for your absence,” I said. “I think we both understand the reason behind it.”
“Do we?” Hallu asked, his eyes fixed on me.
On his small face, they looked far older than his years, and I wondered if that was an effect of Centipede, or if it was simply the fact that he had been born to Empress Koque and spent the first three years of his life at the very heart of the Imperial Court.
“I believe so. We were both caught under the spell of the animalia Centipede. More than almost anyone else here, I understand the cost of his thrall. I am glad you are free now.” I kept my words flat, but there was an implied question in them I hoped he would answer.
Hallu nodded. “You and a dragon freed me? That’s what mother says. I’m grateful. Extremely grateful for the action you took.”
I nodded slowly. This was the first conversation he and I had had about it explicitly, and I realized that since Koque had been keeping him so close, he had never gotten a chance to actually meet Na?.
“Such gratitude is appreciated,” I said. “But it could have waited until morning. Why are you here, Prince Hallu?”
“Did you do it to me? Make me sick? Make me hear voices?” Hallu’s voice was unsteady and he swallowed. “They say that in the north, you can talk to animals, that you practice strange and dangerous magic, which is why it is forbidden. Did you do it so that I will not be my brother’s heir?”
I raised my eyebrows. He might not quite have his mother’s delicacy of speech yet, but he certainly had her ability to see the politics of every interaction.
“No, Prince Hallu. I did not.” I frowned, considering what to say next.
“So you cannot lift the illness permanently from me, the way you freed me from the animalia?” Prince Hallu asked, his voice going soft and quiet.
“No.” I kept to myself we hoped to do just that in Tavornai. There was no sense in scaring the boy even more by telling him we planned to meet another animalia.
“I’m afraid.” Prince Hallu whispered the words. “I can feel myself getting worse. And when I feel sick, the voice is worse. I know it isn’t real, but it feels real.”
“He cannot hurt you.” I hadn’t felt any hint of Centipede when I’d healed Hallu earlier.
“He is dead and can no more hurt you than a tale told around a campfire. In the dead of winter, we tell frightening stories in the Silver City. My mother best of all. And not a single one of her tales ever hurt me.”
“There are other ways to be hurt. Centipede spoke inside my mind. If another creature tries to control me, will you promise me something?” Prince Hallu looked at me, and in his soft gaze, I saw echoes of his mother.
He spoke too bluntly, asked too much, but I could see how carefully he had practiced his words.
He had prepared himself to meet me, the man he assumed was the orchestrator of his illness.
“What would you ask of me, Prince Hallu?” I asked. I felt as though I was talking to a young Tallu, before he had fully hardened himself, freezing himself in the role demanded of him. Tallu had wanted to save his brother and save himself in the process. What did Prince Hallu want?
“Will you kill me as my mother killed my father?”