Chapter 11
eleven
Nesrina becomes an annoyance.
The first day without Rihan, Nesrina awoke with a pounding headache.
She suspected the ache was of triple origin: one, the extremely full glass of too-sweet wine Aylin surprised her with in lieu of her evening tea; two, her routine having been thoroughly upended from the loss of her guard; and three, her argument with the Duke of Stormhill.
Oh gods. She flipped from stomach to back and stared up at the canopy of green velvet as mortification climbed atop her duvet and settled in, smothering her.
She hadn’t lost hold of her magic like that in ages.
She’d frozen the damn candles! The wax dripped and light emitted from the flame, but each one stood preternaturally still, a glowing, immobile teardrop.
Mortified, she’d been about to remove her shrubbery, then he laughed, which rankled, so she turned it into a maze.
That was the only real moment of control she’d had during the whole argument. To be fair, she should not have used her moment of clarity to trap the duke in a labyrinth. Was it slightly absurd? Of course. A fireable offense? Absolutely. But his reaction? That’s what truly had her in knots.
He’d laughed and said that word again: kalalitani.
She would figure out what it meant. She had to.
Without a definition, Nes had no idea whether the duke detested or approved of her.
Though, she supposed a letter of dismissal would clarify things.
The idea that she might have that clue earlier than expected provided little comfort.
And the worst part of their whole tumultuous encounter? Nothing, absolutely nothing had been resolved.
That infuriating man!
After spiraling into negative thoughts for longer than necessary, Nesrina came to three conclusions: One, she hadn’t lost her position yet.
Two, if she was going to be terminated for last night’s outburst, the cogs would already be turning to make it a reality.
And three, she couldn’t do anything worse than shouting at the duke—but toeing that line would be a good stress reliever.
Her father would have advised against it. Her mother would think it was a grand idea. And for once, in spite of her parents’ reminders that she should learn spirit from Mama and sense from Papa, Nes was prepared to disregard their advice.
The meddling duke deserved to be thrown from his routine, seeing as he’d destroyed hers.
With an inappropriate breakfast of cake and tea from the kitchen, Nes busied herself in the library.
Intentionally leaving the doors open behind herself, she clattered her saucer as often as possible, like a shaky old woman.
The plate was slammed around on different surfaces as she moved between the shelves and sitting areas.
She’d spend a few minutes here, do some rattling and shaking, maybe force a few loud hacks for good measure.
Then, she’d spend a few minutes there, pulling out book after book after book and letting them all thump onto the table.
She developed a knack for shuffling pages loudly, pinching and rubbing them together as she flipped back and forth nonsensically, huffing and grumbling for added measure.
He was holding out longer than expected, so she selected something she wanted to read, and sat at one of the small tables near the open doors.
Still testing limits, Nes tucked into the chocolate cake that was calling her name, letting out an impressed half-moan, half-sigh as the creamy filling hit her tongue.
Then, she opened up the book with a loud thump and sighed again.
The door to his office slammed closed, and he retreated, enormous feet beating a perturbed rhythm on the parquet.
“Don’t forget to eat!” she shouted, not even bothering to rise from the table. Her book was far more interesting than that man. It happened to be on the Selwassan Old Tongue, though it didn’t seem to include that term Lord Kahoth kept using, kalalitani, nor any root words she could make sense of.
Down the corridor, another door slammed in his wake.
The second day without Rihan, Nes awoke to rain pattering on the windows, morning sunlight fighting to filter through skies of gray.
She’d been hoping to take a walk. With that off the table, after a light breakfast in her room, she decided to needle the duke a bit more, rather than wallow further in the loss of her golden-haired guard.
Fates, it hadn’t even been much of a loss when all was said and done.
Privately, with no one but her mind in the know, Nesrina was realizing that Rihan was lacking.
He was attractive, and attracted to her, which was obviously important.
But beyond that, what had he offered? He was handsier than she liked, pushy at times.
A bit dumber than she craved, too. To be honest, conversation with him was dull and his kisses . . . uninspiring.
Oh, well. That didn’t mean she needed to forgive Lord Kahoth for sending him away. She didn’t. And she hadn’t. So, Nes got back to the business of pestering the duke.
Rather than banging about in one spot all day, she split her time between a small study off the north gallery, which she’d affectionately named the green room, and the library.
Having intentionally worn her boots, she went heavy on the heels as she traipsed back and forth between the two rooms, passing the duke’s office over and over and over again.
When her lesson with the twins was done, Nesrina returned to the library to restart her bothersome circuit.
She discovered the most efficient manner to annoy Akkas Kahoth, while still enjoying herself, was to select one academic journal, bring it past his office to the green room, and peruse a single article before stomping back, past his office, to the library to replace the journal and select another.
She repeated this cycle every fifteen-or-so minutes.
On her third circuit, he growled behind his office door, and she said, “Oh, the hounds are allowed in there but us humans are not?”
On the fifth, he scolded her as she returned to the library. “Go away!” he huffed.
On the seventh, her stomach grumbled, and she knew she’d have to call it quits soon for dinner. She pounded her feet extra hard.
“Kalalitani.” The duke’s rumbling response elicited a wry grin from her as she put her final journal away for the night.
“Eat some dinner!” she called as she passed by his door one last time.
Kalalitani. She’d made it her pet project to discover the meaning of that word, but the book she’d found yesterday was gone, and none of the articles she read made a difference.
The next day, Nes decided to add a little pizzazz to her benign harassment of Lord Kahoth.
She started her lesson with the twins in the central parlor due to ongoing rain—a frequent occurrence in this part of the country, apparently.
“What are we doing today?” Della asked, eyeing the lack of candles in the center of the room.
It was time to use a larger source of chaos than that. “We’re going to have a parade.” Nes grinned at the children.
“A parade!” They shrieked in unison.
“Will we be the king and queen?”
“Ooh what about dancers? Can we be dancers?” Della bounced.
“Soldiers?” The prince marched in place, giving Nesrina a small salute.
“I was thinking we’ll be . . . the band.”
They cheered and clapped their little hands.
“What instruments will we play?” Adella looked around the empty room.
“That will be up to each of you. Let’s go to the library and research. I’ve pulled out a selection of books with sketches to choose from.”
“Yesss.” Ataht spoke through a smile.
Together, the happy trio bounded through the halls, the children’s bare feet slapping the floors.
Today, she didn’t enforce the “quiet in the library” rule, in any way, shape, or form. After an hour of research and memorization, she directed the twins to the small fire in the hearth, lit for their use.
“This is an important lesson,” she said.
“Not only will we be creating functional instruments, we’ll have to sustain them while we march in the parade.
We’ll also be sharing the chaos from this fire.
And, most importantly”—she paused for a moment to ensure the twins were paying attention—“we must have fun!”
They cheered raucously, and Nesrina was rewarded by a muffled cough of frustration from the duke’s study.
Making herself a set of sleigh bells, she walked the children through crafting their own instruments.
Ataht settled on a drum that he beat mercilessly with two mallets.
She commended him for making three objects and sustaining them with ease.
Adella made a wildly twisted horn that came more from her imagination than any image in the books. Nesrina praised its complexity.
“What are we celebrating?” Ataht asked as they lined up for their miniature parade.
“Hmm.” She looked out the windows at the rain cascading down onto the already saturated entrance yard. “Appia.”
“What’s that?”
Nes laughed. “She is an ancient goddess of water and life. Ask your history tutor for stories about the old gods. He’ll be excited to tell you more, and it might get you out of a boring lesson!”
“Happy Appia Day!” Della screeched, and Nes might have heard laughter from the duke’s study.
They marched off to follow their planned circuit: out of the library, up the long gallery, through the central parlor to the grand room, back to the main foyer, right, up the north gallery, then they took it nice and slow as they finished the parade with a final hurrah, strategically placed outside Akkas Kahoth’s office door.