Chapter 30
thirty
Nesrina learns many new things.
Kas had given her an amazing book on the Old Tongue, and since then, every moment of her allotted reading time, which was a fair amount, was consumed by the new text. Nes speed-read it once, then began a re-read, taking her time to try to answer a few specific questions.
That evening, perched on the edge of her chair, she hunched over the table in her sitting area with the book by her left hand and her notebook and pen on her right.
She could—should, probably—have moved to the desk, but reading in the sitting area felt less like doing work than sitting in an upright chair.
And she wasn’t doing work; she was having fun.
An oddly large amount, considering the dry text she’d immersed herself in.
The book turned out to be half dictionary, half etymology. It was precisely what she hadn’t realized she’d been looking for, and she knew she needed to thank him for it. Tonight, as she sipped a pre-bed whiskey from Aylin, she discovered something she’d missed on her first read through: Kalalitan.
Right there on the page, in the section on verbs, she found the word, the one she’d asked Kas about only to have the subject changed time and again.
Skimming her notes, she found what she’d jotted about the nominalization of verbs.
“The suffixes -i and -vei are added to a verb to turn it into a related noun . . . Oh . . .”
Kalalitani means distraction. Distraction.
She chuckled incredulously and scribbled a quick note before flipping back a few pages to the section on pronouns.
She knew what she’d find, she wasn’t an idiot, but she needed to see it in print.
“Mi, my. Mi kalalitani,” she murmured. The nickname was one-quarter amusing, and three-quarters annoying. “I am not a distraction!” she huffed.
What was the other thing he said?
“Tilal, tilal, tilal,” she murmured as she skimmed the text. Her finger stuck as she found the word in question. “Tilal, lovely . . . oh.”
Oh. Her heart thundered and she blinked at the page.
Flipping the book shut, she chucked it across the room—not haphazardly—she sort of aimed for the bed, not wanting to injure the old and valuable text. Then she buried her head in her hands and groaned, loudly.
He’d been calling her a distraction, since her second day at Stormhill. At the symposium he called her Mi kalalitani, his distraction.
His . . . “Ugh!” She took a healthy swallow of liquor.
Nes ditched the cup and paced her room. There was another thing, something else he said back at the symposium.
That stupid symposium. The words flitting through her mind did not match the accompanying images her brain conjured .
. . memories of that one night in particular.
She shivered at the soft echoes of their passion.
The word, whatever Kas had said, was lost to her.
Mistress, she chided herself.
Nope. No. Never.
Nesrina returned to the sitting area, scooped up her drink, and downed the rest, allowing its fiery warmth to chase away a different sort of heat attempting to push in.
Eyes unfocused, she stared out into the night and fought to regulate her breathing while willing herself to feel tired.
It was getting close to midnight, and the queen was due to arrive the next day.
She needed sleep, but her racing mind wasn’t quite ready to curl up beneath the duvet and traipse into dreamland.
I wonder what Kas is up to?
The thought raced into her mind and skidded to a stop right at the forefront. Nes leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the cool panes of glass.
He’s probably in his office, working, her mind continued, unperturbed. It would be so easy to pop down and check if he’s still awake.
Shut up, she shot back.
He might even be in the library, kalalitani.
“Shut. Up,” she ground out between clenched teeth as she leapt to her feet and resumed her pacing.
She could not feel this way about a bloody duke, a noble.
Her, Nesrina, from a small cottage on the outskirts of Napivol?
Nes, the daughter of Tamla Kiappa, watercourser, and Hothan Tarisden, chaosweaver?
She was no one, not really. And he was .
. . Kas. A baron would be bad enough, but a duke?
The brother-in-law to the bloody king?! She could not even consider it.
Papa would have devolved into hysterics if he’d been around to witness her relationship with Lord Kahoth.
Of course, he had been friends with Kas, therefore, she could be friends with him too.
But in no world would Papa condone a relationship with a member of the aristocracy.
If he weren’t already dead, an apoplexy would surely take him at the knowledge his precious Nesrina had so much as kissed Kas Kahoth.
He’s not here anymore, her subconscious whispered.
He was not; it was true. But she felt as though she’d always act in line with what he would have wanted. She owed it to his memory to uphold his ideals.
A voice in Nes grumbled, but she refused to reflect on it further. Without her papa’s guidance, even from beyond the grave, a new question was beginning to pound in the back of her mind. What did she believe?
After several minutes of grinding game trails into the carpets, Nesrina forced herself to climb into bed. She yanked the heavy curtains closed with a huff and lay down. Several minutes after that, she flung the curtains open and swung her legs down to the floor.
A kalalitani is what she needed, and a distraction she would have.
Her failed attempt at falling asleep served one purpose: she remembered the hidden doorway.
The night was warm, so Nes didn’t bother with her robe or slippers as she padded down the short hall to the secret panel.
Pressing her palms against the wall, she slid them up and down approximately where she’d bumped it.
After several moments of failed attempts, she was ready to give up, and smacked her palm against the leafy print in frustration.
“Oh!” The panel clicked open, swinging on silent hinges. I wonder if Kas knows about this? She peered into the darkened stairwell.
Of course he does, you idiot. With that, she snatched up her candle, ducked into the darkness, and began her descent.
With her hand against the wall for support, as if that would save her if the staircase ended in a catastrophic pit, she finally reached a landing.
To her right, the stairs continued downward, and while it wasn’t a pit, there were a few spiderwebs catching light from her candle.
She stuck her free hand out and pressed against the smooth wooden panel ahead.
Come on, come on . . . Nes slipped her palms up and down the woodwork, patting every so often in hopes of hearing that telltale click like she had upstairs.
If she was wrong and there wasn’t a door in front of her then she’d continue downward to explore more before climbing back up.
Her pinky snagged on something cold, and further exploration confirmed she’d found a latch.
Pressing her ear against the wood, she listened for movement on the other side.
What had gotten into her? She had no clue, but this excursion was certainly distracting her from wayward thoughts of the duke.
All seemed quiet, so she pressed down on the latch and swung open the door into a darkened room.
With her candle aloft, Nesrina determined she was standing in a bathing chamber.
A guest room, most likely, if the empty vanity across the way was any indication.
When she stepped forward, she stumbled over something small and rough. Her left foot knocked painfully against the door panel. She dropped her candle, sputtering it out, and she tumbled face-first into something plush and hard, which threw her brain for a loop in the darkness.
Nes gasped, shoving away from the surface.
A wall. Worried she’d hurt one of the duke’s hounds, she stuck her hands out and crouched, swiping back and forth as she moved back toward the hidden panel.
It wasn’t a dog, just a basket, so she returned to the wall, sliding her palms along it in search of what she’d fallen into.
A robe. Nes leaned in and breathed deeply.
Oh, shit.
If the delicious heady scent was any inclination, she hadn’t found a guest washroom at all. She was standing in the duke’s bathing chamber.
As if her luck could get worse, a muffled bark came from another room. Lellin. It was followed by a low rumble. Kas. Her heart sped up, and she sucked in a tense breath. Closer now, but still outside the washroom, she heard movement.
Oh, no.
Nes spun back toward the hidden panel and panicked. She’d kicked it closed. She pressed and smacked and slipped her fingers up and down the wall, searching for a way back in. Come on, come on, come on. Nes pleaded with the gods to open the damn thing so she could escape upstairs.
A door across the hallway thunked closed and Kas’s voice, a murmur, tumbled through the wall at her, threatening to stop her heart. Time had run out. Oh, gods, Nes. What have you gotten yourself into?
He was close, right outside the door. Sprinting on bare feet, she dashed across the room, aiming for a dark rectangle on the far wall. Please, please, please.
It was a door. She thanked the gods. As she closed herself in the new room and let out a shaky breath, the bathing chamber door opened, then clicked shut.
Silence greeted her ear, pressed against the wood. Nes squinted into the dark space where she hid. The gentle glow of moonlight flowed in through the bare window at the far end of the room. She still wished she had a candle.
Oh my gods. She’d had one, but she’d dropped it when she tripped.
Shit. Shit. Shit.