Chapter 31 Kas gets caught.
thirty-one
Kas gets caught.
“The queen is arriving, her carriage was seen at the foot of the drive.” Thera found him in the library, where he’d spent his day hoping to cross paths with Nesrina. He hadn’t been successful.
Kas nodded to his housekeeper, grateful to finally speak with his sister and get verified information.
Still, he remained half occupied with thoughts of his kalalitani.
Nes had been avoiding him all day since breaking into his apartment.
A smile tugged at his lips before growing into a low rumbling laugh.
When he’d gone in to clean his teeth before bed and kicked that candlestick, he knew she was around somewhere.
Lighting his own candles, he’d peeked into the toilet room while sending a tendril of wind through the hidden passage to see if that’s where she’d gone off to.
Then he’d eyed the empty closet, the one that awaited his future wife.
The door had been cracked when he was last in the washroom, he was sure of it, because Lellin was wandering around in there.
When a faint shadow passed beneath the door, his suspicions were confirmed.
That’s when he’d decided to take a long, relaxing bath.
“Brother!” Hevva drew him from his reverie. Apparently, she made it all the way to the house while his mind was away.
He stood, throwing his arms wide to greet his smaller but older sibling.
“Is everything all right?” Kas murmured into her ear as they squeezed each other tightly.
“Let’s talk.”
He ushered her out of the library and into his private study before closing and locking the door. “Have you seen Della and Ataht yet?”
“No. I want to speak with you first. Thera said they’re with Miss Kiappa.”
Kas glanced at the clock. “Yes. Nes usually has them out by the creek for another hour. They’re guarded.”
“I’d expect no less. More importantly . . . Nes?” Hevva’s eyes twinkled.
“Drink?” Kas ignored her, already pouring them both glasses of whiskey to supplement the conversation.
“Always.”
“So? Care to expand on that letter you sent me?”
Hevva threw her drink back and handed him the glass to refill. “Ehmet was speared while hunting.”
His eyes grew wide.
She made a face of incredulity, then explained: He’d been hunting boar with his brother, a few courtiers, and a visiting lord from Gramenia. A target was spotted, and in the chaos of the moment, Ehmet took a stray spear to the side.
Growing solemn, Hevva said, “If they’d been one-hundred yards further from the palace, he’d have bled out, that’s what the healer told me. Even Nekash’s fire wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“Gods, I’m so fucking glad he’s all right.”
“I know. Luckily Sarma was right there. Saved the day, according to Nekash. Then, he, and some servants, and Nekash—they got Ehmet back to the palace and in front of a healer before the worst happened.”
Of course, the idiotic golden-haired guard had been on hand to play the hero. “I hate that guy,” Kas accidentally announced.
“Sarma? We do too.”
Surprised, he shot his sister a look.
“That’s why we reassigned him to Nekash’s guard after we heard what he did to Miss Kiappa at the—”
“What did he do to Nes?!” Kas flailed, spilling his whiskey across his desk and soaking several documents. He hardly noticed the mess.
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, would I be asking you?” he growled.
“He tried to force his attention on her.”
“I will kill that worthless piece of shit.” Wind whipped about the room, fluttering the curtains.
Hevva held up a hand. “Kas, calm down. He was unsuccessful. From what I heard, the tutor defended herself. We reassigned Sarma. We couldn’t exactly let him go, what with his relationship to Isahn.”
Kas nodded, forcing himself to take several steadying breaths. He refilled his spilt glass. Fuck. He’d forgotten Rihan was Isahn Yaranbur’s worthless cousin. How that dolt was of any relation to the earl was beyond Kas’s comprehension.
“Ehmet almost bled out, Kas.” Hevva somewhat abruptly brought them back around to the more critical topic of conversation, reminding him gently there were bigger issues at play. “It was terrible.” She shuddered.
Her tone sobered him.
“The healers have been keeping him sedated. He agreed to it. They said it’ll help him heal quicker. He is going to be fine; I wouldn’t have left if I thought he wasn’t. And there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. But Kas . . .” Hevva inhaled.
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
She exhaled slowly. “I don’t think it was an accident.”
He knew it. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“Yes. Ehmet heavily suggested it. I wasn’t happy about it. Eventually, we both agreed it made sense for me to be here with the children and—”
“In case they’re targeted.”
“Precisely.”
“What makes you think it was intentional?”
“The spear. They were collected from the hunting party for study. All but one was marked by the royal smith.”
“And the one that struck Ehmet is of unknown origin.” Kas’s words were a statement rather than a question, and Hevva nodded, her lips pressed in a firm line. “You have a great team; they’ll figure out who did this.”
“I know.” Her lower lip quivered.
Kas stood and rounded his desk to scoop his sister into a much-needed embrace. “Everything will be all right.”
“I hope so.”
After a long hug, Kas returned to his seat and braced his elbows on his knees. “Tell me, you must have suspicions about what’s going on. Is this recent incident connected to the rumblings from earlier in the summer?”
She chewed her lip. It was such a decidedly un-Hevva-like expression it sent Kas’s pulse racing.
“Tell me?” he urged gently as he reached for the decanter.
“You know Hothan Tarisden?”
Kas paused in the middle of topping up their glasses. “Nes’s dad?”
“Yes. You may want to fill that up a bit more.” She pointed to his finger of whiskey.
Kas tripled it.
“This story starts . . . around forty-three years ago.” She shrugged. “You’re aware that Hothan hates us?”
“He was my friend. Speak for yourself, he didn’t hate me.”
She chuckled morosely. “Not us, us. The aristocracy, nobility, titled folk. He had a falling out with Alva after Vahit died.” Hevva, after marrying into the Crown, began referring to the late Queen Adellan and the late King Hethtar the Third by their given names, a fact that Kas never once ceased to find amusing.
“Ehmet never knew what happened between Hothan and his mom, but they’d known one another since youth.
When Ehmet was eight, he met Hothan; but Hothan stopped writing, for the most part, a few years back, after Alva and he exchanged words, not long after Ehmet and I got married. ”
“Are you saying Hothan—who is dead, as far as I know—has something to do with this current situation? The man never struck me as a traitor.”
“Yes and no. Hold your horses, little brother, and let me take us to our destination.”
Kas rolled his eyes and sipped his drink to stop from interrupting.
“Ehmet never knew what happened, but he said Alva lamented the way her friendship with the tutor concluded, especially around the end of her life, when she was sick.” Hevva leaned forward conspiratorially. “Once, long ago, around the time Ehmet and I met, Alva told him of a long-lost love. She’d—”
“No!”
“Shut up and let me tell the story!”
He leaned back with a huff, miming locking his lips and throwing away the key.
“Alva told Ehmet of a love she had just prior to becoming queen. Her parents pushed her onto the throne. She was in love with someone else and had to abandon him for Vahit. Alva hinted that Ehmet was the only good thing to come from it. And he thought she meant to come from the political marriage to Vahit, but . . .”
Kas’s mouth dropped open, but he’d committed to shutting up, so he stayed silent.
“What if Alva meant Ehmet came from her relationship with her ‘love’? He was born precisely nine moons after Alva and Vahit’s handfasting, Kas.
What are the odds? You know how difficult it is for people to conceive.
Ehmet’s magic is different from the rest of his family’s, which makes sense if it’s truly a mutatio—”
“It’s not.”
“And you say it’s not.” Hevva paused dramatically to sip her whiskey.
Kas knew where the conversation was headed, or perhaps where it had already arrived. As the connection took root in his mind, his hands dampened.
“Ehmet tells me Hothan has—or had—a sister. And he’d always heard that naughtbirins—”
“Chaosweavers.”
“Sorry, chaosweavers come in pairs.”
“Not Nesrina,” he replied automatically, clearly struggling to integrate his new knowledge with the old. The implications were bloody insane.
“Are you hearing what I’m saying Kas? Hothan has a sister who is a chaosweaver. Ehmet and I have the twins, both chaosweavers. Yet, Ehmet has no sibling with the same magic? Nesrina has no siblings whatsoever . . .”
“And the one common denominator in both of their lives was Hothan Tarisden,” he finished with a sigh, finally accepting the facts in front of his face.
Hevva’s lips thinned as she nodded. “We believe it’s possible—no, probable—that Nesrina and Ehmet are half-siblings.”
“Oh. Oh . . . wow. Yes.” He set his glass down.
“Yes?” Hevva raised her brows, holding back a smile.
“Their eyes.”
“Whose eyes?”
“Ehmet’s and Nes’s.”
“You make a habit of staring into my husband’s eyes?”
Kas chuckled. “Can’t say I ever have. Della’s, however, I noticed them at the creek when it was sunny. Green on the outside—”
“Blue in the middle. Like her dad’s. I’d never seen anything like it before I met him. Didn’t even notice for a long while, due to how bloody dilated his pupils always were.”
“Drugs, anger, or attraction? Actually, please don’t answer that.”
Hevva laughed.
“Gods, Hev, what am I supposed to do with this information?” Kas massaged his temples.
“What you always do with sensitive items? Keep quiet.”
“She’s their aunt,” Kas mumbled, mind solidly on Nesrina and flicking briefly to the twins.
“Luckily on the opposite side. Am I right?”