CHAPTER 33 #2
“Have you come to retrieve your creature?”
“Tzeri was a gift,” Digi said. “She is yours.”
“I’m relieved. Lute is trying to tame her. He says he is doing well, and she has only bitten him once today. He would be so disappointed if you came to take her back.”
Digi smiled. “A mordok chooses its tamer, not the other way around.”
Clover came in, carrying a platter with a teapot and two cups. She nodded to me. “My lady.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Clover set the tray down, poured the tea, and departed.
I sipped my tea. Mmmm, the client special occasion tea. So delicious.
Everard walked through the door, dressed in all black, his eyes green and cold.
I almost choked on my tea.
Digi and her bodyguard froze.
Gort bowed his head and left the room. Everard pulled out a chair and sat on my left.
Nobody said anything. Damn it, Kaiden. Little traitor.
Digi stared straight at me, as if willing Everard to disappear from her peripheral vision.
Behind her, her bodyguard clenched her spear.
Digi was practiced at hiding her emotions, but the woman behind her was teetering on the edge of panic.
It wasn’t for her own sake. She realized that if Everard attacked Digi, she was powerless to stop him.
I cleared my throat. “What can I do for the honorable orsi?”
“I have three questions,” Digi said.
“What have you brought in trade?”
Digi flicked her fingers. The bodyguard set a small wooden box on the table. Digi opened the box. A small amulet lay inside, a clawed silver paw with long talons holding a black pearl.
“A stone of remembrance,” Digi said. “If you squeeze it, the talons will crush the stone, and the person in front of you will see and hear the one they love most in your place. They will tell you their darkest secrets. You are someone who deals in knowledge. It will be of great value to you.”
Nice. “How long will the magic last?”
“Forty breaths. Enough for a clever woman to save a life or ruin it.”
About two minutes or so. That was a really valuable trade. “Ask your questions.”
Digi leaned forward slightly. “Which of my siblings share a father with me?”
“Your third brother, your sister, and your fourth brother are children of your parents.”
“Does the husband of my mother know of their parentage?”
Word choice was very important in the Okulan language. Not the tair, not my stepfather, the husband of my mother. She would’ve owed allegiance to the tair and familial respect and care to her stepfather. The husband of my mother, however, didn’t rate any consideration.
“The tair knows. He found out when you took the first of the Heir Rights. The Grand Priest is not your ally. He also knows, and he has since tested the blood of all your siblings.”
Digi fell silent, pondering the implications.
“We have cleaned our house,” she said. “The tair was having my father poisoned. Small doses slipped into his food. My father had already noticed himself growing weaker. In another six months he would have wasted away. The traitor has been found and dealt with.”
“As expected.” Digi was meticulous. She and Clover would get along.
“My father is the First Sword. The defender of our clan. His death would be a huge loss to our people. It is a crime.”
Aha. Now I knew where she was going. She did this in the books, too, but it took her a lot longer to arrive at this course of action, and Mrest had died of unknown causes by then.
I’d changed the future and maybe this time it would stick.
Although was this change for the better or worse?
How much bloodier would their quiet war get now that Digi was forewarned?
“You seek to accuse the tair of Blood-burning. The tair who betrays the clan in the name of self-interest burns the blood of their people and isn’t worthy to rule.”
Digi nodded. “You know our ways.”
“You need three crimes to prove his guilt. The poisoning of your father is one.”
“The corruption of trade is the other. The tair has put his sister, Tarak’s mother, in charge of the silk trade.
She has embezzled funds and distributed them through the family with the tair’s knowledge.
She has been clever about it, but she shared her scheme with my cousin.
Tarak is a soft man, unaccustomed to any discomfort. ”
Oh, there had been a hell of a lot of discomfort, I was sure. The Harzi were not known for their gentleness when it came to interrogating prisoners.
“You need a third crime. Is that your final question?”
“Yes,” Digi said. “Give me a third crime that the tair committed. Something I can take back to my people to prove the Blood-burning.”
Her stepfather had done a lot of shady shit. Let’s see, what would qualify and have the right emotional weight to enrage the clan?
Ah. That.
“There is a man named Amur among your retainers. Do you trust him?”
“Yes.”
“Amur’s grandfather travels to the Mountain Temple every year at midsummer, during the longest day. This year Amur should accompany his grandfather to the temple. You must secretly meet them there. Don’t tell Amur’s grandfather of this plan. Let it be a surprise.”
Digi nodded.
“Make sure the abbot of the temple is present for this meeting.”
She nodded again.
The Blood-burning required specific conditions. To prove a case in the clan’s court, one would need the injured party, a blood relative, or a sworn sibling who could speak to the impact of the crime, and an impartial witness to confirm the testimony.
“The abbot must be your witness,” I warned. “The Grand Priest will support the husband of your mother, and the abbot is the only one with enough sway to counter the Grand Priest’s influence.”
“Understood.”
“When you meet Amur’s grandfather, ask him if he still mourns his dogs on the longest day of the year. You must appear as if you already know the answer. Then let him speak. All you need to do is listen.”
Digi opened her mouth and closed it. She had asked three questions. Anything else would cost her extra.
“If his grandfather hesitates, tell him that you never cared for the number seven.”
“Thank you.”
A moment passed. Another.
“And what of Selva’s wishes?” Digi asked.
Behind her, her bodyguard clenched her spear.
Everard’s posture was relaxed and his voice calm and measured. “As long as all of the blood stays on your side of the border, Selva will not cross it.”
Oh, how clever. The way he put it could mean that he expected all of the fighting to stay on their side of the border or all of their people, because the Okula referred to their clanspeople as the blood.
“For how long?” Digi asked.
The Harzi clan territory directly bordered Selva. She wanted to make sure he wouldn’t stab her in the back while she secured her position.
“My quarrel is with the husband of your mother,” Everard said. “Should the Harzi find themselves a new tair, that tair can count on lasting peace and a calm border.”
“May such a tair have that in writing?” Digi asked.
And she had just questioned his integrity.
A thin curl of black smoke slipped out from Everard, circled around his forearm, and melted into nothing. The bodyguard looked like she might faint at any minute.
“Treaties and accords are made between rulers,” he said. “Become your people’s ruler. Until then, my word must suffice.”
“The Sleepless Duke has never broken a promise to me,” I said. “His word is carved in stone.” Take the hint. You’re pushing too far.
“And if I did go back on my word, she would never let it pass,” he said. What?
Digi looked at me.
“It’s getting late.” Go while you can.
“So it is. Should you wish to have tea without any trade, Lady Maggie, you know where to find me.”
“I would like that.”
Digi pulled the hood over her head. The poor bodyguard woman almost collapsed in relief.
“Kaiden!” I called.
He popped out of thin air in the doorway.
“Please escort our honored guests to the door.”
The two Harzi women departed.
Everard turned to me.
“So the smoke. Do you control it or does it happen on its own . . .”
The dark swirled around him like tongues of some cosmic flame and vanished again. “It’s the start of the Fatefire. The same as Arvel’s radiance just before he shapes his barrier. I find letting it loose at the right time makes an effective statement.”
No shit.
“You made it seem as if I have much more influence over you than I do.”
“I believe I’m the ultimate authority on the amount of influence you have over me.”
It was best to just leave that alone.
“Tell me about this,” he said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Digi’s parentage.”
“When Rogh Dareel won the war of succession with his siblings, his reserves were exhausted. He needed money in the worst way, so he approached a rich merchant family, seeking to marry their heir, Asali. Asali turned him down in public. He pulled some strings and made sure her brother’s trade convoy was captured and then offered to negotiate for his release. ”
“If Asali married him.”
“He told her that she could either lose a brother or gain a husband. The choice was hers. She married him. They had a grand wedding with contests of strength and skill, as is the Okula’s tradition.
While Rogh was getting drunk and basking in congratulations, Asali evaluated the contestants and settled on Mrest Eser.
He had won everything except the singing.
He can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Have you ever met her? ”
“No.”
“She is stunningly beautiful and twice as smart. She realized that what Rogh treasures the most is his legacy. She has six children. Two of them are Rogh’s and the rest were sired by Mrest Eser.”
Digi’s mother didn’t do revenge halfway.
Everard frowned, thinking. “In the Okulan tradition, every child is legitimate no matter the circumstances of their birth. They anticipate wars of succession, so the children start to build their alliances early.”
I nodded. “By now all of Mrest’s children are very well established, with strong allies.
If their parentage comes to light, Mrest Eser will claim them as his own, and the balance of power within the clan will drastically shift to the Eser family.
It’s even better because he never married or had other children, so they’ll have no competition. ”
“If this comes to pass, the Esers will pull Rogh Dareel off the Oak Chair.”
“Exactly. Rogh found this out just over a year ago. He has two choices for an heir of his blood: his oldest son, who is nowhere as capable as Digi, or his youngest son, who is barely eight. He sent Digi off and scrambled to build up his older son’s support.
Now that she knows, she will fight them both until she carves them into bloody ribbons. ”
“And Amur’s grandfather?” Everard asked.
“He breeds the best hounds in Okula. Years ago, when Rogh was fifteen and named the heir, he came to Amur’s grandfather looking for a puppy. The grandfather gifted the pick of the litter to him. But the dog required a lot of work. One day he bit Rogh, and Rogh snapped the puppy’s neck.”
Damn dog killer. Every time I read that scene, I wanted to murder him.
“Hardly a surprise.” Everard’s tone was ice-cold.
“After Rogh Dareel became the tair, he came to get another dog. He wanted one of those hounds to sit by him while he ruled from the Oak Chair. It would show everyone that he had the support and approval of the whole clan. Amur’s grandfather refused.
The next morning his entire kennel was dead.
Poisoned. Decades of careful breeding, a life’s work, wiped out in a single night. ”
“What happened?”
“The entire household wept over the dead puppies. Rogh Dareel had bribed a servant to do it, and she was so broken up about it that she confessed and surrendered the gold coin he’d given her as payment.
The High Clans of the Okula are called High Clans because they have the right to mint their own gold and silver.
When a new tair ascends, a new run of coins is struck, and these coins are numbered.
The first ten coins are given to the new tair and are meant to be kept for a lifetime. ”
I probably wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
“What was the number on the coin the servant gave up?” Everard asked.
“Seven.”
Everard smiled. I fought off a shiver. In moments like this, I didn’t know if he just had an occasional spike of bloodlust or if his mask slipped, revealing a glimpse of his true nature underneath. The second possibility was much more alarming.
“How capable is Digi?” he asked.
“She’s her mother’s daughter. You should’ve seen her. If you told me that my father didn’t sire me, I would need to take some time to deal with it. She took one moment and then announced a celebration in her real father’s honor.”
In all fairness, Rogh was a lousy father, mostly absent from his children’s lives.
When he did take an interest, it was because they had achieved something that benefited him and even then, he was moody and quick to snap.
His off-spring had to walk a fine line between accomplishing enough to stand out and be a credit to the family, but not so much that they outshone him.
“Will it bother you that you won’t be the one to kill him?” I asked.
“Watching a child he raised as his own burn everything he built and then dance on the ashes of his kingdom will be much more satisfying.”
Okay then. Glad we’d cleared that up.
“Why did you go to the Ribs?”
“Don’t worry about it, Your Grace.”
A thin streak of darkness snaked toward me. I waved my hand, dispersing it. “You don’t scare me. You promised you would keep me safe, and your word is cut in stone.”
“It was worth a try,” he said.