Chapter 18 #3
“So, the queen doesn’t like you then?” I prodded, curious.
He pursed his lips before replying, “Queen Abeille feels no affection for anyone. Ever since the passing of her husband, she prefers solitude to any company. It takes nothing to be banished from her city. Every little transgression or simply an innocent mistake, like accidentally using a healing spell instead of the fertility spell on a fish merchant and temporarily causing her womb to fuse shut—”
“Wait. What?” I gasped in horror. “Is that what you did? Is that why you fled Kalmena? They surely wanted to arrest and prosecute you for that.”
“Me? Who said anything about me?” He blinked innocently. “That was a purely hypothetical scenario.”
It sounded suspiciously specific to be purely hypothetical. Either way, that made my decision to not allow Suhai to cut my eyes that much firmer.
“My point is,” the mage continued, “that it doesn’t take much to be banished from Kalmena. Queen Abeille even exiled her only son from her city last month.”
“Prince Rha?” I perked up, feigning ignorance. “Did the prince go to Kalmena? Why? Did something happen to Teneris?”
“Nothing happened.” The mage shrugged. “What can happen to a city? It’s thriving, just like it has always been since Prince Rha became its ruler. But, back to your glasses…”
“No wait,” I insisted. “Is Prince Rha back in Teneris now?”
“Yes, he is. Safe and sound, if that’s your worry.” He flicked an assessing stare between me and Timur. “Why are you asking, Sweet One? Were you attached to the prince? You came from his sarai, after all. Do you always grow fond of all your masters?”
A rumble of warning rolled deep in Timur’s throat. He definitely had a possessive streak, and the dragon in him often made it more obvious than was necessary.
“No,” I replied to the mage. “I far prefer men who don’t act like my masters.”
With a confused “Hm,” Suhai tapped his finger against his chin.
Timur shifted in his chair impatiently.
“I suggest you go on with her eyeglasses now or we’re leaving,” he barked.
“Eyeglasses.” The mage shook his head, curling his lips in a grimace. “That’s such a crude and primitive method to correct one’s vision. It requires wearing that…” He splayed his fingers, moving his hand in front of his face. “…that contraption on your face at all times.”
“Well, I’ve been nearsighted since the third grade,” I said. “Which means I’ve been wearing that ‘contraption’ since I was a child. I’m used to it. The real question is can you make them for me? Or should I look for someone else?”
“Of course I can make them,” Suhai bristled, as if I’d insulted his professional pride. “If that’s what you really want me to do. Or I could just use a simple spell and a few small cuts to your eyeballs—”
I shuddered, and Timur raised a finger. “No cuts. Make Elaine what she asked for. Nothing more.”
Improving my vision without the necessity to wear glasses seemed appealing. I could never afford an eye surgery back home. But I didn’t trust Suhai enough to let him put a spell on me, much less cut my eyeballs.
“Just a pair of glasses would do. Thank you,” I said firmly.
“As you wish.” Suhai inclined his head. “Let me just take a few measurements then.”
He rummaged through the items on his tray, then fetched a few instruments from the dresser by the wall.
Meanwhile, my thoughts drifted back to Prince Rha and Teneris. Mostly because I never stopped wondering about Dawn’s fate.
“What else do you know about Prince Rha?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Did he get any of his Joy Vessels back?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, but I couldn’t catch his expression from this distance.
“You’re still concerned about the prince?” he drawled, bringing over a tray with several instruments on it. “You must’ve had a pretty good life in his sarai. Surely far better than living in Ashgate.”
I didn’t like the sly note that slinked into his voice.
“I’m not complaining about my life,” I snapped.
“Of course, of course, but that doesn’t mean you’re not missing your old master.” His eyes flickered to Timur, to gauge Timur’s reaction to his words, no doubt.
I might be blind as a bat in this dimly lit cave, but I wasn’t deaf. Or stupid. The mage had been prodding and testing since the moment I’d first walked into this place. And now, it felt like he was testing the connection between Timur and me.
“I’m more interested in the prince’s sarai and his Joy Vessels, Suhai,” I replied dryly. “I got to know many of them, and I’d like to find out what happened to those who didn’t end up in Ashgate.”
“How much would you like to know that?” he asked with unmistakable calculation in his voice. As he took a seat on a stool in front of Timur’s chair, however, his expression remained carefully neutral.
I shook my head, making an effort to look bored and uninterested. “I’m just trying to have a conversation to kill time. Trust me, nothing you can tell me about Prince Rha interests me enough to pay you for it.”
“I can find out anything you want to know about the prince, my sweet,” Timur said confidently and loudly enough for Suhai to hear. “I have many acquaintances in high places in Kalmena.”
He did. All our clients came from Kalmena.
Many of them were personally acquainted with the queen.
However, they weren’t inclined to intimately discuss the matters of the court with a criminal from Ashgate or with the Joy Vessel in his illegal possession.
Timur could probably collect more information if he went to Kalmena in person, but he wouldn’t leave me in Ashgate on my own.
I loved how quickly he caught on to my strategy with the mage, however, and jumped into the game with me. Suhai might be sly and clever, but his overinflated ego got in the way. He wouldn’t let Timur undermine his importance.
“I can spare you the trouble of inquiries,” he said haughtily, bringing a curved instrument to my face to take a measurement. “I know many people in highly sought-after positions at the palace. They have access to every corner of the palace, including those inaccessible even to the highborn.”
What positions were those? Guards? Servants? I wondered but didn’t ask out loud, afraid to derail the mage off the topic.
“The queen punished her son for losing his precious Joy Vessels,” the mage continued. “She ordered his death by exposure to the sun.”
I knew the prince must’ve survived. We would’ve heard about it if he didn’t. Besides, didn’t Suhai just say that Prince Rha was safe and sound?
But I raised my eyebrows and let my mouth hang open in surprise to encourage the mage to keep talking.
“She executed her own son?” I squinted at him skeptically through the two metal prongs he positioned at the outer corners of my eyes.
“Well, that was the verdict read to the public on the day of the execution. But many believe the queen made it intentionally harsh for the opportunity to show her benevolence at the end.”
“She pardoned him?”
“She did. But not before his tendrils were cut off.”
“They cut off his tendrils?” Now, my surprise was genuine, as was my compassion. I didn’t have tendrils, but I believed it must be painful to lose them.
The rhythmic rise and fall of Timur’s chest at my back halted for a moment, and I remembered he’d lost three of his tendrils already.
Empathy spilled through my chest with ache.
I wished I could hug him. Instead, he gently stroked my arm while embracing me from behind.
Our connection through his tendrils was absolute, making words unnecessary.
“It’s not just painful,” Suhai chatted. “Severing one’s tendrils is the worst kind of torture. But they say Prince Rha killed his cousin, Princess Alzali. So, clearly some form of punishment was necessary.” He shrugged.
“The prince killed his cousin?” My shock at the news grew.
“That’s what the palace guards say, and why would they lie?
” Suhai retorted, taken aback by my disbelief.
“Anyway. The queen pardoned the prince, but banished him from her city. Not a big loss, if you ask me. There is no love lost between the two. The queen has never set foot in Teneris. And the prince hadn’t been to Kalmena in years.
Personally, I believe they were both relieved to part ways again.
Except that the queen decreed that all Joy Vessels in the kingdom belong to her now.
” He narrowed his eyes at me. “That would include you, I imagine.”
“If we were in Kalmena,” Timur replied coolly. “But we’re not.”
“Right, right,” Suhai agreed. “May the gods bless Ashgate and protect it from the queen’s laws.”
He made a circular gesture over his head, as if inviting the gods to come down and do what he said.
“Do you know if the queen has recaptured any of the Joy Vessels from Prince Rha’s sarai?” I asked, trying and failing to contain my impatience.
“I believe she has.”
“Do you believe? Or do you know?”
Deliberately slow, he put down the silver tool he’d just used to measure something in my right eye, then looked up at me with his lips pursed in displeasure at my daring to question him.
“Queen Abeille does not make me privy to all her acquisitions, Sweet One,” he bit off.
“It is said that the number of the Joy Vessels in her sarai has increased. However, in her endless generosity, the queen allowed her son to take one Joy Vessel with him to Teneris. He is the crown prince, after all.”
“Prince Rha has a human in Teneris?” My heart thudded in my chest, and I jerked my head accidentally, causing Suhai’s displeasure.
He clicked his tongue in frustration, dropping his next tool onto his lap. “I insist you keep still or I may poke you in the eye, and then we’ll have no choice but to cut it.”
I sat straight, afraid to breathe.
“Who is the Joy Vessel that went to Teneris with Prince Rha?” I asked carefully while Suhai poked around my left eye with a slim device, then jotted something onto a wax tablet in his cart.