Relos Var acknowledged the laughter with a chuckle. “My apologies, Your Grace, for the excitement. Let me present you with Janel Danorak, my newest wife.”
I managed not to roll my eyes. The pain helped. I didn’t even correct Relos Var about my name.
Duke Kaen smiled at me. “I’m charmed, of course.” A frown crossed his face as he stared at me. “Are you all right?”
I suppose he had noticed the tears.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Is that so?” He reached out and grabbed my hand.
I gritted my teeth and kept from screaming. Barely.
“You seem to have broken your hand,” the duke said.
“Have I? I hadn’t noticed.”
He stared at me in wry disbelief. Then he started laughing too.
Turning to Relos Var, Duke Kaen said, “I am charmed. Tell me you’re leaving her here.”
“With your permission, of course.” Relos Var rubbed his nose with a knuckle. “I should warn you she’s rarely on her best behavior.”
“The good ones never are.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pain to distract me from saying something rash. I hadn’t been prepared to be treated like I wasn’t even in the room, someone who could be talked around rather than talked to. Someone who would stay politely silent while the adults discussed important matters.6
I didn’t have a hard time understanding why Relos Var had insisted on removing my strength. I’d have torn out every heart in the hall otherwise.
“Please, let’s eat. I don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse,” Duke Kaen said, still laughing. He gave me a quick glance, just to make sure I’d appreciated the joke.
I started to pull out an empty seat when I felt Senera’s hand on my shoulder. “Not that one.”
“Please,” said the blue-eyed man. “Sit with me. I’d be delighted to look at you during dinner.”
As soon as he made the offer, I recognized his voice. He had been the one who’d said he wanted me “with dinner”—not Duke Kaen’s son.
“Darzin—” Senera warned.
“Yes, ‘Lady Var’? I just want to heal the young lady’s injury. Is that a problem?” He blinked at Senera, daring her to object.
I studied his blue clothing. I only knew that color’s significance because of Brother Qown’s license fees. House D’Mon, the royal family who controlled the Blue Houses and the Physickers Guild.
“Truly, your house is renowned for your healing skills,” I said, smiling as sweetly as I could manage around the pain. “So any succor you might give me, I beg you instead direct to the duke’s son. He did, after all, take the blow that belonged to you.”
Darzin laughed and confirmed who’d really grabbed me.
Senera’s hand pulled on my elbow, and we sat down opposite Darzin and Oreth, in between Relos Var and the two black-clad royals. Duke Kaen sat next to Var, and the seat I had tried to take next to his remained empty. Duke Kaen’s son, Exidhar, left his table for long enough to find the old woman by the fire; she healed his nose, not Darzin. All the while, she cast venom in my direction.
I wondered if she was Exidhar’s grandmother, but she dressed in little better than rags. Not the costume I expected for a duke’s mother. A bundle twitched in a fur-lined basket next to her, revealing itself to be—not snow hyena cubs—a mewling white bear cub.
“Let me see your hand,” Senera whispered as the servants came around with the first course.
I let her take it and tried to pretend I didn’t notice everyone staring. The servants were bringing out the food drip by drip, rather than putting all the dishes out at once and letting people choose what they liked. I also saw no sign of condiments: no pepper sauce, no pickles, no dried spices.
A servant set a bowl of blood before me. I found myself thankful Senera had insisted I eat earlier.
“I know it’s hard,” Senera whispered as she examined my hand, “but try to just smile and enjoy it.”
I met her eyes. “I’d rather stab myself with my hand’s broken bones a hundred times.” I leaned toward her. “Don’t even pretend you don’t feel the same.”7
A warm glow suffused my hand. “Everything about you is difficult,” she muttered. When Senera set my hand back down, I noticed she looked quite tired. She’d been sweating too.
Sir Oreth dripped his soup off the back of his spoon. “This … what is this?”
“Narwhal blood,” Darzin said. “Try it. It took a little getting used to, but it’s good.”8 He waggled his eyebrows. “Spicy. It’s a very special dish in Yor, reserved for the nobility. Reminds me of our new friend here.”
I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.
Sir Oreth laughed and dropped his spoon back in the soup, so it splattered blood all over the white table linen. “Oh, don’t let her appearance fool you. Janel’s not noble blood.”
Senera moved quicker that time. Her hand closed on my arm before I could stand.
But Exidhar Kaen, returning from having his nose fixed, had no interest in keeping matters quiet, and considering what had just occurred, he had every motive to delight in gossip. “She’s not? I thought she was a Kolas? I mean, sorry, a countess? It’s countess in Jorat, right? How could that be true if she’s not nobility?”
“Sir Oreth, your recent experiences have done something to your mind,” I snapped. “You know my lineage.”
He gave me an evil smile. “Oh, I do. Better than you do, I’d wager. I even have proof. I was going to present this to Duke Xun at the tournament, but—” He shrugged even as he produced a sheet of paper from his coat. The paper looked old, folded and creased in a way that suggested it had been opened and read many times. “Anyway. If no one minds?”
“I mind,” I said. “I mind very much.”
“Your opinion doesn’t matter.”
Relos Var leaned over. “I don’t think this is the time or place.”
But Exidhar waved him off. “Oh no, Relos. I want to hear this.”
Still grinning, Sir Oreth snapped open the paper and began to read, “To my Markreev, Aroth Malkoessian, from your loyal herdsman, Jarin Theranon.”
I stiffened. Jarin Theranon was my grandfather.
“Dear Aroth, I beseech your help, for I’m distraught. With my son’s death I now face the unpleasant truth that my lineage is dead. I must therefore confess a secret I had thought to take to my grave: my granddaughter, Janel, is not my blood.”
I shook my head. “That’s a lie. You’re making this up—”
He turned the paper around so I saw the writing on the page and, worse, saw it matched Jarin’s handwriting. “I’m not. I found this among my father’s papers years ago. It’s a fascinating read.”
“Oh, I just love a good family scandal,” Darzin said, leaning back in his chair. “Please, keep going. I want all the details. Actually, let’s do one better—” He grabbed the paper from Sir Oreth.
“Hey!”
“Since I don’t know the names involved, it would be much harder to claim I’m making it all up, wouldn’t it?”