Chapter Thirty-Seven

Half-Truths and Double-Talk

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Yilina led Kelvaran out of the Great Hall and through the corridors of the Manor, grousing about her exclusion from the discussion.

“I know I'm not a direct member of a Principal family,” she complained, “but I'm Gorvan's right hand, am I not? And I'm going to be his daughter-in-law. I'm not an outsider.”

Kelvaran barely listened. He was trying to keep track of each turn they took, to get the lay of the Manor. Rounding a corner, they came upon a honey-haired woman in a plain blue linen dress and an apron, standing before an open cabinet and writing in a notebook.

“Avetya!” Yilina called. “Can you come with us? Lord Meratha will need clothes for Court tomorrow. Let's get his measurements so you can find him something.”

Avetya lowered her notebook and gave a small curtsy.

“Lord Meratha,” she said, her tone respectful and friendly.

“Yes, Lord Meratha, this is Avetya,” Yilina said almost dismissively. “Lord Meratha is an Alchemist, so he'll want something in black if we can manage.”

“Let me call for a seamstress,” Avetya replied.

“The suit I'm wearing should be fine, Yilina,” Kelvaran protested.

“I could have it cleaned,” Avetya offered.

At that moment, Abrizhen appeared from another hallway behind Avetya and approached them with a dark scowl on his face.

“Don't start,” Yilina said coolly. “I'm not harassing her, we need her help.”

“Lord Meratha,” Abrizhen greeted with a stiff and curt nod. “Avetya is our Manor's Head Housekeeper, not an errand maid.”

Kelvaran mirrored his stiff posture and nodded in return.

“I'll keep that in mind,” he answered. “I doubt I'll be needing any errands from anyone.”

“Oh, you'll need some Meratha colors to wear into court!” Yilina exclaimed. “Abrizhen, why don't we pop over to see your friend Vadislin, see if he can lend something?”

Kelvaran gave Abrizhen a sharp glance.

“You're friendly with my cousin?” he asked.

“I am,” Abrizhen told him. He leaned casually on the wall with a smug quirk of the lips. “He'll be happy to see you tomorrow. He might be the only one, though.”

Kelvaran smiled bitterly.

“Colors we can manage,” Avetya intervened, smoothing the tension with her mild cheer. “A sash shouldn't take long, and there are crest pins of all the Principalities in the collection.”

“Thank you, Avetya,” Yilina said with exaggerated politeness, glaring sideways at Abrizhen. “We'll leave you to it, then. Come along, Kel.”

The others made way for them as she pulled him along down the corridor. Kelvaran looked back to see Abrizhen bend low to whisper something to Avetya, who laughed in response.

“Have you got some competition?” Kelvaran murmured, injecting a sour note into his tone.

Yilina laughed. “No,” she said shortly. “At least, not from her.”

She led him into a bedroom suite decorated in a distinctly feminine style – delicately wrought furnishings, a vanity table overflowing with cosmetics and jewelry boxes, a dressing screen draped with ruffled linen undergarments, lace trimming on every fabric adornment from the bed to the window to the pouf on the vanity stool.

“This is your room?” he guessed.

“Our room,” she informed him. “You're not leaving my sight in case our little Miss shows up.”

Kelvaran frowned. “What will your fiance think of that?”

“He'll think his father has given orders and we will all follow them.” She crossed the room to him and slipped her arms around his waist. “It'll be nice to have some time alone, won't it?”

He put on a wistful smile as he looked down at her. Suddenly remembering what Kazia had said about kissing her, he broke away and sat on the vanity stool. He gazed pensively at the neckline of Yilina's bodice.

“You haven't been wearing the watch,” he said with an air of disappointment. “I suppose it would be hard to seduce the Prince Heir while wearing a relic of your former lover.”

Yilina's hand went to her breast, and she stared at him in consternation. “Don't be like that,” she pouted.

“I'd like to have it back, if you're not going to wear it,” he said, adding a touch of sadness into his words. “I miss it.”

Yilina approached, then leaned over him, pressing her bosom to within an inch of his face as she opened a jewelry box on the vanity. A chain dragged over his shoulder, then the watch was dangled between them, sunlight from the window flashing over it as it spun in the air.

“I thought you missed the person who gave it to you,” she whispered.

Kelvaran smiled lightly, the sadness he'd feigned becoming genuine now as he closed his hand around the watch.

“Her, too.”

He opened the cover on the watch, traced over its inscription with his thumb, and spoke his next words with crisp enunciation.

“When I go to the capital tomorrow to pledge my loyalty to Halany... will you come along?”

 

 

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When Abrizhen could no longer hear Yilina's chattering down the hallway, he edged closer to Avetya and dropped his voice.

“I need your help with something,” he murmured.

Avetya's laughter from the joke he'd told as the others walked away died down, and she raised a serious eyebrow.

“If it's in my power,” she whispered in answer, turning to survey the cabinet again with her notebook.

“Help me keep an eye on him,” Abrizhen said, glancing again in the direction the others had gone. “I need to know what he's really doing here.”

“You think he's spying for Caedra?”

“No. I don't think he is.” Abrizhen lowered his head further. “They're trying to use him to lure Kazia back here,” he told her. “They seem to think she... likes him? Apparently, she followed him here once before and they almost had her.”

Avetya turned her face up sharply, her expression stunned.

“Has she lost her mind!?" she hissed. "When did that happen?”

Abrizhen shook his head, his eyes roving back the way Kelvaran had gone with Yilina.

“All I get are half-truths and double-talk," he muttered.  "I'm not clear on what happened... but it can't happen again.”

“No. It can't.”

“I need to get a letter to Kazia, to warn her. Do you think you could smuggle one out?”

Avetya was silent for a long moment, calculating in her head.

“Maybe,” she answered, albeit uncertainly. “Get it written and I'll see what I can do.”

 

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