Chapter Seventeen

That Is How I Handle It

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Kelvaran leaned against the wall near the door watching this scene unfold.

These siblings had put on a good show. The more idiotic members of the court should be convinced that Kazia wasn't colluding with her brother.

Abrizhen glared at him and muttered "traitor" under his breath as he rushed through the door, but Kelvaran ignored him.

His eyes were on Kazia.

She stared after Abrizhen until he disappeared inside, then turned and stormed across the park.

Kelvaran expected that she would run to Amelys, but when she bypassed the Alchemists' tower and continued down the bailey, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

He followed, quickly catching up, but hanging some distance behind. Once through the gate and around the corner of the outer bailey, he could guess where she was going.

When he reached the garden gate, he found it slightly ajar, but he didn't enter. Standing in the shadow of the surrounding shrubbery, he watched Kazia through the iron bars.

Under the pergola, she took a leather pouch from a drawer, and a large wine bottle from a cabinet. She pulled the cork on the bottle and took a long drink from it. Then she carried both items to the nearest hay bale, set the bottle down at the foot of the bale, and upended the leather pouch before tossing it aside.

Kelvaran heard a clanking of metal objects hit the ground.

Kazia knelt beside the pouch, then suddenly jumped up, and a number of small knives flew from her hands to the hay bale across the lawn. A perfect circle of iron hilts appeared there, blades embedded in the densely packed hay.

Kelvaran started slightly, but he kept still and continued watching as Kazia retrieved these knives with a leisurely, casual attitude, then flung them again at the other hay bale, repeating the feat.

Again she strolled across, picked up the bottle and drank deeply from it, then collected her knives.

Back and forth, she continued for some time, the knives flying with a speed that could barely be seen, forming different patterns each time with controlled precision.

As she took her fifth or sixth drink from the bottle, Kelvaran began to back away as quietly as possible.

If this was what Kazia got up to out here, he would need to ask Amelys about it. He had already made his argument that Kazia was a potential assassin. How could Amelys possibly still disagree? She must already know about this, it was her garden after all.

Kazia turned her face toward him again, and her expression sent a chill through him. Her eyes were dead and cold, but her lips curled into a sinister smile. She looked as if she could skin an enemy for fun.

She tossed the knives slowly, one at a time. They landed precisely next to one another in a cluster, each ringing out a muted little clink as it scraped past another blade.

Kelvaran held his breath, every muscle tightening in anticipation. Her skill was terrifying.

The last knife thrown, however, bounced off the hilts of the others and landed on the ground.

Kazia frowned in consternation, then suddenly rushed forward and threw herself down to pick it up. Kneeling there, she stabbed the knife into the hay bale.

After a pause, she drew it out and stabbed it in again.

A long, low-pitched wail erupted from her throat, and in a mad frenzy she began stabbing the hay over and over.

A widening hole grew in the hay bale as she stabbed and stabbed, shredded bits of straw flying out, collecting in her lap, until with one final scream she left the knife in the hay and knelt, sobbing, on the ground.

Kelvaran was transfixed.

She was clearly a threat. So why did he feel sorry for her right now?

He watched Kazia pick herself up, retrieve her wine bottle, and stumble into the middle of the lawn where she sat down in the grass facing away from him.

She was covered in hay, and her braid had come unwound from her head, falling down awkwardly with hairpins still sticking out of it. She began to drink, but then turned her face over her shoulder.

"Come in, Lord Meratha!" she called. "I won't stab you. You're perfectly safe."

Kelvaran froze, but drew in a sharp and regrettably audible breath. He entered the garden.

He was wary, but tried to put on a nonchalant attitude. As if he were merely strolling in the park, he sat on one of the stone benches.

He looked at the hay bales with a stern expression.

"Was that display supposed to refute your brother's claims?" he asked disdainfully.

"What is it called," Kazia said, "when someone sneaks around, and hides in the shadows, to watch someone secretly?"

She drank from the bottle again and looked up at him with a smile.

"You probably shouldn't do the things you accuse others of."

"Exactly what are you doing here?" Kelvaran asked.

Kazia lay down in the grass, knees bent up, and balanced the bottle on her stomach.

"Contemplation," she answered.

"Mistress Amelys approved this?" he said in surprise. "She doesn't like Martial Contemplation. Most Alchemists-"

"I am not most Alchemists," Kazia interrupted. "I am not normal. Didn't you hear my brother? I'm a psychotic freak."

"I told you that meeting with him was not advisable."

"No, no," she said. "Today was very productive. The more I can rattle him the easier he will be to handle. Today was just the beginning."

"Even if you are equally rattled?"

"I'm not-"

"You just disemboweled a hay bale."

"I'm fine," she said petulantly. "I can handle it. That-"

She raised the bottle and waved it toward the throwing range.

"That is how I handle it."

She propped up on an elbow and drank again, then waved the bottle at Kelvaran.

"You'll see, this will work."

All her waving around of the bottle brought the fragrance of its contents wafting through the air. Deirua honey spirit was a Valeskan national specialty, and the sweet, heady scent brought Kelvaran a pang of nostalgia.

Kazia gave him a sideways glance, then held the bottle toward him, raising her eyebrows.

He really was tempted, but shook his head.

"No. Thank you."

Kazia shrugged and took another drink before flopping backward onto the grass again.

"It's my mother's recipe," she said. "I've set up a tank in my lab. I could send you a bottle if you want. I won't even poison it."

She smiled wickedly, but he only returned a stony expression.

"Have you made any progress on my Artifact?" he suddenly asked, changing the subject.

"I've tried this and that," Kazia answered with a sigh. "Nothing so far. I'm stumped."

"Are you deliberately stumped?"

She glared at him.

"Gods, you are such a... asshole!"

"I'm...?"

Kelvaran was startled to speechlessness, but Kazia just started laughing giddily.

"Sorry," she said, "I'm sorry. Abrizhen was swearing so much today. It looked like fun, so I thought I'd give it a try. Perhaps not, though. Oh, I think I might be drunk."

"You've been drinking Deirua like it's water."

"Yes," Kazia agreed, closing her eyes as she lay in the grass. "Yes, I did that, didn't I? Hey, if you wanted to assassinate me, now would probably be a good time. There are some knives over there."

Kelvaran stared at her, completely baffled, as she struggled to sit up again.

This could all be an act. She had clearly noticed him following her here.

But at the moment he couldn't help but find her somewhat charming in this pathetic state, flailing on the ground, eyelashes still wet with tears, cheeks and nose reddening from the alcohol, fallen petals from the flowering trees now added to the hay in her hair.

He walked over to the throwing range and began collecting all of the knives.

"I wasn't serious!" Kazia shouted.

"I'm only putting them away for you," he said casually.

He packaged them into the pouch and carried them to the pergola.

"I wasn't finished," Kazia told him.

"Throwing knives around while drunk is not advisable."

"Oh, you are just full of good advice today, aren't you?"

“What was all that your brother was shouting about?” he asked on his return.

“Well,” Kazia snipped, “if it was none of my fu...mmm... business, then it was certainly none of yours.”

“I suppose,” he conceded, stifling a laugh.

He leaned down, took her arm, and hoisted her up off of the ground.

"The sun will set soon. I'll take you back through a portal."

"What are you... why would you do that?"

"Will you stumble drunkenly through the bailey in full view? I won't have you embarrass Mistress Amelys like that."

"That-" Kazia fixed him with a heated glare. "That is a good point."

He took her hand and pulled her toward the gate.

"Don't touch me," she said.

"I must to carry you through the portal," he answered.

"Then you can do it then," she retorted, pulling her hand away.

After a brief delay in which Kazia fumbled with the gate key and refused to give it to Kelvaran, insisting that she could do it until he adamantly confiscated her key ring, the gate was finally locked. Before she could protest, he slipped an arm around her waist, put a hand on the gate, and they were suddenly in the hallway outside Kazia's apartment.

On the way through the portal, Kazia had thrown both arms around him and now clung to him tightly, burying her face in his chest, and did not seem intent on letting go.

He looked down at the top of her disheveled head, unsure of what to do now.

"Lady Devratha?" he said gently. "We've arrived."

Kazia leaned back and looked up at him, her eyes unfocused and still wet with tears.

An unwelcome feeling began to rise in his chest, and he scowled. While he must admit that she was very beautiful, unkempt though she was just now, beautiful spies were not at all uncommon.

He hadn't expected this particular danger.

Kazia sighed heavily.

"Why do you always feel so... confusing?" she asked wistfully.

He narrowed his eyes, and she did the same with comic exaggeration.

Then her eyes widened.

She suddenly pushed Kelvaran away, but then turned to him, panic-stricken, and clapped a hand over her mouth, frantically waving a finger between her doorknob and her keys still in his hand.

Snapping to attention, he quickly unlocked the door and she rushed inside, slamming the door in his face, leaving the keys outside in the lock.

Kelvaran gazed at the door for a long moment, then opened it just far enough to toss the keys through and turn the lock from the inside before closing it again.

He made his way slowly back to his own quarters, still chewing on his bemusement.

 

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