The Courtesy of Kings | ☑ Queenkiller, Kingmaker #2

02.2

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Raj Djuro was right about the quail. It may well be his days spent in the wilderness of the Mrabu, but Kiet never had anything quite as satisfying. The secret was in the mountains, the innkeeper told him. The wild birds fed on berries that grew only along the foot of the mountains and drank from fresh streams that trickled from the purest water sources. Their meat were plump and juicy, their skin soaked the herbs they were bathed in.

Kiet was just finishing his meal when the door to The Two Peaks creaked open. It was a small inn with a dining area that fit only a half dozen tables, so every head turned at the newcomer.

At least he had the prudence to dress down. The raj had come in a farmer's tunic and a wide-brimmed hat to mask his features. No escort either, though Kiet suspected he had men waiting somewhere to safely take him up and down the Mrabu. Kiet caught his eye, nodded him to an empty seat across his table.

'I did not recognise you, my maharaj,' whispered Djuro. He bowed his head slightly as Kiet waved him to sit.

'Please. None of that.' Kiet was more concerned of wandering eyes and ears than anything. 'I wondered if you would come tonight.'

'As did I, maha—master.' Djuro stumbled over his words, looked around in time to see the innkeeper approaching. They ordered wine and rice cakes and waited for the innkeeper to leave before they resumed their conversation. 'I have friends here at the valley. They could not find you at the inn. I wondered whether my message was too obscure.'

'Your men are correct, I am not staying at the inn.' Not after my little bear attack. 'But obscure your message was not. Far from it.'

'My lord?'

'One can never be too careful is all.' Kiet ate the last of his quail, wiped his mouth and crumpled his cloth onto the plate. Throughout the remainder of his journey down the Mrabu, Kiet wondered whether Djuro had anything to do with the sun bear. He felt now that the raj did not. Besides, he had far too much to gain from Kiet to try to kill him off so early in the game.

'You are right, of course. I should have been more discreet. I'm nowhere near as shrewd as my sister. She would not have made the same mistake.'

'Rajini Dhvani had only the best to learn from.'

'Oh, being at court would have honed her skills, I have no doubt of that. But she always belonged at the Grand Palace.'

'You were close with her?'

'I'm not sure if she's capable of being close to anybody, my lord.' The innkeeper arrived with a platter of rice cakes and a pitcher of wine. The sound of his pouring filled the space between them. When he was gone, Djuro continued, 'But you didn't stay in Shorga long enough just to listen to me gossip about my childhood.'

Kiet studied him over the brim of his wine glass. What did the raj want in return? Kiet could not promise him the Obsidian Fortress. If Omana wanted to bequeath their ancestral home to one of her granddaughter's sons, she was in her power to do so. Unless she was sentenced for treason—in which case the rights writ by her husband return to their first-born son. 'I find that difficult to believe. Rajini Dhvani was a devoted mother, she was close to her children.'

'Only because she saw them as extensions of herself. Their failures and successes reflected that of her own position, their survival or death cements that of her own fate.'

'You speak so ill of your own sister, one must wonder how she has wronged you. She is not to blame for your mother favouring her above her other children.'

Djuro's face soured, if only for a second. 'Of course Mother favours her. She made her the way she is, and now she inures my nieces to the same self-serving sickness! You should have seen the lengths she took to get Dhvani into the Grand Palace, the lengths my sister took to capture the Maha Rama's eye.'