Heir of Beasts

Ch. 5.3- A Common Tongue

"I'm back, darling," I call as I open Irei's office door with more drama than is strictly necessary. "Miss me?"

Irei looks up from a stack of papers he's bent over and smiles. "You've been gone for so long, Shira. I was just about to proposition Galia. Mess up those newly made beds, just like you said."

I snort, sitting down on the edge of his desk and resting my feet in his lap, ignoring the work he was just trying to finish. A briefing on the escalating tension in Brekkah, I believe. "And where does that leave me?" I ask ruefully, eyes wide with the tragedy of it all. "I suppose I'll just have to run into the all-too-welcome arms of your old lover, Esato Lyu. I'm sure he can keep me warm."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" Irei sighs, setting down his dip pin in its inkwell. There's a dried onyx crust running down the side of the glass jar, and I keep telling him to clean the thing, but he insists it adds character. I tell him that it just adds smudges.

"No, but I'm not going to let you go, either," I say, leaning in closer to him. "And that rather softens the blow, doesn't it?"

"Oh, h'yonmi," he purrs. "Nothing here is soft."

"Pervert," I quip, laughing despite myself. "Now let's finish that game of Jakla."

"Why don't we finish it later? There's somewhere I'd like to take you tonight."

"Where?" I ask, curiosity piqued.

"The Kaldanza. It's a beautiful old hotel by the east harbor, absolutely grand, and there's going to be a play tonight. The players come all the way from Kostayssau, believe it or not."

"A play?" I ask, smiling brighter. "I'm scandalized, ambassador. I've never seen a play in my life. The theater is a hotbed of prostitutes, miscreants, and thieves, if my late aunt Jinnra is to be believed."

"What did you even do for fun in Shikkah?" he asks. "What is an approved activity if a silly play is too sinful to bear?"

"Dancing very boring dances and games of strategy are thought to be benign. What I did for fun, though? I planted things, read books, eavesdropped on guests, and snuck out with O'otani to go run across the city like wild things. We were good at it, too."

"You miss her, don't you?" he says quietly, kindly.

"Every day," I reply, looking away. "I know that she- I know what she did. How it all ended. And I don't know how to forgive her for that. But somehow I can't retroactively apply that betrayal to the girl who taught me how to climb down the trellis and sneak through a crack in the old walls so we could buy a pint of ale and walk beneath the stars drinking it, like we were nothing more than the son and daughter of merchants. She was always the one who was there when I was sick, Irei, though the goddess knows she was an awful nurse. My mother always had things to do, places to be, foreign powers to meet. I came second, and I knew that. But O'otani? From birth, I was supposed to come first to her. I did come first; she put me ahead of everything, and I let her. And I wonder now if that's why she- why it ended as it did. Because I know I deserve some of that blame. She wasn't false in her affection; her devotion wasn't an act. Somehow I soured it, took too much, thanked her too little, maybe. Perhaps she just wanted her birthright back."

"What?"

"She's two months older than me. No one but my family knows that."

"Wait," Irei says, raising a hand. "Are you telling me that they passed over the older, trueborn heir to put a crown on the brow of a half-Kamai bastard?"