The Courtesy of Kings | ☑ Queenkiller, Kingmaker #2

40.2

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'I take it you won't be watching the final match.'

Kiet turned askance to observe Akai as he twisted the water from a wet cloth. 'Now ... I wonder what ever could give you that idea.'

'Aren't you the least bit curious, though, how the fight will go?'

'The Khan's sons are ferocious warriors, but they've no appreciation for the conservation of their strength. As long as Khaisan keeps his movements tight and—' Kiet stopped with a wince.

Akai fumbled with the damp cloth, patting it over the shallow cut across Kiet's neck. 'I wish you'd just let the therapeut—'

'One more word of the therapeut out of you, and you'll be seeing him yourself.'

That shut the captain's mouth fast. He put down the cloth and instead pulled something out from the inner folds of his tunic.

Isla's bloodrune pendant.

Kiet had handed it to him for safekeeping—in case Isla used her theurgy during his duel and the crowd mistook the pendant for his. Now he hooked it back around his neck.

'She didn't use it,' said Akai, quiet. They were in the mural passages of the curtain wall, just behind the spectators' platform, and though presently it was empty, servants now and again would still pass through. 'Not even once.'

'I suspect her attentions were diverted elsewhere,' said Kiet with a smirk. 'Like seeing her beloved almost decapitated.'

Akai snorted, but before he could respond, a woman cleared her throat behind them.

Kiet turned, slowly, irritated, holding back a sigh. 'Isl—'

It was not Isla. 'Is what?'

'Fukuse-himi.' She looked deathly pale under the sliver-thin lights that pierced through the arrowslits upon the wall. 'You should have not come. These tunnels are no place for a—'

'I thought you would join us at our table, now that you are done.'

'Ah ... I thought so, too, but my ego betrays me. I'd rather not face the high platform, having suffered such defeat.'

Her hands pulled and picked at the long ribbons keeping her jin-sang in place. Something troubled her, but already was Kiet suffering from his own mood to be appeasing another's.

'But you fought well,' she said at last, her gaze dropping to his feet. 'Better than anyone I've ever seen.'

'Better than Khaisan, who defeated me?' She knew not his nephew's deceit, why was she offering him blandishments?

'All I am saying is you have nothing to be ashamed of.'

Kiet sighed. It was unfair to take his frustrations out on her. 'You are right, himisae. My temper will no doubt improve, but it is best I remain away from public eye until I am prepared to be civil.'

'Have you had your wounds attended to? I did not see the therapeut—'

'The therapeut has Khaisan and High Prince Amargai's duel to supervise.' He gestured over the pulsing bruise on his eyebrow, already sealed thick with oils. 'These are surface cuts, besides. Nothing a good soldier cannot treat on his own.'

'But your neck.' Fukuse approached to better see the cut, the blood already washed clean and Akai standing ready with a bowl of salves. 'A cut from a waved blade is no laughing matter. It looks bad. Shall I help you with it?'

Kiet looked at his captain. It was a fleeting exchange, hidden in the dim diffraction of lights across the mural passage, yet still the hanjou caught it.