Heir of Beasts

Ch. 1.3- Heading East

I don't know what to say to Irei the next day. I manage to mumble 'good morning' when I pass him in the hall, but my voice is weak and my smile feels insincere. He stops in the corridor to talk, and for the first time in a month I don't stop with him. I pretend I don't see him and keep walking, shutting myself away in my office at the first chance I get. I tell myself it's because I'm so busy with the filing Tyro gave me, but in reality I'm not ready to face him.

He called me a fool. More than that, he called me a child. Like I was nothing more than a boy of eight clinging frightened to his mother's skirts. I know he meant well, know he was just speaking what he believed to be the truth, but I can't quite bring myself to forgive him. I can't make myself regret calling him faithless, even if I do feel a peculiar lonely ache when he doesn't join me for a cup of Y'xala over lunch. The heat has gone out of my anger, but a sliver of resentment remains, a splinter that aches every time I consider going to his office to clear the air.

I'm sitting in my office after dinner, filing papers, when a knock comes at the door.

"Come in," I call, still bent over the stack of Council reports I've been sorting for the past hour. I barely look up, expecting Tyro with yet more papers in his arms, but a different voice answers me back.

"Good evening, Shira."

"Ambassador," I say, quickly putting the papers aside. I wonder if he's come to apologize. I hope he has, I realize: this is the longest we've gone without a friendly conversation in a month, and I miss the companionship, even if part of me still holds on to last night's anger.

His face is very serious, almost grim. His usually ruddy cheeks are pale and his lips are drawn, and there's something uncomfortably close to fear flashing in his dark eyes.

"What is it?" I ask, all thoughts of an apology instantly leaving my mind. He's seen something, heard something, and its weight has leeched the color from his face. "Is everyone alright? What's happened?"

"Nothing you need to panic over," he says, sitting down opposite me. His brows are furrowed horribly, making him look even sterner than usual. "Everyone is alright."

"Then why do you look like you've seen a phantom?" I ask, still tense, waiting for another tragedy to spill from his lips. "Is it about my mother? Or O'otani?"

"No," he answers. "It's about you."

"Me?" I ask, bewildered. "What about me?"

"Don't panic," Irei reiterates. "But I've just gotten out of a meeting with two Yi'ili delegates, and they know you're on the island."

My eyes widen and my heart begins to beat loudly in my chest. "What?" I sputter. "But that's- that's impossible. Nobody knows I'm in Kama, we were so careful- how could they-"

"They say your mother told them," he adds, cutting through my fearful ramblings. "Apparently she's been at court in Yi'il. The delegates claim that when she heard they were coming to Kama for a trade meeting she told them the location of her son and gave them a message."

"Well, do you believe them?" I ask, full of hesitation. "I mean, theoretically my mother could have been in Yi'il, but what proof do we have? What if they've found out where I am some other way? They could be planning on kidnapping me and taking me back to Sholu, goddess knows he must be offering some kind of reward for my capture!"
"We have some proof," he says. "They gave me a message from your mother, something only she and I would know, to show they were telling the truth."

"What was it?" I ask. "What did they tell you?"

He leans back in his chair. "They message was quite short. It was 'remember when you were the King of Flat Rock, and I was the Queen of the Riverlands.'"