Chapter 35

Suzanne and Portia are both excessively impressed by the spread at breakfast in the morning.

"Do you think you'd be looking to purchase another musically inclined fuck toy any time soon?” Portia asks Khysmet while piling her plate high with one of pretty much everything. “'Cause I'd do that shit in a heartbeat if it meant eating like this all the time."

Khysmet grins wryly. "I regret to inform you that I'm quite content with just the one I have now."

I did my best to impress upon Suzanne that no matter what she does or says to him, Khysmet will not exact any kind of retribution upon her because she’s my friend, not to mention that he enjoys when people are blatantly rude to him. She seems doubtful of this reasoning, but is noticeably more relaxed around him than she was when she first met him yesterday. At the very least, she’s letting Portia run her mouth without trying to cover for her.

I have to ask him, because it’s been bothering me since Portia first suggested it to me last night.

“When you first assigned Rhys to watch out for me,” I ask, “were you really just trying to get him to report on what I was doing every day?”

Khysmet’s answering grin is maddeningly smug, which is a bad sign.

“That depends,” he says. “Was it long enough ago that you won’t be pissed at me for the answer?”

I fix him with a mean glare. “First off, we both know you don’t give a shit about that, and second, absolutely not.”

“I honestly did want a guard to watch out and make sure no one on my court tried anything funny,” he insists, “but I also did try to get Rhys to give me information regarding your activities during the day. Unfortunately, as we both know, he is more reticent than I had hoped, and his answers were maddeningly brief. I would have tried to switch him for someone else, but by the time I thought to do it, you had already bonded with him, and it would have been suspicious.”

“What did I tell you, Cat?” Portia cuts in. “He’s a controlling freak.”

Khysmet shrugs, unconcerned. “I’ve been called worse.”

Portia smiles darkly. “Has anyone ever told you you have a punchable face?” she asks.

Khysmet laughs unexpectedly loudly at this, startling me and making Suzanne jump.

“I don’t know, what do you think, Portia?” he says with a delighted cadence to his voice. “Based on the five total minutes of conversation between us, plus everything you already know about me, do you really think it’s possible that I could have gotten this far in my life without someone telling me they want to punch me in the face? Countless people have threatened to do so, and many people actually have. And I guarantee that each and every time I’ve been punched in the face, I absolutely deserved it. You don’t just punch the crown prince in the face without good reason. It hasn’t happened so much while I’ve been king, though, I’m sad to say.”

Portia looks distinctly unimpressed. “That whole speech just made me want to punch you in the face like five times as much.”

Khysmet leans forward, placing his elbows on the table and folding his hands, and gives her a punchably smug smile.

“Well, you’ve given away a significant advantage by warning me about it in advance,” he says, “but you’re more than welcome to try.”

I’m watching this whole interaction with acute interest. Portia is a proud person, so I know she’s not going to take his bullshit lying down. I wonder what she’s going to do to him.

She sighs and shakes her head as though disappointed. “Unfortunately for you,” she says, “I have too much self-respect to climb up on this table and come over there and kick your ass.”

He quirks up one brow. “Unfortunately?”

She turns to me and holds out her hand. “Cat,” she says with exaggerated dignity. “I request that you avenge my honor by withholding sex.”

I reach across the table and grasp her proffered hand in mine. “Of course, Portia. I would do anything for you. For how long should I withhold it?”

She grins and releases me to sit back down. “I don’t know,” she says, “what do you think is reasonable?”

I hum thoughtfully. “Well, I know from experience that his breaking point is at about two weeks.”

“Okay, then make it two and a half.”

“You got it.”

“Now hold on just a minute,” Khysmet breaks in. All traces of smug amusement have been drained from his expression over the course of my and Portia’s exchange. He is deadly serious now.

“I’m a reasonable man, Portia,” he says. “Reasonable enough to admit when I’ve made a poor tactical decision. I should have known better than to underestimate one of Cat’s friends. Let’s negotiate. What can I offer to convince you to lower my sentence?”

Portia’s face lights up. “Ooh, the leader of a country is offering me whatever favors I demand? Wow, I’ve never had any sort of political power before.” She taps her fingers together eagerly. “Hmm. Now that I have it, though, I’m not really sure what to do with it… Cat? Any ideas?”

I wave away her offer. “Oh, I can hold political sway by withholding sex any time I want.”

“A power that I feel you don’t exercise enough,” Khysmet says with a warm smile directed at me. “I would love for you to become more involved in my nation’s politics.”

“Suzie? What about you?” Portia asks. “Any ideas?”

Suzanne thinks about it for a second before speaking.

“We ran into a lot of bandits in the pass between Ishkend and Elkhara,” she says. “Can you do something about that?”

Khysmet denies her offer with a wave of his hand. “That is entirely too magnanimous of a request for me to accept it as an equivalent exchange for my selfish demands,” he says kindly. “Thank you for advising me of the problem; I’ll make sure to address it with my ministers today.”

Suzanne gives me an odd look after his response, like she doesn’t quite understand why he suddenly turned into a nice and reasonable person for five seconds. I just shrug back, entirely unable to explain the phenomenon myself.

“You know,” Portia says, rubbing her palms together, “I think I might just forgo the politics and demand monetary compensation.”

“Name your price,” Khysmet says immediately.

Portia’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

He nods. “Cat has already demonstrated that she has no problem with accepting payment for sex, given our original arrangement for me to fund your troupe.”

I blink. “Uh. That’s not exactly how I like to think of it, considering the sex was not a stipulation in the contract I signed,” I point out. “But I guess it wouldn’t really bother me in this situation.”

“So,” Khysmet says. “Name your price.”

Portia looks completely lost, evidently having not expected him to be so willing to accept this suggestion.

“Um…” she says hesitantly. “A hundred gold per day to reduce your sentence.”

Khysmet looks taken aback by her offer, and also exceedingly disappointed.

“That is such a paltry sum that I’m honestly a little insulted,” he says. “Do you think that that’s on the high end of what I’m willing to offer you? Veilsung is a very large and prosperous country, rich with precious metals and gemstones – our finances are hardly stretched so thin as that. I’ll offer you five hundred per day, since that’s what I was planning on countering your first offer with. So, two and a half weeks, that’s about eighteen days, rounded to twenty so I don’t have to do the math, times five hundred leaves us with… ten thousand gold. Sound good?”

Portia’s eyes go wide, and she blinks vacantly a couple times. “Uhh… Yeah. Okay.”

Khysmet turns to me and grabs my hand, squeezing it and looking me in the eyes intensely.

“For the record, Cat,” he assures me, “I would pay far more than that to have sex with you.”

I purse my lips, getting a little sick of all the prostitution talk.

“It’s actually just paying me to not withhold sex,” I point out. “The sex isn’t a guarantee, you know.”

Khysmet grins as though encouraged by my words. “Well I’d pay far more than that to just invite the possibility of having sex with you. Strictly speaking, I already have done that when I first brought you here. And that was before I knew how great the sex would be.”

“Am I the only one here who thinks it’s kind of fucked up that you’re using your country’s finances for this?” Suzanne demands incredulously.

“For what, to support talented artists?” Khysmet asks. “I don’t see the problem with that.”

Suzanne’s eye twitches. She looks at me again, seemingly for help. I don’t know how to communicate nonverbally that there is nothing I can do that will make dealing with him any more bearable, so I just shrug again.

After breakfast, Khysmet heads to the great hall to do his morning thing, leaving me to show Portia and Suzanne around the castle. We spend a reasonable amount of time waiting for Portia to recover from acquiring a sum of money larger than the total amount that has passed through her hands in her entire life. When a couple servants bring it to her in a small chest, she spends several minutes looking into it in disbelief, closing and reopening the box as though the money inside might disappear when she looks away.

Suzanne spends this time commiserating with me on my dilemma, having gained a new perspective after spending more time in Khysmet's presence.

"I can see why you're so averse to admitting you like the guy," she says with an expression of distaste. "I still maintain that you're in love with him. I just have greater sympathy for you to find yourself afflicted with such a horrible condition as that."

"Do you hate him, then?"

"I don't hate him per se. He's just quite possibly the most infuriating person I've ever met. I'm glad it wasn't me he took a liking to and invited here, because I would have lost my mind ages ago."

"I have lost my mind," I point out. "According to you, I'm in love with the bastard."

"I like him," Portia chimes in.

Suzanne gives her a withering look. "You have literally been paid off. Your opinions here are no longer valid."

"He gave me over five times what I asked for just as a power move," she argues. "And he wouldn't let you barter with the thing about the bandits – he’s just taking care of it anyway. He’s definitely an asshole, but I respect the hell out of that man.”

I nod sagely. “Yeah. That’s the same problem I’ve run into.”

We put Portia’s small fortune in my room for safekeeping before I lead them around the castle, introducing them to all my friends. I figure I can get away with keeping them here until around three or four, but after then, I’ll have to take them back to the troupe’s camp site and face Eliza’s wrath. I try to make the most of the time we have. Figuring they won’t be impressed with most of the actual castle, we spend almost the whole time either with Vizsla and Cevine or in the kitchens, which Portia and Suzanne both agree with me is heaven on earth.

I get teased excessively when I go to inform Khysmet that I’ll be going to the Warblers' performance tonight on the other side of the city – more so when we do our little song and dance where he tries to tell me I can’t go and I inform him that I’m going anyway, and of course I’ll take Rhys and be careful. Portia maintains that it’s creepy that he wants me to ask permission to do things, and Suzanne thinks it means something that I want to let him know where I am so he doesn’t worry. I’m glad he didn’t insist on coming with us, because having our relationship scrutinized is starting to become oddly embarrassing. At the very least, I feel that I am being judged rather harshly for my taste in men – not that I don’t think that the judgement is warranted.

I’m delighted to see when we go out to get in the carriage and head across town that it’s Felix who is driving us. I introduce him excitedly to my friends, an introduction to which he responds with very little enthusiasm, as usual. I have grown exceptionally fond of him in all the times I have needed his services to ride into town, and generally I sit up next to him and tell him what’s been going on lately, though today I stay in the back with Rhys and talk to Suzanne and Portia, since they won’t be in town for long.

On the way to the campsite, along with Portia’s chest, I make sure to bring one of the small paired snail boxes, having acquired another set after Akharos gave me one of his, so that I’ll be able to send letters to everyone while they’re on the road. I explained how they work back in the castle. Portia insisted that we try to grab for the note at the same time, but I reminded her that her fingers are quite important for her chosen profession and kept the other box far away from her.

I’m beyond excited for the play tonight, since apparently it’s a brand new one. Well, it’ll be new to me, anyway. The troupe managed to acquire a couple new members in the time they’ve been in Veilsung – some Sungian artists that want to share their talents with the rest of the country, and eventually the rest of the continent. They’ve brought traditional Veilsung music, instruments, and stories into the fold, and this play is going to be one heavily based on Sungian mythos. Suzanne helped write it, and she’s very proud of it and eager for me to see what they came up with. She gushes about it more and more as we get closer, though it gets a bit repetitive as there’s only so much she can tell me without revealing everything about the plot.

When he drops us off, I ask Felix to please come back to pick me up around eight, looking forward to getting to talk to him about everything on the way back. Then I go to face the music.

Eliza is not happy that we took until three thirty to come back, and while Portia and Suzanne get to go help with what’s left of setup, I am subject to a confusing mixture of being lambasted for my irresponsibility and being lovingly interrogated about how I’ve been doing since I’ve been here. Fortunately, she once again doesn’t have very long to talk. I promise to continue the conversation with her in her caravan when the play is over.

Today, I absolutely insist on helping with setup. I can talk and work at the same time, damnit. I volunteer Rhys as help, too. He gives me a tired look when I offer up his services without his consent, but he doesn’t complain. From what I can see, I think he’s actually having fun moving heavy stage pieces with other members of the troupe, who immediately accept him as one of us and chat with him excitedly.

Not too long before the play is due to start, I join the gathering crowd in front of the stage and pick a spot from which we can see easily to spread out a blanket and sit on the ground with Rhys. I’m amazed we manage to find a good spot; the audience is getting quite large. I wonder if the people who came to our shows six months ago remember us well and recommended us to their friends.

That bittersweet feeling from last night is returning in force during the play. It’s not as strong today, since I usually never had more than a bit part in any given play anyway, but it’s still there just by grace of the fact that I’m out in the audience rather than backstage. I actually find myself wishing that Khysmet had insisted on coming, since I’m sure he would have spent the whole time whispering to and harassing me, which would have distracted me from my forlorn thoughts. I’d try to talk to Rhys, but he’s very clearly enraptured by the performance, hanging on every word the actors recite. I don’t blame him – the writing is very good, and the story is fascinating. I try to focus on that, distracting myself by coming up with specific comments to give Suzanne when the play is over.

At the end of the performance, I head around backstage and congratulate everyone on such a wonderful performance. I share my feedback with Suzanne and also use this opportunity to inform her that Rhys has a good instinct for acting that he’s been trying to hide. While she chatters at him excitedly for a while, I go up to one of the new Sungian members that helped write the new play and spend some time talking to her about her inspiration for the plot, curious to learn more about Sungian mythology. We have a nice little conversation before I decide it’s been long enough for me to rescue Rhys from Suzanne’s clutches and make our way to Eliza’s caravan. I ask him to stay outside and keep watch, since it’s pretty cramped in there with all her clutter, and he looks more than happy to see me go, clearly irritated at me having thrown him to the wolves. I hope he’s not pissed enough to ditch me on purpose.

“Cat,” Eliza greets warmly when I step through the door. “Glad to finally have a second to talk to you.”

“Sorry again for taking so long to bring Suzie and Portia back,” I say sheepishly.

She gives me a wry smile and a shrug. “Oh, it’s not really that much of a problem. I understand why you did it, after all. Just maybe please don’t make a habit of that while we’re here.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

I clear off the seat in front of her desk and settle in for an actual conversation with her, explaining everything I’ve been up to, all the friends I’ve made, the attempts at espionage, the underground exploration, the code breaking – in vague enough terms that I’m not giving any potentially sensitive information away, of course. I skirt around most of the stuff with Khysmet, though I try to paint a picture of the general situation without getting into specifics.

“So,” she says after a while, “you’re here to tell me you want to stay.”

I startle at her direct assumption, more so at its accuracy than anything else.

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

“I like to think I know you pretty well, Cat,” Eliza says with a smile. “I’ve known you since you were a baby, after all. I can at least tell when you’re having fun. The way you’re talking about your experience here… It sounds to me like you’re not ready to come back home yet. Am I right?”

I bite my lip and hesitantly nod.

“Well then I guess we’ll be back for you in another six months then. I’m sure that some of our members will lament being stuck in the desert heat for another half a year, but at least it’s getting cooler as we get into the winter. And honestly, all the cultural exchange that’s been happening on our travels has been amazing. Most foreign troupes haven’t travelled through half as much of Veilsung as we have, let alone convinced Sungian citizens to join up with them. We’ve taken to spending time copying down some of our sheet music, poetry, and summaries of our scripts to offer to local artists, who often express interest in them.”

“That’s amazing,” I say. “I’m glad it hasn’t been all bad trudging through the desert for so long.”

“Obviously, the amount of extra supplies we’re able to afford thanks to King Khysmet’s generosity have helped a lot. We’ve got a huge stock of potions that cool one’s body temperature for the hottest days, and a little goes a long way. If you’ve heard a lot of complaining about the heat, rest assured it’s not as bad as people are saying.”

“That’s a relief to hear.”

“Anyway. All that is just to say, I hope you have as much fun over the next six months as you have for the last six months. And don’t worry about us – we’re having plenty of fun of our own.”

I step out of the chair and walk around Eliza’s desk to give her a hug, which she returns with a tight squeeze.

“I plan to come back for your other performances while you’re here,” I say. “So I’ll head out now and see you again soon.”

“Love you, kiddo,” she says. “Stay safe.”

“Love you too. And I will.”

I bid her goodbye and head out of her caravan. I’m surprised when I emerge into the darkness that Rhys isn’t waiting out front. Huh. That’s odd. I know I joked to myself that he might be pissed enough to ditch me, but there’s no way he actually would intentionally leave me alone. He must have stepped away to go to the restroom or something. I let the caravan door close behind me and decide to wait here for him rather than to go looking. It’s better to stay where I know he knows where to find me than to risk losing him. I take a couple steps away from the caravan just to crane my neck around and see if I can’t see him coming from further away by the dim moonlight.

Then, all of a sudden, I feel a hand on my shoulder and a knife pressed against my throat.