Chapter 706: The Birth-King

The Birth-King poured the tea himself, tilting the pot over a cup so thin that light shone straight through it. Didi watched the steam curl upward, thinking that the most dangerous being in the Underworld had very steady, patient hands.

"How do you take your tea, my dear," Ibaran asked, "your great-grandmother liked honey, but her husband drank it bitter."

"Plain," she said, lifting her chin, "I prefer to know exactly what I am drinking."

"Plain it is, little crown."

He turned each handle toward its guest with one fingertip, the way a mourner straightens a funeral veil.

The tea room sat high inside the Cradle Palace, its walls lined with portraits in frames of pale root. Every face wore silver hair and cracked gold eyes, every last one of them staring directly down at Didi.

"Four thousand and eleven of them, I have loved every one," Ibaran said, sweeping a warm hand toward the gallery, "you have your great-aunt Selene's chin."

"I had no idea I owned a chin worth inheriting," she said stiffly, though her fingers drifted up to touch it anyway.

"Forgive the four-thousandth, he has dreadful table manners," Ibaran added with a rueful smile, "he once ate a wedding cake with both fists."

Each frame carried a plaque, naming the face above and the year it was born.

"The one by the window bit a duke at her own naming," Ibaran said fondly, pointing with his spoon, "I adored her."

"How wonderful for the duke," Didi said.

Hajin sat at her side with his shoulders locked, his tea untouched, his knuckles resting white beside the saucer. She let him stay that way, knowing someone who laughed at funerals had no jokes left for this room.

'He is so kind that my skin is crawling, the worst part is how much I like his voice.'

She held her spine straight as a rule, the way Gazel taught her before ten thousand cheering strangers. Fear could be folded small, so she folded it and sat on it until her knees stopped trembling.

"Nice portraits," Hajin said, in a tone so careful it nearly creaked.

"I hung them myself, it is the only way to keep them from sulking," Ibaran answered, smiling over the rim of his cup, "drink, little crown, it will warm you."

The words dropped down her spine like a cold coin, the same warm voice that called across the mirror. For three nights it spoke from the far side of glass, patient as a man certain she would come.

She lifted the cup because refusing would mean admitting it frightened her.

The tea was warm, the warmth the worst of it, because nothing about it felt like a trap.

Beside her Hajin tried his own, crooking his little finger the way Cessy taught him.

"It tastes like flowers and rain," he said hoarsely, coughing on the first sip, "good rain, though."

"Rain from the night you were born, I kept a jar," Ibaran said happily.

Hajin lowered the cup very slowly, "That's a lot of care to take over a stranger's weather."

"You are no stranger, you sit exactly like your mother, as if the chair owes you money."

"You knew her?"

"Not yet, dear boy, tea first, then stories," Ibaran said, with a smile as soft as a pillow held over a face.

The portraits seemed to lean closer at that, frames creaking on their hooks above the table. Every unblinking eye found Hajin at once, weighing him like fruit at a crowded market stall.

He turned his gaze toward the window, where the Bright Dark glittered below like spilled salt.

"I noticed a cousin among your company in the arena," he went on, stirring with a small spoon, "a girl with gold-edged horns."

"A Horned Line cousin, how wonderful... she will need a bedroom."

"She already has a bedroom," Hajin said flatly, "it's in my house."

"Of course, of course, one can have two," Ibaran said, stirring his tea without a ripple.

His hand curled into a fist against his thigh, the whole bench shuddering with the effort of holding still. Beneath the table she shifted her knee until it pressed against his, a small stubborn point of borrowed warmth.

He went still, then pressed back so lightly that no one could have called it an answer.

'I am still me, you fool, and so are you, so sit down inside your skin.'

A plate of candied skulls arrived at her elbow without any servant, sliding across the cloth on its own. The crook leaned against his chair the whole time, untouched, unbothered, as if it simply enjoyed their quiet company.

"Take a skull, little crown, my cook carves them from the first sugar of the season," Ibaran said warmly, "they are lovelier than they look."

"I have seen what lovely looks like in this house, thank you," she answered, leaving the skull exactly where it lay.

"Two taps means we run," Hajin muttered into his cup, "one tap means I'm just hungry."

"Then tap once and eat a skull," she whispered, "quietly, try chewing with your mouth shut."

"Tell me about the surface, little crown," Ibaran said, folding his hands, "how does a princess fare with no kingdom under her feet?"

"I have a perfectly good kingdom, it merely lacks a throne at the moment," she sniffed.

"At the moment, yes," he agreed, as if tasting the phrase.

"You keep saying that as if the moment has a date," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Every moment has a date, dear, most people are simply too polite to ask for it."

Hajin set his cup down with a click, "Is this the part where you ask her for something?"

"Not yet," Ibaran said, beaming, "that would be dreadful manners before the cream."

Didi caught the word the way a cat catches a moth, turning it over to see where it stung. Across the first three cups the old man refused nothing, every single answer beginning with those same two words.

'Nobody says no in this house, they just wait for you to stop asking.'

A door she failed to notice opened behind Ibaran's chair, a chancellor gliding through it, silent as a coffin. A smooth mask covered his face from brow to chin, a silver tray resting flat across his gloved palms.

"Cream, Highness?" the chancellor murmured.

She knew the voice before the second word, a velvet purr that narrated the worst night of her life. It was the Royal Collector, bowing over a creamer as if he never held Gazel's soul in his fist.

Ice crept across the tablecloth from her fingertips, one thin white vein at a time.

"Ah, frost... it is the family gift, though we usually save it for the third course."

The last time she heard that purr, it was telling her what happened to Gazel's soul. Now the same voice offered her cream, in a palace where every guest must smile back.

'Crack the cup, he wins... smile, I win, that is the whole game at this table.'

Didi smiled, a bright and perfect smile that cost every muscle in her face, then lifted the cup. The porcelain whined in her grip, a hairline crack racing toward the rim before she loosened her fingers.

"No cream," she said sweetly, "I prefer it plain, as I said."

"As you wish, Highness," the chancellor replied, the mask tilting toward her with terrible courtesy.

"Plain, quite right," Ibaran said, delighted, "I do admire a girl who knows her own mind, it saves everyone so much trouble later."

She counted her breaths in fours, the way Gazel drilled her, until her pulse came down from her throat. Hating him properly would have to wait until her own hand held a real blade, not one breath sooner.

Hajin's voice came out low, "You sound familiar, buddy, have we—"

"Hajin," Didi cut in brightly, "you simply must try the candied skulls."

He looked from her to the plate to the mask, his jaw working like a man chewing glass.

Beneath the table his hand found hers in the dark, warm and rough, not shaking at all anymore. She crushed his fingers hard enough to snap bone, yet he only turned his palm to hold tighter.

"If you let go of my hand, I will freeze you solid," she breathed, still smiling at the chancellor.

"Wasn't planning on it," he murmured back.

"Good, I am only keeping you for the warmth."

"Sure, that's definitely the reason," he said, his thumb tracing a slow circle over her frozen knuckle.

"Stop circling my knuckle," she breathed through her smile, "the old man is watching your shoulders."

"Then say it nicer," he murmured, drawing the circle again, slower.

"I would sooner drink the tea leaves, you idiot."

Ibaran sipped his tea, watching the pair of them with such gentle grandfatherly joy that she wanted to scream. The chancellor set the creamer down, stepped back a pace, then bowed until the mask nearly touched the floor.

"You two are very sweet together," Ibaran said, "your great-grandmother held hands under this table too... it did not end well for the boy."

"What happened to him?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

"He became family," came the gentle answer, as if that explained everything.

"We keep what we love, little crown," Ibaran added, lifting the pot, "more tea, perhaps?"

"I have had plenty," she lied, folding both hands over her cup.

Hajin's grip tightened under the table until her bones creaked, the only argument he was allowed in this room. She squeezed back once, hard, a promise that whoever came for either of them would meet the frost first.

"Highness," the chancellor said softly, from the depths of his bow, "I kept something of Gazel's."