13: THE STRONGEST CLAIM

(Khaeriel’s story) Twenty-three days earlier …

After, Khaeriel nestled in Therin’s arms, a task far less onerous than she’d expected. To her delightful surprise, Therin had proved a talented lover. He hadn’t been the last time, but he’d been drunk and brutish, oblivious to any pleasure but his own. This time, it had been as different as jungle from desert.

She sighed happily as Therin’s fingertips traced patterns against her skin.

He kissed her cheek. “I’ll get a message to Qoran. I’m sure we can work out a deal to keep the council happy—”

She sat up, sliding away from him. “No. I will not speak to the council. And we need to talk about what you called out earlier.”

“‘Oh gods, oh gods’?”

“No, before that.” Khaeriel bit her lip. Stars. He was smiling. He had a beautiful smile.

“‘I love you’?”

Khaeriel nearly choked. The enchantment was working so much better than she ever could have expected. A lovely warmth spread over her … and a flutter of apprehension. It might be working too well. “You didn’t say that,” she whispered.

“No wonder you wanted to talk about it then. Unforgivable lapse on my part.” He reached over and ran a finger over her cheek. “I love you,” he said again.

A new feeling came over Khaeriel: loathing.

Not loathing for Therin. She should have been happy to know her spell had taken so fully, but instead, Khaeriel felt shame. Was this so different from what had been done to her? Worse, for even if she’d have died for disobeying an order, she’d still been allowed the dignity of her own emotions, her own hate. Instead of contempt for the woman who’d massacred his family, Therin was enthralled.

Used without knowing it.

Khaeriel had never hated herself as much as she did precisely then.¹

“Hey.” Therin sat up and reached out to her. “That wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”

She wiped her eyes. “It’s not you, it’s…” She cursed herself as his face transitioned through a dozen emotions, including fear. Khaeriel floundered for a quick, believable lie. “I don’t deserve to feel this happy.”

“You don’t—?” Therin laughed darkly, then pulled her back into his arms. “Oh gods, I understand. I do. It’s been a terrible couple of days and I—” He shook his head. “I am such an idiot. It’s all my fault. I know it’s all my fault. If I’d stopped Darzin when I should have—” Therin shuddered. “You’re the only thing keeping me sane.”

“I have done things, Therin. You don’t … you don’t know.”

He squeezed her. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was … who cares? I’m far from perfect myself, as you are well aware. If you can forgive me for what I’ve done, then nothing you could possibly have committed is unforgivable either. Maybe that makes us a good match. We are well past the age when we expect our lovers to be perfect and without flaws.”

Khaeriel pulled back so she could see his face. She had to focus. “I meant earlier, when you called me Miya. I did not wish for you to call me Miya, because that is not who I am. Literally. I am not Miya. I have never been Miya. The entire time we have known each other, I have never once been the woman whose name you’ve called me.”

His smile faltered. “What? I realize that’s a nickname…”

She inhaled deeply. “The real Miyathreall died before you and I ever met. The woman who gaeshed me originally”—Khaeriel wasn’t yet ready to reveal it had been her grandmother Khaemezra, better known as Thaena, Goddess of Death²—“also prevented me from telling you certain things. Or showing you. I was not lying when I told you Miya was Queen Khaeriel’s handmaiden. But only because Miya was my handmaiden. And also my murderer.”

Therin blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

“I was wearing a necklace—an artifact—called the Stone of Shackles,” she explained, then laughed blackly. “I didn’t know what its power was! Which was to switch the wearer’s soul with their murderer’s. Miya was an assassin my brother sent to kill me.³ When she did, I ended up in her body, but I have always been Khaeriel.”

He flinched at the Manol queen’s name. Khaeriel’s heart fluttered with fear, wondering if the words had triggered a latent memory of the first time she’d said the name, where everything had ended with blood and death. Enchantments were tricky in their early stages.

Therin shook his head. “I don’t even know what to say. Really? The vané queen? No one ever recognized you? It’s not like I avoided taking you out in public…”

“I just explained this. I do not look like Khaeriel right now; this is Miya’s body, and as much as I made it my own, I was never allowed to change the outward guise.”

He tilted his head, squinted his eyes in confusion. “Made it your own? I still don’t understand.”

“My race is mercurial. We choose our appearance. Perhaps it would be best if I demonstrate. Would you like to see?”

“… yes?” he said.

She pulled herself fully onto the bed and crossed her legs under her, breathing deeply as she put herself into the proper meditative state. What she attempted was usually done slowly—over the course of weeks, if not months. Doing so quickly invited insanity, something any mimic could confirm.⁴

Still, Khaeriel didn’t have weeks or months.

She still took several excruciating hours, though. She didn’t allow Therin’s gasp to disturb her concentration, although it confirmed the process was working. After so many years, she’d been concerned she’d lost too much sense of self to ever return.

For a vané, the physical body was mutable. Taken to the most ridiculous extremes, the same ability created the mimics, but it had been fourteen thousand years since anyone had been foolish enough to imprint a vané with that kind of shape-shifting proficiency.

When she opened her eyes again, they were not blue but gold, bright as her gold-spun hair, both almost luminescent against her dark bronze skin. She knew her face, her body, every part of her, all looked different. If Khaeriel had her way, she would never appear as Miya—or anyone else—again.

One might well note the similarities in her appearance—her cheekbones, her jawline—to certain D’Mons: to Pedron, to Tishar, and to her son, Kihrin.

Therin stared. “Are we … are we related?”

Khaeriel smiled. He had noticed. “As Khaeriel, I would have been, yes. Cousins, twice removed. Close, but humans would not consider it incest. No vané would.”

She saw him doing the mental gymnastics, putting the pieces together. He knew more vané history than most Quuros, even most Quuros scholars. There had only been one vané in the family tree before Khaeriel—a slave girl named Valrashar. So for that relationship to have worked …

It meant Valrashar’s father had to have been Khaeriel’s uncle, the infamous Terindel.⁵

“The stories have lied, you understand,” Khaeriel admitted. “I loved my father, but he twisted history to support his reign, as rulers often do. The truth is my father usurped his throne from his brother, Terindel, and then used his new position to marry the Manol vané’s ruler, Khaevatz. To eliminate their threat, Terindel’s wife was executed and his daughter sold into slavery.” She laughed bitterly. “You might say my younger brother, Kelanis, is simply upholding a venerable family tradition.”

“I’m related to Terindel the Black?” Therin was having trouble absorbing the news.

“Yes,” she answered. “He was your great-grandfather. Which makes you”—she caressed his face—“my darling, the true Kirpis vané heir. Whereas even if I discount my father’s claim, bought as it was with dishonorable coin, no one will deny that I am Queen Khaevatz’s firstborn child. So you are the true Kirpis vané heir, and I am the true Manol vané heir”⁶

Those lovely blue eyes turned calculating. “You want to retake the throne.”

“Yes, I do,” Khaeriel said. “But not alone. The two of us, together. Our claim is stronger than Kelanis could ever hope to match.”

“But I’m not vané.”

“Do not waste your time worrying over inconsequential details, my dear. No one will care when we are through.”

Therin seemed skeptical, but didn’t pursue the matter. “And then what?”

Khaeriel smiled as she slipped back into his arms. “And then we raise an army, invade Quur, and burn that entire accursed empire to the ground.” This was the final test of how well the enchantment had taken, for if she could convince him to agree with her, she knew Therin was hers. If his loyalty was to Quur, to his old power base as high lord, he would never agree to such a plan. He’d try to talk her out of it. He’d hope he could make her see reason. Even if he had someone managed to defy her enchantment, she knew him well enough to be confident that she could spot him out if his enthusiasm was a charade.

Therin buried his face in her hair and smiled. “Yes,” he whispered. “That plan works for me just fine.”