“Yes, worse reactions,” I replied with a huff. “Right? Like, I was probably infertile after only a month of them.” Altair stared at Kavin, and I saw something like understanding cross his face. I tried again. “Isn’t that right?” Instead of answering, Kavin turned away, pretending to examine some fungus on a tree trunk.
Feeling like a coward, I fled back toward the huts with my hands and pockets full, intent on never again talking about being a mother. It wasn’t going to happen. Why bother dreaming? I had never really wanted children before, but the idea that I couldn’t have them stung in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
Altair’s voice interrupted my dark thoughts as the men caught up to me. “Do you have siblings, Roya?”
Kavin sucked in a breath, but I smiled. “I kind of thought the others might have filled you in on my history. You know I was raised in captivity? In the harem of King Milian?”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked—”
I laughed at the panic on his face. “The answer is yes, I had siblings. Dozens of them. The other girls and women in the harem were siblings… Well, maybe some were more like aunts. I was the youngest by quite a few years. My mother supposedly died when I was born.” Although I had my doubts about that now. I hoped someday I’d be able to ask Valerie directly who my real mother was. “It was terribly boring in the Omega Suite most of the time, so the others played with me, teaching me all sorts of things: chess, card games, memorization drills, how to tie knots. Languages, too. Members of the harem came from all over, and we all spoke each other’s languages by the end.”
Kavin held back a thick, flowered vine so I could pass beneath it. “That came in very handy in your training, I would assume.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “Altair, I know you didn’t have siblings.” He nodded once. “Kavin? Is there an older brother out there that you strive to emulate?”
A ray of sunlight penetrated the jungle’s dense overgrowth and fell on his face at that very moment, exposing a smile so genuine and sweet, my breath stuttered.
“I have a younger sister,” he said quietly. “Cyndil, named after a famous ancient Omega warrior queen. She’s sixteen—no, seventeen now. Her birthday would have just passed.”
He fell silent as we walked, and I nudged him out of his memories with a shoulder to his side. “What is she like? Tall, like you? Strong and fierce? Does she know how to use a sword?”
Kavin let out a rueful sound. “Unfortunately, yes. She harassed me for years until I taught her some rudimentary moves. Noblewomen are not encouraged to bear arms in Starlak; it’s seen as a statement that the female in question believes her male relatives can’t keep her safe.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Precisely the word Cyn used when she harassed me into helping her learn.” Kavin ducked his head. “I think she would like you, Roya. She’d probably convince you to teach her your five ways to kill a man with wire—”
“Seven ways,” Altair corrected with a smirk.
Kavin laughed, then we all walked in silence for a while before he spoke again. “Starlak is not a place for women like her, or you. The laws are regressive, most of them written when Omegas started dying out, in a vain effort to protect them. But the laws were never rescinded, and now every woman is treated as subservient, no better than chattel.”
“Has anyone tried to ask your king to change those laws?”
“Our warlord?” Kavin’s laugh was bitter. “I’ve tried, more than once.” His eyes filled with remembered pain.
“Would your father not speak on her behalf?” I asked softly, itching with curiosity about his family. “Surely, if she’s as exceptional as you say—if she’s anything like you—he must see that. Maybe he would be sympathetic.”
Kavin snorted softly. “The last time Cyndil asked to sit with me during my lessons, our father told her that women who learn too much are damaged goods, always willing to question their betters, to try and ‘wear a true warrior’s boots.’ He warned her she was in danger of becoming like our mother.”
My blood boiled with anger. I wanted to slip a limbane leaf or two into Kavin’s father’s morning porridge. “What did he mean by that?”
“Dead,” Kavin said, his expression bleak. “She died when Cyndil was two years old. Father was away from the… from our home, when one of his many enemies showed up to challenge him.” He swallowed convulsively. “As his heir, it was my duty to meet the challenge. But my mother took my sword and hid me under a table holding Cyndil, while she fought.”
“Fought?” I gasped. “But you said women weren’t taught…” My voice died off.
“She died, of course. When Father returned with his men, he found me still under the table, and his wife slain. After he hunted down and killed every one of the men who had conspired against him, he burned all the toys Mother had given me, and began teaching me sword techniques.”
Altair’s hand landed on Kavin’s arm. “You were how old, Kavin? Five?” Kavin nodded. “No reasonable father would expect a five-year-old to die to save his mother.”
“Mine did. And he’s made sure every day since that I know he blames me for her death. That I wasn’t worth her sacrifice.”
“He was wrong, Kavin,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “Your worth cannot be measured.”
Altair nodded, murmuring, “You are a prince, lad. Never let anyone say differently.”
I didn’t understand why Kavin’s laugh was filled with rue and darkness. “A prince indeed,” he repeated, breaking into a jog, and leaving us behind, wondering.
THORN
