Zethki is not a Kerz who loses control of his drinking like this. Not in the morning.
He sighs and scrunches up his face before downing the whole cup.
I wait.
Zethki looks at me, and when I still don’t speak, he becomes agitated. “Have you come here to stand in my room like a mute moron, cousin, or is there a reason for your visit?”
“I’m here for a reason,” I say calmly.
“Then state what it is!” Zethki yells. He picks up bottles and containers, looking for something else to drink.
I pause. I do it to unnerve him, to allow his agitation to grow. When he’s agitated, he reveals too much.
“You were absent from morning practice, cousin. Yourza’kryukare… concerned. That is all.”
Zethki huffs and finds a water jug. He attacks this with relish, while I stand awkwardly waiting. Water streams down his chin. He breathes loudly and wipes his mouth.
I’m expecting him to begin yelling, to call hisza’kryukbastards and cocksuckers, to storm out of the room without saying a word, stride into the practice arena, and behead someone. I’m prepared for almost anything from Zethki, because he’s mildly insane, ruled by the fire in hiskryth.
I’m unable to respond when, to my complete surprise, he narrows his eyes, staring vacantly at the wall before him, and asks:
“What will theza’kryukthink of me if I don’t allow them to breed with my Za’aka?”
He takes another swig of water.
I’m speechless. And backed into a corner of traps and intrigue that I cannot easily think my way out of. My heart soars at the possibility that Zethki is speaking truthfully in his desires. My lie about the seer was a desperate stall for time, one that I had only half-believed Zethki would pay any mind to. It never once occurred to me that Zethki would be as susceptible to the power of this human as I was.
At the same time, that Zethki might say such a thing and mean it is… impossible to believe. I sense a trap of some kind. Perhaps my potion didn’t work, perhaps he has wrung the truth from Anya and he’s coming for me now.
He is looking at the wall, so I steal a glance through the doors at the bed again; Anya’s pretty bottom is only partially covered by a silken linen, and she doesn’t seem harmed. I wait to see her chest rise and fall; the motion is minute, but I’m sure I saw it. I force myself to look back at Zethki, my face made of stone.
He turns to me, but looks at Anya first. When his eyes meet mine they are different than I have ever seen them before. “Cousin,” he says. “I will slit your throat, you know this.” His voice is dangerous, but not in its usual way. This is not the danger that I have known to lurk in Zethki all his life: unpredictable, directed at nothing in particular, a Kerz of power and status who plays at or is a madman, a Kerz of no love or loyalty to anything but himself and his power.
A different danger is in his voice now. It’s much more potent. And I recognize it because it’s the same force that grips me now.
A human force, one that Kerz don’t experience. Jealousy, possessiveness toward a mate.
I move my head, asking him without speaking for clarification. I must play his game.
“I will slit your throat,” Zethki repeats, and I grip the knife I carry in the back of my robe, ready to fight him off, mykrythburning against the powers of my mind. My lips snarl, I cannot stop them.
Zethki points at me. “Tell me honestly. And then bite your tongue off or I will do it for you: will I lose theirkhra?”
Khra—loyalty, the respect of his men, is all that Kerz men of power have. The Kerz respect strength, and if a Krezat shows weakness or fails to give his men the honors they deserve, and loses theirkhra, he’s a dead Kerz.
I feign utter confusion. “Tell me why you wish to do this, cousin?”
Zethki glares at me, then steals a glance at Anya. “We both know that the human is bred by a single male. The ceremony is tradition, no more. She is fragile and weak, a weak human.” Hiskrythflares suddenly, and he seems overtaken by rage. “Thiskay’rak,” he seethes. “She is too weak. She steals mykryth, she will suck them dry and they will be useless as soldiers.”
He is ad-libbing now. It’s a thought he has only just had. I see it for what it is: an excuse, an idea of how he can keep Anya to himself and appear strong, avoid the admission or the appearance of feeling, as I do, overpowered by his feelings for her.
Or it’s a trick. A way to expose something he suspects about me.
Could it be true, though? Is Anya stealing hiskryth? And mine? Is this why I’m acting so irrationally?
I have only moments to ponder the question, and my next move. Zethki is looking at me.
He will almost certainly face a challenge from theza’kryukif he denies them the breeding ceremony. I realize at once that this is true no matter what Zethki’s intentions or secrets are now, no matter what I want, no matter what he wants. Even if he truly believes that Anya will steal theirkryth, even if that is his motivation, and nothing else.
