He can’t be late either. Swearing under his breath, he drags the wrinkled jacket over his shoulders and retrieves the hairpin from the pocket. No time to change his clothes, but he should get his hair out of the way. He doesn’t need a mirror to twist his long lavender hair up and secure the two-pronged pin behind his head. Messy, but that’s the least of his problems right now.
Kazia meets the drasgard escort in the hallway just as a second summons jars through him. He doesn’t hide his sneer. How unnecessary—as if he’s ever disobeyed his mother’s summons.
The consequences of obedience are bad enough.
Somewhere in his mother’s chambers hides a small glass bottle with a scalestone stopper. The bottle holds half a cup of Kazia’s blood, still as red as the day Aliza drew it from his veins.
His route to his royal father’s chambers is too short and too familiar. The drasgard remain downstairs in the parlor, leaving Kazia to mount the tower stairs by himself. When he arrives in the map room, his parents are already waiting.
An enchanted glass ceiling reveals shifting gray clouds above. The silvered light washes out the colors within the round chamber, from the wyrm hunt murals to the map of Alantha inlaid in the tiled floor. Tall wooden chairs surround the chamber, so the king and his confidants might observe the continent from any direction.
Today, Imrik Dire sits to the north. The hem of his cloak sweeps across the blank expanse of fog. He’s left off the big scalestone crown today, wearing only a golden circlet with a single scalestone pendant.
His queen Aliza sits beside him. Her hair is storm-gray this week, and she frowns over a book until she hears Kazia’s approach. “Kazia, darling.”
Kazia’s boots click across the continent, up from southern Fellrin and across the watery Jaws. He walks over all of Draskora and the nameless northern sea. Holding his breath against his mother’s smoke-and-floral perfume, Kazia kisses the air above her cheek.
“Hello, Mother,” Kazia says, smiling sweetly. “Father. How was court today?”
Imrik extends his hand. “Court was uneventful. Have you gotten into any new trouble?”
Kazia’s smile widens. “Of course not, Father.” He bows, his lips a perfect inch away from Imrik’s signet ring.
A harsh leather whip rests across Imrik’s lap.
Imrik’s regard is implacable as Kazia steps back. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe they’re related. Imrik is pale like Kazia, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Broad features, broad hands, silver-streaked black hair. Imrik is a large man, resembling Marek more than Kazia, even though Marek is adopted.
And of course, Imrik was born with House Dire’s storm magic, like a proper king. He’d probably prefer not to be related to Kazia, either.
“A complement of warmages is in Ostomar this week,” Imrik says. “They’ll dine in the great hall tonight.”
“I’ll have supper in my quarters,” Kazia says. That’s one lesson Kazia still believes: avoid mages. Nobody outside this room can know what Kazia is.
Imrik rises, whip in hand. “Let’s get this over with, then. I have another meeting in an hour.”
Eyes lowered, Kazia shrugs off his jacket. He tosses the wrinkled garment to the floor, then unbuttons his sleeves. His hands are steady now, even as his thoughts blur.
“My poor boy,” Aliza murmurs. “How I wish you weren’t born this way.”
Kazia’s obedient smile is an easy, practiced reflex. He looks up as he loosens the laces at his neck. “It’s okay, Mother.” The lie is as effortless as the smile. “I’m glad I’m a grail, so I can be useful to you and Father.”
Aliza sighs. At least she doesn’t say anything. Her sympathy is difficult to believe when she’s the one who summons him with a blood magic phylactery. When it’s probably her fucking fault Kazia is like this.
Maybe Kazia would have been a grail regardless. Maybe there were other grails among her ancestors, or even Imrik’s, long hidden from the family records.
But Kazia has never heard of another grail with such twisted power.
Grails are meant to be used. They’re born with innate reservoirs of power that only true mages can tap from them. Normal grails are used through touch. Proximity. Intimacy. Habit. Physical or emotional pleasure. Marek’s grail husband seems disgustingly thrilled with the arrangement.
Kazia was born wrong. His magic can only be taken through pain.
Shirtless and cold, Kazia can’t stop the reflexive shiver as he turns his back, any more than he can slow his fear-quickened pulse. As his knees hit the tile, everything feels so pointless.
Plans. Chaos. Daggers in the dark. However much Kazia schemes, he always ends up here. Summoned by his own blood, on his knees, waiting for his father to hurt him.
His mother will watch and say nothing. Afterwards, she’ll knit Kazia back together with her stinging blood magic. When she’s done, Kazia’s skin will be smooth and unblemished, every echo of pain invisible.
Kazia just hopes the hairpin holds, so he doesn’t have to wash blood out of his hair again.
