Ok, another quick recap of last chapter:
Kai and Danai and Ver went to the palace with Kel and co., where Ver got a job in the stables, and he started avoiding Danai and Kai, but Kai was still afraid of horses, so she was scared to go find Ver, but Danai, who got a job with Esmond, convinced her to, and they confronted him about the whole dagger thing and he told them that he and Danai were brother and sister and they and Kai were cousins, blah blah blah… oh, and Kai's mother married a Yamani noble and then accidentally caused a mass rebellion and all that…and then she and Kai's father and uncle died in the rebellion, and her aunt took them all back to Tortall, where she died of fever and passed the kids on to different friends who raised them. Kel found them in the pasture after Ver told them all this and accidentally let it slip that she knew about the entire thing. (deep breath. Wow, that was a really long sentence. I think that's it.) Oh wait, one more thing! Hedi was one of Kai's best friends from the first couple of chapters; she was briefly mentioned as a flame twirler, and after that, she headed the rescue operation made up of Kai's friends "saving" her from the nobles. (there, that's it)
Chapter 18
"So," Kel said icily, her features rearranging themselves into their customary blankness. "You would have been happier if your cousin was dead?"
"How do you know that?" three voices demanded at once.
Kel's POV
An hour before
As soon as Kai and Danai left for the stables, Kel, in the room across the hall, turned to Faleron. "What was everyone was talking about two days ago? A dagger?" she asked.
He looked uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot. "I really don't know myself."
"Tell me what you do know, please."
He sighed. "Kel, do you have to know everything?"
"Yes," she answered without missing a beat.
"Fine." He reluctantly recounted that night that he and Kai had discovered the pictures under the canvas on the hilt of her daggers.
Kel stared at Faleron. "So her…dagger…had a family crest on it? And she didn't know about it? Are you sure?"
He nodded. "I trust her about that. She wasn't lying. But it wasn't a Tortallian family. Look familiar?" He sketched out a few rough pictures on a scrap paper.
Kel's mouth dropped open. "Faleron," she finally managed, "that's Shinko's family!"
Silence ensued. "What do you mean that it's Shinko's family?" Faleron said slowly.
"I mean," Kel enunciated, "That it's the royal family of Yamani's insignia. It's all over the country."
Faleron winced. "That means someone has to tell Kai that her mother really didn't get this any lawful way. She's convinced that it wasn't stolen."
"Well, it might not be stolen," Kel said, then suddenly. "Does George know about this?"
Faleron shrugged. "I didn't tell him."
"I'm going to go see," Kel said decisively, standing up.
"Then I'm coming," Faleron declared as he looked around the otherwise-empty room.
Sholla was standing outside the door to George's rooms, pacing back and forth. "He hasn't opened the door for two hours!" she exclaimed when they got within hearing distance. She shook a piece of paper at them. "This is very important and I can't just leave it here! And…I think something bad happened," she confessed in a more quiet tone.
"I'm sure everything's fine," Faleron assured her. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Do you know what this is?" He showed her the sketch of Yuki's crest that he had made before.
Sholla stared at it a long time. "It looks familiar," she said finally, "But I can't remember where I saw it."
Kel nodded. "That's ok. Can you just give this to George when he comes out?" she asked, scrawling a quick note on the back of Faleron's paper.
Sholla nodded and took the paper, and Kel and Faleron began walking away again. "You know," he was heard to have remarked, "I liked that drawing. It was quite good, don't you think? I probably won't get it back now."
It was only twenty minutes later that brought a banging on Kel's door.
"Where did you get this?" George demanded, clutching the paper that they had left with Sholla.
"Faleron drew it," Kel answered with a slight smile. "Pretty good, right?"
"Where'd he see it then?" George asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"He found it under a piece of canvas on the hilt of Kai's dagger," Kel explained in a tone of one commenting on the weather. "Do you know what it is?"
"Yes, and so do you."
"So why would Kai have a dagger that was not stolen from the Yamani royals?" Kel asked innocently.
"That is none of your business," George snapped; then softened a little. "We just never wanted to tell her when she was little that her parents were thieves. It was easier to say that her mother was some famous singer, and her father a juggler."
"Just like it was easier to tell me that than the truth?" Kel asked critically.
"No, it's sad but true," George said with a sigh. "If you don't believe me, you could go ask Sholla."
"Except that she doesn't know," Kel pointed out. "And you know that she doesn't know, don't you?"
George laughed. "Lass, do you even know what you just said?" Kel showed no reaction.
"You're lying," Kai declared. "Otherwise you wouldn't have been so anxious when you got here and then suddenly become relaxed."
"You could use a job in the spy service," George suggested seriously. "If this whole knight thing doesn't work out, that is."
"What aren't you saying?" Kel asked.
George studied her for a long time before saying, "Do you have someplace that we won't be overheard?"
It was a good half an hour later that Kel left her room, head whirling from what she had been told. She had no idea that Kai and Danai were in precisely that same position in the pastures, and immediately set out to find them. Kel wondered how much of this Faleron knew, or Sholla, or Kai even.
"So," Kel said icily, her features rearranging themselves into their customary blankness. "You would have been happier if your cousin was dead?"
"How do you know that?" three voices demanded at once.
"You told her but not us?" Kai exclaimed, turning to Ver. "What happened to hating nobles?"
"How'd you find out?" he asked Kel.
"Would you have been happier if she was dead?" Kel pressed, more clam now.
Ver hesitated, caught in his own trap of words; Kai stared at him. Was he actually going to wish that she were dead just so that he didn't have to deal with the people he hated? "No," Ver said finally. "But I would be happier if you had just let us take care of Fang and not have this mess."
Both Kel and Kai opened their mouths to argue with that, but Danai beat them. "What's done is done. Accept the past or you'll never notice the present."
Kai grinned, momentarily sidetracked by the oddness of the comment. "Danai, I think you've been listening to the Doi too much." There were a few people from a Doi tribe who made their living in the city by giving cryptic predictions of the future.
"So what if I have?" Danai asked lightly, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. "I know that you got all excited when that old woman told you that you would have good luck that day, and then the waiter spilled all that lemonade on your new shirt."
"I was ten, I hardly knew any better," Kai said loftily. "Besides, there was that time that you…"
"That's not the point!" Ver broke in angrily. "The point is, she knows, and I didn't tell her!" He indicated Kel with an abrupt nod.
"I can explain that," Kel said.
"How?" Ver demanded. "Were you spying on us? Did you hear everything we just said?"
"No!" Kel denied. "I asked Faleron why you were all talking about a dagger back in the city. He…drew a picture of what he remembered." She handed Ver a paper with a few rough sketches on it that Kai recognized as what was on her dagger. "Do you know what family this is?" Kel asked.
"We know that it's Yamani," Ver said defensively.
"So how did you get the daggers with this on them?" Kel asked carefully, expression masked.
"I got it from my guardian," Kai volunteered.
"Mine are from my mother," Ver added, revealing two matching knives that resembled Kai's daggers.
"You both have some?" Danai asked, hurt. "Why didn't I get one?"
Kel frowned. "Danai means peace in Yamani, right?"
"Yes," Ver said, surprised. "Mum wanted you to never become mixed up in something like the rebellion that took her family away. She said that you would be the pacifist between us, and, if necessary, me and Kai would protect you."
"What!" Danai scowled. "She wanted to control my destiny before I could even walk? She thought that just because I was the youngest that I couldn't fight?"
"Danai, you can't fight," Kai felt inclined to point out.
"Maybe I want to learn!"
"We could teach you," Kel and Ver offered at the same time, resulting in a glare from the latter.
"We," Ver stressed, "Are perfectly capable of showing you how to fight."
"Really?" Kel asked innocently, before blanked-faced, she reached out almost casually and plucking one of the knives from his grasp. "Nice grip," she complimented ironically.
"Hey!" Ver tried to grab the blade from her, and failed. "This is so like all you nobles! Take something of ours and then blame us for the thieving!"
"Would you please stop using all those noble comments?" Kel asked, obviously annoyed, even through her usual mask. "Because I'm not saying anything about your parents."
"And what would you know about my parents?" Ver challenged.
"I know who your father is," Kel said simply.
Ver's jaw dropped. "You're lying."
"You could go ask your uncle about this, if you want," Kel responded mildly.
"Did he tell you?" Ver demanded with a scowl. "See, you people turned him into a noble like the rest of you! Just confiding in each other all the time and not telling us anything!"
"What are you talking about?" Kai injected.
Ver glared. "Nothing."
Kel frowned. "They don't know?"
"The next time someone says that," Kai burst out, thoroughly annoyed with their inability to tell them anything, "I will go crazy." Then she leveled her dagger at Ver's throat. "What do we not know?" she asked slowly.
Ver smirked at her. "Are you going to try to hurt me?" he asked in the tone one would use with a small child. "How cute." He grabbed her wrist and twisted it. "This I really do have specific orders not to tell you, or anyone, and if George wants to break his own promises to go gossip with the nobles, then that's him."
"What else have you lied about?" Kai shot back, ducking out of his grasp. "You didn't tell Danai that you were her brother! For Mithros' sake, how can we trust you again? What else is there that we don't know?" she persisted. Danai started to say something, but Kel beat her to it.
"Kai, stop," Kel said. "It's not his fault. I didn't know that it was a secret."
"Don't order her around!" Ver snapped. "Just because you're a noble…"
"I know that I'm a noble!" Kel finally shouted, mask broken and thrown aside. "And I don't need to be reminded of that by some oblivious, uneducated, narrow-minded, prejudiced, unthinking boy from the streets!"
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RandomrReader314: Thanks. And, in answer to your question, no, I just take Spanish in school and mariposa translates into butterfly.
Tessadragon: Thanks for the advice on fight scenes. I put most of the big explanation into the next chapter so I hope that that worked out all right. Are you a really big Star Wars fan?
Syl Rose: Thank you so much. You are the only person who reviewed the last chapter. It's ok, though, I'll move on anyway. Sorry this was so long in coming: school. Enough said. I hope this chapter explained everything all right.
Like it? Hate it? Kinda good but the entire thing was horrible after Ver started talking? Confused? Opinions, anyone? Please review!