The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,133

lip. “As I thought. No longer fit for getting your hair clean. Are you done? If so, step out and I'll help you with your hair.”

“I don't need help, and why did you bring my chest?”

“Have you seen your hair?” Ildiko eyed her as if she were a little dim. “You need help.” She pointed to the chest. “You know best what you'll want to wear for your journey to Timsiora. You can dress and pack in here, then come downstairs when you're finished. Now, out of that bath.”

Muttering to herself about wasting time and being just dirty and not an invalid—all which Ildiko blissfully ignored—Anhuset stepped out of the larger one to kneel in the smaller one and allowed Ildiko to wash her hair for her.

“This is wrong,” she protested after the first dousing with one of the water buckets to thoroughly wet her hair. “It's my task or even the task of a servant since you think I need help, not that of the hercegesé.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Ildiko replied. “I'm washing hair, not scrubbing floors. Besides, I don't want you terrorizing the servants with all the glaring and scowling and snarling.”

While Ildiko might not have been scrubbing floors, she set to scrubbing Anhuset's head with the same zeal until the strands squeaked when finger-combed and her scalp stung. Anhuset remained undecided if she'd just been groomed or tortured. It was a far cry from the leisurely washing and combing Serovek had given her.

“Done!” Ildiko finally, blessedly pronounced and handed Anhuset a comb and a towel. “You can finish the rest.”

Anhuset held both and stared at Brishen's wife, wondering why she'd forgotten that this weak, human woman was the same one who once bludgeoned a Kai assassin to death with a shutter pole. “This is revenge for all the bruises I left on you during our sparring sessions, isn't it?”

Ildiko's laughter didn't persuade her otherwise. “If I wanted revenge, Anhuset, I would have sent you a plate full of roasted potatoes for your dinner and lied by saying that Brishen ordered you to eat them.”

“Like he did at your wedding.” Anhuset still hadn't forgiven him for pulling rank in that manner.

“Just so.” Ildiko walked to the door, her shoes making wet, squeaking sounds on the floor from being splashed. She paused with her hand on the handle and turned back to give Anhuset a long look. Any amusement had fled her expression. “What is Serovek to you now, Anhuset?”

Everything.

The word thundered in Anhuset's mind, and for a moment the world shifted beneath her feet before she steadied herself and returned Ildiko's stare with a guarded one of her own. “He is Lord Pangion, hercegesé,” she said in an indifferent voice. “Beladine margrave of High Salure and friend to the herceges.”

Ildiko's gaze didn't waver for long, excruciating moments. A tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I thought so.” She opened the door, closing it behind her with a quiet click.

Anhuset stared at the door for a long time while water dripped from her skin and hair to puddle at her feet. She finally toweled off, combed out her hair and dug through her chest of clothes until she found what she wanted—sturdy tunic and trousers, a padded hauberk and riding leathers. The first two she'd wear now as she met with Brishen. She'd don the hauberk and leathers before she left for Timsiora. The servants had also delivered her worn travel satchel to which she added on change of garments in case the others weren't fit to wear by the time she reached the Beladine capital.

A servant, waiting in the corridor, instructed her to meet the herceges in the library. Anhuset climbed the rest of the stairwell to the third floor where the knowledge amassed by previous Kai kings was stored in a room nearly as big as the great hall, with tall windows that looked onto the redoubt below and the lands beyond that fell under Saggara's protection.

She expected to find both Brishen and Ildiko there, but only Brishen waited for her, his back to her as he stared out the windows. “Herceges,” she said, announcing her presence and bowed when he turned.

He motioned for her to join him at the windows. A small table and chair were nearby, the table's surface covered with unfurled scrolls. Brishen pointed to them. “Beladine law, or at least as it was when those scrolls were added to this library. I don't think much has changed since then.”

She drew closer to the table

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