The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,32
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Serovek didn't need to know all that. Anhuset had vomited up enough of her inner demons for one evening. “I’m uninterested in either one,” she said with a shrug. “Even if I were, I’m not considered a worthy catch by a Kai seeking to elevate himself through an advantageous union. Nor am I the easiest person to get along with most days, if you can imagine that.”
That elicited a chuckle from him. “Oh, I can imagine the second just fine.” Serovek’s wide grin coaxed an answering one from her. “I am, however, stunned by the first. You’re closely related to the Kai queen regnant and the regent. Surely, Brishen must be fighting off a line of suitors trying to take his valuable second from him.”
“Those connections don’t make me any more desirable. I’m gameza.”
She watched as he searched his internal cache of bast-Kai words for translation, but nothing came to mind. “What’s gameza?”
“Bastard. I’m the illegitimate daughter of the old king’s sister. My father, so I’m told, was a handsome stablehand as well hung as the horses he tended.” A reputation much like yours, margrave. She kept the thought to herself.
Serovek blinked, his grin still in place but softened by her revelation. “You’re always refreshingly blunt. It’s one of many things I admire about you.”
The damn blush crawled up her neck and into her face yet again. Anhuset prayed the stable’s near darkness would hide the reaction his compliments continued to spawn.
He crossed his long legs at the ankles and pondered his boots. “Let me guess. Your mother committed double sacrilege. Not only did she bear a child outside of a marriage sanctioned by the sovereign, she bore one of a man not even of royal blood, tainting the bloodlines.” He rolled his eyes, and Anhuset twitched.
She tilted her head to one side, considering his words and the contemptuous tone in which he uttered them. “Does human royalty feel the same way about gamezas?”
“In my experience, yes.” He shrugged. “Personally, I think a good shot of stablehand blood into some of those murky pools is exactly what’s needed. It seems like the Kai aristocracy suffers the same prideful blindness the human ones do.” He smiled at her quiet huff of laughter.
“I’m glad to be gameza,” she said. “Were I not, the regency would have fallen to me while Brishen fought the galla. I’m not fashioned for such a role. I’m a soldier first and foremost.”
“And one Brishen depends on at every level. As does his hercegesé. I’m sure Ildiko was grateful to have you with her while she held the Kai kingdom together.”
Anhuset suspected Ildiko would have managed just fine on her own were it necessary. The human hercegesé had assumed the role of regent in her husband’s stead, never once wavering, though Anhuset had seen the doubt and the fear Ildiko had tried her best to hide from everyone, including Brishen.
“The hercegesé surprised a lot of us, I think. I was simply her sword and shield.”
He studied her for a moment, brow stitched into a frown. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.” She didn’t get a chance to argue with him before he turned the subject back to her parentage. “Do you resent your mother for her indiscretion?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable question. The lot of a nobleman’s or noblewoman’s bastard was often a hard one, at least in Kai societies where family connections and alliances held more value than affection or emotion. To them, a bastard was valueless and often shunned for the sin of their parent’s carelessness.
Anhuset raised one eyebrow. “No. She birthed me and turned me over to nursemaids who didn’t know how to handle me.”
“To no one’s surprise I’m sure.”
She tipped her nose up and gave a sniff to show her disdain of his teasing. “I followed in her footsteps. Tried out a stablehand or two myself when I was older.”
It was his turn to arch an eyebrow. “Is that disappointment I hear in your voice?”
She waved a hand as if brushing away an annoying gnat. “Just because they cared for stallions didn’t mean they were stallions themselves.” Some small demon whispered temptation in her mind, and in that moment she gave in to it. She slanted Serovek a long look and lowered her voice, challenge implicit in every word. “The typical empty boasts shattered by unforgiving reality.”
Serovek straightened from the slouch he’d adopted. The deep blue of his strangely colored eyes had darkened so that she no longer saw the distinction between iris