Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,100

if he had the fleet admiral under his thumb. What was stopping him? Maybe he intended to send his properly chastened mage hunter to try again. To practice. She’d need practice if she was going to serve him on the Great Chief’s dais.

With an irritated growl, Yanko swung his legs over the side of the bunk. All this thinking with no chance for action would make him crazy. Hadn’t his mother said that his brain was his worst enemy?

Dak leaned back in his chair to peer through the doorway at him, but returned to the atlas after a glance. Kei, who had claimed the back of a second chair as a perch, ruffled his feathers but did not open his eyes.

“Dak, are you here to keep me from escaping or to protect me from the mages and mage hunters wandering around your Turgonian warship?”

“I’m supposed to keep you from harming the Nurian diplomats and from doing dastardly things to the rock.”

“Diplomats?” Yanko stood up so he could properly gape through the doorway at Dak. “Surely, you’re talking about some other Nurian diplomats, because you can’t mean Sun Dragon and his assassin.”

The atlas had to be extremely interesting, because Dak did not respond to the gape or the comment. Yanko did not know if he was trying to put some distance between himself and Yanko, now that he was back among his own people, or if he was simply engrossed in the project.

“What do you mean supposed to?” Yanko asked quietly—reasonably.

He wasn’t going to throw a tantrum. He just wanted to know. Maybe he should be trying to negotiate with Dak. Nobody else here was going to listen to him. And if Dak was somebody among the Turgonians, couldn’t he possibly do something?

Yanko looked toward the wall, wondering if Arayevo and Lakeo were in the next cabin or if they had been given something less sophisticated. This double-cabin wasn’t exactly luxurious—the Turgonians liked hard edges and gray paint a lot—but it was roomy, and space was a luxury on a ship, even a big ironclad. Yanko had no doubt that it was Dak who warranted the special treatment, not him.

“I’m not pleased with the situation, either, Yanko,” Dak said. “I don’t know how Sun Dragon finagled himself aboard, and when I talked to Ravencrest, he just said something about an order from the Turgonian embassy on Kyatt. There’s not a communication orb on here, so I can’t contact anyone.”

“Anyone? Like the Turgonian president, perhaps?”

“You think a stowaway diplomat warrants his attention?”

“A lost continent being discovered might. Besides, I figured you two might chat regularly about life, the universe, pretty women, oh, and about how lovely it is to share a surname with the man.”

“If a lost continent appears, I’ll be happy to talk to him about it. I’m still highly skeptical the rock will lead us to that.”

So skeptical he was perusing that atlas like a student cramming for an exam that started in ten minutes? “And the other things?”

“Rias has been happily married for more than twenty years, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that he’s even aware that other women exist.”

Rias? Was that their president’s name? If so, it wasn’t the one the newspapers used. A nickname?

“And Turgonians don’t usually philosophize about life and the universe unless a lot of alcohol is involved. He doesn’t have time to drink.”

“So... how closely are you related? To Rias?”

Dak leaned his arm on the back of the chair and sighed at him. At least he had stopped looking at the atlas.

“Look, I’d just like to know so I can better formulate my negotiating tactics,” Yanko said.

“We’re negotiating?”

“I haven’t started yet, but I intend to.”

“Ah.”

“Brother?” Yanko guessed.

Dak’s eye widened. “Do I look that old?”

“Too old to be one of his children. I’ve heard they’re closer to my age.”

“You’ve heard? Yanko, you met two of them.”

“I? Oh.” The kids who had been so eager to defend their homestead against invaders. Yanko rubbed his forehead. “I was distracted that night. And I didn’t speak the language.”

“He’s my father’s brother, and he spent most of my adult life at sea or in Kyatt with his Kyattese wife.”

“So you don’t know him that well?”

“I know him better now than I did a couple of years ago, but he’s not going to jump in front of a steam wagon for me. And it doesn’t matter insofar as your negotiations. A blood relation to someone powerful doesn’t make you someone important in the empire. I’m just a soldier,