Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,57
Yanko did not know what to make of their playful relationship. It was at odds with what he imagined being normal for thieves and cutthroats.
“Are the Turgonians the ones paying you to look for the lodestone?” Yanko asked, on the chance that he might get some free information before they realized what he was up to.
Neither person answered his question, though they did look at him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spoken and reminded them he was there.
“We’re the ones asking the questions, boy,” Gramon said, then nodded at Pey Lu. “Did you want me to twist his arms behind his back so that he whimpers or just stand threateningly by the door?”
Pey Lu hooked a thumb on her weapons belt, one laden with two pistols, a long knife, and an ammo pouch. “This is my son, Gramon.”
The big Turgonian’s jaw grew slack. He looked back and forth between Pey Lu and Yanko a few times before recovering his composure and saying, “I’m not sure that answered my question. He killed Jantz and Fish-Eye and a lot of others.”
“I suspect your Turgonian counterpart did the killing,” Pey Lu said. “He’s just a boy. Why are you working with a couple of Turgonians, Yanko?”
“A couple?” he mouthed before he realized she must have glimpsed Lakeo and assumed that height and those muscular arms made her Turgonian.
Pey Lu took a step toward the chair, considered Kei, then sat on the end of the bunk instead. The closeness felt strange, as if she was coming in to ask him how his studies were going, as he went over homework from bed. She gazed at him, her eyes holding his. She’d asked the question casually enough, but there was an intensity to that gaze. She expected him to answer the question, this question and others, he was certain.
Interestingly, she seemed to be blaming Dak for the mess that Yanko and his team had caused. A part of him was tempted to let her go on doing that, especially if it would mean her sparing his life or not punishing him with arm twisting—he glanced at Gramon, who had settled for leaning threateningly beside the door, his armory of weapons on display. But letting Dak take the blame would not be honorable.
“They are—were—working for me,” Yanko said.
“You’re in command of a veteran Turgonian soldier?” Pey Lu asked.
Yanko looked toward Gramon. “Does that not ever happen?”
“Not usually unless you save the Turgonian’s life a few times,” she said. “They aren’t fond of Nurians.”
Gramon grunted, but did not otherwise comment.
“Also, eighteen year olds usually don’t command anyone,” she added.
Yanko lifted his chin. “We are—I am moksu. Command is expected.”
“Not at eighteen. Did you apply to Stargrind?”
Yanko had a hard time keeping his chin up at that question. Her opinion shouldn’t mean anything to him, nothing at all, but he did not want to confess to his failure at the entrance exams. She probably already thought he was a puny excuse for a magic user, based on how easily she could push him around.
“I applied,” he said.
“But didn’t get accepted?” Her face remained neutral as she asked questions, and he couldn’t tell if she was disappointed.
He should have admitted that hubris had thwarted him, but it wasn’t fair to admit to that without explaining other things, things she was responsible for. “Our family is not loved in Nuria anymore. It was not—” a fair test, he almost said, but it hadn’t truly been unfair. He found it difficult to lie with her gaze on him. She might even know if he lied. Who knew what she could do besides flinging fireballs? “My preparatory schooling was insufficient. Father couldn’t get many tutors to visit, and they wouldn’t stay for long. I mostly learned from books.”
He wanted to squirm out of sight as soon as the confession escaped. It sounded like whining. What kind of war prisoner whined to his captors? To pirates? If Dak had been the one being questioned, he would have stood here in silence, glaring balefully at his interrogators. Yanko wasn’t even being interrogated. He was sitting on a bunk with his mother, being asked about his life.
Once again, Pey Lu’s face was hard to read. Maybe she was disappointed. Maybe she didn’t care.
“What’s Stargrind?” Gramon asked.
Yanko had forgotten he was in the cabin. Being reminded of that did nothing to bolster him. Whining in front of a Turgonian seemed even worse than whining in front of the woman who had birthed him.