'So you are unable to remove it?'

The therapeut dropped his gaze, which told Kiet everything. 'I can, but ... you may as well ask me to remove a man's teeth or pluck out his nails. It is possible, but will probably only debilitate the creature.'

'You compare a tumour to teeth?'

'I've inspected many tumours before; so much so I can sense even the roots of a malignant growth. But this one ...' Without prompting they both turned to the swiftlet on its perch—a new installment in his late mother's menagerie—happily nibbling away at a cluster of grapes. The therapeut laid a hand upon the crown of its head and pressed gently down. 'It indeed feels more akin to the growth of a tooth rather than an abnormality. The pranopeucy you fed it ... it must have integrated so thoroughly, the body is adapting to its manifestations as though a natural part of its own development.'

'I thought as much.' Kiet had first felt it aboard the ship. A lump upon the swiftlet's head; small but smooth and firm. He hoped it had been an injury—perhaps a bad scuffle with one of those vicious gulls—but deep down he knew. 'So it will not kill the bird?'

'I don't know, maharaj. Not immediately, I think. But therapeucy is intended more for intervention and examination of the human body ... our senses when it comes to creatures are extremely limited.'

Kiet checked above its ears, where the surface of its skin opened just where the lump came to a head. The epidermal pore was no larger than the tip of a child's little finger, but even then it was bigger than before. Still it was not that which troubled him. 'This one is new. But a few weeks ago was this area clear. Do you think more will yet come?'

'That is very much possible.' The therapeut leaned in to inspect it. 'It looks like the imprint of a fingernail.'

'He's growing fingernails all over his skin?'

'Fingernails, bear claws ... on the skin, it would likely manifest as scales.'

A scaled swiftlet. Kiet sighed. 'As far as consequences go, it could be much worse.'

'I would not breathe of relief just yet, maharaj. It is already larger than any swiftlet has a right to be, and it is far from finished growing. Your pranopeucy fuels it. That much I can sense. We can only hope its internal functions can sustain its size. I suggest you call for a sattwapeut to further inspect it.'

'If I knew of a reputable one, they would be already here.'

'My father has a sattwapeut in his court, uncle, surely you know?'

Kiet grimaced at the voice. He had little patience now for a battle of abuse.

He thanked the therapeut before turning to meet Khaisan. The crown prince strut down the stone pathway through the menagerie, hands behind his back as though to admire the herbs and flowers he certainly could not name.

'This is a surprise. When was the last time you visited me in my mother's estate?'

'Must've been before you left for Anglioc.' Khaisan stopped to think upon it, and for a moment he looked just as he did five winters ago, back when all their squabbles were meant only in good humour.

Perhaps his nephew was still in there somewhere. 'Look. If you've come to discuss my withdrawal from the Grand Palace, it will have to wait.'

'Of course. You've only just arrived, I'm not so cruel a host that I'd have you immediately pack for Pior Lam.'

A host? Did Judhistir pass while I was gone and it was his ghost who greeted me? 'I appreciate that. I must be present for the trial, after all.'

'Which is why I'm here. The Maha Rama has appointed me to sit as right judiciary bench in my first official act as maharam.'

Three guesses who shall sit as left bench. 'Then I must congratulate you. Your first official duty, and already one with such weight. The entire realm will be watching.'

Khaisan's smile was taut. 'You should not seek for a death sentence.'

Kiet had considered it, though he'd never admit. Dhvani deserved not death under the circumstances, but his options were to pursue death or publicly validate those circumstances. 'My hands are tied. By law does the murder of a rajini entail capital punishment, and once I prove Dhvani's guilt, there will be only one direction the Bench can vote.'

'The odds are already set against you, uncle. You'll need more than the testimony of a predisposed sister-consort to prove your case.'

'It is inappropriate for the Bench and prosecutor to speak of matters pertaining a case outside of court.'

'I only wish to save you from public humiliation.'

The humiliation, nephew, would be if I sought mere exile for my own mother's murderer.

But that was it, was it not? The reason for Khaisan's visit? He meant to intimidate him into early submission—bring him down a peg following his exalted return. Kiet had heard the wonder, seen the admiration in the people's faces. It was just as the truth-weaver had predicted.

It was no fault of his that his mother had struck such a chord in their hearts, nor that life was so mundane they revelled in the prospect of a rajini's trial.

'Mahasuris Divya and Eshka have told me their mother's defence.' Khaisan broke the silence. 'Her accusations will be made heard, should she participate in trial. Is that honestly something you wish the people to hear?'

'Her defence is ungrounded in reality. The people know the kind of woman my mother was.' He swallowed the bile rising up his stomach as he spoke, but it had to be done. 'More importantly, Dhvani has nothing to bolster her fictitious allegations, and she knows it.'

Khaisan scrunched his face, and gone was the nephew he knew five winters ago. 'Well then, I wish you luck on your trial. I cannot wait to host your future bride once all is done.'

Kiet hid a chuckle under a scratch of his nose. If Khaisan wished to seduce the hanjou away, it would only be too good to be true.

'And for bonding at last, freak of nature as it may be.' Khaisan jerked his chin towards the bird. 'I shall invite my father's sattwapeut to court for your disposal.'

'How kind.' Kiet watched as his nephew strode away. Whatever he had planned, Kiet was prepared for it.
    

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His sisters were waiting by the time he returned to his chambers: Kiesja lounging on his bed, Jyesta rummaging through the open trunk upon it.

'How is he?' Kiesja wasted no time asking.

'Insufferable as ever.'

'What?'

'Oh—you meant the bird.' Kiet smiled sourly. 'He might be growing scales beneath his feathers, but at least he'll live.'

'Scales? I thought you fed it a sun bear.'

'Something about fibrous proteins ... ask the therapeut.'

'Poor thing. Would it even still be able to fly?'

Would we all not like to know. 'Perhaps it'll adopt a sun bear's strength as well.'

'I don't see why not,' added Jyesta, pulling a hand mirror from Kiet's trunk. 'The winged nagha are scaled and fly perfectly well. At least that's what the books say.'

'As long as he doesn't eat like a little nagha.' Mother would certainly have wanted to keep him in her collection, now. If she knew his theurgy could create such living abnormalities, would she have had him feed more sickly creatures?

'Or breathe toxic fumes.'

Kiet snatched Dhvani's enoptograph from her hand. 'You're playing with evidence.'

'It's so heavy for such a small piece of glass! What is it, a magic mirror? Can it make me look prettier?'

Kiet lowered himself on the bed between them and kissed his youngest sister on her forehead. 'Any prettier and Erbē himself would snatch you for a bride.'

'Prettier, even, than the Hanjou Fukuse?' Jyesta giggled, throwing her arms around him. 'I did ask for a gift from across the Kapuluan Raja—I was not expecting a sister-in-law.'

'Sometimes I surprise even myself.'

'I can't wait to meet her. Is she kind? What colours does she like? We can have her guest estate decorated in all her favourite flowers and fabrics ...'

Jyesta went off, planning for Fukuse's projected visit, but Kiet heard no more. The dread sunk heavy in his stomach, now that he had time to dwell upon it. At least my impending marriage to Fukuse might divert Judhistir's attentions from Kiesja.

For Jyesta he had bought some time yet—though their own engagements were only inevitable. Every day his sisters looked more and more like their mother, and she apparently had many suitors. Even Jyesta now kept her hair long. She had let it grow over the past years Kiet had been away. Her face was softer, too, and now lightly coloured with cosmetics.

Another newly-acquired interest, Kiet mused. His youngest sister had always been on the more rowdy side of things. When did it all change?

The thought struck him with a jolt. 'Who is it?'

Jyesta stopped abruptly. 'Who is what, Eldest?'

'The boy you fancy.'

Her cheeks exploded in red. 'I don't know what—'

'Wait.' Kiesja sat from her reclining position. 'Is that why you've been sneaking off most afternoons?'

'You've been sneaking off?'

'It's nothing!'

'Is it someone I know?' asked Kiet, forcing some veneer of calm in his voice. It better be no one from the palace.

'No! I mean, it's no one!' Jyesta leapt off the bed. 'Why are you two making such a big fuss over nothing?'

'You're the one making a fuss, sister.' Kiesja studied her like a mother cat eyeing her kitten. Then she set her gaze on Kiet. 'What has gotten into my siblings? We used to tell each other everything, now one comes home suddenly engaged, and the other has a secret suitor.'

She tried, but the bitterness was too strong to mask. Kiet sighed. 'Kiesja, I had not the time to discuss the betrothal with my sisters. It was a matter of urgency.'

'Gods, Kiet. I knew you couldn't pass a woman by without making a pass, but the Emperor's daughter?'

'That is hyperbolic and cruel.'

'Me? Cruel? You spent barely over one cycle of the moon in Tsunai and you got their hanjou pregnant!'

'What? No! That's not—' Kiet gathered his thoughts. Jyesta was laughing, now, clearly amused to see how the tables have turned. 'The betrothal is nothing more than an agreement between the Emperor and I.'

The look in Kiesja's eyes gradually shifted from anger into disappointment. Kiet wondered which he preferred. 'And you used to tell Mother you'd wed only for love.'

'Speak not of our mother.'

'You taught us not to settle for political gain. Now you're bringing a poor girl into one. She's a child, Kiet. How old is she, fifteen?'

'Eighteen.' Not that that it is much better.

'Gods. She's only a year older than Jyesta.'

Kiet clenched his jaw. He chastised himself enough as it is. 'It is done, Kiesja, so make her feel welcome when the time comes.'

'That's your job!' Her yell carried to the hallway as he stormed off.
    

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He found himself approaching his mother's gazebo. The vines had grown unkempt over the year; autumn waterfalls sprouting between the beams of the roof. His mother's table was coated in foliage, its wood damp from the afternoon shower. He'd already arranged for someone to bring the entire structure down, but for now he wanted only one last look at it.

'You have a lovely home, maharaj.'

Of course the truth-weaver had to intrude. Kiet sighed at his voice, his coming footsteps grating upon the gravelled path.

'Far more spacious than the Emperor's courtyard houses.'

'Spending nineteen years in Ikidojja would make even the most striking shigōkan seem constricting.' Kiet pulled back a curtain of ivy as Taeichi stepped up to join him. 'I hope you find your accommodations adequate.'

'Smaller than my chamber in Tsunai, but it will suffice.' He smiled, looking around the garden through the veil of vines.

Their groundskeeper had been terribly lax in Kiet's absence. His mother's sweet alyssum had outgrown their plots, creeping up the grass in splotches of pink and white. The bougainvillea that had been planted only to hide the two-feet stilts upon which the residence was built now branched and reached in all sorts of directions, strangling even the sills of the ground floor windows. Nothing else was flowering this late in autumn, save for the fringed dianthus growing wild around the gazebo; so old their stalks looked as wooded and straggly as straw.

He used to think nothing of them, but now ...

I suppose after she was done with Chei, she had need no longer for something as potent as lover's lace. Dianthus was known to induce menstruation as well as a litany of other, more socially acceptable medicinal uses. At least she drugged my lovers with something less insidious.

It must have been some kind of twisted, internal joke his mother shared with only herself—to grow the plant around the very place she'd have her victims unknowingly ingest them.

No matter. Kiet will have them all burned to the last straw.

'I am glad to catch you alone, maharaj.' The truth-weaver's voice brought him right back into the gazebo. 'I came to give you something. It might help with your upcoming trial against the runesmith—his is scheduled first, I believe?'

'He is indeed the appetiser.' Something to sate the people's morbid curiosity. Judhistir scheduling the runesmith first only meant that he hoped their bloodlust would subside by the time Dhvani came last.

Taeichi pulled a succession of blocks out from his pocket and onto the table between them. Each were the size of a newborn's fist; flat on the bottom and peaking into irregular shapes at the top. Kiet took the closest one, turned it over and over in his hands.

Glyphs. Five of them, carved into designs foreign and yet strangely familiar—like some kind of permutation between Ancient Pertheist and runic symbols. One of them caught his eye. Kiet reached for it and a drew a sharp breath. 'I've seen this character before.' He'd have to consult with the royal archivists just to be certain ... 'Where did you get this?'

'Isla-dae passed it on to me.'

'Isla?'

'She found it in the mind-healer's shigōkan, right before the earth tremors that collapsed her western wing.'

When the runesmith was attempting to extract Fukuhei's theurgy. Now was he certain. These were the runesmith's trapping runes. He had seen an illustration of the glyph in one of Svladojan's publications. 'Why would she give these to you?'

'To whom other was she to give them?'

First she asks for his mark, now this? 'These are not toys to simply be passed on to the first person one sees.'

'I doubt Isla-dae knows what they are—I would not have myself, were I not present in all the Emperor's meetings with the runesmith.' Taeichi's false minimisations aggravated Kiet only more. 'There were a pair of hoops, too, she told me; but they shattered in the collapse.'

Kiet's vision darkened. 'You mean—she was there?'

'Unfortunately so, maharaj. How did you think she gave these to me? It was my tabeeb who tended her injuries.'

'The hall collapsed on her?' That explained all the bandages. And he had walked right by ...

'She was kept mostly sheltered by the door frame so suffered nothing severe. I would take care around her upper rib cage area, however. The bruising there ...'

The truth-weaver met Kiet's dry chuckle with a smile of his own. Whatever he was attempting to do, he began to rival Khaisan in his art of vexation. In fact, why did everyone insist that day on provoking him?

He had more important things that should be occupying his mind. Now he had not even his sister to discuss matters of the trial with, nor did he trust himself not to pick an argument with Isla. Sindhu was off investigating the matter of her birth, and—not to impugn upon his character, but Akai was a fighter, not a thinker.

'It's a pity.' Kiet played with the glyph in his hand. 'You're a clever man, Taeichi-seung. If only I liked you enough.'

There was no offence in the truth-weaver's laughter. Kiet left him in his mother's gazebo, wondering when in all the ocean tides his groundskeeper was going to tear it down.

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↝ END CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ↜

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☆ this chapter is dedicated to  wyls0n ☆

Video: NZ Ambience
Image: Original artists unknown

Dhvani's trial is getting closer, but do you think she will get away with her crimes?

Also, did you know that apparently Kiet shares the exact same personality type as the literal biblical devil himself? (╥_╥) Well, I didn't! I just discovered this whilst working on the next on my Q&A list about TCOK characters' personalities, and now I do not know how to feel about this revelation (ᵕ_ᵕ̩̩;) 

Anyway, you can read the Q&A in the linked comment. Have a great weekend, all!