'Father, wait!'

A blur of silver and blue, and Kiet had shoved himself in front of her. Isla stumbled back, knocking hard against the rajini. Her theurgy wavered from the shock of it all, but she had just enough composure to draw herself thin and wisp out of the Rama's mind.

What is he doing? It took all of her to keep from reaching out and strangling Kiet right where they stood. She had been so close to sparking that final flame. The Rama's anger, frustration, disappointment; everything was all ripe and blazing hot, if only he could be prodded just one step further ...

Perhaps it is enough. Maharaj Khaisan had done most of the job for her, and—Fjōr willing—he might just give that final prod himself. If Kiet stops meddling.

Isla reached for the tails of his cloak, tugging him back. 'Have you gone mad?'

Kiet turned enough to hiss back in her face. 'Have you?'

'I'm not the one drawing an inch of steel before the Rama!'

He looked down at his hand on his sword and paused a moment before shoving the weapon back into its sheath. He was only fortunate the Rama—and everyone else, for that matter—was too distracted to have noticed. Like the rest of the platform, the Rama was up on his feet, cakes and cups scattered around him, calling a halt to the duel between Maharaj Khaisan and High Prince Amargai below.

Even Maharaj Persi looked on at his son, at a loss for words and unable to subdue the Rama's wrath. The duel had spiralled quickly out of control. The tournament master himself could not count how many strikes had landed or which landed first—all Isla could tell was that Maharaj Khaisan was bleeding from his cheek and shoulders, while the Napoan prince wore tears down his breastplate and limped from one leg.

'I felt your bloodrune, heard the screaming,' whispered Kiet. 'I thought you were in trouble!'

'So your plan was to cut the Rama down?' Isla started to laugh, but suddenly she did not find it so funny. He was genuinely shaken, his eyes wide with a fear she had never seen upon them before. 'Kiet—'

'Enough of this madness!' Again the Rama's voice boomed, rippling through the sky with another shock of lights. It charged the air with his theurgy; a cold prickling that ran like needles along Isla's skin.

Kiet whisked around to shield her once again, but the command was meant for Maharaj Khaisan. The Rama was up dangerously close to the edge of the platform, shaking a finger down at his heir.

'How dare you in such repugnant manner speak of an honoured guest to our realm?'

'What?' Maharaj Khaisan lowered his sword and stepped away from the High Prince Amargai to face the Rama's fury. 'What have I said that is not truth?'

'What has he done?' Kiet whispered at Isla, though his eyes never left Maharaj Khaisan as he continued on a spiel of what it meant to be a man.

'Oh, nothing. Only called the entire male population of Napoa a bunch of self-castrating cowards who hide behind their women.'

At this Kiet did turn to look at her. 'No. Even Khaisan has more sense than to—'

'Well, clearly the High Prince knocked what little there was left of it right out of his head. He was making a mockery of your nephew. Provoking him into a rage was Maharaj Khaisan's only working strategy.'

'That much at least sounds like him.'

'I may have also wheedled some words into his head.' Isla mumbled.

'You what?'

'I only made him repeat what he'd already said to the High Princess Jihan,' said Isla quickly. 'He was distracted and worn; his mind-shield barely strung together. It was completely safe.'

'Safe? Do you have any idea what you've done?'

'I did not realise, Your Honourable Rama,' a new voice rose from all the whispering among the high platform, 'that your people held mine in such low regard.'

The High Khan had been sitting before, now he rose; slow and deliberate. He brushed the wrinkles down his overcoat—a thick brocade of geometric patterns in yellows and oranges and reds, crossed at the side and tied with a wide silk. His daughter edged around their table to make way for him as he strode across the platform to face the Rama.

Boots thundered up the makeshift steps onto the platform, but the Rama held his Maha Garda at bay with the raise of a hand.

'Perhaps you should escort your princess out, maharaj.' Rajini Chei deigned at last to speak to Kiet. 'Before things further escalate.'

'No.' Kiet pushed Isla into her hands. 'I cannot leave. You take her.'

Isla clicked her tongue. 'She means your bride, you actual goat!'

But Kiet had already gone to join his father.

His sister gasped as he marched past their table, Akai groaned from where he stood at attention behind them. At least the hanjou was safe among them, though she did not look at all pleased. The Tsun liked to read omens and keep temple charms, after all, and having international tensions reignite during the height of one's wedding celebration could not be a good omen.

'If your crown prince believes our men are lacking and women viraginous,' continued the High Khan, 'I'd hate to imagine how the rest of your people speak of us.'

'I apologise for my nephew's fervour upon the duelling stage.' Kiet interrupted before anyone else could speak. 'I know you must recognise, too, the blood lust that oft clouds our better judgement once pride and glory are concerned. Anything Khaisan says is to be taken with as much weight as that brain of his is able to contain.'

Down upon the stage, the maharam scoffed loudly to object, but Kiet silenced him with a glare.

'You think mollifications will turn my ears deaf to flagrant contempt?'

'Khaisan's words were fuelled not by contempt. It is therapeucy. He's been subjected to much of it this afternoon; I assume you are familiar to its effects.'

'It makes one brazen enough to only share his innermost thoughts, not give him new ones!' The High Khan leered at Kiet's father, hand on his belt and the hilt that hung upon it. 'I only wonder from where he's acquired such disdain.'

'I'll be honest. Our academic records have indeed shed less than positive light upon your people; written as they were, by old and bitter scholars, grieving after decades of war. But that is why we invited you and your House to share with us our joyous occasion—I wished for our people to at last learn of yours straight from its source, rather than biased and outdated accounts.'

The High Khan paused, clearly torn on whether or not he should allow Kiet's words to placate him. The Napoan were known for answering insults with injury, not by patiently exchanging words—but hopefully that was just another one of those empty convictions passed down by old and bitter scholars.

Even the audience had gone considerably quieter; waiting and watching for what might unfold upon the high platform. The smarter ones did not care to find out and chose instead to immediately flee. They trickled out from the benches, scattering across the field and onto the carriageway that would take them back to the palace gates.

'Such inhospitality I take not lightly, High Khan.' Finally the Rama spoke. 'Even from mine own kin. It shall be with haste addressed, and in conditions more befitting than this. But for now has the day worn upon us all, its heat creates monsoons of a morning breeze. It shall do all of us well to withdraw into the cool and calm of our own chambers.'

Whether their Napoan guests agreed or not made no difference. The Rama nodded at his soldiers, still lined upon the platform steps, and their commander pushed through until he stood adjacent to the High Khan.

'Refreshments shall be to your residence delivered,' continued the Rama. 'I bid thee a pleasant respite.' He dismissed them with a nod, and they had no choice but to comply. The commander of the Maha Garda immediately escorted the High Khan and his daughter off the platform, while more soldiers filled the pits below to keep any of his sons from approaching Maharaj Khaisan.

The tournament did not end, it hung; uncertain, like a rain cloud with no rain to give. People waited for a closing speech that never came, the tournament master just as directionless as the rest of them.

'But a winner has not been determined!' Maharaj Khaisan's protests came behind a wall of silver cloaks as the Maha Garda ushered him off stage. No one paid him any mind. The rest of the audience had begun to disperse in small groups, leaving rows of empty benches behind. 'The grand prize—'

'Take him away!' Maha Rama Judhistir cracked at last. Maharaj Persi started to calm him, but the Rama snapped at them all. 'You dare speak of the prize at a moment as this?'

'My Rama, it is the therapeu—'

'You, Kithrel, shall keep quiet and await me in mine audience chamber!'

'Come.' Rajini Chei said low into Isla's ear. 'We have stayed long enough.'

'But Kiet's done nothing—'

'This is not a quarrel you'll wish to find yourself entangled in.'

Only then did Isla notice that most of the other tables had already emptied. The Porasawan dignitaries were nowhere to be seen, and none remained of the petty lords who once filled the corner of the platform with loud tales and drunken songs. Another table of highborns were slinking off into the curtain wall, and soon Isla found herself among them, pulled along in Rajini Chei's iron grip.

Her eyes adjusted quickly to the low light of the tunnel. It was narrow and cold, and the sudden flood of guests and servants made it feel only more constricting. Their shoes scuttled over stone, their whispers bounced endlessly against the walls. 'I've never seen the Rama so furious,' said one highborn to another before her terrified companions hushed her into quiet.

'Isn't this all rather dramatic?' Isla whispered up at the rajini. 'This ... exodus through the walls ... and all over what? Petty insults from a petty prince.'

'The last time a Surikh maharaj exchanged insults with a Napoan High Prince, it did not end well for the Kapuluan Raja.'

'Those were different times.' And a princess had been involved, if the history books are to be believed.

Isla stopped, squinting in the sudden light that filled the tunnel ahead. They were coming into the watch tower; torches blazing upon all five of its walls. Stairs spiralled through the centre of the room, down which the other guests were already descending. But Rajini Chei held Isla back before the feet of the stairs.

'We are taking our own exit,' she said once the last of the highborns disappeared down the cut in the floor.

'What do you mean?'

'Did you think the labyrinths were the only secret the consortial estates keep?' The rajini stepped around the stairs, studied the opposing wall. 'Close the door, will you?'

Isla did as she was asked. A heavy grinding filled the tower, but it was not the door chafing against the floor; rather, it was the sound of the wall sinking slowly into itself, for when Isla turned to join her grandmother, a section of the brick had opened into a deep recess.

The rajini took a torch off the wall and stepped through. 'Hurry along before someone comes.'

It was another flight of stairs; this one wide and hugging the perimeter of the watch tower. The wall closed again behind them as they descended. The place smelled of stone and damp, but the darkness was worst of all. It ate the light of the torch like an endless night. The rajini was little more than a floating face, and Isla had to feel the wall to guide her way down.

'It will be better once we're out of the stairwell,' said the rajini.

Each step was shallow and took them round and round the tower, deeper and deeper until they must have been descending down into the very earth itself. Isla's head was getting heavy from it all, but just as she felt she was about to collapse, the floor levelled beneath her feet and a cold draught whistled down the emptiness ahead.

'You once asked how Alain would meet your mother, since Chani did not live at the palace.' The rajini lifted her torch high, searching for something along the wall. Finally she found it: a round indent like a basin had been dug into the bluff stone. She fed her fire into the bowl, and it lit with a crackle and whoosh before sending tendrils of flame along the wall. She did the same to another basin on the opposite wall, and soon both sides of the passage were alight. The flame spread down the tunnel, branching where the passage split into two opposing directions. 'It took me too long to discover these tunnels. None of the palatial ring plans ever even mention it. I believe it was made for and by servants long ago, hence why we have forgotten its existence. Alain, on the other hand ... well, he had a habit of disappearing from his studies from as early as his ninth harvest season.'

'He would come down here?' The man who would have his nose buried in a book, even while he went out to fish? Isla could not imagine him stepping a toe out of line, let alone skipping lessons and exploring old, dusty tunnels.

'The passage left leads all the way out to the anterior ring.' The rajini stopped before the fork in the path. 'But it is a one-way exit, before you get any ideas. There is no entering these tunnels from outside the palatial ring.'

'Did you learn that one the hard way?'

Rajini Chei was not amused. She nodded down the opposite tunnel and led the way north, the torch in her hand redundant now in the simmering fire that lit the length of the passage. A faint odour rose from the interval of basins dotting the wall; it started rich and woody—almost intoxicating—but the longer she drew breath, the more the musty scent of rotting eggs would break through the surface.

The rajini waved Isla away from the wall. 'You should not tarry here longer than you must. Everybody with a lick of sense knows the dangers of ifrit fume—but not many are aware that it can also be addictive.'

'How far does this tunnel go?'

'All the way, Isla. It connects through several exits, though you need only learn of one.'

'Oh, come on—'

'Ours will take us out through my gazebo.'

Isla frowned, picturing the clematis-covered structure in the rajini's garden. 'But where—'

'You'll see.' Rajini Chei looked back at her, the smile smug on her face. 'In fact, I built the gazebo exactly for it. It will do you good to know that these tunnels, unlike the passage into the city, can be accessed from their exits. So you'll best keep this knowledge to yourself.'

'You really have no faith in me, do you?'

'After you near caused a war back there?' Even in the privacy of a secret tunnel, she lowered her voice. 'And for what?'

'For what? For the people to see the kind of man whom would one day lead them. Now it is up to them which they prefer.'

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↝ END CHAPTER FORTY-ONE ↜

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☆ this chapter is dedicated to OlaLashine ☆

Video: Tha Playful Master
Image: Original artists unknown