Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

The room his sister selected had thin arrowslit windows and a distinct lack of balcony. His Majesty ordered everyone out but her and Aaron.

“Cloak,” King Orin demanded, holding an imperious hand out. “Cloak, Markus. …Aaron. I’ll not have a griffin in here if this goes poorly.”

He could still go for the door, which wouldn’t be much match for a griffin.

“Aaron,” the king repeated.

Or he could... trust people, he supposed. Try that, and see how it went for him.

Aaron handed over the cloak. And watched, with grim amusement, as Orin held the giant sopping thing at arms’ length. His Majesty finally settled for dropping it on an end table. Which Orin then had to sit next to, because there was no point taking a thing if he didn’t then guard it. Adelaide took the armchair nearest the door. And dragged it a little more directly into that path, with a pointed look at Aaron. Aaron picked a table in the far corner to lean against, where at least the stone at his back felt familiar.

“So who are you, then?” His Majesty asked, as the heaped cloak next to him began to drip on the floor, the puddle slowly spreading to join the one under his boots.

“Aaron,” Aaron said. “No last name. One of Duke Sung’s bastards, though I didn’t get raised so fancy as some others. Apparently.”

“He promised me it was only the once,” said his sister, rather resigned.

“Was that before or after you started carrying that around?” Aaron asked, with a glance towards her kirin’s bone hilt.

Her own clothes were beginning to drip, as well. Mostly onto the upholstery. She gave him a look, and pointed a warning finger his way. Aaron shrugged, unapologetic. And shivered, though he was not quite so soaked as they.

“Why are you speaking so loudly?” Orin asked.

“Got a dragon to shout in my ears,” Aaron replied, trying to bring his volume down. He was entirely unclear on whether he was successful. “Wouldn’t recommend. Do you need to do any tests, to rule out whatever else I might be?”

The Lady’d had him drink tea with iron shavings, the first they’d met. Hadn’t done any particular tests for doppels, but then, he’d not heard of any tests more sophisticated than catching folks living on the wrong floor of Twokins when a rat hunt was on. He didn’t know how they’d even begin testing for the rest: for a cat sidhe on a turn, for a fox’s illusions, for any of the creatures that could pass as human. Though most of those could choose how they looked, and Aaron certainly wouldn’t have chosen to look like a dead boy.

“You’re either bound by kirin’s bone or you’re not, no matter what you are,” his sister said. “Talk, and we’ll see how much I believe.”

“Has anyone told you how gracious you are?” Aaron asked.

“I remember,” Orin said, “when you were in the dungeons. You couldn’t answer on bone that you were human. That was why the guard held you so long.”

Aaron had learned not to flick his eyes to said bone. Apparently it made a fellow look suspicious. His hands tightened on the table edge behind him, the stretch of skin pulling new fire from his burns.

“I was a Face, Your Majesty. That’s not the kind of human you uptowners mean.”

“What is a Face,” asked Adelaide, “and what does any of this have to do with my brother? …My other brother,” she added, because apparently her own kirin bone wouldn’t abide her excluding him. So she was starting to believe him.

Aaron gave her a bared-tooth smile, of the sort animals shared. “We’re the ones who keep things civil, in the Downs. We let all your strict-kept humans pretend it’s other humans they’re dealing with. If they never think too deep on who’s behind the Face, then they’re never lying when the ratcatchers come asking over pretty bones like yours.”

And there was his sister’s outraged face. He was learning all her best expressions, tonight. “You would work with—”

“They’re stolen children, Lord Sung,” His Majesty interrupted. “They’re broken to the work early, convinced they can’t leave.”

Aaron hiked himself up a bit farther on the table, so he was sitting instead of leaning. Something in his coat squished, and he took a moment to mourn the effects of weather on his pocket pantry. Downpours had never been a concern in Twokins. At least his pharmacy was mostly in waxed packets; he’d have time to rescue them, before the water found its way in. The food, he’d have to eat tonight, and wouldn’t that be gross. And wasn’t it strange, to have so much food about that a little bit of less-than-dry bread seemed gross.

“We’ve a policy of amnesty for them,” Orin continued, eyeing him as if only just seeing him. “But they’re difficult to rehabilitate.”

“Nice word, rehabilitation,” Aaron said, swinging his legs.

“I remember you having more respect in a conversation, Lord— Aaron.”

“Markus would have been respectful, I figured,” Aaron said. “Blood nobles probably actually did something for him, sometime in his life.”

“If that’s how you feel,” His Majesty said, with narrowed eyes, “I’m surprised you’ve stayed at the castle.”

“You’re not the worst king I’ve known. Neither was your father.”

Adelaide sucked in a breath at that causal bit of treason. Orin leaned forward.

“I’ve heard of the king you rats had. Fond of killing until things went his way, wasn’t he?”

Ah. Aaron probably shouldn’t have gotten Orin thinking of that.

“What is your connection to the Kindly Souls? And what did you have to do with the assassination attempt on my family?”

“I raised the alarm and saved your sister,” Aaron said. “If you’ll recall.”

His Majesty had asked two questions, and gotten one answer. He continued to wait. Aaron shifted. Sitting pulled at the wound on his side in ways he hadn’t gotten used to, yet. He dearly wished to check the thing, but this was neither the place nor the company for loosening his armor.

His Majesty was still waiting. Aaron shrugged. Brushed a hand against his side.

“I used to belong to one of them. He died, I left. It was before anyone was paying to off you or yours.” Aaron lifted his hand, and scratched at his eyebrow, and was relieved that the dampness on his palm was a watery pink instead of red. Stitches then, probably. But if he was going to bleed out, he’d have done it already.

His Majesty kept waiting. Aaron set his hand back down, and let him.

“And what,” Adelaide pressed, into that continued silence, “happened to my brother?”

Aaron opened his mouth. Shut it. Because she’d actually liked Markus, as far as he could tell. And it was never an easy thing, learning that someone you cared for died without you even knowing.

“He was killed in the autumn. Soon after he got to Onekin, near as I can tell. Sorry for your loss.”

Her chair didn’t scrape across the ground, or anything so dramatic as that. She simply stood, and walked from her seat by the door all the way over to one of those arrowslit windows on his side of the room, her back to them. One hand was over her mouth, with her stump trying to add the ghost of a second. She took steady breaths. When she turned back, she was perfectly composed, save for that hand.

“Who?” she asked, and Aaron knew murder when he heard it, no matter how levelly spoken.

“The Lady. She ordered it, anyway.”

His sister’s hand curled into something more thoughtful than concealing.

“Did she know it was him?”

“No,” Aaron said, pressing his arm tight against his side, because pressure on a bleeding wound was never a bad thing. “She thought it was me. And then she thought I was him. And you can see how attached I’ve become to her continuing to think that.”

His sister laughed. Not the good kind of laugh. Her hand dropped. “But she likes you. She likes you, not him. I knew he was writing to her, I thought he was trying to mend things between us, he was always— But she never bothered to know him. She certainly didn’t bother to teach him herself, like he was someone she wanted. She’s not even training her own daughter, is she?”

No, she wasn’t; she’d given Princess Rose books, and promises of a teacher when the Late Wake’s scouts gathered back on Last o’ the Isles to exchange what they’d learned. But she’d not volunteered to teach the girl herself.

The girl, who was Adelaide’s sibling as much as Aaron was. Just from very different sides. What a quaint family they made, and Connor, too; what lovely parents united them all.

“She’s not going to be disappointed she got the wrong bastard, Aaron,” his sister said, his name a curse on her lips. A familiar enough way to hear it.

“Right. But.” His side ached under the pressure of his arm. His burned hands flared as he tightened them around the edge of the table. “It wasn’t me that she conspired with to kill King Liam. And frame our father for it, to get him offed, too. And I doubt she’d want that information with someone who could go around telling it to those who might listen,” Aaron said, to those who might listen.