The Discord of Gods by Jenn Lyons

Author:Jenn Lyons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

58. THE BABYSITTING SERVICE

Kalindra’s story

The D’Lorus town house, the Academy at Alavel

The morning after Vol Karoth’s escape

“I must admit, I find myself a bit taken aback by the idea that the empress has a child,” Jira Milligreest said as she handed Kalindra a cup of morning tea. “But with those eyes, I suppose he’d have to be hers, wouldn’t he?”

The child in question was currently siting in the middle of a fortress made out of ink sticks, along with Kalindra’s son, Nikali. She wasn’t certain where the ink sticks had come from, but it made a certain amount of sense that a house owned by the D’Lorus family would have a truly excessive, decadent supply.

They’d wanted to use books, but Kalindra had put her foot down. If a column of ink sticks fell over, no one would be hurt. The same couldn’t be said of many of the tomes kept at the D’Lorus house.

As if to prove her point, her son grabbed several cloth belts he’d pulled from her bag earlier and began spinning them at the impromptu fort. When that failed to give the desired destructive result, he pouted and then shoved to knock the blocks over.

Kalindra felt a chill as she realized her son was reenacting the Lash’s attack on Devors.

“Dear?”

Kalindra turned owl eyes on her mother-in-law. “What was that?”

Jira sighed and rubbed the side of her head. “Oh, I don’t know, dear. Just commenting on how odd it was that the empress would suddenly reveal out of nowhere that she has a son.” The woman squinted at the contents of her teacup before apparently finding the idea of tea wholly inadequate and setting the cup aside.

“Are you all right?” Kalindra took the opportunity to ignore the question and Tyentso and her so-called son.

Because it was bullshit. Kalindra knew it was bullshit. Yes, technically, her tenure on Ynisthana in the service of the Black Brotherhood had only overlapped with Tyentso’s by around six months or so, but that was enough time that if Tyentso had come to the island already pregnant, Kalindra would have known. Since there wasn’t a single soul on the island who hadn’t been meticulous about preventing unplanned pregnancies, it was extraordinarily unlikely that Tyentso could have become accidentally pregnant while there. Finally, since Tyentso had returned to Quur along with Teraeth and Kihrin, just a few months previously, the only possible way she could have pulled off a surprise child was if she’d taken a quick vacation over at the Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor so she could birth and raise a toddler. Which seemed logistically impossible for many reasons, not least of which was that she’d have run out of food long before the boy’s first birthday.

So yes, it was bullshit. And yet the woman in charge of the entire damn empire had shown up at the D’Lorus estate at some gods-awful hour of the morning with a still-sleeping baby in her arms. Whom she then proclaimed to be her son, Tyrin, and all

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