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'You caused quite the stir.'

It was his mother, risen from the dead to rebuke him. Kiet dropped his quill.

She stood by the arched curtains shielding his door; a new instalment after the fire that had destroyed half his bedchamber. She drowned in her ceremonial robes, sleeves so large and long they swept his floor. Her hair was let down in braids, heavy strands fringing her brows.

Kiet lurched in his seat. Light shifted from the windows behind him, revealing a delicate face untouched by age. 'Kiesja. You startled me.'

'Did you think me one of your love-struck girls?'

'You think I'd allow a girl in my private chambers?'

Kiesja's laugh was high and free. 'I'm only a year younger than you, brother, yet you keep treating me like a schoolgirl. I know what you get up to in here sometimes, late at night.'

'If you mean my personal studies, you would be absolutely correct.'

'Is that what you were doing at the academy?'

Kiet sighed. 'You heard about that?'

'Like I said. Quite the stir.' She crossed her arms. 'No less than eight girls are in the infirmary.'

'That—they came out of nowhere! There was a lot of pushing and shoving—'

'Those are synonyms, brother.'

'And really, if you want someone to blame, you should look to Khaisan. Just strolling in there half naked! What a walking heat-stroke!'

'You could have met here. The kitchens! Anywhere else! But no, you two pair of peacocks simply cannot pass an opportunity to infatuate more girls.'

'That is not fair. I went to the athenaeum so early to avoid this very mess. I had business there. I mean it, Kiesja, I'm so close to finding her.'

Kiesja chewed on her lip. A habit she never grew out of, despite their mother's best attempts. 'So you'll be departing again.'

'I have to follow where this leads me.'

'You were gone a full year to some whiteman's land and not six turns of the month after you returned, you left again for another year. Now you're home for, I believe five entire days and already you make plans to go.'

'It will be the last time, this I promise. Then we can settle away from here. Somewhere south of the kingdom. You'd like that. Closer to Mother's home.'

'You want to leave? What then, of her collection? Her entire life she spent building this place up.'

'Her nursery we can take, but the beasts ...' Kiet had forgotten about the menagerie. Some of them had been lost in the attack. Most had since been retrieved, especially the slower or larger creatures, but apes had gone loose, birds scattered through open windows. Jyesta had one day found a snake in her tub. Kiet suppressed a shudder. 'We will have to release them. They belong outside of four walls.'

'You were the one who caught most of them.'

'I indulged Mother, as we all did.'

'And here I thought you were already taking on the tradition.'

She meant the cage by the window, where his swiftlet slept. 'I'm only nursing it to health.'

'Pity. It's a common creature, but Mother would have loved a swiftlet so silver. It's our House colour, after all. She would have kept it in her collection.'

Kiet offered a non-committal grunt. The truth was he could bear not to as much as look at his mother's menagerie. Each and every creature was a journey together. He saw in them the beam on her face every time she told him of a magnificent beast she had heard of, the fervour in her voice when they planned their next hunt. Kiet bit back on the memory. 'And where might you be off to, dressed for ceremony?'

'Maha Rama Judhistir has requested the presence of all his unwed daughters.'

'What, all three of you?'

'It's not funny, Kiet. He has some balding raj in attendance ... one of his deceased brother's great-great grandchild or what have you.'

Again Kiet dropped his quill. This time it was deliberate. 'Will Jyesta, too, be there?'

'Oh! Gods forbid Jyesta is married off to an elderly!'

'You knew this was coming when you refused the hand of at least three dozen perfectly suitable contenders.'

'I know you did not just say that.'

Kiet smiled. He missed teasing his sisters. But Kiesja was right ... he had been gone for too long, too often. Who had watched over her and Jyesta in his absence? Their father? The thought made him laugh. 'You let me worry about the Maha Rama. It is time I called upon him, anyway. Go about your ceremony, and try not to be too much of a pain.'

She left, cursing her ill luck. If it were up to Kiesja, she would be roaming the continent herself. Her only ill luck was being born a woman.

Kiet left his chambers soon after. It was three-bells past noon and his man should have arrived by now. He met him in their private audience chamber. It was a small room made floor to ceiling of rich mahogany. Only a window interrupted the wooden inlay: large, spread like an open fan, and fashioned of many glass spheres. Light passed through, images did not.

His man was already seated right where the afternoon sun hit the floor. Objects were carefully lain upon the low table before him. A hand mirror, a spyglass, a ring far too small for his fingers.

He rose when Kiet entered, waiting for the prince to slide the door shut before speaking. 'M-Maharaj. I apologise that I could not come sooner.'

Kiet pulled a low chair and bade him sit.

Sindhu was no longer a young man. He was one of his mother's oldest servants, had seen Kiet and his sisters grow from suckling babes to adulthood. He was dark-skinned, thin, and soft-spoken. Kiet's mother never did see much in him, despite his long years of service. The last few years before her death, he had served as their family messenger, taking on long journeys across the realm. In the end, it had spared him his life.

But Kiet knew him and, to an extent, trusted him. It was Sindhu who taught him how to light a fire using nothing but sticks and stone, how to build traps and skin a rabbit, and many other things no one would think to teach a maharaj. It was from him Kiet learnt not to judge a man by his looks, for Sindhu was frail, yes, and he stuttered when he spoke, but he was much more clever than anyone gave credit for.

The evidence of that was right before them.

Kiet picked the mirror off the table, turned it over in his hands. 'You found it.'

'It was kept in the estates of the late M-Maharaj Kiaan. Hidden well, but I was able to track down a number of their former servants. They mentioned an ... antechamber I had not been aware of.'

Dhvani's long-dead son. Had he, too, indulged his mother? 'How did you pass through the gates?'

'The estates are in disuse since the m ...' He paused, drew in a deep breath. 'The murder. There are barely any guards, and nobody minds an old fool like ... me.'

Kiet's reflection smiled back at him. Runes were carved in gold around the glass, easy enough for him to read, though one of the more complex inscriptions he had ever come across.

'Have you discovered its ... function, m-maharaj?'

He had found its pair in Dhvani's consortial estate long ago. That one he kept in his bedchamber, had mulled over its inscriptions for weeks. 'It is as I suspected. These are a set of two—a communication apparatus of some kind. When the runes are triggered, it should reflect your image into the second mirror.'

'Another of her dark devices?'

'As are all her runes. Its power was stolen from a living child. This one had been a chronurgist. One of the rarer gifts. They are able to see visions of the present; some across short distances, the best of them across even oceans. It is imperative we find her runesmith and destroy this tool that allows them to take theurgy from its original wielder.'

Sindhu's face dropped. 'There have I failed you. Rajini Dhvani kept no ... notes in her late son's estates.'

Nor in her own. Kiet had turned the place upside-down, searched even Dhvani's labyrinths. All he found was a dungeon where she must have once conducted her experiments, but someone had already cleaned it out. 'And her palace servants?'

'Most had followed her from her maternal home and thence returned. A small estate in the district of Tapal Koda.'

All the way south of Surikhand. It was a lost cause. They would have all scattered by now. Kiet turned his attention on the other trinkets, gestured vaguely towards them. 'And these?'

'The rajini kept a private chamber in the Water Palace. She visited once a year.'

'Yes. She oversaw the annual Civil Service Examinations herself.' Kiet cursed. A thought had occurred upon him even as he spoke.

Sindhu saw it. 'These I found in her chambers. The m-masters there spoke of missing girls, as well.'

The spyglass was even more complex than the mirror. It fascinated Kiet, despite his consternation. Solid brass, capped with amaranth. He counted four pulls before it was at its full length. A sequence of rings were installed around every drawtube, each ring inscribed with a different set of runes. 'I will need to study these. It does not look new, at any rate. The lens shows signs of wear.'

'Neither is the ring, m-maharaj. It is rusted on the inside.'

Kiet sighed, leaned back in his seat.

They were not her, at least. Whatever her theurgy was, it did not supply these tools.

Still, he hesitated to ask. 'And ... what of the girl? The dhayang I asked you to look into?'

'She was not at the Water Palace.' Sindhu faltered. 'Only one girl had even heard of her. She was a bedmate of hers, here at the palace asraam. She was there the night it ... happened.'

'And?'

'She did not tell me anything new, m-maharaj. A man attacked them in the dead of night, she was knocked unconscious, and when she recovered ... her friend was gone. It was the last she saw or heard of her.'

Kiet's fist hit the table. Sindhu jumped. 'Forgive me. It is no impeachment of your service, Sindhu. I am responsible for this girl being here that night.'

'Are you certain of that? Nobody here claims to have seen such a girl.'

Nobody alive. His mother had lost many men that night, several servants even vanished without a trace. 'She was with me when I was poisoned.'

'Then perhaps—and you must have considered it yourself, but—'

'No. She never handled my drink that night. I took it from my servant, I served it. Her face when I fell ...' He could still hear her calling his name.

Her body had not been amongst the labyrinths or his mother's estates that night. She vanished just as Dhvani had vanished, and if the rajini had taken her, it only would have been for one purpose.

She'd be dead the moment Dhvani sucked the theurgy out of her. His only hope was that the rajini would be too deep in hiding to summon her runesmith.

'Even Rajini Chei makes no mention of a girl,' muttered Sindhu.

'Chei is not to be trusted! She has rotated her private guard, did you notice? Those that remain are as good as silver-servants. You'll find no answers from them. Most who were there that night have been sent off. My guess is to her paternal home. Perhaps we should consider a venture there.'

Chei was baseborn, her father a farmer. A woman of her roots had to work hard to get where she was today, and Kiet felt an admiration for her despite his distrust. She had made a name for herself before Judhistir married her. In return, the Maha Rama had gifted her father with lands large enough to build a fortress. The man built a village instead for his family and worked the lands into rice fields.

'You should rest for now.' Kiet stopped himself. He had almost forgotten. 'You have done well, Master Mandabu. I know this is not the kind of work you are accustomed to, and you must say so should you find it overwhelming.'

'It is my honour, m-maharaj. I only worry that you are so in need of men that you must rely upon ... me.'

Kiet chuckled. Judhistir saw to it that his mother's soldiers were replaced, but they were new faces, new names. His mother had chosen the ones she kept close by her side, and none of them survived that night. Not even Samrin, whom he despised. 'I would sooner put my life in your hands, than these soldiers Judhistir has for me gifted. But I mean to make their acquaintance.'

'Then I will excuse myself.' Sindhu bowed, then paused to think. 'What will you do with these instruments, m-maharaj?'

'Such evil objects. I cannot defend its application, expedient as they are. I will find a way to destroy them.'

'I worried as much.'

'You think I should use them.'

Sindhu sighed. 'The girls ... they have been consumed. Destroying these devices will bring them neither their lives nor justice.'

'And how am I to live with myself, if I were to benefit from their stolen gifts whilst pursuing justice against the one who in the first place stole them?'

'You may see it as helping them seek justice for themselves. That even in death their theurgy is to be used against the woman who m-murdered them.'

'Rationalisations is what this kingdom thrives upon. See where it has gotten us thus far. A Maha Rama who allows his consort to abduct children. Nobleborn picking off girls like a horse at the races.'

Sindhu smiled, bowed again deeper. 'Only a thought, m-maharaj. So think upon it.'

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↝ END CHAPTER FIVE ↜

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☆ this chapter is dedicated to stoopidfamous, another one of my long-time readers; thank you so much for your support! ☆

Video: Ambient sounds of Kiet's estate
Image: Photomanipulation + digital painting of Kiesja and Sindhu; map of Kiet's sleeping chamber by yours truly

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