The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

“Thank you,” I say, and give in to my own curiosity. After all, if he can ask what I’m doing here, I can ask the same of him. Politely, as one does in court. “Are you staying here in Tarinon very long, then?”

“For the time being: I serve as permanent ambassador from Chariksen.”

I make a thoughtful sound. “Do permanent ambassadors normally walk around the countryside looking for horses?”

“Sometimes,” he says, his eyes brightening with amusement until it seems that starlight dances over them. It’s utterly unnerving. “When the fancy takes us.” He nods his head toward Mina. “I believe you are being called. I look forward to meeting you again.”

I take my leave of him with some relief and join Mina where she hovers behind the princess. Alyrra is chatting with Kestrin as well as his cousin Garrin and a middle-aged man who bears such a striking resemblance to the prince he can only be the king. The noblewoman Mina greeted earlier remains at a distance, clearly having decided she does not yet need to meet me.

“Ah,” the middle-aged man says, shifting to look at me. “This must be your newest attendant.”

At least this time I remember to curtsy. Filadon would be relieved.

“Tarin,” Alyrra says, confirming my suspicions, “allow me to introduce Kelari Amraeya ni Ansarim, cousin by marriage to Verin Filadon. She does me the honor of attending me.”

“Indeed,” the king says, dipping his head in acknowledgment. “We have long been pleased with Verin Filadon’s service, and welcome you to the palace, kelari. In a court as renowned as ours for hospitality, I have no doubt you will be made welcome.”

“Thank you, tarin,” I manage, well aware that the whole of the room is listening now, and the king has just commanded their support of me.

The king, thankfully, seems to consider our conversation done, and turns to lead the way into the dining room.

I spend the meal seated toward the end of the table, Mina across from me and a few seats farther up. Those nearest me do no more than smile and bid me welcome. They are none of them rude, and for that, I suppose, I must thank the king. But not one of them converses with me more than necessary.

I find my eyes drifting to Stonemane, seated across the table and halfway up. Across from him, barely visible to me, sit the merpeople. Stonemane is engaged in quiet conversation with the lord to his left, but as he turns back to his plate, his gaze catches mine. A faint, derisive smile plays over his lips, as if he knows better than to read anything into my study of him. Embarrassed, I drop my gaze to my plate of spiced, curried goat on its bed of fragrant rice.

“You know the foreign ambassador, kelari?” the lady at my right asks, her expression keen.

“We have met before,” I say, grateful to have someone to speak with. “He came to stay at my family’s home once.”

In order to buy horses from us, but there’s no reason to mention that.

“How curious! But you did not know who he was? You seemed quite surprised to meet him here.”

“I did not know he was an ambassador, veria,” I admit. “But certainly we knew he was a nobleman.”

“Hmm. Country families must have little regard for propriety if you did not know that much.”

Oh, the nerve of the woman! “We at least know how to give a guest their due,” I say sweetly.

“You cannot do so if you don’t concern yourself with learning the simplest things about your guest,” she says, all gentle condescension. “At least you have found one friend here, though. That must be a relief for you.”

“Quite,” I say, and turn my attention to my meal. But her words settle into me. I cannot avoid the truth that I wasn’t relieved to see Stonemane. I’m far too conscious of his beauty, no doubt in large part because of my own lack of grace or looks.

I glance back up the table at Stonemane, at his long, slender fingers wrapped around his meat knife, at the line of his jaw, and feel that same tightening within my chest, as if I were drawing in, hardening my heart. I look down, take a bite mechanically, the food tasteless in my mouth. Have I really grown so little? I thought I had made some peace with myself after his visit, some peace with how much anger I carried for how people see me. You should on occasion be kinder to yourself, he had told me when he gifted me my bone knife.

But here I am, reacting the same way again to his beauty, even if I might consider him now a friendly acquaintance, if not actually a friend. And who else have I thought less of, because of their beauty rather than their character? I don’t want to do the same to others, regardless of whether they are as beautiful as the Fae, or as plain and different as I.

Seated beside Kestrin is his cousin Garrin, whom I’ve barely spoken to, who greeted me yesterday when he did not have to—no doubt to support his cousin’s betrothed, but still. I had seen only a man who was too beautiful for his own good. Why had I let myself think such things?

How easy it was to sit among my family and promise myself I would change, that I would be kinder to myself, that I would not judge others harshly because of the hurts I’ve nursed. Cripple. Turnfoot. Words that have haunted me my whole life—I thought I would cut them out of me, allow myself to live without the certainty that I was somehow less: less beautiful, less deserving.

I had taken the bone knife Stonemane gave me and promised myself I would do better. And yet I have not changed at all.

Chapter

16

Alyrra seems pleased with my first court appearance. We return to her rooms, and after a few