some of the Voice reports are commenting on how much time you seem to be spending here in the Palace. There's speculation that your presence here indicates you've decided to become one of 'Zindel's men.''thinspace''
She paused, and Kinlafia cocked his head slightly to one side.
'I've seen the reports, Your Highness,' he said. 'May I ask why you mention them?'
'I know from something Yanamar said that Father didn't want it to seem as if he was too openly supporting your candidacy. But I've also noticed he seems to be spending an extraordinary amount of time talking to you … especially for someone who hasn't even won election yet. I was just wondering if you and he had changed your minds about the possible implications of his openly supporting you. Or, at least, appearing to support you?'
She looked at him very steadily, and saw something like recognition flicker back in those brown eyes of his, but he didn't reply immediately. Instead, he sat there for several seconds, gazing at her thoughtfully
– much as Shamir Taje might have. That thought danced through the back of Andrin's brain, and as it did, she realized that one of the things which most appealed to her about Kinlafia was that he and Taje were the only two men, apart from her father, who didn't seem to care about her youthfulness when she asked a question. They actually thought about those questions, about their responses to them, because they extended respect to the person asking them, not simply out of courtesy to the title of that person.
Then he tilted his head to one side, glancing at Prince Howan, and arched one eyebrow.
'King Junni has become one of Father's closer allies, Voice Kinlafia,' Andrin told him. 'I don't think we need to worry about the Prince's discretion, do we, Your Highness?'
'Most assuredly not, Your Grand Imperial Highness,' Prince Howan responded with a slight smile. His Ternathian had improved enormously over the last couple of months, thanks in no small part to the services of a Voice language tutor, and the irony in his tone came through perfectly. Then his expression sobered. 'Still, I will certainly understand if Voice Kinlafia would prefer to answer your question in privacy.'
The Eniathian prince started to stand, but Kinlafia shook his head.
'If Her Highness trusts your discretion, Prince Howan, then certainly I do, as well,' he said. The prince looked at him for a moment, then inclined his head in a small bow which mingled acknowledgment and appreciation of the implicit compliment. He sat back down, and Kinlafia turned to Andrin.
'Actually, Your Highness, I don't really think you were wondering about campaign strategies at all, were you?'
Andrin's eyes widened. Despite what she'd just been thinking, his directness-and perceptiveness-
surprised her. No wonder Alazon was so attracted to him!
'You're right,' she admitted. 'I suppose I'm just not used to asking such questions directly.'
'With all due respect, Your Highness,' Alazon put in, 'you should get used to it.' Andrin looked at her, and the Privy Voice shrugged. 'You happen to be Heir-Secondary, Your Highness. Yes, you're young.
But don't let the natural deference of youth keep you from asking the questions you need to ask and demanding the answers to them.'
Andrin glanced at Prince Howan, the only other person at the table remotely her own age. His expression gave away very little, but she thought she saw a trace of agreement in his almond eyes as he looked at the Privy Voice. And as Andrin considered the advice herself, she remembered that Alazon Yanamar was far more than simply her father's privy voice. She thought about it for several seconds, then nodded in acknowledgment and moved her eyes back to Kinlafia.
'Taking Alazon's advice, Voice Kinlafia, am I just imagining that Father-and First Councilor Taje-
both seem to be treating you much more as if you'd been a family adviser for years than like someone who just got back from Hell's Gate less than two weeks ago?'
'I-' Kinlafia began, and paused. He looked very thoughtful for a moment or two, then he gave a little shrug of his own-very much like Alazon's had been-and nodded.
'I wouldn't say they regard me as any sort of adviser, Your Highness. And they certainly don't regard me as any sort of retainer, or as some sort of official member of your household or administration. But there have been certain … developments, since your brother sent that flatteringly inaccurate letter of recommendation to your father. I'd really rather not go into all of them at this point, but-' he looked into her eyes once more '-some of them, at least, concern you.'
'Me?' Andrin's pulse fluttered ever so slightly as she remembered her own thoughts during the Unification Parade. 'Is it something Father's Glimpsed?' she asked.
'To some extent, yes.'
She could tell Kinlafia hadn't really wanted to admit that, yet she felt strangely certain he'd never been tempted to lie to her, however diplomatically. The front of her brain told her she should take her cue from him, let it rest where it was. She'd already learned more than she'd really expected to, after all.
'Can you tell me what he's Seen?' she asked, instead.
'No, Your Highness. Not without his permission, I'm afraid.'
Andrin felt a quick, brief flicker of anger-a spike of almost-rage, made far stronger by the background of her endless days of anxiety and fear for Janaki-and Kinlafia was a Voice. She knew he'd felt her anger, but he only looked back at her steadily, and anger turned into respect.
'I can … appreciate your discretion, Voice Kinlafia,' she told him after a moment. 'That's not to say I don't wish you could be more forthcoming.' She sipped from her lemonade glass once more, then lowered it. 'I'm sure you're well aware that Father and I have been experiencing an entire cascade of Glimpses for the past several days. It's a very … uncomfortable sensation. It worries me. No, it scares me, and I suppose that makes me more anxious than usual for some kind of reassurance.'
'I do know about the Glimpses, Your Highness.'
He looked across the table at her, his eyes filled with a compassion which seemed somehow only warmer and deeper because of her awareness of what he himself had endured. He was like her father in some ways, she realized. From a different sequence of causes, perhaps, but with that same inner core of strength. Not so much of toughness, or hardness, but of purpose. Of determination to meet whatever challenges the Triad might see fit to throw before them.
Was he always like that, I wonder? Or did what happened to him at Fallen Timbers change him that deeply?
'I will tell you this, Your Highness,' he continued. 'Your father-as I'm sure you need no one in the multiverse to tell you-loves you very, very deeply. I haven't known you very long myself, but I can already understand why that is. I've told your father that if I win election to Parliament, my opinions will be my own, and that if I disagree with him, I'll say so. I meant that then, and I mean it now. But since then, I've been privileged to come to know him-and you-far better than I ever expected I would. And speaking as Darcel Kinlafia, not Voice Kinlafia, and not Parliamentary Representative Kinlafia, I would count it an honor if you would call upon me for anything you need.'
Andrin's eyes widened once more in fresh surprise. People told her father-and her, to some extent-
that sort of thing every day. Sometimes they even meant it. But coming from Kinlafia, it was … different, somehow. There was an echo almost of what she often sensed from chan Zindico and her other personal armsmen, and yet that wasn't quite correct, either. Chan Zindico and the others were her family's loyal retainers- her servants, when it came right down to it. Even though it would never have occurred to her to think of them as such, they were always aware of that relationship. It helped define not simply how they regarded her, but who they themselves were.
Darcel Kinlafia didn't see her that way. She'd never been 'his' grand imperial princess, although she supposed that was technically going to change in about eighteen hours. There was no institutional, dynastic sense of loyalty in what he'd just said, and in a way Andrin doubted she would ever be able to explain, even to herself, that made the sincerity of what he'd just said indescribably precious. He meant it when he said he would be honored to help her, and there was no reason why he had to be. No basis for her to simply expect him to be.
'Voice Kinlafia, I-'
She paused, her eyes burning strangely, and he reached across the table and very gently took her hand. It could have been a presumption, an intrusion, but instead of drawing back, her wrist turned as if of its own volition, meeting his hand palm-to-palm, and as she felt him squeeze her fingers, something clicked almost audibly deep down inside her. The bumblebees buzzed louder under her skin, the sound almost deafening, and something
