Chapter fifteen
Of Natyzha Famphreon’s chavonths, and her son“Speak up, cramph!” I loosed my grip a little and some air flowed down with a great whooping gasp into his lungs. His face was a bright purple, like a rotten gregarian. He wheezed. I thought his eyes might roll out of his head. So I shook him again, just to keep him in the right frame of mind.
He choked out: “The Princess Dayra, she is nothing more than a—”
I hit him before he could say whatever he was going to say.
I suppose I was oversensitive about my daughters because I had held my Velia in my arms as she died. I could never forget that — what father could? So I hit him again and said, “Speak carefully, Imlien, speak very carefully.”
“I do not know!” he blubbered out, his face already beginning to swell, a trickle of blo
