Chapter 5
There is no time to talk to Vaike before the welcoming feast.
Evran is still sitting on the edge of the bed, turning Torsten's words over in his mind, when Vaike returns from his meeting with the Rendari Warlord and the room immediately fills with motion.
Vaike changes his tunic, washes the dust of the day from his face and hands, and buckles on a ceremonial belt that Evran has never seen before, dark leather worked with silver, the Drakkari sigil stamped into the clasp.
He looks every inch a Warlord, and normally the sight of him dressed for an occasion would make Evran's chest warm with pride and possessive admiration, but tonight it only sharpens the urgency of the thing he needs to say.
Evran opens his mouth to speak, to say something happened, I need to tell you, but then Bran is at the door announcing that the delegation is assembling, and Leona is behind him with a look that says they are already running behind schedule, and the moment is gone before Evran can catch it.
He barely has time to make himself presentable.
He pulls on the best tunic he packed, dark wool with silver thread at the collar, something Aether made for occasions exactly this one, and runs his fingers through his hair and checks that the braid is in place.
He catches his reflection in the basin water and sees a man who looks composed and calm, whose hands are steady and whose expression betrays nothing of the heart trying to claw its way out of his chest. He holds his own gaze for a moment, testing the mask, confirming that it will hold, and decides that it will have to do.
He is pulled along with the delegation through corridors that are suddenly bright and busy, filled with the movement of multiple clans converging on the great hall.
The Drakkari retinue moves in formation, Vaike at the center, Bran and Leona flanking, the elite warriors forming a loose escort around them, and Evran is at Vaike's side, which is where Vaike put him and where Vaike clearly expects him to stay.
The position carries weight and meaning, and Evran knows that every person they pass is reading it, parsing the placement of the young man at the Warlord's right, the braid at his temple, the careful distance between their bodies that is both proprietary and protective.
The great hall at Heldrin's End is nothing like the one at home.
It is vast, the ceiling vaulted and ribbed with dark timber beams, and the walls are hung with tapestries depicting what Evran assumes is the history of the Rendari clan, battles and treaties and harvests rendered in thread and dye with the kind of skill that makes Evran's weaver's eye itch with admiration.
Iron chandeliers hang from chains, each one ablaze with candles that throw shifting light across everything, and the long tables are set with platters and pitchers and goblets.
The room smells of roasted meat and fresh bread and the sharp, heady tang of spiced mead.
It is full. Every clan is here now, their delegations seated at designated sections of the long tables, their banners displayed on the walls behind them.
Evran sees the deep green and silver of the Rendari, the charcoal and blue-black of the Drakkari, and two others he does not recognize, one in shades of ochre and rust, the other in pale blue and grey.
Pale blue and grey, and his stomach tightens because he knows those colors now, knows them in his body before his mind catches up, the Windfar colors, Torsten's colors, and the sight of them hanging on the wall sends a cold thread through his chest that he has to consciously unclench his jaw against.
They are greeted formally at the entrance by the Rendari Warlord, Harath, a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard and steady, intelligent eyes, who clasps Vaike's forearm in the warrior's greeting and speaks words of welcome that carry across the hall.
Evran is introduced, briefly but with respect, and Harath's gaze moves to the braid at his temple and his expression warms.
"The Drakkari clan is honored at our table," Harath says. "All of it."
They are seated. The Drakkari section is on the left side of the hall, near the high table where the Warlords and their immediate families will sit after the formal greetings are concluded.
Evran settles onto the bench beside Vaike, and Bran drops down across from them with the full weight of a day spent on his feet.
The hall fills with noise, conversation and laughter and the scrape of benches and the first tentative notes of musicians tuning in the far corner. Evran's eyes sweep the room automatically, a habit he did not know he had until this moment, and he finds what he is looking for almost immediately.
Torsten is seated with the Windfar delegation on the far side of the hall, three tables away, leaning back on his bench with a cup already in his hand, talking with easy animation to the man beside him. His posture is relaxed, confident, perfectly at home in any room he enters.
As Evran watches, Torsten's gaze lifts from his companion and travels across the hall with lazy precision, already knowing where to look.
He finds Evran. He winks.
Evran averts his gaze to his plate.
His heart is pounding again, rapid and relentless, the beat that crowds out thought and leaves nothing but the sound of his own blood in his ears.
He stares at the empty plate in front of him and breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and tries to make his face do something normal.
The wink was deliberate and intimate and entirely without shame, claiming a private understanding and reminding Evran that it exists, and the fact that Torsten did it in a hall full of witnesses, across three tables and a dozen conversations, with no fear of being caught or questioned, tells Evran something important about what he is dealing with.
The feast begins. Platters are brought out, whole roasted birds, haunches of venison, root vegetables in butter and herbs, loaves of bread still steaming from the oven.
Pitchers of mead and wine circulate, and the noise swells.
Around Evran, the Drakkari delegation falls upon the food with the enthusiasm of people who have spent three days eating trail rations, and for a while the table is nothing but the pleasant chaos of plates being filled and cups being raised and Bran making appreciative sounds that border on indecent.
Evran puts food on his plate. He moves it around with his knife. He takes small bites and chews mechanically and does not taste any of it.
An hour passes. The musicians have found their footing and are playing something bright and rhythmic that has people at the far tables clapping along, and the energy in the hall is high, the buzz of many people in one place who are, for the moment, choosing to enjoy each other's company.
Bran is deep in conversation with a Rendari warrior who seems to be an old friend, the two of them trading stories that grow louder and more embellished with each cup.
Leona is beside Bran, not participating in the conversation but not leaving either, which is her version of having a good time.
Naela is further down the table, laughing at something one of the other Drakkari warriors has said.
Vaike's free hand is on Evran's upper thigh.
It has been there since they sat down, warm and steady, and Evran has been drawing comfort from it without fully realizing until this moment how much he needs it.
The weight of that hand is the only thing keeping him tethered, the only thing preventing the cold anxiety in his chest from spiraling outward and consuming everything, and he presses his leg against Vaike's palm and takes what grounding he can from the contact.
Vaike leans down, his mouth close to Evran's ear, his voice low enough that no one else at the table will hear it.
"You're not hungry?"
Evran swallows. He looks at his plate, the food barely touched, the meat going cold, the bread torn but not eaten.
He has not been subtle about his distraction, and of course Vaike noticed, because Vaike notices everything, always, because that is how this man has survived as long as he has, by seeing the things that other people miss and understanding what they mean.
"Do you know that man over there from the Windfar clan? Second seat to the left," Evran says, without looking up.
Vaike looks over where Evran has indicated and then he makes a sound, low and brief, almost a grunt, carrying an entire sentence's worth of displeasure in a single exhale. "Torsten. Unfortunately." A pause. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I met him today and he needled me about everything to do with your rule. Like he was sizing you up."
Evran keeps his eyes on his plate. He can feel Vaike's gaze on the side of his face, steady and assessing, the weight of it familiar and grounding.
Vaike takes a long drink of his mead and sets the cup down. "That's not surprising."
"You're not worried?" Evran asks, and he cannot help it, he turns, finally, and looks at his husband.
Vaike's expression is calm, composed on the surface with everything happening far below, the way deep water can be perfectly still on its surface while currents churn beneath.
"That he might be looking for a weakness? "
"The summit breeds that sort of activity," Vaike says, his tone even, measured, as though they are discussing something as mundane as the weather or the quality of the mead.
"If you don't have someone questioning your right to rule, or outright challenging it, then you're not powerful enough to matter within the clans. "