Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAY
Come now, Victor, I know you better than that.
‘Limited importance’? Magic? You’ll win and lose battles on the backs of those magic men.
I’m sending you another company—and I’ve got Xander leading them.
If you don’t want a live sorcerer...I do.
—in a letter from General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough to General Victor, Duke of La’Angi
La’Angi Keep
She’d breezed through everything. The entire day at the market, greeting people, shaking hands, laughing at jokes, listening with compassion as they talked about the people they’d lost in the plague, or the war.
I’d been prepared for chaos and panic. Part of me hadn’t forgotten that one night when she’d screamed at me, herself, and the whole world with tears and snot running down her face while Isolde had been out in the orchard, sick and in the hands of the worgs.
Part of me would never forget the way she shrank away from me.
But no matter how closely I watched her, all I saw was grace and warmth.
At the feast she glittered in a beautifully tailored dress with golden embroidery as she stood in front of scores of the most important, the richest, and the most outgoing nobles, merchants, and wealthy.
There weren’t very many important faces I didn’t see in the crowd.
Luca walked through my field of vision, and I let my eyes move elsewhere. Not everyone was important.
“I’m so glad to see our city full after the winter we’ve had,” Audrey said, as they all gazed at her.
Servants appeared by the subtle passages built for their use, hands full, and waited.
“My lords and ladies, visiting dignitaries, and those who helped to make this event happen, I hope you can feel our joy as you do us the honor of allowing us to host you. In deference to those who I saw today at the faire, who are no doubt famished and weary, I’ll save longer speeches for other days.
” Her smile was brilliant. It made me want to smile along, too.
She gave a gentle wave of one hand toward the already laden tables, and she completed her brief speech with, “Please—enjoy.”
I’d seen her sit across from Ylva, oblivious to the woman’s flirting.
Now, she flitted from table to table, deftly responding to social cues.
I was waved away to eat and quickly summoned by my old friends.
Seated between Kadan and Callum, I couldn’t follow their conversation, watching her with the weight of the keep on my chest.
Watching her live might be hard.
Watching her die would be harder.
She was nodding thoughtfully at the conversation being held by a group of younger men from the south-east. I knew some of their names.
I’d fought some of them in tourneys, but most of them were too young for that.
She wrapped up that conversation with a remark that left them gazing after her with amused chagrin.
The angle of her hand allowed me to see the contents of the place delicately balanced on three fingers.
Some roast vegetables, a slice of meat, and a serve of pie, with dumplings on the top.
I looked down at my own plate, similarly laden, though much more generously. The dumpling atop the fragrant pie shone at me, golden on top, gooey on the bottom.
She’d hate it. I’d seen her gagging on soggy bread, then choking it down. More often, I’d seen her go hungry or hunt for an alternative.
Yet she alighted next to a group of older noblewomen and settled, taking a delicate forkful of rich, soft, but decidedly soggy dumpling and slipping it between her lips. No gagging, no fuss.
Was she really here? Or was it just that I didn’t know her anymore?
“That’s not the look of a man on duty,” Kadan said under his breath, nudging me. “Be careful. You’re being watched.”
I looked down at my plate again, forking up my food from muscle memory, not thought. Don’t stare. Don’t stare. “Who?” I asked him.
“Later,” he told me, the words under his breath. “Jerome! Have you tried the blueberry knappchs?”
I swallowed the food. It tasted like dirt.
Mayhap it wasn’t her who’d changed beyond recognition.
But I couldn’t ask Kadan, even though he was right beside me, because a group of men I knew only as not friends settled at the table with exuberance.
I tried to follow their conversation and counted down the moments until I could return to her shadow again.