Page 49 of Court of Talons
And I’m not the only one who thinks so, it appears, judging from the hard grins of the warriors. After three hundred years waiting for an attack that never came, interesting is new.
Interesting is, potentially, dangerous.
The first line of houses have known the truth about the Western Realms for the past centuries—that there was a threat so immense, so dire, that the imperial army left the Protectorate behind to face it alone. The emperor’s army had returned two hundred years later, only to flee a second time.
That’s what we know. But no one ever talks about the exact form of that threat, or at least I’ve never heard of it. And if it’s simply terrible raging creatures who strike fear into the heartsof their opponents, well, we have Divhs. Dozens of them. And plenty of warriors itching for a meaningful fight.
I can sense the energy in the room building further. These men, these warriors, are here without the guiding hand of their own House Lord. Is that why Rihad has chosen this moment for his bards to share such tantalizing news?
A second bard jumps to his feet. “My news is from the south,” he cries. “For a full six months, I traversed the coast of the Dark’ning Sea, weaving through rock and hill and endless rolling sand. I came upon the greatest House of all in the southern climes, the Third!”
A cheer goes up from the table housing the warriors of the Third House, and I watch the women with them as they refill the cups of the warriors from the flagons lining the table. Their actions are smooth, arch, and flirtatious, but are they also shrewd and focused, each acting according to a plan?
“So too do we find the Seventh House, and finally the Ninth at the very mouth of the southern citadels. Rich houses, both of them, but none so great as the Third, with their ferocious warriors who stare down the truth of their fiery borders.”
“There are no monsters to the south, bard,” rumbles a man from the center of the Third House Warriors. “There is only sand.”
“And the sand is monster enough, I know. I’ve heard it stated so often, my ears would fall off.” The bard turns around, laughing. “But you who live in the north, in these lands of water and trees and earth, let me paint the picture of the world of the southern warriors, that you might understand their fire.”
The bard spools on, regaling the wide-eyed listeners with stories of the sun’s merciless heat and the dryness of the air, the freezing cold of the nights under the open sky. The rich lands to either side of the few major rivers in the area, and the thriving sea industry controlled almost exclusively by the Third House.
Unsurprisingly, the warriors of the Third sponge all the tales up with pleasure, their grins growing wider and their eyes brighter as the wine pours more quickly into their cups and down their throats. By the time the bard is finished, the men are almost reeling.
“But we aren’t only graced with the bards to the west and south this night—nor only their warriors!” Another man I hadn’t noticed strides forth out of the crowd to take his place near the high table, and I quail back.
It’s Blackmoor, the bard who visited the Tenth House not two months earlier.
Chapter 19
“Merritt. I wondered where you’d gone to ground.”
I turn as Fortiss’s bold voice cuts across my nerves but seeing him here doesn’t make me any happier. I’m arguably the least of the warriors in this room, and the First House’s number one knight is tracking me down? That’s dangerous interest to court.
“Fortiss.” I nod, holding my ground as the First House knight and his gaggle of companions stride closer. Without hesitation, Fortiss hands one of the women toward me. I experience another excruciating moment of embarrassment as I grapple with her hand, finally succeeding in placing it on my arm. She’s as delicate as an orchid, and just as beautiful, and she stares up at me with wide, trusting eyes.
Councilor Miriam’s warning still rings in my ears, and I still almost fall for the act.
“This is Gemma,” Fortiss says, nodding to the fair-skinned brunette. Her eyes have the same dark intensity as Nazar’s, but she’s petite where he is rangy, and soft where he’s as weathered as an old tree. “And Elise. They both wanted to meet you.”
He grins broadly, but the woman on his arm doesn’t look at me when she smiles, but at Fortiss. Her eyes are even sharper than Gemma’s, and she tilts her head up with a careful precision, maximizing the beauty of her profile.
Heavy with beads and sparkling crystals, Elise’s blonde hair drops in thick coils over her shoulders and down to the hem of her fine dress.
Gemma, in contrast, has nothing in her hair but a delicate spray of white flowers at her crown. Her hair isn’t coiled either, but hangs in a straight dark fall down her back. She’s not as highly ranked among First House families as Elise, I think, but she’s lovely all the same.
I straighten, thinking of my own hair. I don’t regret lopping it off. The burdens of men are less tangled by far than those women must bear.
Gemma squeezes my arm. “You know this man who speaks of the eastern borders?” she asks, and her voice is as ethereal as the rest of her.
I send a look across the hall to Blackmoor. It’s a risk to disavow him, but I have no choice. “Not well,” I say. “And I’ve been traveling. There’s much to keep us busy at the Tenth, even when the bards come calling.”
The mysteriousness of my answer isn’t lost on her, and I see it again, the hint of shrewdness before it’s masked in dewy-eyed interest. “Travel is good,” she says softly. “I traveled long and far before arriving in this house.”
“Shh,” Elise says from Fortiss’s side. “He’s starting.”
My heart in my throat, I turn toward the bard.
“The eastern borders, I’m here to say, are far worse than the western, and even the south, though there is neither monster nor sand nor brutal heat and savage cold. But they run thick with forest and mountains, ridgelines cutting through your path in a thousand different places. You can pass a settlement likethe Tenth House and never know you missed it.” He shakes his head. “It was luck alone that got me there. The storms were torrential, and the skies seemed especially dark that fell eve, taking me deep into the mountain hold.”