Page 50 of Ties of Frost

After all, what did he see in me?

I knew what every woman who had ever swooned over Kyrundar Ilifir saw. I saw it, too. He was the most attractive man I’d ever met—tall, muscular enough to be striking but not so much that he seemed uncomfortably chiseled out of rock, with a sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and those ice-blue eyes and silken, white-blond hair like a waterfall over his shoulders. But Kyrundar was so much more than that. His confidence sometimes grated, but perhaps that was because I envied his self-assurance. Despite being an ice elf, he had an inviting, exuberant smile that could melt a glacier’s heart. He had a way of drawing people in, making them feel included, and inciting celebration amid the most mundane gatherings.

And he had swooning female fans the empire over, constantly foiled my plans, never took anything seriously enough, and was a distraction in battle. This newfound attraction wouldn’t last, so I shouldn’t entertain it.

So I did what any fearless rengir would do.

I changed the subject.

“I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted and allow the night elf to escape.” I tore off a blade of stiff grass and started tying it in knots. “We need more answers than what the panthera and wolvus provided. I should also warn Sajen.I should have already told him to abandon it, but I’d hoped this would go away—or perhaps that he’d find something.”

“What does Sajen have to do with anything?”

I leaned my head back against the domed shelter. It was cool, but not freezing. “I let him talk me into allowing him to help me,” I grumbled. “He was going to ask around about the attackers at Grivolen. If this night elf is associated with whatever the league is, they are serious about keeping their secrets. What if Sajen is in danger because of me?” I grunted and tossed aside the knotted grass. “This is why I don’t ask for help! I stand alone, and I fall alone.”

If assassins harmed Sajen because of me, I wouldn’t forgive myself easily.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kyrundar stretched out his legs. “We’re rengiri. We’re meant to stand together.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shook my head. He would never understand. “I’m going to sleep.”

But Kyrundar’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. Not by force. His touch was light, undemanding and easily escaped. Still, his hand arrested my movement.

“Zee,” he said softly. “Do you push me away because of me, or because of you?”

“Both,” I blurted. What did it matter? He might be able to sense the truth through the heartbond he kept accessing, anyway. “How am I supposed to prove myself with you or anyone else interfering? How will I know if the outcome, positive or negative, would have been the same withoutinterference? If I do something on my own, I’ll know I earned the results, good or bad—and so will my family. You know wyveri are matriarchal, right?”

He nodded and released my shoulder. “Ever since the wyveri king died after summoning Ascadrion. You have clans, right? Each ruled by a family with the matriarch at the head, and they answer to a queen?”

“Basically, although it’s more like the queen answers to the matriarchs except to judge disputes between the clans.” I buried my fingers in the grass beside me. “My mother is the matriarch of our clan.”

Kyrundar was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, the question wasn’t what I expected, although it made sense. “Is your sister older or younger?”

“Younger.”

The word hung in the muffled quiet.

“You left your role as the next matriarch to be a rengir,” he said. There was no judgment in his tone, simply a gentle observation.

His acceptance crumbled the last of my reticence, and words flowed from my mouth.

“My decision to go to Harcos simultaneously enraged and pleased my mother and sister. I’m not sure my older brother cared much either way.” I moved my fingers around in the grass, tangling them in grass blades. “Wyveri value strength and self-sufficiency. Well, we say we value self-control, honor, humility, wisdom, and intelligence, in part because we fear being known only for our capacity for destruction. But we don’t tend to be very good at supportingeach other in those goals. We’re supposed to be honorable and discerning and to exercise self-control on our own, just like we fly on our own.”

Kyrundar snorted. “Wyveri have wings. Of course you fly on your own.”

I pursed my lips. “I mean as children.”

He straightened. “Are you talking about learning to fly? I’ve heard some birds push their young out of the nest, but surely wyveri don’t—”

“Essentially. Once we can shift reliably and our wings are deemed strong enough, we leap off a cliff over the rocky coast into the strong winds off the sea, and we either fly or we die.”

“What!” I winced at his loud voice so close to my ear. “Sorry. But, what? How old were you? And how old would an elf be?”

“Usually around eight, so that would be the same for an elf.” Humans, shifters, and elves had similar development until around age twelve, but after that, shifter aging slowed to less than one-third the rate of a human, and elves’ aging to nearly one-ninth the rate of a human. That was why, despite Kyrundar being one hundred and fifty-five while I was seventy, we were roughly the same age relative to our lifespans.

---