Page 14 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones
Sass swallowed hard as she felt Lira’s eyes on her. She owed Vaskel the same honesty she’d finally given Lira. “Yes and no. I didn’t know it was Thrain who’d tracked me down.”
Lira gestured to the kitchen with the point of her knife. “Why don’t I work on breakfast while you bring Vaskel up to speed?”
Sass nodded, her nerves jangling even though she shouldn’t be nervous. She’d already told Lira, who was the one she’d kept secrets from the longest. Telling the Tiefling, who no doubt had a bevy of his own closely held secrets, should be easy. Then why did her heart race as she led Vaskel and Thrain into the great room?
Instead of taking up his usual post behind the bar, Vaskel took a seat at the end of one of the long tables. Sass sat across from him, and Thrain hesitated for a moment before choosing the spot next to her.
“So this fellow is your friend, but you were afraid he was someone else?” Vaskel jerked his head toward Thrain. “Someone you wouldn’t be sitting calmly next to right about now?”
Sass rubbed her hands down the front of her apron. “Aye, that’s the gist of it. I told Lira I left the Ice Lands because I didn’t want to be a miner, which was true, but the whole truth is that I ran away from an arranged marriage.”
This made Vaskel’s dark brows lift. “You’re a runaway bride?”
“She’s a bride who ran away from a royal wedding,” Thrain added, which gained him a dirty look from Sass.
“A royal wedding?” Vaskel swept a hand through his black hair, his fingers bumping along the ridges of his scarlet horns. “Are you telling me you’re a princess, Sass?”
“That she is,” Thrain answered before Sass could.
“Thank you, Thrain,” she said through gritted teeth, pinning him with a scorching look. “Why don’t you let me tell it?”
Thrain lifted his hands as if in supplication. “Fine by me, lass, although it seems you’ve had plenty of time to tell folks before now.”
Sass dearly wished she had Lira’s newfound elf power to blast energy from her hands, but her angry glare seemed to do the trick, and Thrain crossed his arms and pressed his lips together.
“It’s true, I’ve kept my past a secret,” Sass told Vaskel when she turned her attention back to him, “but it was only because I left all that behind me. I came to Wayside for a fresh start. Not for folks to treat me differently because my family rules beneath the mountains.”
Vaskel nodded slowly. “We all have a past and things in it we’d like to forget. You don’t need to explain your reasons to me.”
Sass wondered exactly what secrets the Tiefling was keeping to himself, but she suspected they were much more scandalous than hers.
“You should know that my past is no longer in my past,“ Sass continued. “Thrain came here to warn me that my former fiancée has been searching for me with an armed party.”
“A former fiancée who stabbed another dwarf for calling her princess,” Thrain added, holding up a finger. “When she was four years old.”
Vaskel face went slack and he slid a worried glance to Sass. “It isn’t dwarf custom to put a runaway bride to death, is it?”
“Grognick’s beard!” Thrain said, rearing back. “Dwarves might be formidable warriors, but we aren’t brutes.”
Vaskel didn’t look convinced. The story about Florin probably hadn’t helped.
“Florin isn’t coming to kill me. I took something when I left.” Sass shook her head, regretting her impulsive decision not for the first time. “It was an engagement present—an amulet crafted by Florin’s clan.”
Vaskel twirled the tip of his short beard with two fingers. “That’s a long way to travel for a piece of jewelry.”
“It’s not just for the jewelry,” Lira said as she emerged from the kitchen with a tray in her hand. “Her jilted ex wants Sass back.”
Vaskel leaned back as Lira slid the tray onto the table in front of them. Rounds of pale, pockmarked bread filled a plate, and a generous scoop of butter clung to the lip. A pewter pot of jam sat off to the side with a spoon balanced across the lip.
“Your dwarven flatbread has a few holes in it,” Thrain told Lira as he eyed the offering.
Sass elbowed him, but Lira was already laughing.
“This isn’t dwarven flatbread. These are crumpets, and they’re supposed to have holes.”
Sass breathed in the rich scent of the steam rising from the plate.
“Go on,” Lira said. “But make sure you put butter and jam on them.”
