Page 10 of Untempered
That was how these things always went.
And so it did this time, too. I tried to look absorbed in my meal while beside us my father spoke about the borderwars with Luca, whose knowledge of military history was surprisingly good for a scholar. I waited, knowing I could be called upon at any time—either for not listening enough, or for listening too closely. The tension was familiar, the exhaustion unavoidable. I finally got away when the music started and the ballrooms opened. The physical distance didn’t change the fear in the back of my brain. Much as I hated it, I knew I wasn’t safe.
And it wouldn’t change until my father was dead.
I breathed deeply of the perfumed air and smiled at people around me. I let them spin and myself drift, trying to not be dragged under by the sheer crush of sensation. Luca’s arm was my anchor.You can do this, Audrey.
“I see Fiona’s here, with Henry,” Luca said as we made our way through the crowd, our pace leisurely. “He’s competing in the sword.”
Much like my wedding, I tried not to think of Fiona. She was my closest living relative—and she resembled my mother far too much for interaction with her to be safe. The less attention I paid her, the less my father paid her. As for Henry… “I hope he wins a purse,” I admitted, quietly. “If he gets the mage academy up and running, it’ll be a boon.”
“Is that why he’s competing?” Luca asked, frowning slightly at me.
I shrugged. “I can only assume.”
We danced and talked. I tried to keep my focus on Luca, our companions, the groups we flitted between. Faces caught my attention, though. Familiar faces—families I knew, had learned the histories of, mostly, from the eastern side of the Aza Ranges, and others who’d traveled further, who I didn’t always know. Trying to keep track of them made my brain feel like I was being kicked with spurs. I smiled. I breathed. It swam about me.
“Ah, and from the other side of the ranges,” Luca was saying, turning us and lifting a hand in greeting. “Lady Audrey, this is lord Kadan.”
I knew the name and the associated territory. I’d heard it whispered about my entire life.Raider’s Ban. Home of the country’s best horseflesh and cavalry—and despised by my father.
As the noise and smells of the room rushed forward, I let my eyes dance over his face just briefly.
My hold on Luca kept me upright.
“A pleasure,” he was saying, with a bow. “May I, Luca?”
Luca was my anchor, and I clung. I couldn’t breathe.
The men from the orchard.
Luca was looking at me with understanding, that soft sickly sweetness that made me want to break his smiling mouth or fall into a weeping ball. “The ill will is one sided,” he told me, holding out his arm like he was handing over my reins to this lordling. My brain picked out odd details. The irregular pattern of sun-bleached streaks in lord Kadan’s dark blonde hair, the strange scar across his forehead, the crinkles at the side of his eyes that spoke of humor. My heart skittered against my ribs.
Where was Isolde? My head spun. Was this an ambush?
Luca thought I was upset about the ongoing feud. He had no idea.
But he was irrelevant. Luca was almost always irrelevant. Mayhap that was the way of sweet people. I forced myself to look at the horse lord’s face as my hand was placed in his.
“I’m glad to have a chance to meet you,” Kadan said, and his eyes weren’t flat like a siren’s as he guided me into the dance. I trod on one of his feet, and he spun me the other way, hiding the misstep. “As Luca said, I’d rather our parents’ arguments remain between them.”
He wasn’t decrying me. Did he recognize me?
A tiny bit of tension ebbed. It was enough that muscle memory could kick in, and my feet followed the right steps, finally. I let my eyes rest on the tip of one of his ears. He didn’t smell like horse anymore. My skin crawled.
He was the ’Ban heir. That meant the man today had been a ’Ban knight.
I’d had a knight in my grips. The memory of the solid weight was the memory of a ’Ban knight. I’dheld steelto the throat of a Raider’s Ban knight.
“Everyone’s staring,” he murmured, his smile softening a little. “If you smile a little and laugh, they’ll think we’re getting on, and this is normal, and we’ve just met.” He spun me away, and the music was pouring into my overfull brain agonizingly, competing to be soaked up alongside his words. I desperately focused on the movements as the words seeped into my mind.Battle energy. Isolde was always right, and I hated it. I couldn’t figure out what to do like this, and the Wife herself couldn’t have grounded while in the arms of the heir of Raider’s Ban.
But he wasn’t, this second, exposing me. I breathed out and focused on how my body was moving, the soft slide of the fabric against my legs, the comforting warmth of his hand on mine. His palms were calloused, and he didn’t hold too loosely, or too tightly.
“I heard you’d had a riding accident this afternoon,” he said in the middle of a pulsing, swirling crowd of people that made my head spin.
I couldn’t find any words.
“I’m glad you’re uninjured,” he went on. “Mayhap, while we’re here, we could go for a ride with you and Luca.”
