With a humorless laugh, Maddek shook his head. “So it is only the minister Kintus who begrudges every grain of wheat our warriors eat.”
Her mouth full, Yvenne abruptly glanced at him again, pale eyes narrowing on his face.
He returned her look evenly. His earlier impression must have been wrong. She did not hide her face. Instead she stared up at him as boldly as ever.
Amused, he drank another swallow of mead and reached for one of the platters of roasted dally bird. Though he held her gaze, he spoke to Banek next. “Did you tell the innkeeper of the blood wraiths?”
“I did,” the older man said. “He’ll see that the warning is spread.”
Her attention shifting to Banek, Yvenne seemed to hesitate before venturing to say, “At the ruins, you recognized that it was not a simple fog. Have you encountered blood wraiths before?”
Without looking at her, Banek replied, “I have.”
He didn’t continue the story that Maddek had heard a multitude of times. After a long breath, Yvenne bowed her head again, her slim body tense, her throat working.
Maddek’s grip tightened on the pewter flagon. He waited.
All of his warriors remained quiet. Letting her feel their censure, because she had not run at the ruins.
It was a warrior’s punishment. But she was not a warrior.
And she would be their queen.
A better queen than Maddek had known. If they had seen her in the stable yard, they would have known as well—but he had sent them away. She had requested that he not humiliate her in front of his warriors, but Maddek had thought it would be Yvenne who humiliated herself when he asked her to do her duty by his mare. He’d believed she would balk and try to shirk her responsibility.
But she hadn’t balked. She had not even hesitated, except to admit her weakness. Then she had done what any good queen would do: delegate the task to the one who could perform it best.
And he had been angry with her. Angry enough to speak words that should not be said. He’d also mourned his mare. But he would not waste time wishing that his horse were alive, or that he had a more suitable bride.
What was done was done.
Slowly he set down the flagon. “Many warriors would be paralyzed with fear upon seeing a blood wraith, let alone a fog full of them.”
His warriors stopped their eating and looked to his face.
Jaw set, Maddek ripped a leg joint from the roasted bird and continued, “Is that not what you told us, Banek? That half the warriors in your party fell before the wraiths because they were too petrified to run?”
And no one thought ill of those warriors now.
The older man heaved a sigh. “It is.”
That was all that needed to be spoken, then. But it was not all Maddek had to say. “She is sensitive to dark magics. She felt a chill and yet I dismissed the warning it held, trusting instead that the dogs would alert us to any danger. Then I foolishly left her alone, far from proper protection—and so blame for the loss of my mare rests on my shoulders.”
He felt Yvenne’s gaze upon him, yet did not return her look. Instead he met the eyes of each of his warriors and made certain they understood him.
They did.
She had not run, but Yvenne was not theirs to punish. She was Maddek’s. In every way, she was his. If his warriors had an argument with his bride, they had best take it to him—or take it out on him.
Especially as he had failed her, too. She was weak and vulnerable and unprepared to face any threat alone. So if a punishment was to be given, Maddek ought to be the one to receive it.
By sacrificing his mare, he already had. Nothing more needed to be said or done.
Nodding, Kelir said, “Sensing magics is a useful gift.”
“For certain we will not stop anywhere she takes chill again,” Ardyl agreed.
Tearing meat from bone, Maddek said, “It will be her duty to warn us.”
“I will.” Her voice held the solemnity of a vow. “Without hesitation.”
Banek chuckled. “Hesitate if you are soaked to the bone or unclothed at night,” the older warrior told her. “You’ll need to learn the difference between a true chill and magic.”
“We need not fear a true chill.” Maddek eyed her mouth. “I will keep her warm enough.”
Her eyebrows shot upward. Around them erupted his warriors’ ribald laughter, and a slow grin curved her lips. Holding her gaze, Maddek began his meal, and she only looked away from him when Banek began to tell her of his encounter with the blood wraiths. It was an enthralling tale from the early days of the alliance, one that had taken Banek from the walls of Syssia to the cloud-wrapped mountains of Toleh, where a dark warlord had slaughtered and feasted on the villagers there. Maddek had heard it many times before and barely paid attention now. Instead he watched Yvenne’s features as she listened, rapt.
He had thought her as ice when she had killed her brother. He’d thought she felt no emotions at all. But she did, though they were not often worn clearly upon her face. And now he believed that ice had been rage—felt so deep and held so long that it had hardened within her, as steel from a furnace was sharpest after it had been shaped and cooled. For she had wished her brother more pain . . . and she had wished to save a dying horse from feeling any.
That was not ice. That was hatred for one and compassion for the other, and neither emotion sprang from cold ground.
And in truth, whether soaked to the bone or unclothed at night, it was she who would warm him. Even now Maddek could feel the smoldering warmth of her leg through her silk robe and his linens. Against him, she burned as Temra’s own molten heart did. A man might catch fire inside her.
Hanan be merciful, for he was ablaze simply sitting at her side.
Throat suddenly parched, Maddek reached for Yvenne’s mead and found it empty. He did not have to look far for more. Kelir had taken up a flirtation with one of the barmaids, a generously curved woman with pink in her cheeks. That flush might have come from how busy the crowded room had kept her and the other servers—or from whatever the warrior whispered into her ear.
Maddek lifted the mug, but it was not him that the barmaid’s gaze fixed upon. Though Kelir still smiled at her, he and Maddek no longer existed. Instead she stared at Yvenne—as if seeing her moonstone eyes for the first time.
Perhaps it was the first time. For Yvenne’s gaze had been downcast when Maddek arrived.
“By Vela . . .” The sound of the barmaid’s invocation was lost to the room’s din, but the shape was clear upon her lips. “You are goddess-touched?”
Yvenne shook her head. “My foremother was.”
The barmaid seemed no less impressed that it was her ancestor who had been blessed, but she could not hold Yvenne’s gaze for more than a moment. Eyes averted, she breathlessly said, “Is there anything I might bring you, my lady?”