Her lips twitching, her gaze rose as if to appraise it. “Indeed. Placed very neatly above his eyes, where a brow should be.”
“Those eyes are also keen. Only half the riders in Parsathe have keener vision than he.”
“Commendable. And when he scowls at us, those keen eyes appear quite dark, which I like very much,” she mused while Maddek lifted his mug. “And even though he laughs as he drinks, he dribbles no mead down his chin. By his own admission, a beard free of drips is preferable to one that is not.”
“He is remarkably adept at drinking and eating,” Kelir agreed. “It is thanks to his strong jaw. I have seen him consume a roasted grass rodent in a single bite.”
“Is that impressive? How large is a grass rodent?”
Kelir demonstrated with his hands, and Yvenne began giggling.
“To be fair, he ate a young one, and most of it was tail,” Kelir added, then lowered his voice as if confiding in her and as if Maddek did not sit between them. “His beard is a foul sight.”
Her eyes widened. “Is it?”
“Warriors should be as silver-fingered Rani.” Kelir rubbed his own shaved jaw. “Rani has a smooth face. As I do. As we all do—though Danoh and Ardyl have an easier time of it.”
Slowly she nodded. “So you are the more handsome.”
“I am. Unless you think this hideous and repulsive.” He traced the scar that raked down the side of his face.
Though her expression didn’t alter, Yvenne’s leg tensed against Maddek’s. “Are scars repulsive?”
“The barmaid thought not,” Maddek remarked dryly, and Kelir grinned.
“She did not,” he agreed.
Those moonstone eyes met his. “Do you think scars are repulsive?”
“No.” Maddek set down his mead. “Scars are but stories for a warrior to tell. Just as the smiling lines on that woman’s face are.”
By the appreciative light that lifted through her expression, Yvenne liked that answer.
Maddek thought she would enjoy something else more. “Ask Kelir to tell you how he earned that scar.”
The warrior groaned.
Across the table, a laughing Fassad broke in. “If you do not tell it, we will—and you will fare far worse for it.”
Kelir narrowed his eyes at the other warrior. “You were not there to see it happen.”
“But we have heard the tale many times over.” Fassad gestured to Maddek. “Most often from him.”
“You heard the worst telling of it, then.” Submitting to the inevitable, however, Kelir turned to Yvenne again. “It was during the campaign against Stranik’s Fang. We’d crossed the Lave and ridden south for a full turn when we came upon a great herd of three-horned fanheads.”
Beside him, Yvenne sucked in a sharp breath. Her wide eyes searched Kelir’s face before tripping to meet Maddek’s, then returning to Kelir again. “Fanheads?”
She sounded almost disbelieving, though they’d seen a family of the heavy reptiles only a day past. She had looked at them wonderingly then—but seemed far more surprised now at their mere mention.
Kelir nodded. “As far as could be seen.”
She stared at him, lips parted. “Go on.”
“It had been a long day of riding through a narrow canyon.” He gestured to Maddek beside him. “I remember not how we came to speak of it—”
“We had been comparing drepa hunts,” Maddek supplied. He flicked the four raptor claws threaded on the leather cord around his neck, clicking them together. “Kelir only had two then.” And three now. “He thought to make up the difference with the fanhead’s snout horn.”
“I would have. From it, I’d have carved the finest hilt ever gripped by Parsathean hands.” Kelir looked to Yvenne again. “There was a bull, the largest ever have I seen. And I approached it so slowly—”
“But it charged,” Yvenne broke in, her eyes bright. “And struck you with its two longhorns, tossing you into the air—that was when your cheek was laid open—but you managed to grip its frill and find a seat upon its back. Then it ran, so far and so fast. It took half the night for Maddek and a dozen other warriors to chase you down.”
Kelir shot a dismayed glance at Banek. “You told her?”
Brow furrowed, the older warrior shook his head.
“My mother did,” Yvenne said, and let go a merry laugh. “Until this moment, I had not known the warrior who’d ridden the fanhead was you. Oh, but I remember how she described it all—that the bull was almost twice as tall as you were, and that its frill was as green as new grass.”
It had been green. Most were not. The three-horned fanheads they’d passed the previous day had red and yellow frills.
Unease squirreling up his spine, Maddek frowned. “Your mother told you?”
“We followed the campaign closely from our chamber.” Some of the amusement bled from her tone, replaced by melancholy. “She would have given anything to march with the alliance’s army. Perhaps even lead it.”
But the warrior-queen’s body had been wasted by poison—and Maddek’s mother had led the army, instead.
“She watched us?” A glance at the other warriors confirmed that they were as unsettled by the thought as Maddek was.
“Yes.” Softly biting her bottom lip, Yvenne searched his face before looking to the others. “Not only the army. Everyone.”
“Everyone?”
Her gaze returned to his. “The alliance council. Other royal houses. People within villages and cities and outlands.”
“Only in the southern realms?”
“Parsathe, too. Sometimes farther. She often looked for the Destroyer, but his magics concealed him from her eyes.”
At this moment, Maddek cared not about the Destroyer. “She watched my mother? Envied her?”
Yvenne’s pale eyes hardened until they resembled the moonstone they were named after. Tautly she said, “Do not suggest that my mother conspired against yours.”
He would not. Queen Vyssen had died three years ago, and Yvenne sent the message to his parents in the past year. But in that tower chamber, more than Nyset’s heir might have been bred and fostered. “I wonder if it was not your mother who harbored a hatred of mine, for all that she had done and Queen Vyssen could not.”
“You think my father did? He hates everyone.” But a breath later she understood his meaning. The realization was followed by a bitter and disbelieving laugh. “You think I did?”