Count Kirth’s manor erupted into chaos when he announced to his staff that they would be arranging a wedding ceremony and feast to take place that very day. His wife, Countess Tria, swept forth from her chambers bearing her very own wedding dress. “The Caretaker did not bless me with daughters, and I will be cursed by the black spirits before I let this beautiful thing go to waste,” she said. The menfolk looked on bemusedly as she and a gaggle of maids abducted Amira into the countess’s chambers.
Dardan himself was provided with a simple suit of black linen that Count Kirth summoned from somewhere. In short order he had been marched to the town’s temple, which had been built in the same thrifty style as everything else in Tyndam. It was narrow, the altars small, and the sacred circle only perhaps three paces across. Dardan was introduced to Sendraj Tevin, a ruggedly handsome young steward with a flowing mane of golden hair. Somewhere, girls wailed that the Caretaker had chosen such a man for his servant.
After an interminable wait, during which a nervous Dardan was (by custom) confined to the sacred circle, Amira appeared. The dress might be thirty years out of fashion, but it did not diminish Amira’s beauty one bit; rather it enhanced her radiance, and the flowers woven into her hair seemed as natural as if they had grown there.
Count Barnard and his wife served as witnesses, standing across the upper edge of the circle from one another. Their valai stood between them on the other edges, forming a cross. At a properly planned wedding, a crowd of family and friends would encircle them in deep ranks, but four witnesses was the fewest that Sendraj Tevin could accept.
Amira was so lovely that Dardan could barely attend to the steward’s words. Amira recited the bride-oaths, and Dardan the groom’s, and then at the last moment a young boy came running into the temple, carrying two thin golden bands. Dardan had no idea who he was, but Count Barnard smiled at him and ruffled his hair, then handed the rings to the steward. As Tevin led them all in the final chant, he handed one ring each to Dardan and Amira. She slipped the larger ring onto Dardan’s right hand, and he put the smaller ring on hers. Tears fell from her eyes when they clasped their hands together, and Dardan felt a lump in his throat—but he was more stunned than anything else.
The ceremony ended. Dardan clutched Amira in a kiss as the count and countess and their valai applauded. Amira was embraced by the countess and her vala while Count Barnard shook Dardan’s hand vigorously. “Well done, my boy.” He nodded to the steward.
“May all that is good and holy lead your way,” Sendraj Tevin announced.
“May all that is good and holy lead our way,” Amira and Dardan replied in unison. And like that, it was done.
———
If the townsfolk had any objection to a feast being arranged the day after a dance, Dardan saw no sign of it. The trestle tables reappeared, accompanied by long benches and a motley assortment of tables and chairs fetched from individual homes. Something of a dais was erected out of wooden boards at the edge of the square, and it was there, in the cooling evening, that Dardan found himself with his wife at his side, confronted by a townful of happy strangers.
Two whole pigs roasted on spits in the middle of the square, attended by a squad of local lads taking turns at the cranks. A variety of other dishes had been whipped up by supportive townsfolk: scalloped potatoes in butter, peas and carrots roasted with herbs, a salty beef stew, a soup of roots, fresh greens with little plump tomatoes, and more besides.
Dardan glanced over at his wife during a lull in the stream of townsfolk who came up to the dais to wish them well. She smiled charmingly at everyone, but when she met Dardan’s eyes, her smile turned a little thorny. “Enjoying yourself, husband?” she muttered through her teeth.
“Shouldn’t I be?” he whispered back. “It was kind of them to throw us such a celebration on such short notice.”
“Indeed, they needn’t have bothered. We should have left. What if Edon is coming?”
Dardan felt that his face had screwed up into a glower, and he smoothed his features. They needed rest and stability. A day or two here wouldn’t make much difference. He sighed and turned away as Count Barnard introduced some baron of the county to him.
A few minutes later, he suddenly felt something pinch his arm. He looked over to see Amira’s hand gripping him tightly. “Dardan,” she hissed. “I see silver light out there.”
Dardan started. “What?” He gazed out over the crowd of jubilant, increasingly drunken townsfolk, then realized how foolish that was, as if he could tell who in the crowd she might be referring to. A panic seized him for a moment when he thought that Edon might have snuck into the crowd—but the idea of the king skulking about in disguise as a townsman was preposterous.
“There. Halfway back, on the right. See that one man standing? The boy next to him.”
Dardan squinted into the dimness; he picked out the standing man she’d referred to, and realized that he was one of the fellows who’d been involved in that brawl at the dance. The boy sitting beside him did not look familiar. “Are you certain?”
“Every time he turns his head, I can see it,” she whispered again, and Dardan heard a pleading in her voice. “I must speak to him.”
“We cannot march up to him now,” Dardan muttered, glancing over at Count Barnard, who was thankfully distracted by a discussion with some merchant. “Tomorrow we’ll find out who he is. You can speak to him then.”
“No!” Amira snapped, then suddenly looked mortified. “No thank you, I’m full,” she said loudly to cover it when Count Kirth and his wife both glanced at her with alarm. Amira forced a smile until they looked away again.
“Be reasonable,” Dardan said. “You cannot go over there. And this feast will likely last to the small hours. You know we are obligated to stay here until all the guests have left.” At least, such was the tradition. Dardan knew almost no one here, but still, tradition was tradition. “Whoever the boy is, he must live nearby. It will not be hard to find him, I promise.”
Amira ground her teeth, and after long moments she sighed at him and crossed her arms petulantly.
Dardan’s own mood was subdued the rest of the night. He hoped it would be taken as mere fatigue. The boy Amira had pointed out left early, helping some other older man—white-haired, probably an uncle or grandfather—totter away to sleep off what was likely a surplus of liquor. Amira seemed to glower even more deeply at this, but there was nothing Dardan could do about it.
Another one like her, Dardan mused. He’d wondered whether she and Edon would be the only ones. It’d be simpler that way, wouldn’t it? Well, this new one was just some harmless boy. It couldn’t hurt to go talk to him, could it?
———
Dardan vaguely hoped for a repeat of the previous night’s activities—this was their actual wedding night, after all—but they were both exhausted beyond words by the time they reached their borrowed bedchamber in the Kirths’ manor. Besides that, Amira still seemed tense from their disagreement at the high table. Well, she’d get over it once they found that boy in the morning.
Finding him took longer than they hoped. First Countess Tria showed up at the crack of dawn with an array of dresses and gowns for Amira to try on, so that she could have something proper to wear. The wedding gown was no longer appropriate, and the countess would not hear of a noblewoman—or, perhaps, any woman—wearing the dirty old wool and leathers Amira had arrived in. She settled on a plain silk dress, clearly something Tria had worn in her younger, slimmer years. It was in good condition, in a gray that complemented Amira’s eyes.
Afterward, they attended a leisurely breakfast with the Kirths, which was served late on account of the feast. Then the count insisted on introducing them formally to several of the merchants and barons they’d met last evening at the feast. The newlyweds were naturally the center of attention, and it proved impossible to extricate themselves. Amira did her best to provide charming conversation, but Dardan saw how she eyed the door every five seconds.
Finally Amira s
imply stood up and excused herself on account of exhaustion. She dragged Dardan along, and some of the nobles sniggered at what they assumed were amorous newlyweds escaping to their bedchamber.
Instead they went out the side door. In spite of all the delays, tracking down the boy’s identity proved easier than Dardan expected. The first townsman they came across knew all about the brawl at the dance. “Why, sure, that’s the Carmichaels and th’ Allisters,” he said, shaking his head. “They been feuding for years. Th’ usual nonsense. Someone steals someone’s pig, and then before y’know it, there’s blood on th’ fields.” He said that the boy was likely Dexter Carmichael, Sedge Carmichael’s younger son. “Always gettin’ in trouble, ever since he was little. His countship had to order them families to keep apart.” He gave them directions to the Carmichaels’ farm, a couple of miles east of town, up the slope toward the pines. Amira thanked him with an unseemly exuberance and nearly dragged Dardan away.
They’d need horses for a trip like that, but before they went more than a hundred steps back toward the manor, a ruckus arose. Four men carrying shovels and staves raced past them, in the direction of the town square. It took Dardan a moment to realize that the oldest of them was the same man he’d seen in the brawl, the same man Amira had pointed out standing next to the boy with the silver light. Sedge Carmichael. “That was him,” he said, and Amira’s eyes went wide. She lifted her skirts from the dust and began to run after them. Dardan grimaced and followed. What sort of trouble was this?
It was only a short run to the square. As Dardan stopped to catch his breath, he saw two clusters of townsfolk facing each other angrily, fists shaking and voices raised. Like Carmichael, the others all clutched improvised weapons: rakes, shovels, broom handles.
“There he is!” Amira whispered fiercely. She pointed at the young man, Dexter Carmichael, who stood in the middle of one group—not the one with his father in it—held by the arms by two other lads. Behind Dexter stood another older man, the second brawler from the dance. He was grizzled and windblown, and sported a mild black eye. No one else seemed to be wielding a blade, but the old man—Allister, hadn’t that been the name?—held a big kitchen knife in one hand. Dexter sweated and shook, terrified.
Hoofbeats and a neigh distracted Dardan as a horse pulled up beside the group. “What in Chaos is going on here?” its rider demanded. Dardan took a moment to recognize him: Henry Jarvis, the town magistrate. They’d met at the feast; the man had been ebullient with drink, but now showed no trace of humor beneath his wide-brimmed hat. The horse huffed and danced around, mirroring its rider’s agitation.
“He burned my barn!” old Allister shouted. “I told you he was always gonna be trouble, didn’t I? I did! And you didn’t listen, and now everything I built is gone!”
“Charlie, settle down and tell me what happened,” Magistrate Jarvis said.
Amira tugged at Dardan’s arm. “We have to help him,” she hissed.
“We don’t know what’s going on,” Dardan said, holding tight to her arm. She glanced up at him, her eyes burning. “Don’t. Don’t do anything. Please.” He clutched her close and she wrapped her arms around him, but her eyes returned to the mob.
“…and I found him out in the trees, and he had soot all over him. Look!” Charlie Allister grabbed Dexter’s hand and raised it up. It was streaked with black, and so were his sleeves. “I ain’t never gonna recover from this, Carmichael!” he shouted at someone in the other mob.
“You give us our boy back!” a middle-aged woman yelled back, perhaps Dexter’s mother. She stood right by Sedge Carmichael. The woman stepped forward, but threatening glares from several of the Allisters checked her. “He didn’t do nothin’, and if he did it were an accident!”
“Bull puckey!” Allister shouted back. “Your boy’s been stealin’ from my fields for years, and now I’m ruined. Well so are you!” And he plunged the knife into the boy’s back.
Amira screamed, but so did several other people, drowning her out. The Carmichaels surged forward, swinging their makeshift weapons. Dardan had left his sword at the manor, but he swung himself between Amira and the mob anyway.
She tore herself from his grasp and reached a hand out. In the melee, no one would know how the old man died, but Dardan did. There was a faint pop, almost lost amidst the yelling and clanking, and old Charlie Allister dropped to the ground, crashing into another man’s legs and taking him down as well.
Dardan shouted incoherently and grabbed Amira, lifting her bodily and lumbering away from the fight. The magistrate bellowed for help.
Amira sobbed, her face red. “He killed him! I found one, and he killed him!”
“Shut up!” Dardan grunted at her through gritted teeth. He put her down at the door of the inn. Amira was crying, hands flailing in a panic. Dardan spared a glance back at the ongoing scuffle, then yanked open the inn’s door and shoved Amira inside. “Innkeep! I need ale!” he shouted.
The young girl who’d manned the desk before came out from the kitchen, eyes wide. “What’s going on? What’s all the shouting?”
“Ale! Now!” Dardan roared, and the girl squeaked and disappeared back into the kitchen. Dardan guided Amira to a chair. She clenched her arms tightly together and rocked back and forth, sobbing. His impulse was to hold her, to comfort her, but the thought of what she’d done brought him up short. How could she be capable of that? Bandits were one thing, but this was an old man, a farmer…
The girl returned with a cup of ale. Dardan helped Amira drink; droplets splashed onto her borrowed dress, but he cared nothing for that now. She pushed the cup away and put her head down on her arms, sobbing quietly.
Dardan sat by her side. They couldn’t just flee the town; that would raise too many questions. He wanted to shout at Amira, to demand to know what was the matter with her—how could she just kill a man like that?
The door banged open all of a sudden and Magistrate Jarvis came in. “Them—make sure they don’t leave!” he barked at a taller man who wielded a quarterstaff, lurking behind the magistrate. Jarvis disappeared outside again as Quarterstaff came in and took up station by the door.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Dardan demanded, standing up.
“Magistrate said you wait here, so you wait here. Uh, m’lord,” he added, casting his eyes nervously between Dardan and Amira.
Dardan glared at the man and sat down again. Amira’s head had come up at the intrusion. Dardan saw that her tears had already stopped.
Several minutes passed as the noise outside died down. There were more shouts, and at least one prolonged argument, but it no longer sounded like a brawl. Finally, Magistrate Jarvis came back in, followed by Count Kirth and his valo. “Them,” the magistrate said, sounding relieved to have the count there to handle the nobles.
For all Count Barnard had been amicable before, now he wore a grim aspect. He stalked over and stopped just across the table from Dardan and Amira. “Magistrate Jarvis says you were present at the brawl outside. Is that so?”
Dardan glanced at Amira for a moment. The panicking girl of minutes before was entirely gone; now her jaw was set and her eyes gleamed. “Yes,” Dardan said, returning his gaze to the count. “We were looking for Dexter Carmichael, in fact. Is he all right?”
“By the Aspect of Wrath, no. He’s dead.” Count Barnard shook his head briskly, as if to ward something off. Amira emitted a soft sob. The count’s eyes flickered to her for a moment, then returned to Dardan. “Tell me what you saw out there.”
Dardan recounted the argument and how Charlie Allister had stabbed Dexter in the back. He didn’t want to lie to Count Barnard, who had been so kind to them, but he was not about to throw Amira under the cart. He said that he and his wife fled into the inn as soon as the fighting started.
Count Barnard stared hard at them for a moment. Then he spoke over his shoulder. “Magistrate, clear this building. I want no one else in here.”
The magistrate gaped, then clacked his jaw shut and
nodded. “Yes, m’lord.” He gestured at Quarterstaff, and the two of them disappeared into the other parts of the inn. They came back shortly herding the cook and a couple of maids, as well as the handful of guests staying at the inn. All of them gazed perplexed at the count as they passed, but soon enough everyone was outside, leaving only Dardan, Amira, Barnard, and his valo.
Count Barnard let out a sigh and lowered himself onto a chair opposite them. “Charlie Allister would hang for what he did, but he’s dead too. The strange thing is, I’m not sure how. Everyone else in that fight got cuts or bruises or broken bones, but Charlie’s body is unmarked.” He stared firmly at Amira now; she met his gaze, barely blinking. “My lady, why were you looking for Dexter Carmichael?”
Dardan’s breath caught. Damn. I shouldn’t have said that. He had to be more careful; he could not blindly trust even those who helped him, not if he wanted to stay alive. But now Dardan said nothing; this was Amira’s decision.
“He was like me,” she said quietly. She touched her temple with one pale finger. “The first I’ve come across, besides Edon.” Dardan saw her shudder, but she did not break down crying. If anything, she grew more collected by the moment.
“And so you…” Barnard gritted his teeth. “No. We will speak no more of this. You must leave, first thing in the morning.”
“Not today?” Dardan asked, surprised.
“Too suspicious, so soon after those deaths.” He stood up, and the Tarians followed suit. “I will provide you with coin and provisions. It is the least I can do for the son of Count Asmus.”
“What about…” Dardan glanced toward the door.
“I cannot mourn Charlie Allister. He was ever a thorn in my side, and I will not lose sleep over a man who would stab a boy in the back like that.” He faced Amira squarely. “See that you do not let this get further out of hand, my lady.”
Dardan had never seen Amira so chagrined before. She nodded curtly, not meeting the count’s eyes any longer.
———
Despite the circumstances around their departure, Count Barnard provided them with a sack of gold and silver coins, and a pack horse loaded with provisions. They would not want for food or funds any time soon. As they departed the manor, Count Barnard had plastered on a smile, and Countess Tria seemed as joyous as ever, as if the previous day’s deaths had not happened. Dardan suspected—hoped—that Amira’s involvement would remain known only to Barnard and his valo.
They left Tyndam on the same road they’d come in. “We’ll go to Seawatch,” Dardan said when the town was at their backs. “House Eltasi has never gotten along with Relindos. They may be willing to help us.” Amira nodded, staring ahead, not seeing. Dardan sidled a little closer. “Are you going to be all right?”
She whipped her head around, and the sudden glare on her face was so fierce that Dardan shied back involuntarily. “All right? The second one like me that I ever met was killed before my eyes, and then I murdered a man in revenge! How in the name of Despair do you think I am?”
Her wrath seemed unwarranted to Dardan. “I understand it’s frightful, but it would have happened—the first part, at least—even if you hadn’t been there. You couldn’t have done anything about the boy.”
“I damn well could have! If you hadn’t kept me at the table—if we hadn’t had to spend all morning with those idiots—”
“What was I to do? Throw Count Barnard’s hospitality in his face? Do you really think you can go around acting as you will with no consequences? A man died by your hand! You have to exercise more control over your emotions. Count Barnard could have had our heads for what happened, or served us up to the king, power or no.”
She wheeled her horse around to face him.“You have no idea what it’s like having this… this thing! It was instinct!”
Dardan halted as well; the pack horse was tied to his lead and came bumping up behind him. “Your ‘instinct’ is going to get us killed! You have to control it, or what’s the point?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what we’re doing. What’s there in Seawatch? Another noble, ready to turn us out at the first sign of trouble?” Amira kicked her horse into a canter before she even finished speaking.
Dardan swallowed his reply and followed her. What was wrong with her? Yes, the whole episode had been distressing, but there was no reason to dwell on it so. And they’d surely find others like her, if that’s what she was worried about.
He wanted to make her understand. But she kept ahead of him, and unless he galloped after her and shouted in the wind, she wouldn’t even hear him. With the pack horse on his lead, he’d never catch up.
When they stopped to camp for the evening, well off the road, he tried to talk to her. As soon as he said that others like her had to exist, so there was no reason to be upset, she glared at him and stalked away through the trees. He ended up falling asleep by himself, grumbling.
In the morning he woke to find Amira lying beside him. She said nothing about the night before as they ate breakfast and readied the horses for travel, but her eyes were heavy.
Dardan soon learned that there was no point in mentioning what had happened in Tyndam Town. No matter how he tried to make her understand, she would not speak of it. So they would head on toward Seawatch. Even if Duke Eltasi couldn’t help them, at least it would put more distance between them and Edon.
———
In a few days they left Tyndam County behind and crossed into Vannar County in the Dukedom of Seawatch. The wooded hills of eastern Tyndam gave way to a long, sloping plain that descended toward the sea. Jagged crags of pale, lichen-covered rock dotted the landscape, as if giants below had thrust their spears up through the ground. Villages were fewer but larger here, with plenty of open space to sprawl into. Afternoon rainstorms filled the little streams that criss-crossed the plain. It became a thrice-daily occurrence that they had to ford some rivulet that barely reached the horses’ ankles.
When they came to the first large market town, Amira told Dardan that she wanted to linger for a day or so and look for others like her—“mages,” she called herself and those like her.
Dardan objected, saying that they should make all haste for Seawatch. Amira replied evenly that he was welcome to go on to Seawatch if he chose, but she would tarry here. Dardan ground his teeth, but stayed. He spent most of a day watching the road, hoping not to sight a purple and blue pennant.
They spent similar days in other towns along the road, inching toward the coast. Amira had exchanged her dresses—gifts from Countess Tria—for the wool and leather she’d worn after Foxhill Keep. When Dardan suggested she was more fetching in women’s garb, she gave him a look that made him instantly regret it.
At night, Amira made love rarely and reluctantly. Her moon blood came and went by the time they reached Elsingham County, and Dardan sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Aspect of Ardor that she had not gotten pregnant. Bringing a child into all this would be madness.
While Amira watched for fellow mages, Dardan gossiped with other travellers. He always asked about Hedenham, casually mentioning that he had family out that way. One night, a drunken wool merchant told him that the ruler of Hedenham had been killed. Maybe it’s only a rumor, or maybe he’s thinking of Duke Loram, Dardan prayed, but he did not hold out hope.
When he told Amira this, she gasped and embraced him. Dardan was surprised and gladdened, but he also felt dishonest, since he had no idea if the merchant’s words had been true. It seemed to mend some of the rift that had grown between them, though Dardan did not understand why. He still wished Amira would look forward instead of back.
One morning as the road brought them past a copse of willows, he saw what looked like a city shimmering on the horizon. It was Seawatch atop its high bluff, protected from pirate raids as well as from easy approach by land. Anyone attacking it would have a tiring uphill climb.
Cold winds off the sea soon began to slither between his clothes, and forbidding thunderheads rose up above
the city. Just ahead of them on the road, Dardan saw an open wagon turn off to the south. In that direction he could see stony ridges marching off into the distance toward a solitary, pale mountain. “Ho there,” he called after the wagon as they reached the turning. “What lies this way?”
The merchant twisted around to look at him. “Village, hour or so south. Closer shelter than the city.” He gestured up at the approaching storm. “Don’t wanna get caught out in the open.” There did not appear to be anything resembling cover on the rocky plain that rose up toward Seawatch. Amira agreed with Dardan that they should find shelter, so they turned off the main road and ambled alongside the wagon for a ways, Amira chatting amiably with the driver while Dardan engrossed himself in the scenery.
The road undulated up and down between the stony ridges, until they saw a village ahead, hard against the mountain’s foot. When rain began to fall, they thanked the wagoner for his advice and rode on ahead.
The village’s inn loomed out of the mist as the rain grew into a torrent. The Giant’s Foot, the inn named itself, the sign depicting a man dozing against the side of a foot as large as he was. The innkeeper was friendly enough, a rangy old goat whose eyes never left Amira. She pretended to ignore him. Dardan was too cold and wet to risk saying anything; he didn’t want to offend the man and get turned out into the storm. “Welcome to Stony Vale,” the innkeep said, smiling at Amira’s chest.
They ate in the common room, fish stew and oily mushroom salad, and hard brown bread with butter, though here the bread was salted and the butter was not. Dardan was glad when they reached their room. He flopped down onto the bed and listened to the wind clacking a shutter somewhere outside.
Amira was undressing but suddenly stopped, staring at the wall. “Light. Silver light. I see it!”
Dardan sat up. “Where?”
Amira pointed, down and through the wall. “It’s gone. But it was there, I swear it. It looked… small, far away.” She started to pull her vest back on, but Dardan sat up and took her arm.
“No. Wait until the storm has passed.”
“After Tyndam, I cannot wait again!”
“If you go out in the middle of a storm at the crack of night, every person in this village will think you’re mad. If there is another mage out there, well, you said he looks far away, so he’s not in the inn, agreed? Which means he probably lives here. He’s not going anywhere. The storm will blow itself out by morning and we can find him then.”
Amira’s jaw set mulishly. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I’m sure I don’t. But going out there now is madness.” He didn’t want to have to argue with her further, and he was relieved when her shoulders slumped. She sat on the bed next to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” he said softly. She nodded, and they undressed for bed. It took an hour for Dardan to fall asleep, as he listened to the hammering rain lessen to a steady patter, Amira curled up warm against him. He could not help feeling that though they were on the same road, they were not pulling the same wagon.
———
Everything was still wet in the morning, but at least the sun shone between a few high puffy clouds. The air had that damp cleanliness, with a tang of salt from the ocean a few leagues distant. Amira tapped her foot impatiently, having dressed even before Dardan woke. “I saw it again. Whoever it is, he was walking around, and then he stopped over there,” she said, pointing below the window. “Come on!”
They went down to the common room, where the innkeep brightly offered them a table, but Dardan said they fancied a walk before breakfast. Outside, Amira stopped and looked around, and asked Dardan what direction she’d been facing inside. He pointed, and she led the way around the side of the inn.
A rhythmic clanging came from up ahead. Just past the inn’s stable was an alley, and beyond that a smithy. Dardan followed his wife around to the front of the building, a stone bunker with a wide, doorless gap in the front. She peered inside, then jerked back. “He’s in there! Or… she.”
“He. It’s a smithy. Who ever heard of a female blacksmith?”
“Who ever heard of a female… whatever I am?” she retorted, slapping her trousers. “Come on.”
Dardan rocked on his toes, nervously looking around. “We just go talk to him?”
Amira huffed and went inside, leaving Dardan to hurry after. Madwoman.
The smithy’s sulfurous air choked the pleasant morning air from his nostrils. He could see two men working at the forge. One of them put down his tools and came forward. He was a scarred man with a face clean-shaven, wearing trousers and boots but only a leather apron on his torso. He had little shiny patches of skin all over his muscular arms and chest, presumably where specks of hot metal had burned him over the years. Clearly this was the blacksmith. Was he the mage Amira sought? He was clearly much older than the three mages they knew of so far. “Greetings there, sir, uh… ma’am. You in need of ironwork?”
Amira peered past him. “Is that your apprentice?”
“Yeah, that’s Garen,” he said, squinting at her. “But if you need ironwork, I’m the man to see. Orville Walker, master blacksmith.” He held out a hand for them to shake, which Dardan took, since Amira seemed unaware of it.
“Dardan Howard,” he introduced himself. “My wife, Amira.” They’d tried using aliases for their given names, but Amira had slipped and called him “Dardan” three times in an hour, so she gave up. Besides, she said, Edon would never be fooled by such a simple ruse. But there was no need to spread the Tarian name around, and Dardan had long since gotten past the instinct to introduce himself as a noble. It was better that everyone thought them to be commoners. So they used Liam’s family name instead, which was the first thing that had come to Dardan’s mind.
Amira brushed past the blacksmith. “Sorry, she’s very curious,” Dardan apologized. “Er, we’ll just—Amira!” He chased after her.
She stopped in the rear of the smithy, staring at the apprentice. He was young and dark-haired, possibly handsome, though his face was streaked with grease and smoke and sweat.
Dardan came to Amira’s side as she watched the apprentice—Garen—hammering a hot piece of metal against an anvil. He stood in profile to them, and eventually noticed that he was being watched. He glanced at them for a moment, then went back to his iron, but Dardan could see his body tense.
“Excuse me,” Amira called to him. Garen stopped hammering and looked up at her. Amira turned her head, presenting her own profile to him.
He gaped at her as the hammer slipped from his fingers. Amira held her pose for a moment, then turned back, showing her most radiant smile. “My name is Amira. We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 24
AMIRA
The Queen of Mages Page 27