insults, backing each other across the balcony and to the brink of bloodshed. In any physical fight, Pavek would always have the advantage over a half-elf. Even if the half-elf struck first and struck low, Pavek’s big fists and brawn could do more damage and do it quickly. Ruari tried to land a dirty punch, which Pavek expected. He seized the half-elf by the shirt, pinned him against the palace wall with one hand and took aim at a copper-skinned chin. But before he landed the punch, a shrieking annoyance leaped on his back.
“Stop it!” Zvain yelled, as frightened as he was angry. “Don’t fight! Don’t hurt each other.”
Pavek caught his rage before it exploded at both youths. He looked from Ruari to his fist and willed his fingers straight. He could hurt Ruari—that’s what he intended to do—but he’d kill a boy Zvain’s size with one unlucky punch. Ruari’s shirt came free and, wisely, Ruari retreated while Zvain slid slowly down Pavek’s back until his feet touched the floor, his arms were around Pavek’s ribs, and his face was pressed against Pavek’s back.
“Don’t fight,” Zvain repeated. “Don’t fight with each other. Please, don’t make me take sides. Don’t make me choose. I can’t choose. Not between you.”
Without a word, Pavek looped his arm back and urged the boy around. Ruari edged closer, keeping a wary eye on Pavek while he nudged Zvain above the elbow.
Still breathing heavily, Ruari said, “Nobody’s asking you to choose,” to the top of Zvain’s head, but his eyes, when they met Pavek’s, made the statement into a question.
It was one thing for Pavek to comfort a boy whose head didn’t reach his armpit. It was another with Ruari who stood a head taller than him. Maybe that was the root of the problem between them, and the source of Ruari’s unexpected attraction to Mahtra. The New Race woman was, perhaps, the only woman Ruari’d ever met who was tall enough to look him in the eye, and being neither elf nor half-elf, she touched none of Ruari’s painful doubts about his heritage.
“Have you… talked to her?” Pavek asked, feeling awkward as Ruari’s shrugged reply appeared. “She might—In the cavern, she felt something that made her control that power of hers. Hamanu’s infinitesimal mercy, Ru, if she doesn’t know how you feel…” He shrugged and stared into early twilight, unable to find the right words. This was more difficult than talking about Akashia.
“If she doesn’t know,” Zvain advised, fully recovered now and putting a manly distance between himself and Pavek again. “Then, don’t tell her. Forget about it. Women are nothing but trouble, anyway.”
He sounded so wise, so certain, so very young that Pavek had to struggle to keep from laughing.
Ruari lost the battle early, sputtering through lips that loosened into a grin. “Just wait a few years. Your time’ll come.”
“Never. No women for me. Too messy.”
By then Pavek was also laughing, and the day’s tension was finally broken. The feast looked more appetizing and the bathing pool became irresistible—once Pavek persuaded the slaves to share both the food and the water. Even the musicians emerged from hiding and, whatever Lord Hamanu had intended, for one evening honest people enjoyed innocent pleasures in his palace.
After he’d eaten and bathed, Pavek turned his weary body over to the slaves who, after sharing the feast, were that much more insistent on kneading the aches out of his muscles. The masseurs kept their promises only too well. Once his neck, back, and shoulders relaxed, Pavek fell asleep. He roused long enough to shake out some of the abundant silk bedding, then he was asleep again and remained that way until a loud knock awakened him. The room was midnight-dark and the only sounds were the groggy awakenings of Zvain, who’d curled up to sleep between Pavek and the wall, and Ruari, a short distance away.
With his pulse pounding, Pavek waited for the next sound, acutely conscious that he was half-naked and completely without a weapon. Last night he’d slipped so far into complacency that, although he could remember removing the sheath that held his prized metal knife along with his belt before he stepped into the bathing pool, he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.
“Lord High Templar! Your presence is requested in the lower court.”
Requested or required, Pavek didn’t dawdle. He called the messenger into the room and ordered him to light all the lamps with the glowing taper he carried for that purpose. Slaves had cleared the