the smooth-headed soldier walked the tallest, most striking man Teesha had ever seen. He wore a deep blue, padded tunic covered in a diamond pattern stitched in shimmering white thread. His short hair was true black against a pale face with eyes so light she wasn't certain of the color, like the smoothest ice over a deep lake.
The two men walked to a table, but the bald soldier still hadn't taken his gaze off Teesha.
"Can I bring you ale?" she asked.
"You'll bring me whatever I find pleasing," the soldier answered in a loud voice, enjoying the moment. "I am Lord Corische, new master of Gäestev Keep. Everything here already belongs to me."
When the villagers around them heard Corische's announcement, hushed murmurs began, but all words were kept low enough not to be heard.
Teesha held her breath and dropped her eyes. Over a year had passed since the previous vassal lord had died of a hunting wound. No word of a new lord arriving had reached them in all that time.
"Forgive my familiar manner," she said. "I did not know."
"Your familiar manner is welcome," Corische said quietly.
He did not look remotely noble to Teesha, but then she had rarely seen a noble in her life. Corische did have a look about him that fit these mountain lands, cold and possibly cruel to the unwary. But if either one of these two strangers were a lord, Teesha would have thought it his companion.
Corische's striking companion did not speak. He even appeared detached, not listening to their conversation. After a slow gaze at the crowd, as if gauging for possible dangers, he settled back and ignored his surroundings.
"This is my man, Rashed," Lord Corische said, without motioning to his companion. "He's from a desert land far across the sea and despises our cold weather, don't you, Rashed?"
"No, my lord," Rashed answered flatly, as if this were a ritual simply to be completed.
"May I fetch ale, my lord?" Teesha asked politely, wanting some reason to move away from the table. "No, I came for you."
The answer stunned her into confusion. "Beg pardon?"
Corische stood up and pushed his cloak back. His skin was pale, but his shoulders and upper arms were thick beneath the armor.
"I have already been in the village a few nights, watching you. Your face is pleasing. You will come back to the keep with me and stay while I'm detained here. A few years at most, but you'll want for nothing."
Fear hollowed out Teesha's stomach, but she smiled as if his request were an ordinary flirtatious remark.
"Oh, I think my husband may object," she said, turning to go back to her work.
"Husband?" Lord Corische's brown eyes moved beyond her and settled knowingly on Edwan—fragile, fierce Edwan, who was tightly poised, ready to jump over the bar.
"This is not the time, my lord," Rashed said quietly.
A long moment passed. Then Corische nodded to Teesha, stood, and left without a word. Rashed got up and followed.
That night in bed, Edwan begged her to pack her belongings and slip away with him.
"To where?" she asked.
"Anywhere. This isn't over."
The small northern village was her home, and she foolishly insisted they stay. Two nights later, a local farmer that Edwan once quarreled with over the price of bread grain was found stabbed to death behind the inn. When Lord Corische's men came to investigate, they found a bloody knife hidden under Edwan and Teesha's bed. Rashed was there, seemingly overseeing the search, yet all he did was enter, sit at a table before the hearth, and wait. When the knife was brought out by Corische's soldiers, neither surprise nor anger registered in his transparent eyes. He simply nodded shallowly, and the guards proceeded as if their orders had already been given.
Teesha was too stunned to cry out when soldiers dragged her husband from the inn in shackles. She saw Rashed's eyes, and how empty they were, except for a twitch she couldn't be quite sure of before it was gone again.
Before Teesha could lunge after Edwan, a third guard snatched her by the arms from behind. Lord Corische then entered the inn and stood patiently in front of her, waiting for her to give up her struggling.
For the first time, Teesha began to believe his crude appearance and rough speech were a disguise to mask some hidden self. There was no life in his face, no feeling at all.
"What will happen to him?" she whispered.
"He will be sentenced to death." Corische paused. "Unless you come to