silent. “I'm here,” she said instead. “Sitting down, on the log.”
The shadow approached. She did not know why she'd invited him over—like most Verenthane nobles, Jaryd Nyvar was a pain in the neck. Perhaps, she thought wryly, she was just as much the fool as those idiot noble girls who giggled and whispered at the tournaments. Sitting alone on guard watch, even a demon of Loth might be welcome company if his eyes were handsome and his shoulders manly.
The log shifted as Jaryd settled beside her, wrapped tightly like her beneath cloak and blankets. “I couldn't sleep,” he explained. He spoke in little more than a whisper, but in the vast, empty silence, it seemed as loud as a yell. “Damn but it's cold!”
“Northerly wind and no clouds,” Sasha replied, standard knowledge for any Lenay who lived in the wilds. “Westerlies can be even worse, the wind comes straight off the mountains. Some Goeren-yai say unseasonal weather means the spirits are disturbed.”
Jaryd hissed through his teeth, rubbing hands together beneath his cloak and blanket. “Well, the stars are beautiful,” he admitted. “Don't the Goeren-yai believe that stars are lucky?”
Sadly, it was too dark for Sasha to see either his handsome eyes or manly shoulders. This conversation, then, would rest entirely upon the strength of his personality. She nearly laughed. “Aye,” she agreed.
“Did you make a wish?”
“No.”
“Then what were you thinking of?” Jaryd pressed.
Sasha sighed. “My mother,” she said quietly.
“Ah, Queen Shenai.” As if he'd known her personally. Jaryd was perhaps only a year older than Sasha—he couldn't have been more than six when the queen had died, in childbirth to Sasha's youngest sibling Myklas. Sasha nearly snorted. “She was very beautiful. My father says she was a wonderful queen.”
“I knew her only a little,” Sasha admitted.
“I can recall the days of mourning,” Jaryd continued, very much in love with the sound of his own whisper. “My family all wore black for seven days. My mother also died young, in childbirth. So sad a thing…and yet so noble, to die whilst giving life. A far more Verenthane end, I fear, than most warriors shall meet—dying whilst taking life.”
“Perhaps if the priests would allow Verenthane women to use the serrin's white powder,” Sasha remarked, “all these women needn't die young at all.”
Though his face remained unseen, Sasha could sense Jaryd's consternation. “But it is against the gods’ will!”
“It's against the priests’ will,” Sasha retorted. “Serrin women can fight, play music, make arts, conduct trade…all the things that men do. It's far easier when you're not pregnant all the time, I gather. I wonder what amazing things Lenay women would discover they could do if given the opportunity.”
“M'Lady…” said Jaryd, appearing to fight down an amazed smile, “what is a woman, if not the opposite to a man?”
“Should a woman then not walk?” Sasha replied. “Not breathe? Not talk and think? You do all of these things, yet you are a man, so surely I cannot be a woman, because I do them too. I think, Master Jaryd, that the only state in which a woman can meet the Verenthane ideal and not mimic any of your manly deeds is in death.”
Jaryd shook his head. “You truly are a strange girl. The serrin spread strange notions from Saalshen.”
“Do they frighten you?”
“Frighten? M'Lady, I assure you…I do not frighten easily.”
“Yet you disapprove of me. Why? Why wish me to be something else, unless you feel threatened?”
Jaryd did not reply immediately. Somewhere in the forest, an owl hooted. “I was raised to be a good Verenthane,” he said then. He sounded troubled. “Yesterday, at Perys, I saw you do things with a blade that…that I had not thought possible for a woman. Barely possible for most men, in fact. I admit, I am confused. I would like to think that had it been me in your place, I would have acquitted myself as well. I am one of the best swordsmen in Lenayin, I know this with all my heart…and yet the artistry with which those men died was…truly amazing.”
Spirits help him, Sasha thought, he was trying. What he admitted was surely no easy thing. “The serrin know many ancient arts,” Sasha told him, somewhat more gently. “The svaalverd is not invulnerable by any means, but when taught by the very best to a capable pupil…well, I have options in a fight that my opponents do not.”
“I said your ways do not frighten me, and I mean it,” Jaryd said determinedly. “I am a swordsman,