COMMAND THE TIDES - Wren Handman Page 0,32

much call to read it. They seemed to be discussing a planned sailing expedition into the thick mists that surrounded the continent, which was fascinating but of no help to her current plight. She eyed the window, wondering if she could throw a few bookcases out and make the pile high enough to climb down onto, but she doubted she could get more than one out before someone came running, and the tallest bookcase was only five feet, nowhere near high enough to use as a ladder. The adrenaline of the fight on the doorstep was wearing off, and her head was spinning again. Would screaming for help do her any good? No one could enter the building to save her, but it might let Darren know where she was.

That was a laugh. Darren wouldn’t be coming, not with an arrow wound to the shoulder, and his newfound friends wouldn’t risk their revolution trying to save some seamstress girl. Would they tell him her fate at all? Or decide it was best he never knew—one less complication in their plan to put him on the throne?

On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt. She braced herself against the windowpane, preparing for an almighty holler, when she saw one of Novosk’s net of street children loitering by the door. She realized in shock that it was the same child who had taken a coin to direct her to the carriage. She waved at him, hoping she could get him to carry a message somewhere, but when he saw her frantic motions he only smiled, touched his cheek, and ran off. She cursed Ashua, cursed Oblivion, cursed Darren and his stupid plans, and finally cursed herself, and sank down onto the floor by the window, struggling to breathe evenly, fighting the threat of tears. They would do her no good. She was on her own now. She had to find her own way out of the morass her life was fast becoming.

She couldn’t have been sitting for more than twenty minutes when the door opened and a large man entered the room. He was huge, but huge in the way where muscled men often turn to fat as they grow older, with the ramrod bearing of the disgustingly rich and titled. Funny how nobles from every land tended to look the same. This one was clearly Sephrian, not just from his pale coloring but also from his clothes. He was wearing the peculiar colored shirts that Sephrian nobles wore to distinguish which silly house they were from, with the overlong cut that hid their frame, and the unnecessary fringes everywhere. Sephrian fashion was just appalling, all wool and gold brocade. Hard and stiff, not flowing like the Miranov style. Behind him her captor lurked—the one with the expensive clothes.

The large man gave her a doubtful look. “Are you sure this is her?” he asked in Sephrian.

“Yes, sir. Definitely, sir. She’s the one.”

“She looks like a—”

“Commoner?” Taya asked in her terrible Sephrian. “I look better when my house is not on fire.”

“Ah, you speak Sephrian. Lovely,” the man said.

Taya scrambled to her feet, willing her exhausted body to scream out her defiance. She crossed her arms and straightened her back, giving him what she hoped was a disdainful look. “Come to examine your spoils of war?” she asked in Sanitas.

“Please. Have a seat. Grayson will bring us some refreshments,” he responded in kind.

Grayson, presumably the name of her attacker from earlier, nodded and left them alone.

She supposed her odds were better now, but she doubted her ability to overpower this man, even if he looked almost fifty.

He brought a chair from the wall and set it in front of the desk, then took his own place on the other side. As she sat down across from him she saw that he looked almost as tired as she did. His eyes were hollow, and his dress, though immaculately clean, was disheveled.

“Tired from a long night of kidnapping and arson?” she asked.

“Tired from a vigil over my son,” he corrected. His Sanitas accent was perfect, though there was an odd clipped cadence that marked him as not a native speaker. “Your friend hit him with a knife. The healers aren’t sure he’ll survive.”

She knew she shouldn’t feel guilty. That fire could easily have killed them all, and had destroyed everything she owned. But she couldn’t help a pang of remorse; this man seemed to genuinely grieve for his son. What a complex mess I’ve found myself