COMMAND THE TIDES - Wren Handman Page 0,8
then they must be brand new to the trade—even you have a thicker sailor’s drawl than they do, and you’ve been around me and my good-grammar influence for years. And if you think that was enough to throw me off, it has been far too long since your last visit. Stop avoiding the question,” she demanded, refusing to be distracted even by something she was as puzzled by and curious about as who his mysterious friends really were.
He sighed, recognizing that stubborn look in her eyes. She was well known for it, and had been all her life. “I ain’t avoiding it, Tay, honest. It’s just—well, it’s complicated. See, there’re lots of…of…stuff, and—things—and I need to find the right words—just—it’s tough—y’see—” As he paused again, struggling for a way to say what he was trying to spit out again, she gave him an exasperated look.
“For Ashua’s sake, Darren Mannima. Stop dithering about and just tell me!” she exclaimed, her eyes blazing. Though they had started as casual lovers, they had fast become friends. In the past five years they had kept no secrets, whether it was the embarrassing things Taya’s mother spouted, or all the foreign women Darren met in port. She had no inclination to change that now.
He looked at her for a long moment, apparently debating, and then he shrugged. Though he was prone to complicated jokes and witty remarks, he tended to be more blunt than was sometimes good for him—or for the people around him—and now was no exception.
“I’m the real king of Sephria, and the…that guy, that took the throne, he wants to kill me so I can’t take it back,” he told her, no sign of humor in his expression.
She glared, too tired to find the joke amusing. After a moment, however, when he was still looking at her with a slightly worried, mostly expectant look, it began to dawn on her that he might actually be serious. Her eyes widened slightly and she blanched, wondering how many surprises a woman was expected to endure over the course of one night. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded shaky even to her own ears.
“You are joking…Aren’t you?”
He gave her an apologetic look, struggling to pull himself upright. Quickly she reached over to help him, a frown already starting to replace her expression, and before she could move the pillow he caught her hand instead, looking firmly into her eyes.
“Look, Tay, I’m sorry. I know, I shouldn’t ’a done that. I just couldn’t sort out a gentler way to tell ya. And besides, s’a waste of time, ain’t it? ’Cause eventually you woulda heard the same thing, and you woulda been just as shocked as y’are right now. Trust me, I know—I had a bit of a buildup, meself, but I still fell near outta my chair when my old gramps told me what was goin’ on. I’m sure you wanna hear the whole story, and I’ll tell it as good as I can, though you know I’ve never been the best at that.”
She squeezed his hand gently, giving him a slightly shaky smile. “You do it just fine, Dare. Take your time.”
“Well—I suppose it started in Velenos, really. You know Velenos, it’s that port city near the border of Sephria and Miranov, in Sephria. We’d just come into port that night, and we had leave for the evening. In the morning we were planning on moving on to Saratov, which I was looking forward to ’cause from there it’s only a day’s ride in to visit Mam and Gramps, and since we’d be picking up supplies in Saratov I’d have a couple ’a days to my own. Anyway, so we had the evening in Velenos, and most everyone was getting rowdy, being a month without seeing a single face but our own and all. So the group of us ran down to the tavern, like usual. We got through our work mighty fast, too, so we could have a big long night ahead of us, right? There were a couple ’a folks down in the tavern who’d clearly come from far, and Mikhail challenged one to an arm wrestling match, which we won—”
“Surely there’s some middle ground between telling me nothing but ‘I’m a prince’ and telling me every single detail of your shore leave.”
“Look, I’m tryin’, right? So…I get to talking to these blokes. One of ’em you met, David. The other, he seems to be a bloke in charge, by the name