his protection as we once did by his father’s.”
Astor laughed. “Better him than me. Can you imagine if you had to live by mine?” He held up two fingers. “He was born two minutes before I was, and then our mother perished.”
I gaped at him. “I’m a twin, too.” I put my hand over my heart as joy flooded me. There were so few twins out there in the universe. We were always an oddity wherever we went. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Hard enough to live through one baby, let alone two.” He shrugged, but there was an edge to the way he held his back now, the stiffening of his spine that spoke more than the words he said.
I reached out to touch his arm. “I lost my parents, too.” I supposed it didn’t really matter now. “And Torrin has great responsibilities and he might be in a foul mood, which could mean I’m in big trouble.”
Astor swung around. “I don’t suppose you’ve decided to marry Dreama? That would greatly improve his mood.”
Mattis paled. “Your older sister does not wish to marry me any more than I wish to marry her, and I wish you’d stop suggesting it. I’m afraid she might kill me in my sleep if I were to agree to it.”
“Getting Dreama out of his house would put Torrin in a much better frame of mind. Nox? You?”
He shook his head fast. “That was never an option. Dreama hates me. Ever since the incident with the crossbow.”
“Ah, yes. She almost lost that toe. Then there is nothing for it. We go to Torrin, and we hope. Perhaps it’s a good day. It is almost battle time, and that always puts him in a good mood. We go and we see.” He touched the side of my face. His fingers were callused, but they felt nice there. “Bianca, who fell from the sky, you are very unexpected.”
They all went with me, like a ring of protectors—Mattis, Astor, and Nox. They didn’t appear to be armed, and Nox left his bag of magical healing stuff behind. I didn’t know how far the protection of their mere physical existence would extend or whether they’d seriously intervene if Torrin decided I was a problem he didn’t have time for, but their gesture was nice.
After the crude—and, let’s face it, backwards—structures and vehicles I’d encountered on this planet so far, I almost expected Torrin to lounge half-naked atop a throne made of antlers with a bunch of beast hides at his feet. And then of course, being me, I felt bad for making such assumptions.
Well, about the antlers and beast hides. If he looked anything like his brother, the half-nakedness might be something to see.
As it turned out, I wasn’t entirely wrong about Torrin’s quarters. It wasn’t a chamber of governance or a throne room proper, just another rough-hewn corridor with a plain metal door at the end. Only this time, when Mattis tapped out his special secret-code knock, we weren’t called inside by a disembodied voice in the room beyond. Instead, we were met with a guard.
Okay, not a guard. A warrior. Female, almost as tall as Astor, wearing some sort of animal leathers and armed to the teeth. I counted a spear and three knives on her person, and those were just the weapons I could see. Thank the ancient and holy ones she didn’t have access to plasma weapons.
Could this be Dreama of the crossbow toe incident?
“About time you returned from your scouting, Nox,” she said. “He’s been waiting for your report. I’d get right in there if I were you.”
Her gaze glided over Astor, deepened into a slight frown when she saw Mattis, and went full grumpy when she beheld me.
“What the fuck is this?”
“A who, not a what,” said Astor, grinning like this was the best prank ever, which, considering they were most likely siblings, it probably qualified. “Our guest is called Bianca, and though she is currently unnumbered and unclaimed, as far as you and your knives are concerned, she’s under my protection.”
“All our protection,” Nox added. He hadn’t gone into the room yet and still stood with the rest of us out in the corridor. Mattis loomed there, too.
I wanted to hug them all for standing with me and sticking up for me.
Dreama scanned me from the top of my hair to the soles of my feet, and I’m pretty sure she missed nothing, including the half-burned, half-missing pants. And my so-scandalously unmarked arms.
If