But his ass was so very fine. She allowed herself another lingering glance while her sluggish brain churned through what Uland had said of pricks and claws and fangs. She could hardly fathom that the soldier had dared say it at all. Not only because of Aerax’s rank, but because of Aerax himself. For he was the finest of all men, but also the strangest. As if he reserved all of his emotions for the very few people he loved, so much that he seemed to burst with them. Yet Aerax gave nothing to those he didn’t care for, and didn’t hide how little he felt. Upon meeting him and being subjected to his flat, unwavering gaze, often people were unsettled in the same way Lizzan and the fisherwoman had been unsettled when they’d first sensed that a predator approached through the jungle. Yet Uland had spoken as if he thought Aerax were truly defanged.
Perhaps because most of Koth’s royals had always boasted and swaggered. They were like mammoths, trumpeting their strength and ancestry. In comparison to that, a fool might look at Aerax and believe quiet was the same as meek, instead of seeing a man who was as silently lethal as a snow cat.
And a man who had little care for Kothan law, when he introduced her to the Krimathean by name. “This is Lizzan of Lightgale, my lady.”
Laina frowned at her. Though the frown was not at her, Lizzan realized. Instead she frowned at Lizzan’s cloak. Her brow rose in query.
“You wonder if I pretend to be a Nyrae warrior or if I have taken a quest?” Lizzan guessed before answering, “It is a quest.”
Dismay filled the Krimathean’s expression.
“It is what I need to do,” Lizzan said quietly, “to restore honor to my family name—and to help stop the Destroyer.”
With a sigh, Laina nodded before gesturing to an empty seat that had been placed between Aerax’s and Riasa’s. On the table was laid a hearty feast—and flagons of mead.
“Vela came to her in the temple,” said Aerax, and Lizzan felt the gaze of the prince across the table sharpen upon her. “The priestess glowed like the moon and had skin like ice.”
“Snow,” Lizzan corrected, reaching for the mead. The priestess had said no more drink, but she was already a little drunk, so surely a sip to quench her thirst and to dull the edge of Uland’s words made no difference. When Lizzan was sober again, then she would start anew. “And it was not the goddess, for her face was not full round as the moon is. Only her eyes were. And her voice.”
Quiet fell as she sipped, but it was merely the quiet of the Parsatheans exchanging glances with the prince, then all looking to her, as if to weigh the meaning of what Aerax had said. And though she did not exist, the Kothans stared at her as if she were a gutworm crawling on the floor. Or a snake. A poisonous one.
Oh, but she had not a care what they thought, for the mead smelled so lovely and strong . . . but was the weakest she had ever tasted. As if mere water, it was.
It was.
Her laugh rose up even as she tried to swallow. The priestess had said she would purify all that Lizzan drank, but she had not expected that the mead would be purified to water. Coughing and laughing, she pounded on her chest—then drained the full mug before slamming it to the table.
She leaned forward to look past Riasa and aimed a bright grin at the other Kothans. “The last time I sat before a gathering of councilors and royals, it did not go so well for me. Though this time it might, for I have been introduced to the High Daughter before. But not properly, because I failed to tell her my name.”
And why had she done that? Why? What fealty did she still owe to Koth, except that the people she loved most were there?
Except for the one who was here. But she looked past him to Laina. “I trust that they were not properly introduced, either, and failed to tell you much. No matter. I will remedy that. Here beside you is Aerax, a bastard prince whose name was not written in the books after his birth, who was treated as less than nothing by nearly all of her fine citizens, and who long despised everything about Koth—until the red