host a mob of nobles attending the winter celebration as well as the wedding of Lord Sodrin Uhlfrida to King Rodan’s niece.
He and his assistant tailors had been run ragged with seeing to the wardrobes of the many lords ordering new finery at the last minute or updating what they already owned. He turned to more serious matters after exhausting the subject of palace gossip. “I was told by more than a few people about Culkhen Goa making an ass of himself, and that Gaeres had to stop him when he threatened you. You should have told me yourself, Em.”
Linnett nodded. “Keeping quiet doesn’t help anyone.”
Emerence pushed her food around her plate. “I’m sorry to you both, but there really was nothing to tell. Culkhen was deep in his cups and spouting nonsense. I dealt with him and Gaeres convinced him not to linger. I didn’t mention it because you would have worried needlessly as this conversation proves.”
“You’re my child. Of course I’ll worry.”
“I’m a long way from childhood, Papa.”
“But still my daughter,” Tocqua insisted. “I’ll walk you home when you’re ready to leave.” His expression brightened. “Or you can just stay the night here and return home in the morning.”
“Papa, I live next door. I’ll be fine.”
Nevertheless, he ended up watching her from his doorway, refusing to budge until she unlocked her door and waved to him before going inside. Culkhen was becoming even more of an annoyance than anticipated if he was motivating her father to treat her like she was five years old.
Her tiny house was a cozy refuge, perfect for one person, two at most if the pair were enamored with each other. The corner hearth was barely large enough to hold a decent size cook pot but when lit, it kept the main room and the alcove serving as her bedroom warm. The rug underfoot, the blankets on her bed and the curtains at the single window near the door worked as barriers against the cold as well. A humble, comfortable home, and most important of all, entirely hers.
She shed her outer garb and cap, lit the hearth and set a pot of tea to boil. She added a warming pan as well to glide over her bed linens once it got hot enough to do the job. She caught a flicker of motion in the corner of her eye and rose from her crouch by the fire to twitch back the window curtains. The window pane’s glass was frigid under her touch with a line of frost already painting the edges. The street was mostly dark except for a few puddles of light cast by lamps placed in windows of houses across from her.
People were awake later than usual. Delyalda would start in another day, and many prepared to either host or attend private parties as well as the public festivals. Soon enough the streets would remain brightly lit, crowded, and noisy until dawn.
Every year Tocqua groused about the noise and crowds though he didn’t complain about the increase in business. Emerence loved it all. The festival provided a much-needed break from the dreariness of deep winter and the seemingly endless days of bone-chilling temperatures and leaden skies. The Festival of Delyalda bid farewell to the longest night of the year, with an eye toward the preeminence of the longest day, still months away but getting closer with every sunrise.
She finished her tea, dressed for bed, and by the time she banked the fire, her house was toasty. The warming pan turned her bed from a mortuary slab to a cozy haven that invited her to snuggle in and pull the covers over her head, content.
Mostly content, a small voice niggled in her mind. Memories and images played across the backs of her eyelids. Gaeres, tall and burnished, with his hawkish features and black eyes whose expression belonged to an old veteran of brutal wars instead of a young man still sliding into his prime.
She’d found him beautiful. Even his voice, with its rich quiet tones and the half smile he often bestowed on the Quereci women he guarded, enchanted her. He did indeed remind her of summer with its promise of warmth and the sultry play of sunlight on smooth skin and dark hair.
Drowsiness encroached on her visions, and she welcomed it. To dwell too long on those things not hers, and never would be, invited melancholy. She wanted to fall asleep happy not sad. Still, her last image before slumber overtook her