“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Bastion blinked.Perhaps he’d been wrong.Only years amongst the court kept him from letting his mouth fall open.He stepped forwards to retort, but Ulla put a trembling hand on his forearm.The look on her face stopped him in his tracks.
She waslivid.
Despite her fatigue, fury rolled off her, and Bastion winced.The intensity capsized him.
Minato swept his dressing gown aside and stepped past Bastion and Rowan.The boy scampered behind Bastion, using him as a shield.
Ulla mirrored Minato, as if they were about to duel.The dizzying flood of emotion made Bastion reach reflexively for a sword that wasn’t there.A large hand on his bicep pulled him back.
“Don’t interfere!”Lawrence hissed.He overshadowed Bastion, in height and mass, his grip deceptively strong.Nesrin stood just inside the circle of firelight, her visage bronzed by the flame as she watched with flinty disinterest.
For a long, long moment, Ulla and Minato didn’t move.
The fire crackled.Bastion’s clothes suddenly suffocated him as they clung to his skin, damp and heavy with sweat.His chest tightened.The open hostility on Ulla’s face reminded him that she didn’t need a weapon in a fight.
Then, as if some music only they heard flared to life, they both stepped forwards, perfectly synchronized until they were close enough to reach up with their right hands and clasp the other's neck.Their eyes closed and Ulla’s face softened as their foreheads touched.
Bastion’s heart twinged, like he’d been shot through the chest and the pain hadn’t made it to his brain yet.Every muscle in his body tensed at this blatant display of intimacy, while something inside him that had been hopeful cried out in anguish.
Minato turned his head, still pressed to Ulla’s, and opened his eyes a sliver to look at Bastion.
“Mmmmm,” he intoned.Then his gaze flicked to Lawrence and softened.Bastion recognized that look.He’d seen it pass between King Torvald and Queen Thyra, between tavern girls and farm boys–even noble ladies doting on their lap dogs.He’d seen it a thousand times and envied it.
But he’d never seen it between an Yvri and a human.
Ulla staggered back, and her shoulders sagged with the full weight of her exhaustion.Minato held out a hand to Lawrence, who flowed to him like the sea to the shore.They touched foreheads, hands clasped around the other’s neck.
Belatedly, Bastion realized that Ulla had probably just shared everything they’d seen with Minato, who now passed it on to Lawrence.
After a moment, they broke apart slowly, sighing deeply.Lawrence and Minato looked at Bastion, newfound interest sparkling in their countenances, before they turned to Nesrin.She stood with all the regality of her station, awaiting a verdict.
“Cousin,” Lawrence began, a faint tremor in his voice.“I do believe we will shortly be under siege.”
Chapter 11
Things moved quickly after that.
Minato escorted Ulla and Rowan to vacant rooms, while Bastion remained, fighting his own fatigue.
Nesrin took command like she’d been raised at the knee of a great strategist–which she had.Lord Kyrith might have thrown himself into his work after his wife’s death, but he’d underestimated his daughters' desire for connection.Talia became a sort of stand-in princess, an easy task for a first cousin, while Endre’s sister was raised elsewhere.She held court with the young nobility, always the center of attention and as sugary-sweet as her sister was sharp.
Nesrin, on the other hand, viewed her engagement to a soft, squishy young lord as a death sentence, and her knighthood as the key to escaping that fate.Long before the marriage had been arranged, she’d been sneaking down to the stables to ride astride or pestering the guards to teach her swordplay.
And she was a great listener.Lord Kyrith might not have actively engaged with his daughters, but as long as Nesrin didn’t distract him or any of his commanders, he permitted her to sit in meetings.That alone was a valuable education.
It benefited her now as she summoned her commanding officers and gave them instructions.
“Send a raven to my father,” she said.“Inform him that we will soon be under siege.”
The officer’s eyes widened.He began to sputter, but she cut him off.
“Send another bird every four hours with the same message.”She turned to another officer.“Evacuate the village.Send men door-to-door, and wake everyone up.They must be brought into Moonwatch.When these pirates fall on us, they will find nothing and no one for the taking.”
Lawrence circled the room, eyes lit by firelight, with a tiny glass in his oversized hand.Fatherly pride sparkled behind the gaze he cast on Nesrin as she called for men to wake the staff and prepare the dining hall with blankets, food, and water for the evacuees.
When the last of the officers left, Nesrin sat.Only the fire crackling and the rain splattering the windows filled the heavy silence.
