The road was mud after last night's rain. The kethral picked its way through the worst of it with surefooted disinterest; it had seen worse terrain. Rhaezon let it choose its own pace. He needed the ride. He needed the distance between himself and the room where November slept in his scent, on his pillow, the architecture of his whole careful life rearranged by her words and a hand that would not let go.
The market town was waking. Shutters opening, stalls being assembled, the smell of bread and meat roasting on a spit somewhere near the center square. He tied the kethral at the tavern post and went inside.
The barkeep was sweeping. He looked up when Rhaezon entered and his face did the quick assessment, the recalibration, the decision about how afraid to be. The barkeep landed on respectful wariness, which was the standard.
"Lord Vaethari."
Rhaezon stood at the bar. "The man from last night. Tell me about him. Do you know who he is?"
The barkeep set down the broom and leaned against the counter. He chose his words carefully. He had seen what Rhaezon could do to a throat. He preferred to keep his intact.
"His name's Caeden Varek. Youngest son of Lord Aldric Varek. He arrived in town yesterday evening. He took a room at the inn across the square." The barkeep paused. "I didn't know who he was until after you left and one of the regulars told me. He'd been drinking since midafternoon."
Varek.
The name landed in the center of his chest and sat there, glowing. Lord Aldric Varek of House Varek. The man who hadtaken guardianship of a child and sold him to slavers within a year. The man who had presented his counter-narrative to the Council of Elders with the polished ease of a practiced liar and walked free. The family whose name appeared in the Crimson Ledger intelligence Rhaezon had been assembling for a decade.
And now the youngest son of that house was in his town. Drinking in his tavern. Putting his hands on November.
"Is he still at the inn?"
"Left after you did. Paid his bill and rode south."
South. Toward his father's estate.
Rhaezon placed a coin on the bar. The barkeep did not reach for it.
"Lord Vaethari. Your lady wife. Is she?—"
"Safe."
He left before the man could ask anything else. The kethral was waiting. He mounted and turned for home. The road stretched ahead of him, muddy and clean and empty.
He rode with a coal burning behind his sternum and Caeden Varek's name on his tongue like ash.
The training roomoccupied the ground floor of the estate's west wing — a stone-floored hall with high ceilings and weapon racks along three walls. Davn was already there.
He stood in the center of the room, shirtless, running through a sequence of movements that looked like stretching and functioned as something considerably more lethal. His white skin gleamed under the morning light from the high windows, the black stripes across his torso and arms shifting with each rotation. He did not look up when Rhaezon entered. He did not need to.
Rhaezon pulled his shirt off and dropped it on the bench by the door. He picked up a practice blade. Davn picked up its twin without pausing his sequence.
They began.
Ten years of this. Ten years of knowing each other's tells — Davn's speed against his strength, Davn's reach a fraction shorter but his reflexes a fraction faster, each of them having mapped the other's patterns so thoroughly that sparring had become less about winning and more about the conversation. Blade met blade. They moved across the floor with the fluid economy of long trust — swinging hard, pulling nothing.
Rhaezon spoke between exchanges. "The man from the tavern."
Strike. Block. Rotation.
"His name is Caeden Varek."
Davn did not break rhythm. His blade came high, Rhaezon deflected, countered. Davn slipped sideways and struck from the off angle the way he always did.
"Youngest son of Lord Aldric Varek."
Now Davn's eyes sharpened. The blades locked. He held the bind for a beat longer than necessary, reading Rhaezon's face over the crossed steel.
"Was he there for her?"
