He drinks more water, eats a piece of bread from the board on the table, and focuses on keeping his mind clear while his body tries to go soft at the edges.
The barmaid makes her second pass, then her third. The room thins as the evening wears on, people drifting out in pairs and small groups, the noise level dropping from a roar to a murmur. The lanterns seem dimmer, though that might be Evran's imagination, and the shadows in the corners of the room have deepened.
Evran is about to call it a night, to make his excuses, to stand up and walk out and wash this evening off in the basin in their room, when the table changes.
Mikkel leaves first, pushing back from the bench with a yawn and a muttered farewell. Then a man Evran did not notice from a neighboring table drifts over, sits for one round, and leaves. The room empties further. The barmaid wipes down the far tables and disappears into the kitchen.
And then it is just the four of them. Torsten, Dane, one other man who is stocky with a ruddy complexion and Windfar blues and who Evran realizes drifted over from the bar at some point, and Evran, pressed against the wall with a cup of water and a head that is less clear than he wants it to be.
The cards have stopped. Dane is leaning back on his barrel, arms crossed, and his flat expression has shifted to something more alert. The stocky man has his elbows on the table and is picking at the edge of a tile with his thumbnail. Torsten is still beside Evran, his arm still stretched along the wall, but the playful energy has drained away and what remains is quieter, more focused, the attentiveness of men who have been waiting for the room to empty so they can talk.
Dane looks at Evran, then at Torsten, his eyebrow rising a fraction.
"So," Dane says. "Are you taking your brother's sloppy seconds tonight, or what?"
The table laughs. Dane, the stocky man, even Torsten, a short breath of amusement through his nose.
Evran does not react. He is looking at his cup of water, his face still flushed from the wine, his posture loose and his eyes half-focused. He makes himself look the way a man looks when he is too far gone to track the conversation, even though every word is landing in his mind with the precision of an arrow hitting a target.
The phrase turns his stomach, but he keeps his expression blank, unfocused, the vacant stare of someone looking into his cup and thinking about nothing at all.
"Don't be crude," Torsten says, but there is no real admonishment in it. He takes a drink and stretches out further on the bench, his knee still pressed against Evran's under the table. "Though I won't lie, there are plenty of things of my brother's I'm happy to take."
He says it openly, casually, as though the man whose husband is sitting right beside him is not a factor in the conversation. Evran keeps his eyes on his cup and breathes. The casualness of it is what makes it worst, the offhanded way Torsten refers to Evran as a thing to be taken, an item on a list of possessions he intends to acquire, filed alongside the throne and the stronghold and the title. The dehumanization is so complete and so effortless that Evran suspects Torsten does not even register it as such, because to Torsten, people have only ever been instruments.
"The question is how," the stocky man says, his voice lower now, conspiratorial. "Windfar is a dead end since the triplets. If you want a seat at any table, it has to come from somewhere else."
"Drakkari," Dane says, the word carrying the weight of certainty rather than question.
"Drakkari," Torsten agrees, turning his cup in his hands, slow and thoughtful. "The seat's been occupied too long by one man. That breeds complacency. Makes people lazy, makes them forget that power is supposed to rotate."
"Power doesn't rotate," Dane says flatly. "Power gets taken."
Torsten smiles. "Exactly."
The stocky man glances at Evran, his eyes lingering for a moment, assessing, measuring, and then he leans toward Torsten. "Probably best not to discuss this with the Warlord's husband right there."
Torsten waves a dismissive hand. "Look at him. He can barely keep his eyes open."
Evran makes a calculated move.
He lets his body go slack against the wall, lets his head tilt sideways, and then he tilts forward, slowly, deliberately, as though his body has simply given up the effort of sitting upright. His shoulder hits Torsten's chest and his forehead comes to rest against Torsten's collarbone, and he lets his weight settle, limp and unresisting, the dead weight of a body that has lost its fight against Fire Wine and exhaustion.
Every point of contact burns. Torsten's chest beneath his cheek, the arm that shifts to accommodate him, the warmth of another man's body that is not Vaike's and is therefore wrong in a way that goes deeper than discomfort and settles into something that feels close to violation. But the position is necessary, because a man who is slumped against someone's chest with his eyes closed is a man who cannot possibly be listening, and that is exactly what Evran needs them to believe.
Raucous laughter erupts from the table.
"There you go," Dane says, grinning for the first time all evening. "The lightweight southerner isn't in any condition to comment on politics."
"Or anything else," the stocky man adds, and they both laugh again. Torsten chuckles beneath Evran's cheek, and Evran can feel it, the vibration of it, and it makes his skin crawl, but Torsten's hand comes up to rest on Evran's shoulder, steadying him, keeping him close.
Evran breathes. In through his nose, slow and measured, tasting the ale-thick air and the faint scent of Torsten's clothing, soap and something sharper, metallic, foreign. He keeps his body loose and his eyes closed and his ears wide open.
"As I was saying," Torsten continues, and his voice has dropped to something more serious now, the playfulness stripped away and replaced by the flat, focused tone of business. "The summit is the time. All four clans present, all four Warlords in one place. If something were to happen, the right nudge, at the right moment, the pieces are already on the board."
"And if it doesn't work?" Dane asks.
"It will work. It's already in motion."
