He delivers Tria to the family wing, where she immediately goes to show Arin her silk and regale him with stories of the market whether his stomach is ready for stories or not. Evran watches her disappear up the stairs and smiles, and then the smile fades as the quiet settles back in and the weight returns.
He walks to his room. He puts the gifts on the side table, the needles, the journal, and stands in the empty space and looks at them.
Then he sits on the edge of the bed.
The afternoon light moves across the floor in slow degrees, the angle changing as the sun tracks westward. The room is quiet, the fire unlit, and from beyond the window the distant sounds of the festival drift up, music, laughter, the hum of many people in one place enjoying themselves.
Evran is thinking.
He is thinking about the assassin who got into their room, the man in black, the poisoned blade, the purple sheen on the steel. He is thinking about the horse, dosed, maddened, turned into a weapon while Vaike sat on its back trusting it with his life. He is thinking about Vaike's shoulder, the bruise spreading purple and green beneath the bandage, and the stitches at his temple, and the way he favored his left side when he walked.
Two attempts. Two failures. Two instances of Vaike surviving because of luck, reflexes, the proximity of other Warlords who happened to be fast enough.
The third one will not fail.Evran knows this with a certainty that sits in his gut and will not be dislodged. Torsten does not accept failure gracefully. He escalates, pushes harder, takes bigger risks because the alternative, admitting defeat, walking away, accepting that the thing he wants is not his to have, is incomprehensible to him.
The summit ends tomorrow. One more day, one more night, and then they pack and ride and the mountain trail stretches out before them and they go home. But that one night is a gap, a window, and Torsten knows it as well as Evran does. If there is going to be a third attempt, it will happen before the summit closes.
Evran does not want to sit around and wait for it.
He has the plan. He and Bran have gone over it twice, the timing, the signals, the knock, the escape route. He knows what he needs to do. He knows where the vial might be. He knows how to get in and how to get out and what to do if something goes wrong.
The thing he does not know, the thing he has been turning over all day, examining from every angle and finding no comfortable way to hold it, is whether he can do what comes between the getting in and the getting out.
He stares at the wall. He thinks about Torsten's mouth. He thinks about the stable wall against his back.
Then he stands up, crosses to the door, opens it, and walks to the great hall.
Naela is at the Drakkari table, halfway through a plate of roasted vegetables and what appears to be her third cup of mead. Her blonde hair is loose today, falling around her shoulders, and there is a fresh bruise on her jaw from the tournament that she wears with the pride of having given much worse than she received.
Evran sits beside her.
"There he is," Naela says, grinning. "I was starting to think you'd been kidnapped by the Rendari twins."
"Just the one today. Arin's stomach is out."
"The cheese. I told him." She pushes a plate toward him. "Eat. You look as though you haven't slept."
He has not, but he does not say that. He takes the plate and picks at a piece of bread and listens as Naela talks about the Rendari warrior who has been bringing her treats all week.
"First it was honeycakes," Naela says, ticking off on her fingers. "Then dried fruit. Then a very nice leather wrist guard that fits perfectly, which means he's been paying attention to my measurements, which is either romantic or slightly unnerving."
"Could be both," Evran offers.
"That's what I said! But then this morning he left a folded note under my door that said." She pauses, her cheeks pinking slightly. "Well, never mind what it said. The point is, he's persistent."
"Do you like him?"
Naela takes a long drink of her mead and considers this with the gravity of weighing a tactical decision. "He's not terrible to look at. He fights well. And his forearms are..." She trails off, then clears her throat. "Nice."
Evran almost smiles. He is halfway listening to her, genuinely enjoying the normalcy of it, the easy talk, the light gossip, Naela's company, and halfway aware that a plan has been crystallizing all day, piece by piece, settling into shape in the back of his mind while the rest of him browsed market stalls and bought gifts for the people he loves.
Movement at the doorway.
Evran's eyes lift from his plate and find the entrance to the great hall, wide and arched, framed by the Rendari banners. There is a figure standing in it.
Torsten.
He is leaning against the frame, one shoulder braced against the stone, his arms crossed. He is not looking at the room. He is looking at Evran. The pale blue eyes find his across the width of the hall with precision, already knowing exactly where to look.
