The yard goes absolutely still.
I hear Cyran exhale beside me. Behind me, someone—Dovan, I think—makes a sound that might be a suppressed laugh.
The older man comes out from the back of the forge fast, limping heavily on one leg, his broad weathered face gone pale.He gets between the girl and the doorway with his hands already raised.
"My lord." His voice is strained with urgency. "Please forgive my daughter. She hasn't slept. She doesn't—she isn't herself. We are grateful for your patronage, deeply grateful, and she'll begin the repairs immediately?—"
"Papa." The woman's voice is flat.
"Edria—"
"Stop apologizing."
His eyes close briefly. Mine, on the other hand, open a little wider.
I dismount.
The father starts apologizing again the moment my boots hit the ground. I walk past him without acknowledgment, not unkindly, and stop in front of the young woman standing in her forge doorway with a stiff posture like he has already decided she won't move.
She's shorter than me by a significant margin. She looks up without flinching.
"Edria," I say.
"You didn't ask."
"I heard your father."
"He wasn't introducing us." She crosses her arms, hands disappearing under her elbows. "That's my name anyway. You've done worse things than learn it."
Behind me, the father makes a strangled sound.
"I have," I agree. "I intend to do worse still." I watch her eyes—no fear there, just wariness wearing the mask of boredom. "I haven't decided your punishment yet."
"Bold of you to assume I'd stand still for one."
"Bold of you to mouth off to an elf lord over a horseshoe."
"Bold of your soldier to insult my work before he's seen it." She tilts her head, just slightly. "The shoe I dropped was better than anything your man rides on. You're welcome to examine it."
I glance at Aldis, who is doing an admirable impression of a man who wishes he were somewhere else.
"He'll examine it," I say. "On his knees, if it'll make you feel better."
"It'd make me feel better if he learned to keep his mouth shut." She glances back toward the forge. "I'll have your horses done by midday. All of them."
"I'm sure you will."
She turns to go back inside, and I let her get three steps before I speak again.
"The price?"
She stops but doesn't turn. "Same as always."
"Double it."
That makes her turn. She stares at me with something working behind her eyes—suspicion, mostly, and underneath it, careful arithmetic, weighing the money against who it’s coming from.
"Why?"
