Daromir should be afraid that Prince Kazia knows about the messengers. That would be the sensible worry. He’ll have to warn them tomorrow.
Right now, inexplicably, Daromir’s chief concern is the overwhelming need to convince Vana he didn’t sleep with anyone. “If Kazia implied I was hooking up with this woman, he was mistaken.”
Vana still won’t meet his eyes. “It’s fine if you were, of course. You get to have a life. I can only tie you down so much.”
“Don’t lie to me, Vana,” Daromir snaps.
Vana’s head jerks up.
“It isn’t fine.” Daromir’s hands ache with how much he wants to touch Vana now. “You don’t have to pretend. Either way, if I was hooking up with anyone, you would feel it. You don’t have to take my word for it.”
Vana stares blankly before realization strikes him, and he averts his gaze. “Of course,” Vana says eventually. “I’m sorry. You can have the day off, of course. I’m just… I’m going to bed.”
It’s very early, but Daromir doesn’t call him on it. And he pretends he can’t hear Vana pacing behind the screen for the next hour before their shared room falls silent.
***
The messenger’s hair is delicate seafoam green this time. She’s dressed as a mage’s bound thrall, in a finely-woven but coarsely-cut toga. A mock cuff circles her wrist. And she isn’t alone in the rented room.
Daromir closes the door behind him and says, “Captain Arla. It’s been a long time.”
Arla Tellik leans back in his chair, one ankle crossed over his knee. He looks at first glance shockingly like a younger version of Vana. His features are softer, yet his skin ruddy and weathered. His cloud-white hair is tied in a short tail at the back of his neck.
Arla’s eyes of course are brilliant, true Kaiskaran green.
There’s a dangerous confidence in those eyes, and Daromir only needs an instant to know this young man is nothing like Daromir’s last sight of him, clutching his mother’s skirts and crying.
“Too long, I’d say,” Arla says, giving Daromir a clear, assessing glance. He rights his chair with a clatter and pours three tankards of ale. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
Something’s missing, and Daromir can’t figure out what. He sits and takes the tankard, but doesn’t drink. They haven’t tested Vana’s alcohol tolerance through the new bloodbond.
“The messenger wrote that you were coming, and that she needed to meet me,” Daromir says. “I didn’t realize you would be here so quickly.”
The messenger goes to the window, peering out.
Arla downs his ale. “In some ways, it’s taken me quite a long time.”
Fourteen years, and Arla has grown into a confident, dangerous presence. His hands are callused, his forearms muscular where the sleeves are rolled up. Wiry muscles won from hard work. Arla doesn’t look like any Kaiskaran noble Daromir has ever met, and he met quite a few of them when he was training to be—
That’s what’s missing. “You don’t have a bloodguard?” Daromir has never seen a Kaiskaran noble of age without one. Certainly not a Tellik.
Arla grins. “Let’s just say tradition for its own sake has never appealed to me. The bloodguard thing always sounded so claustrophobic. I almost didn’t believe the messenger when she said you met her without my brother in tow.”
Daromir isn’t sure whether Arla means that as an insult or not. “We break tradition in our own ways. What are you doing in Draskora, Captain?”
“Straight to business. I like you.” Arla leans forward on his elbows. “I’m here because I believe in doing things myself. You and I share one goal, and I want to find out if we share other goals too.”
“Explain.”
“My father the duke is old and tired,” Arla says. “I intend to ask him to resign soon.”
Daromir’s eyes narrow. “How forcefully will you ask?”
“He’s free to refuse—I’ll just have to be patient,” Arla says breezily. “He won’t refuse, though. I think he’ll be grateful for the excuse.”
“And you want to be Duke of Kaiskara?”
“No. I belong at sea.” Arla sips his ale, considering Daromir. “But what if there was someone raised from childhood to rule a nation? Someone who already wants to flee the nation he’ssupposedto rule? Someone whose ascension to Kaiskara’s high seat would be a slap in Draskora’s face?”
