Page 50 of Ale Storm

“I told you my husband passed, right?” Mya asked.

Rylana nodded. “A few years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Yorikon was a mining foreman and well respected, known even by the king, since he was a distant relation to the royal family. He preferred hard work to anything to do with the dwarven court, but he’d grown up visiting it from time to time. In his younger days, he’d even had an arranged marriage to Lady Hymika, a female dwarf from an old and influential family. But when he met me, a sweet young thing at the time—and already a talented baker, mind you—he fell in love with my pastries and cakes. And eventually me too. He married me instead of the lady. Hymika… was not pleased. She gossiped a lot. And she had a lot of influence at court and among the Miners’ Wives, a female group in the capital with much sway. I thought, after so many years, she’d gotten over being perturbed with me, but once Yorikon was gone, she started her gossip anew. No doubt I should have spent more time attempting to befriend her, but she’s, quite frankly, a bitch. I couldn’t bring myself to flatter her ego—there was a reason my husband didn’t want to marry her. Anyway, it wasn’t pleasant for me to stay, so I left to start over in Tranquility. I knew none of my family would come with me, but I did think that my children would visit from time to time. After all, my daughter Heena’s husband is a driver and regularly brings ore to the refinery here.”

“Why do you think they don’t come?”

“From what Heena has written in letters, I think she’d like to—and her sisters and brothers would too—but there’s apparently a stigma associated with visiting me. The Miners’ Wives had even written about the bakery and what an embarrassment it is to the kingdom. Can you imagine that?”

“No.”

The teenage server brought another round of drinks, a new beverage that was a dark amber in hue. Rylana hadn’t consumed alcohol much of late and already felt tipsy, so she set the horn on its side next to her mug, not intending to drink any more.

“My bakery highlights the skills of dwarven culinarians.” Mya pointed at herself. “There’s nothing embarrassing about it. Or me.”

“Absolutely not. Your baked goods are delicious, and the adult ones are whimsical.”

Mya shook her head and drank from the new mug, then pointed at the horn. Wanting her to do the same?

“I think I’ve had enough,” Rylana said, then rested her hand on the horn.

It was even warmer than before. Because it was lying beside a new mug of beer? Or did the magic want her to get smashed for some reason? That didn’t make much sense. Why would a magical horn care if she drank from it or not? Rylana decided to pour in another drink. Just in case.

Mya drank deeply from her latest mug.

Rylana hadn’t intended to get her in a dark mood and groped for something helpful to say.

“I’m proud of the success I’ve had with my bakery,” Mya said. “Proving that I can be someone on my own, you know? I just wish…”

She shrugged her broad shoulders and drank again.

“It must be hard being ostracized and not seeing your family, especially your children and grandchildren. Though I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind being ostracized by my family right now.” Rylana laughed without humor.

When Mya looked curiously at her, Rylana poured the latest round into the horn. As she drank, she explained her father’s manipulation. With the topic so recently irritating her, she may have taken more swigs than was wise.

As the server brought a fourth selection of ale, Rylana poured more into the horn, continuing to hope that it would do something. It did not. The antique kept growing warm, so it was doing something, but she had no idea what that signified.

“My parents have both passed on,” Mya said. “I didn’t always get along well with them, but it got better once we were all adults. As long as you have the opportunity, you might try to establish a relationship that you’ll both gain something from. Once your father is gone, that opportunity will be as gone as the ale in this mug. Hm.” Mya peered into the bottom, then placed a couple of silver coins on the bar.

To order more or settle their tab? Rylana’s thoughts had grown a little fuzzy and she’d lost track of where they were in their debt to the bartender. Was Mya paying for the beverages they had both consumed? Or only her own? She’d had more to drink than Rylana, and was more than a foot shorter, but she didn’t appear inebriated in the least.

Rylana, on the other hand… Yes, her thoughts felt a little slow.

“I don’t think I’m going to figure out what this horn does tonight,” she said. “It does feel warm to you, doesn’t it?”

Two hells, what if she was imagining the so-called magic?

Mya rested her palm against it. “Nope.”

“Really?”

Before Rylana could reach out to touch it again, the server brought another round and picked up the silvers.

“Oh, interesting,” Mya said as the mugs were set down nearby. “It is warm. Right there. I must not have been touching it in the right spot before.”

“When the log-inspecting hound, Willow, found it in the woods, she didn’t unearth any instructions.”

“Maybe she should have dug deeper.”