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Laughter bubbles from her throat. “Yes, Luka, I’m toying with you. Who knew you’d be so easy to tease?”
The sound of her happiness blunts some of the sharp edges scraping at my mood, but still I mutter, “Insolent little wench. How many times do I have to warn you that I –” I pull up short, noticing her uneven stride. “Are you limping?”
She shrugs, not stopping. “It’s to be expected when one is stabbed in the leg.”
“You know, your sarcasm is not as delightful as you think it is.”
“Are you sure about that, Luka?” She grins. “I think you might secretly like it.”
This woman.“How is it you’re the only person in this realm who dares to openly mock me?”
“I do not mean to mock you, my deve,” she claims with a smile. “I’m simply making conversation.”
Somehow, I doubt that.
“May I ask you something? Yvette mentioned that you cannot relinquish the title peacefully. Is that true?”
Relinquish?“You and your high-born words,” I grumble. “But if I understand your meaning, then yes, it’s true. Once a deve, always a deve . . . until death. Until someone challenges me and wins.”
“Have you ever been challenged?”
“No.”
“Do you expect to be?”
“Why all the questions?”
“Well, my fate is in your hands. It’s not unreasonable for me to want to understand your situation, is it?”
“I suppose not.” I pause, then come out with, “And every deve is challenged eventually.”
A gust of wind lifts her long black hair, and she gathers it at her nape. “Do you know who it will be?”
“For now, there have been no rumblings from within the Range that I’m aware of.”
“A challenge would only come from the warriors?”
I look at her askance.How can she be so ignorant of our ways?“Yes, of course. A mere farmer isn’t likely to best me with a sword, now is he?”
“True.” She ponders that for a bit before she comes up with, “Does this system not overlook those with weak sword arms but sharp minds?”
Something resembling a laugh rumbles out of me. “A sharp mind is wasted in a weak body since a deve must defend himself and the realm.”
“I see.”
She does?Then why does something about her tone suggest otherwise. I don’t get the chance to ask her, though, because she’s not done with her questions yet.
“How did you know to search the Cyrun house?”
“Oh, I didn’t. We were going over our strategy to question Cayson when Noé suggested that maybe the brothers had been paid. I thought it unlikely, but I was . . . wrong.”
Her giggle pulls my surprised gaze in her direction, where I find mirth written into every line of her beautiful features. “Does it actually pain you to admit such a thing?”
I feel so at ease that I almost chuckle along with her. “Maybe a little. My father raised me to believe a deve is never wrong.”
Humming her understanding, she holds out her hand for me to steady her as she goes over a fallen log. “Yes, I’ve heard he was all softness and warmth.”
This time, I don’t hold back the laugh.
