Though he had seemed the obvious leader to Venn, he clearly didn’t have full control over the men, because the insults continued. But no one attacked, and soon they left the men behind.
Finn was the one to break the silence. “I thought they were going to attack us.”
Venn set a hand on the boy’s knee. “You’re safe. No need to worry about them.”
Vera moved to walk beside Venn, and she kept her voice low. “Relations with Zennor have never been an issue—at least not in our generation. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
The hostility hardly made sense. It was not uncommon to have Zennorian ancestry in Devendra. They were allies. When King Newlan had first married Queen Aren, there had been some tension, though plenty of families had merged bloodlines long before the royal houses of Demoi and Buhari. And as ties with Zennor strengthened, more and more families had blended. There were arranged marriages by nobles who wanted prestige, and merchants who wanted advantages; there were love marriages by tradesmen who traveled between kingdoms, and by soldiers stationed along the border—Venn’s parents had been an example of this. Kent Grannard had been stationed first at Miloh, then across the Ivern in Dinaja. That’s where he’d met Zoya, Venn’s mother.
The Devendran prince and princess were half-Zennorian, and no one would dare ridicule or revile them. So why had those men targeted him?
Venn had no answer, but it made him wary of all other Devendrans they spied on the road. He didn’t want to be a target that drew unfriendly eyes toward Vera and the children.
Whatever the reason for the change in attitude toward Zennor, Venn knew it didn’t bode well.
The men who had stopped beside them on the road caught up to them about an hour later. Venn stepped aside, leading their slowly plodding horse to the edge of the road to let the men pass.
A couple of them sneered at him, and there were mutters—one man even spat toward Venn’s boots—but they passed without real incident. Venn still slowed their steps, letting the men pass them more quickly, and his hand did not leave his belted dagger until they were out of sight.
The sun was sinking into the distant horizon when they reached a small village. It wasn’t one Venn had seen on any map, but there was an inn.
“I’ve only got one room left,” the innkeeper told him, looking a bit harried. The common room was full to bursting, with men and women drinking, laughing, and eating. “Tomorrow’s the final night of Eyrinthia’s Celebration,” the Mortisian innkeeper continued. “Everyone from the surrounding farms has come in for tomorrow’s festival.”
“One room is fine,” Venn said. Frankly, one room would be easier to defend. And even sleeping on a floor sounded better to him than the rocky ground.
He passed over the coin for the room, as well as the fee to use the attached stable. Then he pushed his way through the crowd and back out into the yard, where he’d left Vera with the horse and children.
At the sight of them, he released a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Leaving them—even for a moment—gnawed at him. Especially as the shadows grew, stretching over the crowded street. It made everything feel more ominous.
Vera looked up as he approached. “Is there room?”
He nodded. “We got the last one.”
“Why is such a small town so busy?” Finn asked.
Venn nodded to some of the nearby purple flags. “There’s a holiday going on. People have come in to celebrate the last day of it tomorrow.”
“I’m hungry,” Sarah said, looking tired and a little grumpy.
“Well, let’s get you some dinner, little one.” Venn reached up to pull the children down from the horse. “Let me just take the horse to the stable.”
“We’ll find a table inside,” Vera said.
Venn’s first impulse was to ask her to wait for him, but the children were hungry and tired—and the street didn’t feel much safer than the crowded common room. So he overrode his protective instinct and nodded.
Vera led the children into the inn, and Venn steered the horse around back. It took him longer than he wanted to take care of the horse, though the stable boy offered to feed the animal—for a price, of course. Venn happily tossed over the coin, then shouldered their packs and moved for the inn.
His gaze sought out Vera in the common room, and he spotted her and the children seated at a table near the side wall. They were already eating, and he forced himself to take the packs to their room before joining them.
He needed to practice letting Vera out of his sight, or else she would probably become very annoyed with him once they reached Duvan.
Chapter 11
Vera
Sitting in the crowded common room, Vera glanced over at Venn as he headed for the back stairs with their packs. She hoped he hurried, as she didn’t want his food to get cold.
