“What’re you still doing here?” The guard turned, wiping sweat from his brow, the gate crank forgotten. “Go on, get out of here.”
“We’re not leaving until you summon Lord Erion,” Jayme insisted.
The man drew his sword. In one movement, Jayme pulled hers as well. The two squared off against each other.
“I don’t think this is really necessary.” Vi hastily stepped forward.
“What is going on here?” A man stood at the gates, attendant at his side. He had shoulder-length black hair, drawn back and away from his face. He had the tanned skin of a Westerner, but the bright blue eyes of a Southerner. It was a rare combination, but that—nor the stately clothes he was wearing—were what betrayed his identity to Vi. It was the skeletal metal hand that protruded from his right cuff, barely visible under the elongated sleeve.
“Lord Erion,” Vi said hastily, stepping around Jayme. The soldier tried to step back between her and the guard as the guard made a motion as well. Vi paid them no heed. “I have come very far in search of you. I must speak with you. Please, grant me an audience.”
Erion Le’Dan looked her up and down, squinting, slightly.
“My lord, my apologies, I was just telling the rabble to—”
Erion held up a hand, silencing the man. “And why do you think I should grant you an audience?”
“It’s not her you’ll want the audience with, my lord.” Jayme stepped forward, three paces past Vi. She held her arm straight out, sword clutched in her fist. The point was not tracked on Erion, but angled harmlessly away, showing the pommel. “It’s me.”
Vi watched as Erion’s eyes went wide and glossy. It was as if Jayme was holding out some kind of sacred treasure. But all Vi saw was the same pommel, carved with sheaves of wheat, that she’d always seen Jayme carry.
“Who are you?” Erion whispered, almost reverently.
“I am an Imperial guard.” Jayme’s voice had gone as hard and closed as her expression. “And my name is Jayme Taffl.”
Taffl?Vi’s attention swung to her friend. That wasn’t her name. Jayme’s last name was Graystone, not Taffl.
“What was your father’s name, Jayme Taffl?” Erion crossed to her hurriedly. With both hands he took the pommel of the sword in his, rotating it slightly. Jayme allowed his inspection, but didn’t loosen her vice-like grip.
“Daniel, sir. Daniel Taffl. He told me he served with you.”
“Impossible…” Erion echoed Vi’s single resounding thought.
“He’s alive, sir. And he told me once if I were to meet you in my time serving the crown that I should tell you he’s deeply sorry for that day. That he should’ve stepped forward and—”
“Enough.” Erion held up his mechanical hand. “Ivos,” the lord said to the attendant at his side. “Inform the Capricians that I shall not be in attendance for dinner this evening, as the daughter of an old friend has come to call.”
Vi stared at the woman she’d calledfriend. The woman she thought she knew. The woman who was her confidant and ally, who had literally carried Vi’s dreams and secrets across the land. The woman she now felt she was seeing for the first time.
Either Jayme was a clever, bold, and well-practiced liar—more so than Vi could’ve ever suspected, given how Erion had recognized the sword. Or her father really was Daniel Taffl—member of the Golden Guard, the most esteemed fighting squadron formed under Vi’s late uncle, Prince Baldair. The same Daniel Taffl who had been an irreplaceable guard in service of Vi’s mother.
The Daniel Taffl who was, by all counts, presumed dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Please,forgive me, my Lord, I had not realized.” The guard at the gates continued to bow. “Esteemed guests of the Le’Dan, I beseech your forgiveness.” Such a fast transition for someone who moments ago seemed so intent on removing them from the premises that he drew his blade.
“All is well,” Vi murmured on their behalf as she entered. Her focus couldn’t be further from the guard now. It was solely on Jayme as Erion led them into his manor.
The courtyard within the gates was a sort of T-shape.
There was a small amount of space between the wall where they’d entered, and the buildings to the right and left. In that space, flowers—Vi recognized them as Western roses—grew on trellises. The building to the left was a carriage house; three of the four gates were occupied by both carriages and horses, with the last vacant.There must be an access road somewhere, Vi reasoned, for she could not imagine how anything resembling a carriage could fit up the narrow walkways they’d traversed.
The building to their right was a workshop—an easy thing to determine given what she knew of the Le’Dan family trade, the feeling of Firebearer magic crackling the air, and the needlessly large windows that gave her a perfect view of the men and women laboring within. They toiled over worktables and benches, holding up sapphires as big as her eye and rubies larger than her thumb. It was clearly designed to communicate one thing: the wealth of the Le’Dan house.
But Vi wasn’t concerned with that, just as she wasn’t concerned with the five-story manor they entered at the other end of the meticulously paved walkway, or the ornately gilded entry hall they came to a stop in. Vi was concerned with one thing and one thing only: Jayme, and what now felt like a secret identity she’d kept from Vi for years.
Jayme avoided her probing stare completely, so adeptly that Vi was certain it was a conscious maneuver.
