“Where’s Ian?” Aradella asked. “You two have hardly been apart since you met.”
Arit’s face stiffened as though she was trying not to show her feelings. She shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s none of my business where he is or what he does or who he sees.” She drank more beer.
“If it were any of your business, where would he be?” Aradella persisted.
Arit grimaced. “My sister is here with King Aramus. She is beautiful beyond belief. It’s said that the moon asks her for beauty advice. Any male who sees her, no matter his size, declares his eternal love for her. It’s a love that can never be broken since she’s so... so...”
“Glamorous?” Aradella said. “Dazzling? She enters a room and everyone runs to her? No one even seesyouafter she appears?”
“Yes, exactly,” Arit said.
Aradella refilled the thimble. “Did Ian actually run off with her or are you assuming—based on past experience—that he’s fallen for your beautiful princess cousins?”
Arit and Hale looked at her.
“What did I say?” Aradella asked, then remembered. “I was just pointing out that I understand due to my own life experience. Is your sister why you’ve always been a bit cool to Ian?”
“I refuse to have my heart broken. I know he’ll leave me as soon as he sees—”
The familiar sound of a Never buzzing came through the window, but this was a lower, deeper vibration. It was Ian. In place of the half of his leg that he’d lost, was a beautifully carved piece of wood. Aradella had seen it before. In a room where Olina held meetings was an elegant clock that had belonged to the former king. On one side was a carving of an old man with a cane. That cane was now strapped to Ian’s leg.
Aradella couldn’t resist saying, “Does your leg tell time?”
Ian gave a chuckle of understanding, then lit on the table to stand across from Arit. “Peace at last.” He picked up her thimble of beer, drained it, then grabbed a handful of beef and ate it inone bite. “It’s bad out there. Sawdust is flying everywhere—and all the men are half naked. The dust is sticking to their sweaty skin and it itches them, but they willnotput their shirts on. It’s very strange.”
The three women looked at each other.
“Sweaty men,” Aradella said. “Half naked.”
“Covered in sawdust,” Arit added.
“I could scratch a few backs,” Hale said.
Ian looked at the women in chastisement.
Aradella cleared her throat. “But the men aren’t touching the women, are they?”
Ian drank more beer and ate more of Arit’s beef. “No! No matter what the women do to get their attention, the men don’t touch them.” He looked at Arit. “Four of your sisters are here.” He said it as though it was an accusation.
“Oh.” Instantly, Arit looked sad.
Ian clamped his teeth together. “Those women rolled dice to decide who...” He didn’t finish.
Hale and Aradella leaned forward. “To decide what?”
“Who would get me as a...” He took a breath. “As a prize.”
Aradella and Hale closed their lips to keep from laughing.
Arit, with no hint of humor in her eyes, said, “Who won you?”
Ian drained another thimble of beer. “The oldest one, I think. I’m not sure.”
Arit looked like she might cry. “Tink is beautiful, don’t you think?”
Ian wiped his mouth on his sleeve and scratched his leg above the peg. “She certainly thinks she is. She even told me that she is.” He looked up at Aradella. “Mekos’s grandfather arrived on a dragon. That creature glistens. I’d like to have one of his scales for a shield. That giant was very glad to see Mekos.”
It was Aradella’s turn to look sad. “Is he with the sawdust boys?”
