Flashing a sloppy grin, he returned his attention to the three girls at his table, trying to forget about the bartender.
Trying—but failing.
“Now,” he purred, “Weren’t we talking about my kingly bone?”
Chapter3
Rangar
Princess.
Princess.
Prin-cess.
Rangar Barendur practiced pronouncing the foreign word under his breath as he raised his iron sword. He lunged forward and slammed the blade into the side of a pine tree, sending out slivers of wood into the falling snow. The edge had lodged deep in the trunk, so he caught his breath before freeing it. His chest was rising and falling hard from the exertion of combat training. Despite the cold, sweat beaded on his bare chest.
“Princess,” he muttered aloud, testing out the word’s sound as he gripped the hilt, tugging his sword free of the tree.
He’d spent the last three years trying to master the Mir language. It was frustratingly dissimilar from his tongue, Baer. If he’d been more skilled with magic, he could have gotten a translation hexmark carved into his chest, as his aunt had. But despite the dozens of hexmarks scarring his muscles, the translation hex was so advanced as to be inaccessible to anyone other than mages. And so he’d persuaded his eldest brother, Trei, to obtain a book written in Mir. For the last year, he’d been painstakingly teaching himself the language one word at a time.
“Well met, princess,” he tested out. Briefly, his thoughts returned to the last time he had seen Bryn Lindane. She was the youngest daughter of the Mir royal family, the most powerful rulers in all the Eyrie, and thus far out of his league. If it hadn’t been for what happened when they were children, he probably never would have even been allowed in the same room as her. But fate had led her into the woods, following a white fawn. He’d been watching from her castle’s tower and had surmised what grave danger she was in. Luckily, he’d made it to her before the wolves did.
Now, he raked his sweaty hair off his face, fingers lingering briefly on the four claw mark scars that marred his face from temple to chin.
Bryn hadn’t escaped the wolf encounter unscathed, either, though her scars were hidden beneath her clothes. Not for the first time, Rangar wondered what it would be like to press his hands against the scars over her ribs that matched his own, forever binding them together.
“Do you know who I am?” he spoke in Mir, stumbling over the unwieldy pronunciation.
Two years before, he’d convinced his brothers to sneak into the Mirien on the eve of Harvest Moon Gathering. He’d seen Bryn dancing in a wheat field from a distance and had even managed to collect a button that had fallen from her gown. He kept it hidden in the rafters of the room he shared with his brothers, knowing they’d tease him ceaselessly about it if they knew.
He hadn’t been able to speak to Bryn at the Harvest Moon Gathering. With her father and brother so close, he would have been immediately run through with a sword. But the Low Sun Gathering was coming up in a few months. With tensions high among the kingdoms of the Eyrie, all the outland realms, including the Baersladen, had been invited to convene to discuss politics.
He would finally see Bryn again.
He might even talk to her.
Hefting his sword, he aimed at the last mark he’d made on the pine, intending to strike it again. He swung with all his strength, burying the blade deep into the wood.
Satisfied, he braced one boot against the trunk to pull the blade free, but before he could, a falcon cawed and landed on a branch overhead.
She was a small, light tan bird, and the leather tag on her talon was threaded with green glass beads.
It was Hurricane, Aya’s falcon.
“You’re speaking gibberish again,” a voice came behind him. “So I assume you’ve either gone mad or are trying to impress your Mir princess.”
Rangar turned to find Aya crossing the snow in her green wool cloak. He’d been friends with the junior falconer since she’d come from the village of Casim to train under Saraj’s guidance. Headstrong and confident, Aya was never put off by his brooding nature. Now, with her silky tresses loose and dotted with snowflakes, she looked almost like one of the woods sprites from the ancient ballads. She stopped in front of him, scrutinizing his bare chest marked with hexmarks.
“Or perhaps you intend to freeze out here, training shirtless?”
He gave a half grin as he heaved against his boot, freeing his sword. “I grow hot when I train.”
“Yes,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “You do.”
He laughed slightly as he started to sheath his sword, but Aya held out a hand. “Wait. Keep your sword drawn.”
He did as she requested, though his raised eyebrow said he was unsure of her reasons.
