Alaric gave the seated men a practiced smile, rising to his feet. “Gentlemen,” he said, “it was a pleasure.”
“Come,” the man said, already guiding him away from the ring of weary titles and thinning patience. “There is wine waiting—and company less prone to dust and delusion.”
Alaric let himself be guided. Cedric raised an eyebrow from across the room but made no move to intervene. Either he trusted Alaric’s ability to fend off charismatic kidnappers, or he wanted the rest of his drink to himself. Possibly both.
They walked to a quieter alcove near the far wall, partially concealed behind an intricately carved folding screen. A low table waited there, flanked by velvet-backed couches and candlelight soft enough to obscure intentions. A servant appeared almost immediately with a decanter of Zhareshian sweet wine and a tray of glazed figs, dates, almonds, and delicate slivers of salted bread. The scent alone was enough to uncoil some of the tension in Alaric’s neck.
He sat down slowly, the stranger across from him, still smiling.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Alaric said, lifting the glass but not drinking. “Most people wait until after I’ve insulted them to drag me into shadowed corners.”
The stranger smiled, slow and warm. “The pleasure was mine,” he said, reclining with the ease of someone who had never once rushed through a sentence in his life. “I have dwelt in this city but two days, and already I feel the years gathering in my bones. You, at least, bore the look of a man still capable of thinking for himself.”
Alaric quirked a brow. “And who exactly are you?”
“Irashe,” the man replied, with a slight dip of his head. “Emissary of Zharesh, for the wedding’s sake. A merchant, by honest labor. And on some days,” he added, with a playful flick of his fingers, “a Sandteller.”
Alaric’s brows lifted, though he kept his expression composed. A Sandteller. Rare, these days. Their role was older than most kingdoms—part mystic, part historian, veiled in metaphor and memory. They read omens in the shifting patterns of sand, believing that motion revealed meaning where words failed. Once, they had served beside kings as advisors. Now most were ornamental, used for court performances, if at all.
Alaric blinked. “You mean the kind who tells stories, or the kind who knows when the tides are turning?”
Irashe gave a small, elegant shrug. “Both, should the wine prove worthy of the tale.”
“And you’re saving me from an evening of theatrical grief about the grain markets because…?”
“Because foreigners must keep to one another,” Irashe said smoothly. Then, after a brief pause, his golden eyes scanned the room with a pointed slowness. “Most especially… in places such as this.”
His tone did not sharpen, but it didn’t have to. The House of Merit was the sort of place where native-born rank was inherited and reinforced like architecture. Even Alaric, despite his bloodline and title, could feel it in the walls—the slight stiffness that met his accent.
Alaric leaned back in his seat, finally sipping the wine. It burned less now.
“Go on, then,” he said. “Tell me a story.”
Irashe laughed—a soft, throaty sound, as though he were genuinely delighted by some secret only he knew. “Once, long ago, there lived a man cursed with questions. He poked where he ought not, pressed where it was impolite, and asked until someone in a robe far too fine for their soul ordered his execution.” He tilted his head, gaze bright with mischief. “Does the bell toll yet?”
Alaric barked a laugh before he could help it, low and rough. “Very funny. My grandfather is still banned from your kingdom.”
“A wonderful man,” Irashe said. “Rare as rain in the dunes.”
“You met him?”
“I saw him once or twice, as a boy,” Irashe said, the corner of his mouth curling with the memory. “He did business with my father. Always insisted on eating with his hands. Horrified my grandmother beyond reason. Naturally, I adored him for it.”
Alaric smirked, sipping his wine. It went down easier now, the edge softened by warmth and company. In the main hall, someone laughed too loudly, a glass shattered.
Irashe exhaled slowly, setting his glass down with precision. “No offence meant, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled when the summons came. A royal wedding, they said. As if ceremony might thaw what frost has settled in these courts. Meanwhile, the wind bites like insult.” He glanced toward the paneledwindows, voice dropping slightly. “I hate the cold. Always have. It gets into the joints. Lingers in the silences.”
“Same here,” Alaric said, mouth twisting. “But apparently they needed a groom.”
Irashe gave a low chuckle, the sound warm. “So I heard,” he said, tilting his head with courtly curiosity. “And how fares thy betrothal, if I may be so bold?”
Alaric hesitated, turning the glass in his hands. The light caught in the curve of the rim, a shimmer like hesitation made visible. He didn’t answer at first.
Irashe nodded slowly, not unkindly. “Ah. Edrathen and Varantia. The great cultural exchange. I imagine it’s been… educational.”
“Something like that.”
“I know what you mean. I had a lover from this side once,” Irashe added, more amused than wistful. “Beautiful, unreadable, could dismantle a man’s pride with a single sentence and never so much as lift her tone. I was in awe for a fortnight. And utterly wretched for the six that followed.”
