Megh knocked lightly on the door and swung it open.
“Lady Ayla?”
Ayla looked up from her embroidery hoop, which held all of three awkward gold stitches that hadn’t quite decided what they wanted to be.
“It’s the knight,” Megh continued.
“Oh,” Ayla said, her voice quivering, and stabbed the needle into the fabric. “What about the knight?”
“Well, he’s…” Megh cleared her throat. “He says you’re to come to his rooms—Lord Blackfell’s rooms—immediately.”
Ayla gaped at her.
“Why?” she whispered. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“He’s ordered you to dine with him tonight.”
Breaking Bread
Nobody answered the door to Ditmar’s sitting room when she knocked. Ayla waited a long minute, then slowly opened the door and peered inside. The sickening feeling she always had walking into the room rose up her throat. Even though Ditmar was gone, she had as good a reason as ever to be afraid.
Hearthfire bathed the room in golden-red light, turning the painted walls bloodier than the images on them already were. The chairs and furs that normally sat in front of the fire had been moved to the side, replaced by a small table with two chairs on opposite sides, set with the fine dinner trappings that usually graced the dais table in the great hall: a Blackfell-blue silk tablecloth and silk napkins, the silver wine goblets and the matching pitcher between them. A fat blue candlestick sat in the center on a silver wax-catcher, its wick unlit.
“Hello?” she called, peering into the shadowed doorways at the end of the room that led to Ditmar’s study and hisbedchamber. She was greeted only by the crackling sound of the fire as a log shifted.
Her skin prickled. What sort of games was this knight playing? Saying he was his brother, and tricking Ditmar from the castle. Saying he was ransoming her, then changing his mind. Where was he now? Gathering some bit of terrible evidence to show her before ordering her execution? Or waiting to jump out at her the moment she relaxed?
She’d taken the time to change and comb her hair out, hands trembling all the while. Perhaps he’d gotten impatient and left. She waited another minute, pulling her cream wool cloak tight around her shoulders. At last she took a seat at the table, the one facing towards the room’s front door, and let the right side of her body thaw in the blaze of the hearth fire directly beside her.
Presently the door opened. She pushed back the chair and stood quickly, heart pounding, as the traitor knight filled the doorway. He nearly had to stoop to pass through it. His hand rested on his sword hilt, and his dark eyes seemed to glitter with malice as he studied Ayla closely. As she’d come to expect of him, he wore an assortment of knives in addition to the sword, like he expected battle at any moment.
He approached without a word, until he stood practically on top of her, leering down at her. His dark hair was pulled half-back.
Had he eaten the food yesterday? His lips looked a little paler than usual. But they were still full, and softer than the first time she’d seen them, as if a few days inside the walls of the castle had given his skin a much-needed rest from the brutal mountain winds. She was staring at his lips quite hard, certainly harder than she’d meant to. She tried to tear her gaze away, found herself peering into his dark, quizzical eyes, and immediately jerked her eyes back down.
The silence stretched onward until it became untenable. But the knight made no move to speak. He did not shift his weight. He might as well have been a statue, frozen four inches from her.
“Hello…?” she finally whispered.
“That's my seat,” the knight informed her immediately, as if he’d been waiting for her to say something first.
She jolted to the side, away from both him and the chair.
“I didn’t realize,” Ayla apologized, twisting her hands into her skirts. The seats looked identical to her. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to sit at all. No, of course she wasn’t, she realized—she was a hostage, not the lady of the castle. But there had been two place settings, so she’d thought...
“Well?” he asked, without looking at her. The knight sat and picked up the silver pitcher. He poured a stream of ruby wine into the goblet across from him. “Sit down, woman.”
Some day I will stop jumping at every thought and act as calm as this man. He must be made of stone. Maybe they carved children out of the Kettalist itself up in Mount Eyron. He was certainly big enough.
She did as she was told silently, and avoided meeting his face again. The knight was silent, too, as he stopped pouring wine into her cup and poured it into his own. He set the pitcher down on the table and leaned back. She felt him staring at her, but she kept her eyes carefully fixed on the bright blue table trappings, not wanting to get lost staring at him again. The firelight danced along the silver pitcher.
“Drink,” he said at last.
She picked up her cup and took a sip. The wine was tart and smooth in her mouth. His posture seemed to relax slightly, and he reached out to lift his own goblet. Given her situation, she ought to remain sober, so she could think quickly. But the knight was handsome, and cruel, and horrible, and scaring her so badlyshe thought Megh might have to carry her out of the room on a stretcher… Ayla drank again, deeply.
“You must be wondering what happened,” the knight said, his voice low and rumbling. She choked on her wine and set the cup down hurriedly.He knew. He knew it was her. “Your husband yelled until he was red in the face, so I shot an arrow at him. Regrettably, I missed. He ran back to town with his tail tucked.”
Her mind spun, trying to figure out how he’d gotten frompoisoning attempttoDitmar’s rage, until she realized he wasn’t talking about the stilder seeds at all. The knight was staring at her, and she found herself staring back, trying to read any expression in his square-jawed face.
