“It was a compliment!” Haldir cried, holding up his hands.
“One more compliment from you,” Evander spat, “and you’ll be limping home.”
“If she doesn’t want me to notice, then perhaps she shouldn’t wear trousers. I’m just a man, and I’ve got eyes.”
Evander spun Hera to face Haldir and, as if by command, the dragon Haldir was riding bucked, dumping her rider. Haldir thudded onto the wet grass and let out a string of curses asEvander rode away over the hill. Laughing, Valenna caught up to him, leaving Haldir behind.
They crested a grassy knoll, and a small stone and thatch village spread out beneath them, rising and falling with the land.
“Should we stop?” Valenna asked. “I’m hungry, and we need to ask around and see if anyone has seen the dragon.”
Evander nodded, and Valenna studied him. Was he angry or just lost in thought? Was he about to fall over dead? She determined that, once they found a quiet place away from Haldir, she would corner him and make him talk.
Cold rain stung Valenna’s cheeks as they guided their dragons to the stable behind the tavern. Evander slid off Hera, unbuckling her three bridles and swinging them over his shoulder.Hera shook her big, lumbering body like a dog after a bath and followed him into the stable, wandering into a stall where she stomped down the hay and then lay down, curling cat-like on the floor.
“Won’t she wander off?” Valenna asked Evander as he hung up the bridles, then stepped up beside her dragon.
Evander shook his head and reached up to help her dismount.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You’re not supposed to exert yourself.”
“You’re not what I would call an exertion,” he replied, unmoved.
It was the first words he’d spoken to her since that morning, and she was so thankful to hear his voice that she braced her hands on his shoulders and let him swing her easily down. She landed neatly on her feet in front of him, then she tilted up her chin and looked into his face. An impulse to kiss him as she had in their happier days in Largotia prompted her to stand on her tiptoes and brush her lips against his before she caught herself and rocked back on her heels, blushing. Suddenly, her feet were moving as he pushed her into the stable doorway. Her shoulderstouched wood, and Evander planted his hands on the wall on either side of her head, his forehead almost meeting hers, his eyes—so green, so intense—searching her like she was the first woman he’d ever seen. She tipped her chin up, wanting to kiss him, needing to kiss him.
But he dropped his gaze and stepped away, leaving her breathless and flushed.
As always, he hovered just out of reach; a will-o’-the-wisp in a bog.
Without another word, he turned and walked into the tavern.
The tavern was dim and smothering. The reek of bacco smoke and rotting wine permeated the wood-paneled walls. Hidden in some shadowy corner, a musician played a mournful Talwaithan lament on his fiddle. Valenna remembered hearing the kitchen girls humming it in Sennalaith, but she couldn’t recall the words; something about a sunbird and blood on a willow tree.
Men lined the black lavastone counter, drinking steaming alcohol in trenchers. Valenna passed Evander standing at the end of the bar, talking to a young woman dressed in a burgundy gown with a plunging neckline. He dropped a few kibs into her hand, and she smiled, leaning seductively toward him. Valenna felt a stab of jealousy.
Beyond the counter, the room broadened, and a fire roared in a stone hearth. Over the thick oak mantle hung an Elkin Bear head, its sprawling antlers strung with cobwebs. On the mantle itself ranged a collection of bleached animal skulls.
Itching with jealousy, Valenna crumpled into a deep leather chair and watched Evander as he and the woman at the counter whispered to one another. She put her hand on his arm, running her fingers down his sleeve, and Evander pulled away, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder at Valenna, who darted herattention toward the fire.Her cheeks were still burning from the encounter outside, and she began to wish she had never come.
“Are you hungry?”
She glanced up. Evander stood over her, his hands in his pockets, rainwater dripping out of his hair. He wasn’t looking at her; instead, he was gazing sorrowfully at the skulls.
“You aren’t allowed to kill magical creatures,” he said with disgust.
“No,youaren’t allowed to kill magical creatures,” Valenna said sharply. “Not everyone has made an ill-advised oath.”
“Yes,” Evander replied, “but even people who haven’t taken the oath aren’t allowed to kill Elkin Bear.”
Valenna rolled her eyes. If an Elkin Bear threatened to devour him bite by bite, he’d probably pull out a pad of paper and take notes while it ate him. “I am hungry, but it seems you’ve found some more engaging company,” she said, realizing too late that her voice was laced with bitterness.
Evander furrowed his brow, puzzled.
Valenna jerked her head toward the woman at the counter, and Evander looked annoyed.
“She told me that one of her customers saw the dragon and…”
A roar of disjointed song burst from the counter, and someone ordered the fiddler to play a jig.
