Trisha’s mouth flattened.
“Or would you rather I let them? Since I promise you, the northern clans still believe in the custom of the carry-off brides.”
She shook her head, unable to hide the disgust in her voice. “Even if it was your bard?”
The servant passing the table made the candles’ flame whip. Blainor’s voice was low when he noted, “Especially her.”
A chill shot through Trisha. Had she made a mistake? She recalled Blainor’s reaction to her song, how grief had aged his face. Trisha’s fingers tightened around her drink as she pushed the thought away, reminding herself that she didn’t care. She wasn’t seeking a lover, least of all in a man she didn’t trust. Assoon as she could, she’d leave to search for her parents. Trisha took another sip of her mead, telling herself that nothing could prevent her. Not grief. Not longing. Not even Eichlandt’s Warlord.
Uncertainty gnawed at her insides. Trisha wasn’t sure she could believe her own words.
8
Dapple’s hoovesclopped against the rotting wood of the bridge crossing the moat, the stench of still and muddy water lingering even after she’d entered Moorhafen’s courtyard. Her trusty steed carried Trisha through the lower bailey, passing stray livestock and the smithy. After the barracks, by the stables, she slid off Dapple’s back and led him toward the post near its entrance. Birds chirped, and Dapple’s dark tail swooshed to drive off the flies.
She grinned, patting him. “I’ll get a brush. You’ll get your breakfast after that.”
Dapple snorted as though to inform her what he thought of this order.
“If I must endure Aine’s ministrations and suffocating bodices, the least you can do is to go through a good grooming. We’re in this together.”
These morning rides allowed Trisha the freedom she’d lost in her past life. Aine might control Trisha’s outfit for official appearances, but outside the Warlord’s halls, sheinsisted on wearing tunics and pants. They were practical and, most importantly, hers.
Heading toward the stable doorway, she slipped a hand in her pocket and drew out a green culm. Hollow and sturdy stem, with feathery seed heads crowning its top, Trisha had recognized it instantly when passing the field of reeds beneath the shadow of an ancient hill.
Her memory—here, in Eichlandt.
Trisha couldn’t leave it standing there. Instead, she’d hopped off the saddle. Walking across the rustling grass sea, she ran her hand across its surface. A swirling maelstrom of fury and sorrow had raged within. She wasn’t even sure what she felt, but it burned her throat. In her memories, the stalks grew taller, a forest of grass swallowing her view of the sun and the sky, her mother’s dark shape pulling her forward. Had she truly been so small?
Trisha’s fingers lapped around the stem. She’d find them. Make them tell her why they’d abandoned her. Had there been something wrong with her? She’d tell them the truth. Make them regret.
And then behind her, a crunch of gravel under boots, a faint smell of evergreens and cedar drifting in the wind; she knew who stood there before he even spoke.
“Woolgathering, or just blocking my way because it suits?” the voice said.
She whirled around. Blainor, of course. She’d noticed him before, headed to the fencing yard at the same time she took Dapple out.
Curse him. Why did he have to seek her out now when a tangle of conflicting emotions churned inside her? When the past had slid through the crack and disturbed her world?
A loose shirt with an open neckline displayed silver-lined scars. How many did he have beneath his clothes? A faint grinsparked a blush from Trisha. Blainor’s eyes then landed on the reed, his brow lifting. She resisted the impulse to hide it behind her back. Servants, soldiers, and the castle residents moved around them.
“Or entertaining a new profession?” he asked. “I’d caution you to rethink. Farming in the north is hard work, my southern bird. Stick to your music.”
“Just something I passed earlier today,” Trisha muttered. “It caught my interest.”
He moved closer, and a curious, masculine scent wafted to her nose. She stifled the urge to lean closer and inhale. Was it really too much to ask that he’d smell disgusting after fencing practice? Tiny beads of sweat pearled on his forehead, and those stubborn curls of black hair were glued to his skin.
“Thistledrift. Rather commonplace,” he informed her. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short.”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t recall seeing it elsewhere, and as you said, it seems to grow here in abundance.”
He observed Trisha for a second too long. “That, it certainly does. But if you fancy horticulture, there are other, more interesting plants to choose from. What in it caught your interest?”
For one frightful moment, all her mind could draw was blank. “Nothing, really.”
Blainor hummed with a sideways glance at Dapple and frowned. “You shouldn’t ride alone. The moors can be dangerous.”
“I’ve never needed a nursemaid before, and I don’t need one now.”
