Not quite royal, but after the road, it was a luxury.
Reese sat on one of the stools. "I was joking, by the way. I just wanted to talk to you in private."
"About the armor?" I tilted my head. "I won't have you telling anyone I'm a poor squire. My armor is nothing compared to yours, and it's still a pain." I gestured for him to give me his arm.
"If you insist.” He offered me the first vambrace.
Staring down, I set to unlatching the armor. "In private, hm? Have something scandalous in mind?"
"Remember when we talked about all the rumors you've heard about me?"
"Go on," I said, eyes flicking up with interest.
Reese didn't look humored or coy. He wore a heavy frown.
"It's true," he said softly. "Ididlose an arm."
"Yes, very funny," I scoffed, looking between his very intact pair of appendages.
"Take off the right glove. See for yourself."
Setting down the left vambrace, I reached for the right, hands hesitating just short of the steel. Curiosity won out. Unlatching the straps, I pulled the vambrace off.
Underneath was the black glove he'd never taken off. The moment I touched it, heat surged through my fingers and lanced into my arm. Grimacing, I pulled my hand away.
Reese rolled up his sleeve, then slowly pulled off the glove. Flesh and bone extended just past the elbow, but beyond that . . .
It was light. Mesmerizing white, streaked with veins of gold and formed into the perfect shape of a forearm and hand. The golden veins reached up from the strange appendage, melding with the veins on his real arm.
"I keep it hidden," Reese said, turning it over. "It unsettles most people."
I couldn't deny the sight disturbed me. The more I stared, the more my stomach turned.
I had no idea why.
"How are you doing that?" I wondered. "The amount of magic it must require . . . "
"It's not magic; it's a prosthetic. Forlaith's court mage made it for me."
"What in Solathair's name is it made of?"
"Some new ore they found in northern Lavaire. It conducts Solheart magic miraculously well, apparently." He pulled the glove back on.
The moment the pulsing light vanished into his glove, the sense of unease fled the room.
I narrowed my eyes. "Why is it just a rumor, then? Couldn't people tell you were missing an arm, before you got that?"
Reese shrugged his shoulders. His black cape shifted with the movement, neatly covering his right arm.
"Please," I scoffed. "You have not hidden a missing arm with only acape."
"You'd be amazed." He smirked, then glanced away.
I felt like an idiot. A hint of shame colored his cheeks. The loss of his arm, perhaps even what had taken it, was not something he liked to talk about—or even wanted people to know about at all.
Something from his past, no doubt, that he so detested thinking about.
Reese had shared something vulnerable about himself with me. I should do the same.
