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Erik crosses his arms.“Perhaps I’ve changed clothing?”

He’s teasing me, reminding me we are not strangers.

“I did not see you on the lists.”

“Were you looking?”

My surprise at the question stops me from answering. Which, of course, is all the answer he needs.

“I was not,” I insist.

Though Erik is not the first man who has flirted with me, he is certainly the first one who has made me want to crawl under one of the merchant’s tables and hide. I’ve no notion how to act with a man who makes my stomach twist up each time he looks at me thus.

“Hmm.” He looks down at my hand. “Have you made a purchase?”

Thankful for the change in subject, I show him the pin.

“The woman who sold it to me was a Garra.”

He moves closer, to look at the hairpin of course, but when he does so, awareness washes over me. My body comes alive in a way I’d not believed possible.

“There is a woman, a Garra, who lives in the capital,” he says, inspecting the pin. “I’ve spoken to her more than once.”

I show him the carving of the mini Kona on top, curious now about Erik’s visits to the Garra. They can treat a variety of ailments, but their focus is on love and romance, which is the reason for the church’s contempt. It is said they can cure a broken heart or make a man or woman fall in or out of love. Did he visit the Garra because of the queen? All know of his attachment to her. Rumors of Cettina and her commander have reached my ears more than once, even when the king was still alive, when Erik was the then-princess’s personal guard.

“Does this truly give the Garra her power?” I ask, having heard the real Kona, a yarn doll passed from mother to daughter, does that very thing.

“I do not believe so,” he says, looking at the pin. “But that is a remarkably intricate carving.” He looks up then, his eyes a deep blue, like the sea. “I am sorry about your sister,” he says suddenly. “I’d have come to her funeral had I been able to leave the capital.”

Her funeral was the only occasion Erik’s father and mine have come together since their disagreement. All of the Highland lords and ladies came, a show of support like none I’d ever seen.

“Thank you,” I say.

I glance back at Warin, and although he is still in conversation with Lord Beine’s son, he has clearly noticed I am talking with Erik.

“You said you’ve not been to a tournament before,” he says to me, jolting my attention back to him. “Not even this one?”

“Nay.”

I don’t wish to admit the reason, so instead I ask a question of my own. Something I’ve wondered about since this morning.

“Why are you here? These are uncertain times, from what I understand. Surely you are needed back at Breywood?”

Erik glances over my shoulder, and when he responds, pointedly avoiding my first question, his tone is less warm. “I am needed here as well. Good day, Warin.”

I hadn’t noticed my brother’s approach.

“Erik.”

Unlike me, Warin immediately takes Erik’s cue to use his given name. It is so very like a man not to question himself. My father is the same way, even when some circumspect thinking would be to his benefit.

“My father told me that he spoke to you earlier.”

“Aye, that he did.”

I’m not sure I understand the look Erik gives Warin, as if questioning him, but it fades when Warin reaches out his hand. “It has been too long.”

In response, Erik takes it and pulls him close. As the men embrace, I watch with fascination. What just happened there?