"Sample: Part 5" by Jenny Olivera

Part 5: As Events Develop

Teyindahl pulled his cloak tighter and leaned against the fallen log that had served as partial shelter the night before. A few days had passed since he'd had his run-in with the human thieves. He hadn't seen those humans since, but he'd still decided to move his small camp farther away from the little pond with the hiding place beneath its stones.

The humans hadn't been the only reason he'd left that area, though they were perhaps what had finally decided him; the young elf was simply tired of trying to avoid travelers, especially the half-blooded ones. Very few of those his people thought of as mockeries had actually seen him, but those who had had looked at him with such suspicion and hostility that he'd been afraid one of them would finally attack him out of hand. He couldn't understand why; he hadn't given them reason. But then, there was no giving reason to the actions of jusurim-lin. He'd been told that often enough. Better to just avoid them all together.

So he'd moved further northward, deeper into the forest and farther away from any villages of either jusurim-lin or humans. The spot was peaceful enough. Teyindahl had been leafing through his spellbook that morning as he waited for the day to warm, and the large tome lay open on the ground before him at the moment. The book, which he usually kept in the pouch his mother had gifted him with when he was a child, held a record of everything the Magician had done with magic so far. He had updated it the night before, and had been reviewing what spells he had used in the past handful of days.

"You're a long way from home, Te'ilsineyl-eyif."

The voice made him jump, so badly that he scraped the back of his hand against the rough bark of the log in his hasty attempt to turn.

The speaker - a dark-haired elf with a bow in one hand and a quiver over his shoulder - smiled appologetically. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said, speaking what Teyindahl realized must be the northern, or Eiliaen, dialect of the elven language; the words were formed oddly, but not so much so that he couldn't understand.

Teyindahl winced at the back of his hand. "I'm not even sure where I am," he explained, speaking a bit slower than was normally his habit to compensate for the different speech patterns, as the other seemed to be doing.

"No?" The other elf regarded him quizzically and walked over to sit on the fallen log. "Then . . . well, why are you here?"

Teyindahl only shrugged and shook his head. He didn't want to try and explain the testing; he wasn't even sure he understood completely it himself. "The explanation would be too long," he said instead. "Is this near Eiliaen?"

The dark-haired elf had been regarding the open spellbook, but now turned his light, grey-on-grey eyes back toward the youth. "Not very near. We are closer to a couple of human villages than we are to my birth-village." When he turned, Teyindahl noted that his right ear was pierced, marking him as having lived more than a century. Teyindahl had more than two and a half decades before he earned that badge of adulthood. "You must have passed plenty of human settlements on your way here," the older elf continued. After a pause, he added; "Have you come this way on your own, mayeneian?"

Teyindahl frowned at the implication that he was too young, even if it was unusual for someone his age to be far from the village alone. He wasn't sure he liked being called a youth, either, even if he was one.

Before he could respond, however, the stranger reached out and closed the spellbook. Teyindahl started; the spellbook was his, after all. Even his mother who, as his Teacher, had given him the book almost never touched it without permission.

The other elf gazed at the leather cover for a moment with a curious and slightly puzzled expression. Teyindahl had to admit that the tome seemed to be an odd thing for him to have; while his people sometimes kept written records, they rarely, if ever, used the large parchment-and-leather books that humans preferred. The book was unmistakably his, with his name - his full name - written across the front in gold letters. Underneath the writing was a circle stamped into the dark leather, with a line dividing the circle into two parts; the top half contained an oval standing on end, and the bottom half showed a diamond-shaped figure that, like the oval, pointed upwards. The design matched the pendant the young Magician wore.

"Teyindahl, is it?" the dark-haired one asked.

"Teyindahl," he replied, correcting the mispronunciation, slight as it was. It was his name, though, and he had a right to be picky about it.

The other nodded, repeating the correct pronunciation to himself. "S'yuhrikor, Teyindahl. Are you a Magus, then?" he asked, indicating the spellbook.

Again, he started slightly; in his experience, few people knew or used that term. Most either used the generic term "magic-user" or incorrectly called all Magi "Mages."

Teyindahl finally nodded when he realized the older elf was patiently waiting for a response, his double-hued grey eyes full of amusement. "Magician," he clarified. "I've only started learning magic."

The other smiled. "Young as you are, I would have been surprised if you had been anything more. If you had been any further along in your learning, I mean." He stood, shouldering his bow and nodding further into the forest. "Care to travel with me a bit? It would be nice to have some company. My name's Kheylat'ayim."

Smiling, Teyindahl scooped up his spellbook and stood. The partly healed wound in this thigh ached only slightly when he put weight on that leg. "Pur yureim-kor, Kheylat'ayim. I would enjoy some company as well."

* * *

"I'm still surprised that you came this far north, especially on your own," Kheylat'ayim remarked. They were standing to the side of a well-used trail-well used by those of human blood. "Travel between our villages was easier a few centuries ago, before the way became so crowded with j'shri'im-lin." He shrugged, regarding the trail with an expression of mild distaste. "I think they did it to spite us."

Teyindahl, leaning against a tree and not directly facing the trail, folded his arms and considered this. He'd heard a similar thought expressed before; he didn't remember by whom and he didn't remember when, but that didn't matter. He had no answer for it now, just as he hadn't then. He resisted the urge to ask how many villages there were between Te'ilsineyl and Eiliaen; if he did, he would have to explain why he hadn't passed them on his way north. He still resented that he had had to explain his recent encounter with the three human men. A few hours ago he had, without thinking, returned his spellbook to its pouch, moving his cloak aside in the process; Kheylat'ayim hadn't commented on the pouch's odd ability to hold an item larger than it was, but had caught sight of and exclaimed over the younger elf's torn and bloodstained breeches. He'd questioned and cajoled until, bit by bit, Teyindahl had told him the details. The dark-haired elf had commented that at least they had been human. Teyindahl was still not quite sure what he had meant by that.

"It's the human's fault they're here at all," Kheylat'ayim continued, distracting his fair-haired companion back to the present. After a moment he shrugged abruptly and stared walking.

Teyindahl hastily pushed himself away from the tree and followed, brushing bits of bark from his hair and cloak. "True, but there is hardly anything to be done about them now. The jusurim-lin, I mean. And they never bother us, really. Do they ever come by Eiliaen?"

"Almost no one crosses the rivers surrounding the village's territory." He glanced back over his shoulder. "It just annoys me that they're around at all; there really should be something that could be done about them."

He spoke as if about an unusually large number of rats in a store of food. Behind him, Teyindahl bit his lip and didn't answer.

After a while the conversation moved to other topics. Kheylat'ayim was curious about Teyindahl's studies in magic; the younger elf told him what he could, which wasn't much. He reminded the other elf that he was still in his apprenticeship, and really only just beginning that. The Eiliaen-elf made another comment about youth and appropriate ages, and seemed oblivious to Teyindahl's resulting brief scowl.

About his own past Kheylat'ayim said very little, mentioning only that he was currently out scouting. Nor would he say the purpose of his scouting, his only answer being that he was searching the area. Eventually Teyindahl gave up; he had enough questions about the area, and these the older elf seemed willing to answer.

The sun was now halfway between afternoon and evening. Teyindahl had fallen behind again, having been distracted by a particular plant that was just starting to blossom, the flowers of which had a number of uses. He was just straightening after picking a few of the buds when he caught sight of something off to his left. He didn't look up in time to see much before the figure disappeared into the brush, but something, perhaps the way of moving, was disconcertingly familiar.

Teyindahl dropped the flowers into one of his pouches and jogged a couple steps to tug on the back of Kheylat'ayim's tunic. "I saw someone over in the trees, there," he said when the older elf turned.

Kheylat'ayim peered off in the indicated direction, which unfortunately put the sun in his eyes. "It's probably just a traveler. I wouldn't worry about it." He shrugged, adjusted his bow and quiver, and continued walking.

Teyindahl followed only long enough so the sun was again filtered through the forest canopy, then turned back to look. Yes, there was someone, and that person had just moved a bit closer; the young Magician could see a bit of dark clothing, warmer than the surrounding trees.

Teyindahl stepped to the side, to give himself a bit of cover, and set about preparing his first spell. It was a simple enough one; he merely defined the area around the stranger with quiet words in the language of magic, and then set it so he would be alerted if the person moved beyond the boundaries. That precaution done, he moved a little farther around a tree, to where he was mostly hidden from whoever it was who was trying to hide from him. He idly toyed with his necklace, his fingers running over the smooth dome of the reddish-purple gem set in the top half of the pendant.

The next spell would be more complicated. First he needed to figure out what, exactly, he wanted to do. If the person was, as he suspected, one of the two humans he had dealt with a few days ago, then he would probably have a weapon, if not drawn then at least at the ready. Even if this person wasn't one of those two men, getting rid of any drawn weapons was a good idea. The heat spell had worked well before, but the Magician had never tried it on an object he couldn't actually see. However, he had already set one spell around that person, and attaching another to it should be fairly simple. To help himself structure the spell he created a globe of light, outside the human range of sight, in the air before him in which to contain the magic. He set it to seek out the person in-or who had been in, in case the person moved-the magical tripwires he had set. Then he told it to bring any weapons that person had up to the same temperature it was; he defined a weapon as anything that either had a sharp edge or was used to propel another object. Remembering his own preferred weapon, the staff, he added anything used for the purpose of striking another being.

Just then he felt the twinge that meant the magic boarders he had defined had been crossed, and he quickly finished the second spell and sent it off with a word and gesture. A moment later the success of the spell was noted by a surprised and outraged cry, followed by the muffled thud of something heavy striking the ground. Teyindahl straightened and drew away from the tree.

He had just enough time to see that it was indeed one of the men from before, the one on whose dagger he had tried the heat spell, before the man yelled something and charged toward him, stooping first to grab a fallen tree branch. The startled young elf brought his short staff up just in time to block. The force of the blow numbed his palms and sent him staggering back a few steps, but the slender wooden rod held. He managed to deflect the next blow, but was nearly thrown to the ground in the process. His attacker said something again, drawing back for another strike -

- And jerked forward, his eyes wide and his face gone slack, his mouth still trying to form words; then he fell. Teyindahl scrambled out of the way and stumbled against the tree, staring dumbly at the arrow protruding from the man's back. Not quite comprehending what just happened, he looked up to see Kheylat'ayim lower his bow.

The youth sank to the ground, still clutching his staff, and closed his eyes. The human's words ran through his mind. "Enough with this" something. Game? "Enough with this game"? His last statement had started with "no more," but ended with two words the elf didn't know. No more what?

"Unfortunate events." When Kheylat'ayim spoke Teyindahl looked up to find the older elf cleaning the arrowhead. "You're all right?"

Teyindahl nodded and, after a moment, stood. He leaned against the tree which he had used as cover for his magic, not quite trusting his legs to hold him up on their own.

"Let's leave, then. We shouldn't stay here too long." Kheylat'ayim turned to go.

"What about . . ." Teyindahl looked at the body lying face down before him.

The archer paused and looked back over his shoulder. "I doubt the humans will notice one more corpse, and carrion eaters will take care of it soon enough. Come; we've neither time nor reason to make a death-fire."

The fair-haired youth nodded, more from reflex than agreement, then followed, glancing back only once at his slain attacker. His staff he kept in his hands, for some reason reluctant to return it to its customary place across his back.

* * *

Ravin sighed and looked up to watch Detch practicing with her sword. She had been practicing hard since late afternoon when they'd set up camp; she always said that it helped her think. For awhile Ravin watched her thrust and swing at imaginary foes, occasionally switching the sword between her right and left hands. Then he turned his attention back to the figure he was carving; he needed to think as well.

The small carving knife scraped softly against the wood, slowly turning the once nondescript chunk into a little fox, its ears pricked forward and its bushy tail held straight out behind, its attention on some unseen rabbithole. Ravin's hands knew how and where to guide the knife, leaving his mind free to think on the past couple days.

They'd found the guard who had accompanied Shannae on her evening ride beneath an overhanging part of the Shen-co-Haile riverbank. He'd been an older man with greying hair and what must have once been warm brown eyes. His clothes had been so stained with blood and dirt that the royal insignia on his coat had been almost unrecognizable. They might not have found him but for the group of blackbirds that had been unusually interested in the little alcove.

Darent had confirmed the poor fellow's identity. Detch and Ravin had then followed the river upstream as far as Brightwater. The traffic between that town and Shidale was great enough that any tracks the murderers might have made were obscured by the frequent passing of horses, carriages, and those on foot.

The only ones willing to speak with them had been the other travelers who happened to currently be in the area, and none of them had taken note of a young highborn woman. Most of Brightwater's residents - who were all human - were reluctant to speak with those of mixed blood unless the conversation involved money.

That had been the day before. Detch had reasoned that those who had kidnapped the princess would most likely take her farther north, either to the Mountain Fortress or the smaller holding near the borders between Shi Haile, Trine'il, and Shi Haile's neighbor to the west, Fressum. So today they had traveled to the foot of Snake Canyon, northeast of Brightwater. Another traveler was camped nearby, closer to Snake River.

Ravin looked up again when he realized Detch was talking with their fellow camper, a mix-blooded woman of medium height and short brown hair. Detch was standing with the point of her sword balanced against the hard ground and was wiping the sweat off her forehead with her free hand. After a moment she smiled and motioned toward the camp, then both women headed that way. Ravin sheathed his carving knife and put both it and the carving into his pack.

Detch sheathed her sword as she neared. "Rav, this is Herri," she said. "She's offered to share the fish she just caught. Herri, this is Ravin."

Herri smiled and displayed the two fish she held. "I hope you like salmon, Ravin." Then she asked, "That's a southern name, isn't it?"

Ravin nodded to both her statements and set about preparing their cooking supplies. "That's where I'm from," he said. "What about you? Where're you from?"

"My family lives not far from Pelneth lake; I live wherever I can find work."

Detch had removed her jacket and set it with her cloak and pack, and was now helping them with the cooking. "Pelneth is where I live," she said. "Pelneth-coim. I thought I'd seen you before."

Ravin had been thinking the same thing but didn't feel inclined to say so.

They shared the fish as the evening grew dark. Eventually the cold air forced Detch to put on not only her jacket but her cloak as well. Herri commented on the color of the last garment and Detch only shrugged.

"You must do awfully well with your traveling to afford so much purple cloth, and in such a well-made cloak," the other woman continued.

Detch shrugged again. "It was a gift. I doubt I would have been able to afford it myself. And I certainly wouldn't have spent that much money just to have purple cloth."

"You must have some pretty wealthy friends, then."

"Family, actually. Human side."

Herri's brow raised slightly. "You're first-generation, then?" She smiled a bit. "My family's been mixes for so far back no one can remember when there was someone of full blood on either side. But you're lucky your human relatives even acknowledge you."

Detch nodded, using the time to swallow a bite of fish. "I know. I've never lived with them, but my father and his children have been very accepting of me. Which reminds me: I don't suppose you've seen a wealthy-looking young woman in the past few days? She'd be about your height, maybe a bit shorter, blonde, curly-haired, blue-eyed."

Herri chewed on a bit of fish with a thoughtful expression on her face. "I don't think so. But I've just come down Estre's Pass, and that's not the path most ladies use; too narrow for a large number of horses or carriages. Are you sure she was heading up that way?" she asked with uncertainty. "To Byton?"

Detch shook her head. "We think she's heading north, but that's all. We think she might be in trouble. She's my half-sister."

"Huh . . ." She rubbed the back of her neck for a moment, her face shadowed by the firelight. "I did pass a group of riders . . . they nearly forced me off the Pass. Luckily the cliffs by then had lost much of the sharp drop they have near the mountains. There were maybe four of them, and I think one of them was a woman . . . Not as you described, though. Dark-haired. I didn't really pay much attention to her."

Ravin turned his gaze to Detch, trying to guess his friend's thoughts. She looked mildly thoughtful, which could be no more than courtesy for information that is not truly useful. Or it could be a carefully controlled understatement.

"I should warn you away from Byton," Herri was saying. "I don't know what's happened up there, but over half the town's gone. Soldiers are everywhere. I usually go up there this time of year to look for work, and I've never seen it this bad."

Ravin rubbed his hand against his cheek. It wasn't as sore as it had been, but it was still discolored.

"Maybe so," Detch said after glancing at him, "but we still have to see if she's there."

"We'll keep a look out for trouble," Ravin added.

Herri regarded him for a moment, then looked back to Detch. "I guess if it was my family, I'd do the same. They're not human, though." She shrugged. "Well, good luck with whatever you end up doing. Have you been through Brightwater? How are things there?"

The three of them chatted for awhile longer. Then Detch and Ravin thanked Herri for the fish, and Herri retired to her bedroll. Detch was already working on banking the fire, so Ravin took out his carving and studied it under the light of the half-full moon. He rubbed away a few bits of shavings still clinging to the piece. After some time he realized Detch had finished with the fire and was watching him.

"I don't suppose you'll let me see that now?" she asked with a smile. Ravin chuckled softly; Detch knew he normally didn't like for people to see his carvings until they were finished. He rubbed at another slight flaw and handed it to her.

The little wooden fox seemed larger in her hands than it had when he was carving it. She held in a patch of moonlight, running her slender fingers over the little nose, the bunched legs, and the bushy tail. She smiled again when she looked up, her eyes glinting like sapphires. "It's wonderful," she said as she handed it back. "I still have that one you gave me years ago," she added. "The centaur with the bow."

"I remember that one." He smiled and added with a laugh, "I think you liked it better than I did."

"I still don't see what you thought was wrong with it." She yawned and smoothed out her bedroll. "Tomorrow we'll continue up the Pass," she said as she stretched out and wrapped herself up in both her cloak and the bedroll. "G'night Rav."

"Goodnight, Detch." Ravin put the figure away and shook out his own bedroll.

* * *

Nestled as it was among the peaks of the Dragonridge Mountains, the Mountain Fortress always seemed to Shannae to have a foreboding presence. This was only heightened by the circumstances under which she was now visiting. Her scalp itched from the dye in her hair, the dress she wore was too tight across the shoulders and too loose in the waist, and she was sore from two days in an unfamiliar saddle on an unfamiliar and temperamental horse. The well-dressed mercenary had stayed close to her the entire trip, barely allowing her the briefest moments for the most private of actions. The other men called him Klevi. A name more common in the southern part of the country, if she remembered her lessons correctly. Though he groomed himself somewhat in the style of that area, his speech was purely northern.

Klevi spoke now to the guards at the gate. They looked around at Shannae's group of "escorts," then nodded. Neither of the guards had given her more than the most cursory of glances. An effect of the onyx charm she had been "advised" to wear, she suspected. When handing it to her, Klevi had only smiled and winked and said the carved onyx complemented the dress he had previously given her. The princess doubted that anything could complement the drab, worn-out garment. She had been taught how to spot an Amulet of Trisis by its affects; none but the three escorting her had given her even a second glance since she had tied the charm about her neck.

Klevi had dismounted, and motioned for her to do the same. The horse snorted and shied as she shifted her weight, but she gave the reins a swift jerk and managed to make her dismount somewhat graceful. The horse snorted again and shook its head, baring its teeth. Shannae gave the animal a look of distaste and dropped the reins, leaving the horse for the men to deal with as they chose.

Looking rather amused by that whole exchange, Klevi took her by the elbow and propelled her toward the gates. Chin in the air, Shannae gave him no reason to tug indignantly on her arm as the two of them went past the guards and into the dark, cresset lit room beyond.

He guided her through an archway and down a hall, passing two doors and another hallway to the right before turning down a passage to the right. He passed three more doors, two on the right and one on the left, and then stopped and opened a door to their left.

He gave her a bow, one which would not have been out of place in the highest of courts, and motioned her inside. "I assumed you would want to refresh yourself before proceeding any further, my lady." He fixed her with that too-charming smile of his, and reached up to delicately untie the amulet and slip it out of sight between his palm and his glove. "I or another will be back to fetch you shortly."

With a sniff Shannae turned on her heel and entered the room, pretending not to notice either the second bow he gave her or the click of the lock after he shut the door behind her. She waited there just inside the door until she heard the faint sound of his boot heels on the stone floor of the passageway.

Only after she was sure he was gone did the princess allow herself a quick, almost frantic glance around the small room. A washbasin stood in one corner, a full pitcher of water and a dish of soap next to it on the small table. A cushioned chair was placed opposite it. Laid out on the chair was a dress - a seldom-worn one from her own wardrobe, she noted with first surprise and then indignation - and a comb. Nothing else but the lit cresset high on the stone wall to her right and the chamber pot set beneath it. Shannae frowned and said a few words that were not technically part of her royal vocabulary. She hadn't really had much hope she would find what she was looking for. After all, both entrances into the hidden passageway were supposed to be much deeper in the fortress.

Shannae poured some of the water into the basin and splashed it over her face and neck, rubbing away the dust from the trail. She added more water and dug out a lump of the soft soap, then vigorously scrubbed both through her hair. Her eyes squeezed shut against the dye-tainted drips, she kept at it until every bit of her long curls was well soaped. She rinsed her hair, then dumped the brown water into the chamber pot and filled the basin again, setting once more to soaping and scrubbing. Once she was satisfied that she could get her hair no cleaner, she again emptied the basin and used the last of the water to rinse away the dye that had run onto her skin. The shoulders of the dress were well stained by now, but she hardly cared about the ill-fitting garment.

She quickly undid the laces and worked her way out of the clothing, leaving it in a heap in the corner behind the chair. Her captors hadn't provided her with undergarments along with the fresh dress - though she wondered irritably why they hadn't raided those from her wardrobe as well - so she kept on the ones she was wearing. The princess donned the dress and then struggled with the laces and clasps. The different pieces eventually went where they were supposed to, but without her maidservants to help her the process took much longer than she thought it rightly should.

Dropping into the chair, Shannae pulled the comb through her hair with quick, jerking passes. Her curls were now a dull, dusty color instead of their usual bright yellow-gold. She frowned at this and yanked the comb even harder, snapping more than a few strands in the process.

Shannae sighed and lowered the comb into her lap, then took a few deep breaths. Anger that caused her to destroy her own hair was not going to aid her, and there was nothing in the room at which it would be useful to aim her feelings. In fact, there was nothing she could do now but work the tangles out of her hair and wait for her captors to fetch her.

She clutched her hands around the comb but they still shook. Nothing she could do. She had been easily taken by men who had just as easily killed her loyal guardsman. She had had no choice but to obey their orders, and now she was waiting for a summons like some servant. She, the Crown Princess.

She, the Crown Princess, following the orders of common rogues and mercenaries. Her hands no longer shook, but she still gripped the comb hard enough that the teeth stabbed into her palm. Who were they to give orders to her? There were some things she would not, should not forgive. A humorless smile on her young face, she raised the comb and pulled it through her hair with slow, deliberate strokes. She'd been wrong about one thing; there was something she could do. If she ever got the chance, and she fully expected to, the ones responsible for her humiliating ordeal would regret that they'd ever crossed the Crown Princess Shannae.

Shannae occupied herself so well with her thoughts that she was almost surprised when someone knocked. She smoothed her hair once more and lay the comb on the table, then called "yes?" just loud enough to carry through the heavy wooden door. The lock clicked, and the door opened. The princess watched this at the edge of her vision as she stared at a spot over the wash basin, refusing to grant the person the courtesy of turning. Nevertheless, she caught sight of a peaked and feathered cap sweeping through the air in a grandiose gesture and raven-dark hair dropping toward the floor as the one who had opened the door bowed deeply.

"My lady," said Klevi as he straightened, "I trust you found everything that you needed." When she didn't answer, he merely replaced his cap and smiled. "I have been sent to fetch you; the one who requested your presence here now requests your presence before him."

He extended his gloved hand but she ignored it, standing on her own and walking smoothly from the room. She wondered if he still had the Amulet of Trisis; a charm that would cause others to ignore her would be quite useful if she could manage to take it from him. She admitted that her acquiring it was not likely - he was far from careless, and pickpocketing had not been among her numerous lessons - but she kept the possibility in mind. She also kept in mind that the amulet's power hadn't seemed to affect those who knew of it, namely Klevi and the men who had been with him.

He led her further down the passageway, passing three more doors before turning into an archway to their right. Shannae's muscles were still sore from the ride up. She could ease the pain, she was confidant enough that she could do at least that much with her just-learned and never spoken of talent. Instead she used the discomfort as a focus, something to help her hold her anger; what had appeared in the place of that anger had been even more disconcerting.

Past the archway was a fairly large room, with lit fireplaces in two walls and tapestries on all four. In the center was a dining table, perhaps ten feet by five. Klevi sat her at one end, before a number of covered platters.

"He shall be in shortly, I am sure," the mercenary said with another one of his bows. Shannae stared ahead of her, past the other end of the table. Seemingly oblivious to her slight, Klevi merely straightened and stood patiently by her chair.

The wait was no more than a moment. Two men entered; the first was nondescript, of average height with lank brown hair. Shannae's fingers tightened around the folds of her skirt upon sight of the second. She had met her father's half-brother once before, when she'd been a child, but she'd forgotten how very much he looked like her father. The same blonde curls, the same grey eyes, the same basic features. . . . But where her father's eyes had been warm and a little sad, this man's were cold and piercing, and the set of his features had a hard edge that her father's had never held, even in his sternest moments.

Gyric inclined his head in her direction and seated himself at the opposite end of the table. He favored her with a calculated smile and gestured to the platters. "Well, my dear; shall we?"