Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

“I said, ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ when he asked me,” Aggar answered, wiping cider from his beard with the back of his hand. “I offered to get a Jorasco to come take a look at him, maybe do a cleansing ritual.”

“Quiet, you,” Sabira warned, throwing the dwarf a stern look she couldn’t quite hold.

Elix’s own smile faltered a bit.

“Does it matter? I realize now it was a mistake securing his release.”

Sabira quirked an eyebrow.

“That bad, hmm? Well, it can’t be any worse than what I’d have called him.”

Like assassin, traitor, excoriate, steaming pile of carver dung-and those were the nice things.

“He said you were always more Breven’s daughter than you were his, and if Elix wanted to marry you, he was asking the wrong man for permission.”

The three of them turned to see Count Wilhelm standing in the open doorway, still in the clothes he’d worn the night before. From the dark circles around his red-rimmed eyes, it was clear that he hadn’t slept.

“Have you told her yet what I said, Elix?”

Elix’s smile disappeared completely.

“Father-” Elix began, his voice holding a tone of warning Sabira had never heard him use with the older man before. Wilhelm continued on, either oblivious or uncaring.

“I said ‘no.’ ” The unveiled disgust in the Count’s words was like a slap in the face, and even though Sabira had her own doubts about her worthiness to be Elix’s wife, hearing his father give voice to that same sentiment so contemptuously made her hackles rise. Who was he to tell her she wasn’t good enough?

Only the man to whom she’d said those exact words when she’d tried-futilely-to apologize for not being able to save Ned.

Wilhelm continued, oblivious to both her anger, and her guilt.

“No to having that scum Khellin under my roof, no to having his traitorous line linked to mine and no to having you one day bear the title of Countess of the Wood Gate.”

Vulyar had three entrances. There was the Iron Gate in the northeast, which led to Irontown and the Mror Holds; the Sand Gate in the south, which since the Day of Mourning had led only to Fort Bones and Gatherhold in the Talenta Plains; and the Wood Gate in the northwest, which led to the rest of the Five Nations and was named for the several forests that awaited travelers who took that road out of the city-the Nightwood, Shadowmount Forest, and of course, Karrnwood. Each gate served one of the city’s major wards, each of which encompassed several minor wards and was governed by a titled member of House Deneith. Wood Gate was by far the most populous of the three major wards, though Iron Gate was understandably the most prosperous, since all the lightning rail shipments from the mines in the Ironroots came through there.

Sabira hadn’t even considered the fact that accepting Elix’s still unvoiced proposal would also mean eventually accepting a role in the politics of Vulyar. It wasn’t a thought that particularly thrilled her. Then again, neither was the fact that Wilhelm clearly didn’t think she was suited for the position-even if she did agree with him.

“I told him that d’Sark girl would have been a much better choice for the family.”

Elix stiffened beside her, but Sabira couldn’t look at him. She’d never been more grateful for a chair in her life; she might well have fallen otherwise, the blow was so sharp, so unexpected.

Tabeth d’Sark had trained under Elix for a year back in ’93. She’d been a Marshal at the Vulyar outpost after that, and Elix had known her well enough to take her on a dangerous mission into the Blade Desert-a mission from which she had not returned. Elix still carried the weapon that had killed her in his traveling chest.

Though Sabira had never met the other woman, she had met Tabeth’s twin, Tobin, a Defender with curly brown hair, sculpted features, and eyes nearly as gray as her own. She remembered feeling a pang of jealousy thinking how beautiful his sister must have been, but at the time she’d pushed it aside, deeming the emotion silly and unwarranted.

Apparently, she’d been wrong.

“Saba, I-” Elix began, but his father wasn’t finished yet.

“But I may have misjudged you, Sabira. You bring my niece back to me, and I’ll withdraw every objection I ever had to your marrying my son. I’ll even step down as Count and leave Wood Gate to the two of you as a wedding gift, if that’s what you want.” His eyes blazed as his gaze bored into hers. “Just bring her back, Sabira. After Ned, you owe me that much.”

What could she say to that?

“I will.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room after Wilhelm left. Sabira stared at her plate where the velvet box had sat the night before, unwilling to look over at Elix. Not wanting to see the truth of his father’s words there.

Logically, she knew she had no right to be angry, or even hurt. She was the one who’d left him behind, fleeing his arms in the wake of Ned’s death, ignoring his letters, rebuffing his every attempt to reach out to her. How could she blame him for turning to someone else for comfort, when she’d given him no reason to believe he’d ever find it with her?

But logic was a tepid brew that did nothing to ease either the cold taste of betrayal from her tongue, or the hot pain lancing through her heart.

Predictably, it was Aggar who spoke first, clearing his throat apologetically.

“I can’t go with you, Saba-I got word late last night that Father needs me back in the Holds-but I think I know someone in Sharn who may be able to help you. He’s been looking to get out of Khorvaire for a while, anyway. I’ll go make some inquiries.” She heard the beads in his beard clack as he pushed back from the table and crossed over to her seat, but she didn’t look up or acknowledge him. He gave her shoulder a tight squeeze with one hand, then paused for a moment by Elix’s chair, presumably offering him the same gesture. Then he walked quickly from the room, making sure to close the door behind him.

She expected Elix to say something, to offer an apology, or excuse, or anything. What she didn’t expect was him for him to push her plate out of the way and slam the bracelet box down angrily on the table in front of her.

“Open it.”

She hesitated, her hand hovering over the black velvet, not quite touching the embroidered copper hearth that was the sign of Boldrei, the Sovereign invoked to bless marriages.

“Saba. Please.”

Inside was a mithral disk set at the center of a thick-linked chain. The circle bore a crest that Sabira didn’t recognize at first, but as she lifted the bracelet out of the box to examine it more closely, she gasped.

Two weapons were crossed on a field of thin mourngold, a violet-blue metal made from gold alloyed with mournlode mined from within the heart of the Mournland, what had once been Cyre, beneath the Field of Ruins. Many claimed the mottled iron ore could be used to turn undead, but the dwarves-and this bracelet was undoubtedly of dwarven make-seldom used it for that purpose, preferring instead to combine it with other metals to yield an incredible variety of colors. The mourngold plating was probably worth more than the rest of the bracelet combined.

Even more impressive than the alloy, though, were the weapons themselves. One was a simple broadsword, its pommel a closed fist, identical to the one Elix usually wore. The other was a tiny replica of her own shard axe, perfect in every detail, down to the sliver of a Siberys dragonshard at its tip.

In addition to the miniature weapons, detailed etchings graced each quarter of the circle. Above the crossed haft and blade was the Deneith chimera; below, the wolf of Karrnath. To the left was the mark of Wood Gate, three trees with sword blades for trunks. The etching on the right looked slightly different from the others, and it took Sabira a moment to realize that an older carving had been painstakingly filled in and then replaced by a newer one-the Tordannon crest.