Sartaq’s face was unreadable, save for the faint flicker in those dark eyes. “Busy,” was all he said. A nonanswer.
But Borte nodded, as if she knew his moods and inclinations well, and kept quiet while Sartaq escorted Nesryn into a carved and painted wooden chair. The heat from the blazing fire was delicious, and she nearly groaned as she stretched out her frozen feet toward it.
Borte hissed. “You couldn’t get your sweetheart a proper pair of boots, Sartaq?”
Sartaq growled in warning, but Nesryn frowned at her supple leather boots. They’d been more expensive than any she’d ever dared purchase for herself, but Dorian Havilliard had insisted. Part of the uniform, he’d told her with a wink.
She wondered if he still smiled so freely, or spent as generously, wherever he was.
But she glanced toward Borte, whose boots were leather, yet thicker—lined with what seemed to be thickest sheepskin. Definitely better-equipped for the chilly altitudes.
“I’m sure you can dig up a pair somewhere,” Sartaq said to his hearth-sister, and Nesryn twisted in her chair while the two of them drifted back toward where Kadara waited.
The people pressed in around Sartaq, murmuring too softly for Nesryn to hear from across the hall. But the prince spoke with easy smiles, talking while he unloaded their packs, handing them off to whoever was closest, and then unsaddled Kadara.
He gave the golden ruk a stroke down her neck, then a solid thump on her side—and then Kadara was gone, flapping into the open air beyond the cave mouth.
Nesryn debated going over to them, offering to help with the packs that were now being hauled through the chamber and into the hallway beyond, but the heat creeping up her body had sapped the strength from her legs.
Sartaq and Borte appeared, the others dispersing, just as Nesryn noticed the man sitting near a brazier across the hall. A cup curling with steam sat on the small, wooden table beside his chair, and though there seemed to be an open scroll in his lap, his eyes remained fixed on her.
She didn’t know what to remark upon: that while his skin was tan, it was clear that he did not hail from the southern continent; that his short brown hair was far from the long, silken braids of the ruk riders; or that his clothes seemed more akin to Adarlan’s jackets and pants.
Only a dagger hung at his side, and while he was broad-shouldered and fit, he didn’t possess the self-assured swagger, the pitiless surety of a warrior. He was perhaps in his late forties, pale white lines etched at the corner of his eyes, where he’d squinted in the sun or wind.
Borte led Sartaq around the fire pit, past the various pillars, and right to the man, who got to his feet and bowed. He stood roughly at Sartaq’s height, and even from across the hall, with the crackling fire and groaning wind, Nesryn could make out his shoddy Halha: “It is an honor, Prince.”
Borte snorted.
Sartaq just gave a curt nod and replied in the northern language, “I’m told you have been a guest of our hearth-mother for the past few weeks.”
“She was gracious enough to welcome me here, yes.” The man sounded slightly relieved to be using his native tongue. A glance toward Nesryn. She didn’t bother to pretend she wasn’t listening. “I couldn’t help but overhear what I thought was mention of a captain from Adarlan.”
“Captain Faliq oversees the royal guard.”
The man didn’t take his eyes off Nesryn as he murmured, “Does she, now.”
Nesryn only held his stare from across the room. Go ahead. Gawk all you like.
Sartaq asked sharply, “And your name?”
The man dragged his gaze back to the prince. “Falkan Ennar.”
Borte said to Sartaq in Halha, “He is a merchant.”
And if he’d come from the northern continent … Nesryn slid to her feet, her steps near-silent as she approached. She made sure they were, as Falkan watched her the entire way, running an eye over her from foot to head. Made sure he noted that the grace with which she moved was not some feminine gift, but from training that had taught her how to creep up on others undetected.
Falkan stiffened as if he finally realized it. And understood that the dagger at his side would be of little use against her, if he was stupid enough to pull something.
Good. It made him smarter than a great number of men in Rifthold. Stopping a casual distance away, Nesryn asked the merchant, “Have you any news?”
Up close, the eyes she’d mistaken for dark were a midnight sapphire. He’d likely been moderately handsome in his youth. “News of what?”
“Of Adarlan. Of … anything.”
Falkan stood with remarkable stillness—a man perhaps used to holding his ground in a bargain. “I wish that I could offer you any, Captain, but I have been in the southern continent for over two years now. You probably have more news than I do.” A subtle request.
And one that would go unanswered. She was not about to blab her kingdom’s business for all to hear. So Nesryn just shrugged and turned back toward the fire pit across the hall.
“Before I left the northern continent,” Falkan said as she strode away, “a young man named Westfall was the Captain of the Royal Guard. Are you his replacement?”
Careful. She indeed had to be so, so careful not to reveal too much. To him, to anyone. “Lord Westfall is now Hand to King Dorian Havilliard.”
Shock slackened the merchant’s face. She marked it—every tick and flicker. No joy or relief, but no anger, either. Just … surprise. Honest, bald surprise. “Dorian Havilliard is king?”
At Nesryn’s raised brows, Falkan explained, “I have been in the deep wilds for months now. News does not come swiftly. Or often.”
“An odd place to be selling your goods,” Sartaq murmured. Nesryn was inclined to agree.
Falkan merely gave the prince a tight smile. A man with secrets of his own, then.
“It has been a long journey,” Borte cut in, looping her arm through Nesryn’s and turning her toward the dim hallway beyond. “Captain Faliq needs refreshment. And a bath.”
Nesryn wasn’t certain whether to thank the young woman or begrudge her for interrupting, but … Her stomach was indeed an aching pit. And it had been a long while since she’d bathed.
Neither Sartaq nor Falkan stopped them, though their murmuring resumed as Borte escorted her into the hallway that shot straight into the mountain itself. Wooden doors lined it, some open to reveal small bedchambers—even a little library.
“He is a strange man,” Borte said in Halha. “My grandmother refuses to speak of why he came here—what he seeks.”
Nesryn lifted a brow. “Trade, perhaps?”
Borte shook her head, opening a door halfway down the hall. The room was small, a narrow bed tucked against one wall, the other occupied by a trunk and a wooden chair. The far wall held a washbasin and ewer, along with a pile of soft-looking cloths. “We have no goods to sell. We are usually the merchants—ferrying goods across the continent. Our clan here, not so much, but some of the others … Their aeries are full of treasures from every territory.” She toed the rickety bed and frowned. “Not this old junk.”
Nesryn chuckled. “Perhaps he wishes to assist you in expanding, then.”
Borte turned, braids swaying. “No. He doesn’t meet with anyone, or seem interested in that.” A shrug. “It matters little. Only that he is here.”
Nesryn folded away the tidbits of information. He didn’t seem like one of Morath’s agents, but who knew how far the arm of Erawan now stretched? If it had reached Antica, then it was possible it had delved into the continent. She’d be on her guard—had no doubt Sartaq already was.
Borte twirled the end of a braid around a finger. “I saw the way you sized him up. You don’t think he’s here for business, either.”
Nesryn weighed the merits of admitting the truth, and opted for, “These are strange days for all of us—I have learned not to take men on their word. Or appearance.”
Borte dropped her braid. “No wonder Sartaq brought you home. You sound just like him.”
Nesryn hid her smile, not bothering to say that she found such a thing to be a compliment.
Borte sniffed, waving to the room. “Not as fine as the khagan’s palace, but better than sleeping on one of Sartaq’s shitty bedrolls.”