Fabric rustled and he felt Wren put an arm around his shoulders in a tight hug. “Do we need to do anything? Isn’t this all…I don’t know…god stuff?”
His laugh wasn’t entirely humorless. “God stuff. I don’t know. Maybe. Wouldn’t we want revenge?”
Wren was silent for so long that he wasn’t sure that she was going to answer at all. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Are humans supposed to avenge gods? That seems like something a priest would know better than I would.”
“All our priests are dead,” said Shane wearily, dropping his hands. “Maybe they’re the ones we need to avenge.”
Since she was sitting on the arm of the chair, he couldn’t see her face, but he felt Wren go very still. He recognized the flavor of that stillness all too well. The black tide inside him tried to rise in response, and he pushed it back. “Wren.”
“I’d avenge you,” said Wren, her voice too cold and calm. “All of you who had your god torn away.”
He wanted to point out that she’d lost the god as well, but he understood too clearly what she meant. It was not in either of their natures to avenge a slight against themselves, only against others.
Besides, at the moment, that was not what was important.
“Wren,” he said again, and put some steel into it. “Wren, step back from it.”
She inhaled slowly, let it out again. The air around her was as charged and prickly as a thunderstorm.
“Wren.”
“Right,” she said. He felt the tension ease and then she drew away. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Sorry.
Didn’t mean to…well. Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
Wren rubbed her fingertips together, looking vaguely embarrassed. “I guess maybe we should ask a priest. Maybe Beartongue.”
Shane snorted. “Beartongue’s probably got three contingency plans in place already.”
“Probably. We just swing the swords.” She stared into the fire. “Thanks.”
“Of course.”
Orange firelight licked the side of her face when she smiled ruefully. “I’m glad you’re here,” she admitted. “You specifically, I mean. Not just one of us.”
“I keep thinking someone else would do it better. Istvhan, maybe.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, but what if they’d sent Galen along? Can you imagine? He’d make the wrong joke to the wrong person and then pull it all down around their ears.”
Shane chuckled. “It’d be spectacular, though.”
“Oh yes. We’d all stand on the sidelines and applaud the style with which the battlements came crashing down.” Wren shook her head. “Right. I’m going to bed. Some things are above my paygrade.”
Shane banked the fire and sought his own bed. His head still felt uncomfortably full, but Wren was right. Some things were simply too large for a single paladin to deal with. I’ll put it to the priests, he told himself, and whatever they tell us to do, we’ll do. It’s just easier that way for everybody.
TWENTY-THREE
THE BALLROOM WAS full of people, which meant that Wren felt more isolated than ever. The paladin grimaced. Poets always thought they were so clever, talking about how people could be so terribly lonely in groups as if it was some special insight, when it was obvious to any fool that other people just made it worse. If you were starving, being surrounded by food you couldn’t eat didn’t help. It just reminded you how hungry you were.
This was about as much philosophy as Wren could handle on an empty stomach, so she staged a raid on the refreshments. Previous reconnaissance had indicated that anything on a cracker would turn into a shower of crumbs the moment you bit into it. Other people seemed able to eat them without looking as if they had full frontal dandruff, but Wren had no idea how they were managing that. Same problem with the little fruit tarts. The crust would disintegrate at the slightest provocation. They were simply too dry and powdery. Wren had originally thought that maybe it was a failure of that particular batch of crust, but they were all like that, which made her think that the baker just wasn’t very good.
This can’t be intentional, unless you’re supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth at once?
You’d practically have to unhinge your jaw like a snake. Surely that wasn’t considered proper courtly manners?
To be honest, none of the prepared foods were very good. The snails were overcooked, the egg butter was oversalted, and the cook put anise in things that did not in any way require anise. Wren liked anise as much as the next person, but there were limits. A little fennel would work much better here, without turning everything into a weird licorice-flavored endurance test.
Oh, well. Much as Wren might like to break into the fortress kitchens and demand to know what personal trauma the cook was excising through spices, their mission would probably suffer. She moved on to safer choices. The little rolls of meat were fairly inoffensive, along with slivers of cheese. It wasn’t exactly a meal, but if you grazed throughout the day, it kept your stomach from growling too loudly.
She took her food over to the window. The view was spectacular, but more importantly, the sill was nearly a foot deep, which meant that she couldn’t see down, merely out. Distant hills didn’t bother her. It was the distant ground that got her into trouble.
This view might have been worth a little queasiness even so. She could see the long curve of the river and the fields that spread across the hills. It looked green and prosperous and well-maintained.
The Prince of—whoever the hell the Prince was, the one who owned the fortress, Wren had already forgotten his name—clearly cared for his tiny kingdom. She approved of that.
She nibbled at a bit of cheese. The cheese, at least, was excellent. Wren approved of good cheese. She could have done great things with this cheese, given an adequate kitchen. Not that she often had one of those. The Saint’s chosen spent a lot more time around battlefields than bread ovens.
Wren had given up on cooking for years. Even now, when she could sometimes convince the Temple staff to let her use a corner of the kitchen, she always felt bad about disrupting the cook’s carefully orchestrated chaos.
“What are you looking at?” asked a familiar voice, breaking into her thoughts.
Wren turned, feeling a helpless smile spread across her face. “It’s you!” she said, and then cursed herself immediately for her lack of courtly manners.
Her savior from the punchbowl didn’t seem to mind. “It is indeed,” he said, with a little half-bow.
“And Lady Wren.”
“Forgive me,” she said. “I’m afraid you didn’t tell me your name before, when you came to my rescue.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Ian.”
“Lord Ian?”
He shook his head. “Merely Ian. I fear that there are several cousins and at least one brother in the way before I become so much as a minor noble. And since I quite like my cousins, I’m in no rush to ascend.” He leaned against the windowsill beside her, smile still playing around his lips. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
“I haven’t?”