She was lying as well as she could, wide-eyed and...
She was lying as well as she could, wide-eyed and directShe could scarcely believe what she had just heard, what he had seen
Brandin's good humor was still with him
"What mountain tales do you have in Certando?" he queried, smiling expectantly
"Stories of hairy things that walk on legs like tree stumps and eat goats and virgins in the night
His smile broadened"Are there any?"
"Goats, yes," she said with a straight faceHairy creatures with such specific appetites are not an incentive to chastityAre you sending out a party to search for this creature?" A question so important she held her breath awaiting his reply
"I think not," Brandin said"I suspect such things are only seen when they want to be
Which, she knew for a fact, was absolutely true
"I haven't told anyone but you," chloe bag bay he added unexpectedly
There was no dissembling in the expression she felt come over her face at thatBut over and above everything else there was something new inside her with these tidingsShe badly needed to be alone to thinkShe wouldn't get that chance for a long time yet today; best to push his story as far back as she could, with all the other things she was always pushing to the edges of her mind
"Thank you, my lord," she murmured, aware that they had been talking privately for some timeAware, as ever, of how that would be construed
"In the meantime," Brandin suddenly said, in a quite different tone, "you still have not yet asked me how I did on the runSolores, I have to tell you, made it her first question
Which carried them back to familiar ground
"Very well," she said, omega seamaster gold feigning indifferenceHalfway? Three-quarters?"
A glint of royal indignation nickered in the grey eyes"You are presumptuous sometimes," he said"I indulge you too muchI went, if you please, all the way to the summit and came down again this morning with a cluster of sonrai berriesI will be extremely interested to see if any of tomorrow's runners are up and down as quickly
"Well," she said quickly, unwisely, "they won't have sorcery to help them
"Dianora, have done!"
And that tone she recognized and knew she'd gone too farAs always at such moments she had a dizzying sense of a pit gaping at her feet
She knew what Brandin needed from her; she knew the reason he granted her license to be outrageous and impertinentShe had long understood why the wit and edge she brought to their vintage chanel jewelry exchanges were important to himShe was his counterbalance to Solores's soft, unquestioning, undemanding shelterThe two of them, in turn, balancing d'Eymon's ascetic exercise of politics and government
And all three of them in orbit around the star that Brandin wasThe voluntarily exiled sun, removed from the heavens it knew, from the lands and seas and people, bound to this alien peninsula by loss and grief and revenge decreedShe knew the King very wellHer life depended on thatShe did not often stray across the line that was always there, invisible but inviolateWhen she did it was likely to be over something as apparently trivial as thisIt was such a paradox for her how he could shrug off or laugh at or even invite her caustic commentary on court and colony, and yet bridle like a prada borse boy with affronted pride if she teased about his ability to run up and down a mountain in a morning
At such times he had only to say her name in a certain way and endless chasms opened before her in the delicately inlaid floor of the Audience Chamber
She was a captive here, more slave than courtesan, at the court of a TyrantShe was also an impostor, living an ongoing lie while her country slowly died away from the memories of menAnd she had sworn to kill this man, whose glance across a room was as wildfire on her skin or amber wine in her mortal blood
Chasms, everywhere she turned
And now this morning he had seen a riselkaHe, and very possibly a second man as wellFighting back her fear she forced herself to shrug casually, to arch her eyebrows above a face schooled to bland chanel earrings fake uncon