an outstanding Marshal. She wouldn’t be celebrating her own Badge Day this evening if it weren’t for him and the sacrifice he’d forced her to make, but she no longer blamed him for that. Just as she no longer blamed Aggar, the dwarf he’d died to keep safe. Or even herself, for choosing between them.
Well, most of the time, anyway.
A bell sounded somewhere on the lower level, and Sabira left off her musing to hurry down the staircase and into the small, intimate dining room just off the kitchen where the Count usually took his meals. To her surprise, the room was empty.
Frowning, she made her way through the kitchen toward the formal dining room, her mouth beginning to water as the scents of all her old favorites wafted enticingly around her. The heady aromas of vedbread-still warm enough that the cheese inside would be gooey-brine sausage stew, and apple and ice-berry tarts filled the air, and her stomach grumbled in response. Sabira realized she hadn’t eaten when she’d arrived last night; she’d been too tired to do more than take a quick bath and tumble into bed, and Elix’s waiting arms.
The thought of the young captain eased the frown from her face, and the corners of her mouth were just twitching upward when she pushed open the servants’ door and entered the dining room. The fledgling smile froze on her lips when she saw the room’s occupants.
There were guards at both the kitchen door she’d entered through and on either side of the dining room’s main doors. Stone-faced dwarves in the livery of House Kundarak stood at attention, battle-axes in hand. She didn’t have to be a mage to know those blades were heavily-spelled, possibly the equal to her own urgrosh, the absence of which she felt sharply in the face of this unexpected threat.
Count Wilhelm didn’t even allow his own guards in the dining room; he considered it uncivilized. If there were warriors from another House here, it couldn’t be with his permission.
She tensed, mentally calculating how long it would take her to reach the knives on the table and how much damage she might be able to do with them before the dwarves brought her down. But as she surveyed the men sitting around the table, she saw that they were relaxed and seemingly unconcerned about the armed dwarves in their midst.
Count Wilhelm was at the head, of course, his brown hair shot through with silver and still worn in tight military fashion, though he hadn’t served Deneith in that capacity in many years, leaving that to Elix, and Ned before him. But he still sparred with his swordmaster every morning, and Sabira knew soldiers half his age who weren’t as fit of form. There was no paunch hiding under the bloused shirt he wore, no slackness in the muscles that propelled him to his feet at her entrance, followed by three others.
Elix, in another of his tunics, this one green with a small chimera embroidered over his heart, beat his father to his feet and smiled hugely at her over the laden table. Across from him, on Wilhelm’s left, was another dwarf- Aggar Tordannon, the heir to the dwarven city of Frostmantle and her own brother, now that she had been formally adopted into his clan by the Ceremony of Blood, Steel, and Stone. His fiery red beard clattered as he stood, the newly-polished beads woven into its many braids dancing with the sudden movement. True to form, Aggar’s clothes were as glaring as the Deneiths’ were understated-a scarlet tunic sporting the Tordannon crest, bright purplish blue pants and a cloak the color of new spring leaves, edged in orange. Just looking at him for too long made her head ache.
But not as much as the sight of the man standing beside him. Though she hadn’t seen him in almost two decades, Sabira would recognize that stubborn set of jaw and the hard glint in those gray eyes anywhere-she saw them every time she looked in the mirror. The tension that had just begun to ooze away returned in full measure and her hand reached instinctively for an axe-haft that wasn’t there.
Khellin Lyet, lately of Dreadhold.
Her father.
“Saba,” he said, the smile twisting his thin lips not quite making it to his eyes. “So good to see you again.”
Sabira highly doubted that. That last time she’d seen him, he was being led out of a courtroom in Karrlakton after having been convicted for the attempted assassination of Baron Breven. Considering it was her testimony that had sent him away, she imagined she was the last person in all of Eberron he ever wanted to lay eyes on again.
He was certainly on her list of least favorite faces, which begged a question.
“What in the name of the Dark Six is he doing here?”
Khellin’s smile widened, and even though her question hadn’t been directed at him, he replied with more than a hint of smugness.
“Why, I was invited, of course.”
Sabira turned her gaze to Elix, whose own smile disappeared at the look on her face.
“ Why?”
How? was another good question, considering Khellin had been sentenced to life, and no one got out of Dreadhold, Eberron’s most secure prison, on good behavior. Though she saw now that the older man still wore magewrought shackles on his wrists, so it was only a temporary furlough. Which also explained the presence of the Kundaraks. The dwarves were in charge of the prisoners at Dreadhold, and it was clear they felt their duty extended beyond the walls of that massive island fortress.
“I asked him here, Saba,” Elix answered, holding out a pleading hand to her. “Come, sit, and I’ll explain everything.” When she hesitated, his gaze softened. “Please.”
That was when she noticed the black velvet box sitting on the place setting next to his. Long and thin, and marked with the symbol of Boldrei, the Sovereign Goddess of Hall and Hearth, it was just the size to hold a necklace.
Or a bracelet.
Her knees went weak as she realized suddenly why Elix had arranged for her father to be released from prison, however temporarily. Why he’d asked Aggar, her hearthbrother, to come. Even why his own father was here.
This wasn’t a Badge Day celebration.
It was a betrothal party.
“Elix, I-”
She wasn’t sure what she’d been going to say. They’d only just admitted their feelings for each other a few months ago, having banished Ned’s ghost once and for all. And even though she loved having him to come home to-or having a home at all, for that matter-that little black box and everything it represented frankly terrified her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.
Was it because, on some level, it would mean giving up a measure of freedom? But freedom to do what? Sleep with any man she wanted? There was only Elix. Freedom to remain a Marshal? Elix was a Deneith-he’d never ask her to give that up. Freedom to come and go as she pleased, traipsing over miserable ground to track down dangerous criminals for ungrateful clients and not nearly enough pay? Was that really a freedom she wanted to keep?
Was it because she still harbored some feelings for Ned, because deep down, she’d wanted him to be the one to give her such a bracelet, and not Elix? But, no. Leoned had been her partner, closer than even a spouse, and that hadn’t stopped her from caring for Elix, then or now.
Or was it because, in her heart, she knew that as much as she loved him, she wasn’t good enough for him, and never would be?
She was saved from having to answer by the big double doors at the other end of the dining room crashing open and a harried-looking steward rushing in, followed almost immediately by Baron Breven himself, the dragonmark on his cheek standing out in sharp contrast against the lividity of his face.
“Wilhelm! What is the meaning of this underling refusing me entrance? Since when-”
Then the bald, stern-faced patriarch of House Deneith caught sight of Khellin.
“What in the name of the Dark Six-?”
Sabira bit back a vindicated smirk as the head of her House was reduced to the exact same epithet she’d used at the sight of her father.
Then Breven saw her, and understanding dawned. He looked over at Elix pityingly.
“You’re asking her now?”
Wilhelm moved out from behind the table quickly, hurrying over to the Baron and casting a dark look at his
