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.
“Turn it over.”
Sabira did. On the back was an inscription, with a date.
It was the final couplet from Theodon Dorn’s popular poem, “The Marshal and the Maiden.” Every Deneith knew it, and could recite it by heart, especially the last two stanzas:
The Marshal saw that time had fled
And though she pleaded and implored
Tears cutting worse than any sword
“Farewell, my heart,” was all he said
She knew then in her deepest core
He was Deneith, trueborn and bred
And even if they one day wed
He’d always love his duty more
But Sabira saw that some of the words had been changed, and they altered the meaning considerably:
He swore that if they one day wed
He’d never love his duty more
Below the two lines had been inscribed a month and a year. Aryth, 991 YK. The same month Ned’s remembrance service had been held, in this very house. Where Sabira had embarrassed herself by getting very, very drunk and Elix had taken her to his rooms so she could sleep it off before she could do something she’d wind up regretting. Only she’d wound up in his bed with him instead, and had fled Karrnath the next morning, unable to face either Ned’s death or Elix’s need.
He’d likely commissioned the betrothal bracelet that very day, not realizing she wouldn’t be coming back for another seven long years. In ’91-two years before he even met Tabeth.
She raised her eyes up to his and the fear she saw there nearly choked her.
“Tabeth was beautiful and strong, a credit to the Marshals, and I will admit I was attracted to her-but only because she reminded me of you. I almost kissed her, once, at some function we had here. That’s what my father was talking about-he saw that part. He didn’t see what happened after I called her by your name.”
Sabira snorted, amused in spite of herself.
“You couldn’t walk for a week?”
“Or see out of my left eye,” he said ruefully.
With a laugh, Sabira leaned over and kissed him full on the lips, a familiar and welcome warmth spreading through her as his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close.
“That’s nothing compared to what I would have done to you,” she murmured after a moment.
“Promises, promises.”
“Ahem.”
Sabira pulled back reluctantly and turned to look over at the doorway where Wilhelm’s steward stood, looking decidedly embarrassed.
“Your pardon, Captain, Marshal, but there’s a coach here waiting to take Sabira to the docking tower.”
Breven certainly hadn’t wasted any time.
“Tell them I’ll be right out.”
She turned back to Elix.
“You be careful in Thrane. To them, you’ll always be a Karrn first and a Marshal second. And we all know how much they hate anything Karrnathi.” Which made his being summoned there by the Keeper of the Flame-the head of the Church of the Silver Flame herself-all the more unusual, and all the harder to refuse. Though he’d tried, when he’d learned of Breven’s plans for her. He’d wanted to cancel the trip and go with her to Xen’drik instead, but the
