Gordon shrugged. “I couldnae rightly say either way there. And I’d prefer to nae find out.” He halted in the doorway, peering back over his shoulder. “Speaking of ambassadors, have you made up your mind what you’re going to do once Darshan’s on his way?”
It might’ve been ten days since he’d confided in Gordon of how he felt about the Udynean, with the last week being consumed by their travels, but he was only surer of his answer. “I want to go with him.”
“I thought that might be the case, but have you—”
“I ken it hasnae been long,” he said before his brother could trot out the usual warnings. “How much can I possibly ken about him in that short amount of time?” He peered at his brother. “You’re staying unusually silent. Are you nae going to give me one of your stern warnings of how I should be listening to the right head?”
Gordon pulled a face and shook his head. “You pretty much covered most of it in your ranting. But I suppose you’ve probably enjoyed getting it on the regular.”
Even though he knew his brother only jested, a part of him still bristled. “I’ll have you ken that we’ve done nae more than innocent slumber during the whole journey. Or have your ears heard fairy-fancies since we’ve been travelling?”
Gordon held up his hands. “Nae a thing and for that, I am grateful, because the last thing I want to hear is me brother getting some.”
Thoughts of Gordon actively cringing as his brother passed the tent Hamish shared with Darshan fluttered through his mind. He pressed his lips together, staving off a snicker. “Does that mean he’s passed your test?”
Gordon grinned. “I’ve nae been testing him.”
Huffing through his nose, he glanced at the table beside him for something to toss at his brother. “Dinnae give me that rot.” He settled for a dollop of cooled candle wax some clumsy soul had left on the table, peeling it off and deftly lobbing it across the room. The wax shattered on his brother’s upraised arm. “I ken you far too well.”
Gordon peered over his wrist, his grin in no way diminished. “What I was going to ask before you interrupted me was whether you’ve spoken to him about it recently. Does he still want you to come back with him?”
Hamish rolled his eyes. “Of course he does.” Even if their stint as lovers didn’t last in the Crystal Court, he would still have his duties as an ambassador. And he’d be in a land that granted him far more freedom of self.
“He might’ve had his full of our little family’s song and dance. After all, getting Mum to agree to you leaving will take some doing, especially if it’s in his company.”
Hamish flopped into the chair his sister had abandoned. He glanced at the book she’d been so intent on, but couldn’t make out a single word. “I’ll have a better chance of cracking a mountain with me skull than I do with convincing Mum. She nae listens to me anymore.” Just one word, one piece of acknowledgement that she understood him. That was all he had ever wanted.
“We might need to call on Nora for help there.”
“Nora’ll throw us in the deep end and leave us floundering.”
“I dinnae ken about that. Nae if we explain the situation to her. Ambassador, he said, right?” Gordon slapped his thigh when Hamish answered with a nod. “Nora will love that. She’s been bemoaning the lack of the position since this correspondence began. Maybe if we can get her to convince Mum how badly we need someone in Minamist, she’ll cave. I’d suggest getting Darshan involved there, but I dinnae see that happening amicably.”
“Let me think about it on the way back. Coming at Mum from all sides without cause willnae endear us to her.”
“Just dinnae take too long, you ken how stroppy Nora gets when she’s left in the dark.”
“Aye,” he mumbled. There’d been the time Hamish had dared to be intimate with the dwarven ambassador where Nora had sworn a few words would’ve been enough to placate everything. He couldn’t see how. Their mother had been pretty angry at him. Maybe Nora had meant a more lenient sentence than being imprisoned within his own room. But that talk never happened. He had left it too late for his sister to attempt anything.
I cannae make that mistake again. Who knew what his mother’s response would be if she realised he had involved himself with the man beyond a kiss? There were worse punishments than being confined to his bedchamber.
Darshan turned on his heel, taking in the room under the cool light of a magical globe. So many anatomical diagrams and murals adorned the walls, some in detail he hadn’t seen since his childhood healer training. And it wasn’t in mere dusty patches, everything within the room seemed to be polished and mirrored from one side to the other, be it the rows of books filling shelves carved from the stone walls, the heavy-set tables bearing gigantic tomes or a cabinet containing—
Was that an actual elven skeleton?
He stepped closer to the object in question, lifting his hand to coax the ball of light nearer still. It was indeed no mural or illusion. The longer he stared at it, the more the hairs on his arms lifted. Of all things, he never considered the image of a skeleton unnerving, but this…
This wasn’t any ordinary framework of bones. The elves of now, the ones he had grown up alongside, were over a thousand years separated from that image. “Is this real?”
“Aye. One of the original elven arrivals, or so I’ve been told. We’d a
