Once at the prison, he spoke with the guards there and was met by the warden, a refined-looking man whose appearance seemed at odds with his grim profession and even grimmer surroundings. Droginin offered to keep an eye on her horse while she was inside. “I'll take you back to the city gates once you're through here,” he said.
Anhuset studied him before offering a closed-lip smile. “So you're to be my nanny while I'm in Timsiora, captain?”
He gave a small laugh. “I prefer to think of it as your escort. So you don't get lost here in our beautiful capital.”
There was no obvious sarcasm in his words, but she heard it just the same. Escort, nanny, whatever one might want to call his role, he'd been assigned to keep an eye on her while she was here, an unwanted and unexpected guest that everyone was sure would cause trouble during her stay.
The warden greeted her with a half bow and a knowing glance. “It seems the Beladine Stallion casts his seed far afield. I wouldn't have believed it if you weren't standing in front me.” She stared back at him, unmoved by either anger or amusement at his lewd banter. He cleared his throat and looked away. “Come. This way.”
They passed through a small antechamber into a narrow hallway that led into a labyrinth of other dark, narrow hallways. The Zela looked enormous and imposing on the outside but suffocatingly cramped on the inside. She welcomed the gloom but guessed for humans who sought sunlight, those imprisoned here found the Zela a sepulchral place and chillier than any tomb.
The warden led her up flights of stairs until they reached the topmost floor. Here the hallways were only a little wider and the cells on either side spaced in a staggered fashion so that the occupants couldn't see each other across the way. As they moved farther down the corridor, the warden called out, “Margrave, you have a visitor most eager to see you.”
A swarm of butterflies erupted into flight in Anhuset's belly. Worry. Anticipation so fierce she almost shook with it. Her ears strained to ear a voice but no one replied. The warden halted at one cell door, a latticework of metal with openings large enough to see through but too small to do more than put a hand through the spaces. She spotted a shadowy figure seated at a table, limned in the meager light of a small brazier. The scratching noise of a quill on parchment was the only sound.
“You have a short time only and will be watched.” He tipped his chin toward the small audience behind her and she glanced over her shoulder. She'd known they were there. Footfalls growing in number as they climbed the stairwells and traversed the hallway. Four guards in armor and one man in robes decorated in sigils. The sorcerer Rodan sent to counter any magic she might try to wield in helping Serovek escape. His presence was superfluous now, and the thought sent a melancholy twinge through her.
The warden banged on the cell door. “Margrave, do you want to chat or should I send her away?”
Serovek straightened in his chair and finally stood to stroll toward the door. He halted abruptly and a muscle tic jolted across his cheek once, twice even as the rest of his face froze. “Sha-Anhuset.”
“Margrave,” she replied in an equally cool voice. Those butterflies spun in a whirlwind through her ribcage. He looked uninjured if a little haggard around the edges. Still handsome in the way humans defined handsomeness and handsome to her in the way her heart dictated she see him. She slid her fingers through the openings in the bars, the metal freezing in her grip.
“I'll leave you to it then,” the warden said. “Say what you need to. I need to retrieve something from my desk. When I return, you leave.” He paused to say something to the group clustered within hearing distance before disappearing down the hall.
Serovek's demeanor didn't change though he nearly broke her fingers in his grasp. His voice was low, no longer indifferent. “What are you doing here, firefly woman? Does Brishen know?”
Obviously a refrain she'd hear often while in Timsiora. When had Brishen exchanged the role of her liege for that of her parent? She sighed. “He knows.” For the first time since she arrived she was in the presence of one who wouldn't flee in alarm at the sight of her toothy grin. “I'm here to make you the subject of idle gossip in every tavern, brothel and court gathering in Timsiora,” she teased.
The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened with his answering smile. “You've never done things by half measure, though I can't guess what you did to make me even more a target for gossip mongers than I already am.”
While her public declaration to and sundry that she and the margrave of High Salure were lovers had been done for a specific purpose, she wasn't ashamed that others knew. She didn't know how Serovek might feel about it. “I announced at the entry gate that I was your lover and had come to visit you. I'm afraid I've diminished you in the eyes of your countrymen.”
Sincere confusion and puzzlement settled over his face. “How would such an announcement, a true and glorious one I might add, diminish me?” She must have made an odd noise because his eyebrows crashed together. “What's wrong?”
If she weren't made of hardier stuff, her knees might have buckled. No practiced charm or seductive quip would ever equal in power what he just said to her. It was a punch to the gut in the best way. “Nothing,” she said. “Now that I'm here.” She twined her fingers hard with his, careful to keep her claws from digging into the
