“—luwee cidefu—”
“Grand!” Nadir announced with his arms wide, crossing the room to the older gentleman using an elongated staff to cross the tent.
Aydra’s brows narrowed at the language she didn’t understand emitting from the old man’s lips. But the moment Nadir spoke, the man turned, and a wide smile grew over his face.
“Storn, m’boy!” the man exclaimed, hugging Nadir. He clapped Nadir’s shoulders and then pulled back to look at him. “Sun harsh for battle today,” the old man said. “Venari must have good intentions.”
“Ah… probably not the only reason why the sun was bright for our assault,” Nadir said, stepping sideways and revealing Aydra standing at the door.
The old man let go of Nadir, and he took one step towards her. His long caramel blonde hair was dreaded down to his waist. The white and blonde beard on his chin thinned as it lengthened to the top of the man’s frail chest, and its color stood stark against the darkened olive of his skin. Wrinkles and puffed bags surrounded his eyes. He stared at her with the same cerulean eyes as Nadir. He clutched his hand on the staff, and he slowly crossed the space between she and him.
Aydra swore she saw water in the footprints he left behind.
“A fire Sun daughter with eyes of sword,” the old man mused as he reached her. His small eyes narrowed at her, and he reached his hand out to touch hers. Aydra’s stomach knotted as his softly wrinkled hands curled around her fingers.
“Your mother prepares for war,” he continued.
Aydra frowned, taken aback not only by the claim but also the broken accent in which he spoke. “My mother knows nothing of the war on our shores,” she argued.
“So she tell you,” the man spoke shortly. A small smile broke onto his face then, and he laughed the high-pitched chortle that made her brows narrow back at Nadir’s smirking face. He turned away from her and started moving things on a table nearby.
Nadir leaned in towards her. “Excuse his speech. He’s much better versed in the old language,” he muttered.
“The old language?” Aydra repeated, “what like, Haerland’s original language? Who—”
“My children fond of you,” the man cut in then, having apparently not heard Aydra and Nadir talking. “Never they brought a Sun Queen into our home.”
Nadir chuckled at the confusion on her features. “Aydra, this is Lovi Piathos,” he said simply.
Aydra felt the color drain from her face. Her brows raised, and her weight shifted.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, now hugging her arms over her chest.
Nadir laughed again. “Lovi Piathos. Giver of the Honest people. Lesser One and child of the Ghost of the Sea. But here at the Umber, we call him the Grand.”
If there had been a chair behind her, she would have sat. But there was no chair, and so she was stuck making herself stay on her feet like a frightened child.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected upon meeting him. A warrior, perhaps. A tall strong man of beauty and grace, who’s skin looked of the glittering sea.
The very last thing she had expected was an older man with a tall staff to help him walk.
“Don’t let the staff fool you,” Nadir said in a hushed voice. “He doesn’t really need it. Just thinks it makes him look wiser—Ow!”
Lovi had smacked him in the shin with the end of his staff. The high-pitched laugh emitted from Lovi, and he turned with two potions in his hand to mock Nadir.
“Mock and pay,” he said with another laugh. He looked to Aydra then and nodded towards a chair on the other side of the tent. “Sit, my dear.”
Aydra snapped out of her daze and made her way to the chair. Lovi stood over her, pouring some of the potion onto ribbons. She winced when he pressed it to the wound on her arm.
Lovi started asking Nadir about the battle as he dressed her wound. He told him about the ships and what they’d found, the weapons they’d used. Lovi asked about the plan they’d used to ambush, and Nadir grinned at Aydra.
“Actually, if it hadn’t been for the Sun Queen here, I’m not sure we would have won with the numbers we did,” he affirmed.
“I’m sure you would have figured out something,” Aydra argued.
“Bickering like the last time,” he muttered. “It’s nice to have fresh eyes on the field once in a while.”
Nadir left them a few moments later, leaving Aydra in the room with only Lovi’s company. She shifted nervously as he cleaned the wound on her arm, followed by the cut on her cheek, but his calm energy made her feel more open to speaking truthfully with him than even her own mother.
“Tell me, little Sun. How your mother?” he asked after a few minutes.
“Oh, you know Arbina,” she said, shaking her head. “High. Mighty. Manipulative… All the things she says we aren’t to trust about every other race in this land.”
Lovi chuckled under his breath. “Not have I heard another speak about her like this since Duarb was able to walk the ground.” His cerulean eyes met hers, and he paused. “What she says such to make you think this?”
Aydra sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t speak ill of my giver. It was rude of me.”
“Hole open,” he bantered. “You spill.”
She scoffed as he started blotting her wound again. An elongated sigh left her lips, and she stared at the ground as she began to admit words to him she’d not shared with another living being.
“Everything I’ve ever learned about the other races of Haerland has been proven wrong to me in just the last few months,” she admitted. “I don’t know what to trust. I was hurt in the Venari kingdom during the deads a few months ago. Draven and his people aided me back to health, no questions asked. When I spoke with my mother
