Page 23 of Winter's Fate

Edmun was thin and wiry, with only a few streaks of auburn still remaining in his whitening hair. Though Callum stood several inches taller, he often felt the old man was hovering over him. Especially when he had reason to disapprove of his captain’s choices.

Callum headed for his waiting mount. “What makes you think I did anything?”

Edmun raised a bushy eyebrow, and Callum sighed. There was no point in trying to hide anything from the man. Ever. “Honestly, I don’t know. She seemed perfectly happy last night.”

The eyebrow raised higher.

“When I sat with her at dinner,” he clarified.

And inspected her injuries, while trying not to think of kissing her. And slept in the same room.

And flirted. He wassureshe’d been flirting with him. He’d been enjoying her quick wit, and the way she’d called him out on his manners. Not many in Aglye would have dared, but she did it so prettily, sizing him up and proclaiming he was surprisingly… nice. She’d said he wasnice. It felt like it ought to havebeen an insult, but from her lips, it sounded like the epitome of high compliments. As if kindness was the pinnacle of greatness to which they should all aspire.

Kindness. No, Callum was anything but that. He simply knew how to exercise common decency, from time to time, when it suited him. And with Laena seated across from him last night, it had absolutely suited him.

The color had been starting to blush back into her cheeks when she’d abruptly shut down their conversation.

“It’s just as well,” Callum continued, watching her smile her thanks at young Godfrey as the kid handed her up onto a waiting horse. She looked well today, the ghostly paleness banished from her complexion, her rosebud lips curving into a smile. Someone in the palace had provided her with a fresh dress and polished boots. Though he imagined she might well have cleaned the shoes herself.

Edmun cleared his throat, and Callum realized he’d been staring at her. “Just as well, you say?” the old soldier said.

“She’s famously taken.”

“She is, indeed.”

“Veryfamously.”

Epic-ballad-level famously.

“Also,” Edmun said, “she doesn’t like you.”

Mages, but he thought shehad.

Now she was ignoring him. As if he didn’t exist at all.

“The captain saved her life,” Godfrey said, appearing on Callum’s other side as if from nowhere—Edmun must be training the soldiers in the art of sneaking up on their commanding officer—and he reported this bit of news like it was the greatest thing he’d ever heard. No doubt he’d be repeating some other gossip in an hour, and with just as much reverence.

How the blazes did he already know about last night’sattack? That Princess Katrina’s palace was leaking, and make no mistake.

Though, Callum supposed, there’d been plenty of guards and more than a couple of servants in the orbit of last night’s events. Still. He expected silence from his soldiers on such matters. Absolute silence.

“Did he now?” Edmun said. The old soldier was clearly enjoying this conversation, and Callum’s barely concealed annoyance.

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t concealing anything. Not from Edmun.

“No, I didn’t. She saved herself.” Callum ground the words out from between gritted teeth. “I merely investigated the situation.”

“Didyou now?”

Callum glared at Edmun. “Stop it. You’re not too old for me to throw you in the stocks for a day.”

Edmun snorted. “As if you’d dare.”

“I am your superior officer.”

“Areyou?” Edmun’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and more than a hint of challenge.

In theory. As far as Edmun and the others should know, anyway.

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