Page 40 of Path of the Dark
Elias took another sip of wine and was immediately transported back to the bright sun and tawny, rock-studded hills of home.
“You have a faraway look in your eye,” Nathan noted. He still regarded Elias with unnerving intensity. “How long since you were last at Mirrar Rock?”
“Too long.” Elias made his response deliberately vague. No question from Nathan could be taken simply. The king was constantly delving for more.
“You’ll be able to go home soon though?”
“Perhaps … it depends what plans my father has for me.”
Nathan swirled the wine in his goblet, his gaze hooding. “And what would they be?”
Elias took another sip of wine and ignored the tightening under his ribs that occurred every time he thought on his father—something he’d tried not to do of late.
The old man was controlling, manipulative, and contrary. Elias had never been able to read him, or defy him. And although these peace negotiations had been Reoul’s idea, he’d not honor any of them. It was a pity, for during these meetings with Nathan, Elias had glimpsed another future—one where he didn’t have to shed blood to prove his worth.
It was a mirage though, like a beguiling siren that drew him into dangerous waters. The truth was that Elias would never be able to put down his sword.
“I have no idea,” he replied honestly.
Elias was in an introspective mood when he left the king’s apartments and made his way down the spiral staircase toward the banquet hall. Supper-time approached. The aroma of roasting pigeon drifted up from the kitchens.
However, Elias didn’t feel like dining in the palace this evening. He was restless, out of sorts, and lacked appetite.
These days it felt as if a boulder had taken up residence in his gut.
Instead of leaving the stairwell and making his way to the banquet hall, he continued to the lowest level, and left the palace.
Outdoors, the air was sultry and the sky was ablaze in red and gold. The day’s heat still lingered. Folk thronged the streets. There were plenty of soldiers about, for Nathan had called companies from every corner of Rithmar after Thûn’s fall. However, the atmosphere was festive this evening. Revelers spilled out of doorways, and the lilt of a lyre and the shrill pitch of a bone-whistle traveled across the cobbled streets.
Elias had heard that Rithmar’s Fire Festival was coming up in a couple of days, and it looked as if the residents of The Royal City were getting ready for it. Streamers festooned the streets, and in the great square before the gates to the lower town, an unlit pile of branches and logs sat in the long shadow of the Altar of Umbra.
Weaving his way through the crowd, Elias slipped through the gateway and into the lower town. He didn’t give much thought to his direction, for his feet had a will of their own this evening.
They had one destination in mind:The Black Boar Inn.
“Let’s play again.”
Ryana met the dicer’s eye and slid a stack of silver talents across the table. Her opponent, a cloth merchant from Idriss, smirked. “I didn’t know enchanters were so well paid.”
Ryana forced a smile back but didn’t answer. She wasn’t in the mood for banter this evening. She just wanted to dice. Reclining in her chair, she picked up her tankard and waited for the dicer to accept her challenge. After a few moments, he did, adding a gold talent to the pile.
The din inThe Black Boarwas deafening this evening. It was the end of the week, and many laborers had coin to spend. The musky aroma of ale mingled with the oily fug of smoke drifting out from the kitchens. Roast mutton was on the menu again.
On the table between them was a small board and a stub of chalk.
“The first to reach one-hundred points?” The merchant asked. He had a heavy, unshaven jaw and penetrating dark eyes—a veteran dicer. He’d won their first two games, and Ryana was determined to not let him win the third.
In truth, enchanters were not well paid. Since they lived communally, the Order paid for all their basic wants. However, she did receive a monthly stipend, which she’d just exhausted this evening.
Ryana nodded. “Shoot and let’s see who starts,” she replied, her voice curt. She’d hoped that an evening dicing atThe Black Boarwould relax her, yet she found herself growing increasingly irritated by the merchant.
She didn’t like the smug way he grinned after winning each game. It made her want to grind his face into the floor boards.
Oblivious to her ill-temper, or perhaps not minding it, the merchant did as bid, casting a die onto the table between them. Ryana followed, and since she’d cast the highest number, began.
They played fast, shooting with six dice. Some expert players kept tally from memory, but as Ryana knew that often the worst fights often started in taverns this way, she insisted writing the numbers down upon the chalk board.
Ryana started well, racing ahead of her opponent. But then, halfway through the game, she cast three ‘ones’—and lost the entire score she’d accumulated thus far.
