As if he felt her gaze, he glanced back and smirked. “Better than the boys at the order,” he commented as if her sword wasn’t just a flick of her hand away from slicing through his leathers.
Gandrett considered, for a second, the pleasure of giving her temper free rein, but smoothed over her expression, embarrassed, and denied she already hated Nehelon.
The solid, iron gate creaked open as Gandrett nodded to the guards positioned on each side above on the wall.
“What did you bring this time?” Kaleb, the younger of the two, asked with a simper, almost yelling from the tower-like reinforcements framing the entrance to the priory.
Gandrett’s heart warmed at the sight of Kaleb’s twinkling eyes, and she lowered Nehelon’s sword to fasten it on her belt, then pushed the man forward with her hand rather than her sword.
Nehelon craned his neck to see who had spoken, his dark hair sliding back between his shoulder blades, and whistled through his teeth before he set in motion.
“Don’t they feed you in here?” He gestured at Kaleb’s slim, lanky frame by way of greeting as they stepped through the gate, and Kaleb and the second guard descended from their towers.
Gandrett shoved Nehelon forward, ignoring his provocations, and merely said to Kaleb, “All kind of dirt out there,” as she tilted her head, making clear she meant Nehelon. “I found him snooping around the wall,” she clarified. “He says he wants to see the Meister.”
Kaleb gave Nehelon a look, which Gandrett knew was supposed to be dangerous, as he sized him up, but all Gandrett could see was the soft-hearted boy who she had met that first day at Everrun and trained with for ten years. Nothing about him appeared dangerous besides the black-pointed arrows peeking out from behind his shoulder.
“The Meister is busy around this time of the day,” the other guard said to Nehelon, this one looking as dangerous as he sounded.
Gandrett inclined her head. “I’ll bring our guest to his new quarters.”
Both guards nodded, and Gandrett noticed Kaleb’s mouth twitch.
The Meister wasn’t busy. She knew exactly where in the lush gardens of the priory she would find him.
But Nehelon didn’t need to know where she was taking him. And he didn’t need to know that the ‘quarters’ she had mentioned were the cells in one of the two-story, stone, side buildings framing the main road to the eastern gate. That’s what the order did with unannounced visitors until they could be questioned—not that many ever tried sneaking into the priory. It was common knowledge that there was no way in and no way out unless you were granted passage. That was one of the few things that made Gandrett feel safe in Everrun, despite the ghost town which lay behind the eastern gate, abandoned by its inhabitants over two-hundred years ago when the desert had still been fertile soil and the priory of the Order of Vala had been a place friendly to visitors and open to those in need.
Gandrett guided Nehelon past the citadel, its peaked tower piercing the gray sky like a needle while the thundering sound of water spilling from the roof at its base covered the echo of their footsteps bouncing off the columns that framed the front in a decorative line where the water pooled in a pond as wide as the citadel itself.
Nehelon strode forward, unimpressed by Gandrett’s sword, which was still close to his left shoulder. “That guard…” He jerked his chin to the side, pointing behind him to where Kaleb had probably already climbed back into his tower. “Your sweetheart?”
Gandrett swallowed the violent words she wanted to smash at the obnoxious stranger and forced a smile onto her dry lips. Composure. If Nehelon was supposed to see anything of hers, it was composure. Kaleb was her friend, and she would in no way show the stranger that the boy meant something to her. Part of her training at the Order of Vala was to school her emotions, her hot-headedness. It was the only way to ensure she remained as good a fighter when she was under pressure or emotional strain. And even if the methods used were questionable, Gandrett was grateful that her training ensured she would give Nehelon nothing. The last time she had cried was probably the week she had been torn from her mother’s arms at the age of seven. And she had sworn to herself it would be the last time the politics of Neredyn reached her, had taken something from her—
With a swish of her blade, Gandrett guided Nehelon toward one of the sand-colored side buildings. “It’s open,” was all she said, voice unbothered as he stopped at the narrow, black door, before she shoved him forward.
Even if the image of one of the inhabitants of Everrun escorting a captive with a sword was rare, Gandrett’s fellow acolytes, the priests, and priestesses tried not to gawk as they passed by. But she could feel their eyes on her back as she crossed the threshold after Nehelon, could almost hear the whispers even if the more subdued wind inside the walls was too weak to carry the guessing, the wondering all the way to her ears.
Nehelon didn’t fight when Gandrett beckoned him into one of the two narrow cells crammed at one side of the room the second her eyes adjusted to the darker light.
“Not exactly the palace at Ackwood.” He launched himself onto the dusty cot in the corner farthest from the cell door, lacing his fingers together behind his head, and let his gaze sweep over the shabby interior which filled the room behind Gandrett. “But better than those inns in Nisea.”
Gandrett felt her face change with interest and battled down all flaring curiosity while she shut the iron-barred cell as she asked, “You’re from Sives?” Her voice sounded about as emotional as a sleeping frog. Ackwood, one of the two capitals of Sives. She hadn’t heard recent news about the territory where she was born. If Nehelon was from Ackwood, he might have news about what was going on in the north.
“So now I have your attention,” Nehelon commented instead of answering her question.
Gandrett bit her lower lip from the inside until it hurt and shrugged. “We don’t get many visitors here.”
To her surprise, Nehelon sat up on the cot, legs still crossed at his booted ankles, his eyes suggesting a challenge. “I am not exactly being treated like a visitor.”
His eyes, blue as the winter sky above Sives, sparked as she stared him down, measuring, weighing, trying to read the man who had fought her as if he’d intended to slit her throat in the end and now behaved more like an annoyed, stray cat. As if he had read her thoughts, he gave her a feline grin.
“So, are you from the north?” The burgundy-and-gold coat of armor on his chest sure suggested he might be from the palace itself. Ackwood. So close to home. Gandrett stifled a sigh. All those years she’d been dreaming of one day returning to her parents’ farm. The thought of it brought back the scent of grains and freshly-cut grass at high summer, of snow and roasted chestnuts in winter. And images of soft hills embedded between ever-white mountains in the west and north-east.
Nehelon didn’t give any sign he was going to speak.
“Why are you here?” Gandrett didn’t back down, her stare unimpressed by the glacial cold that had crept back into his eyes.
“Why don’t you go stir the Meister from his daily meditation, and in return, I’ll tell you the truth?”
Chapter Two