In profile, his beardless features looked carved from stone, not with a sculptor’s chisel but a hunter’s skinning knife. If she looked upon him as just a construct of facial bones, she understood why Ildiko said he was handsome, but the awful human eyes and horse-toothed smile ruined his visage, just as it did every human Anhuset encountered. She bore no resentment toward humans who reacted in similar fashion to the Kai. They shared a mutual revulsion of each other’s appearances.
Still, there was something about this man that fascinated her, despite her disgust at the notion. Anhuset wouldn’t hesitate to admit or agree that Serovek Pangion was bold, courageous, and possessed a nobility of character that was often in short supply in both the Kai and human races. He had saved her and Ildiko from capture and death by raiders and their mage hounds, tended Anhuset’s wounds and participated in Brishen’s rescue. And he had volunteered to become a Wraith king and fight alongside the Khaskem against the galla.
And yet you dislike him, an inner voice admonished her.
Another added a mocking rebuttal. Because he’s dangerous. He makes you feel.
“Be quiet,” Anhuset muttered aloud, surprising a passing Kai soldier who gave her a puzzled look before darting away at her warning glare.
The small crowd of Kai paced alongside the visitors’ horses, some calling out greetings in Common tongue. The three Beladine responded in the same language, bending to clasp clawed hands with their gloved ones, smiling their square tooth smiles. Someone said something Anhuset was too far away to hear, and the margrave tilted his head back to laugh, the sound echoing through the bailey. He had always been comfortable around the Kai, unfazed by their more feral appearances.
And he had never made any secret of his attraction to the dour sha-Anhuset.
Anhuset scowled and purposefully maneuvered her way through the bailey so that she could observe without being seen by Saggara’s newly arrived guests. The last thing she wanted was Saggara's curious Kai watching as Serovek tried to charm her with his teasing smiles and frank admiration.
He motioned to his retainers and they all dismounted to stand amid the growing crowd. The retainers disappeared from her view, but Lord Pangion didn’t. The Kai were a tall, lithe people, taller than most humans, yet he stood taller than those surrounding him, his broad shoulders enhanced even more by the heavy clothing he wore to ward off the cold. For all his size, he moved with surprising grace, and that acknowledgment sent odd flutters through her ribcage. An irritated hiss whistled between her teeth. Handsome to others. Not to her.
A subtle change in both his expression and his stance made Anhuset instinctively slip into the narrow space between a tower of hay bales and one of the walls belonging to the redoubt’s cooperage. His eyes narrowed, their quick flickers from side to side as he scanned the yard making her shudder a little. A warrior well trained, he’d sensed he was being closely observed, regarded with an intensity far greater than those who stood much closer to him.
His gaze passed over the spot where she hid. . . gods’ bollocks, she was hiding from the Beladine Stallion! The realization made her lurch out of the concealing spot, her back snapping straight, chin up as she glared at the man who had neither seen her nor spoken to her, yet had already managed to practically set her hair on fire from annoyance.
Serovek didn’t pause in his reconnoitering of the bailey, but once more his manner changed, shoulders relaxing, eyes still narrowed but with amusement now as a faint smirk played across his mouth. The uncomfortable certainty that he'd seen her lurking behind the horse fodder made her growl. She straightened her tunic with a jerk, prepared to march across the yard and, as Brishen’s second, formally welcome him to Saggara.
She never got the chance. The crowd moved as a single wave, carrying Serovek and his men away from her on a crest toward the palace’s entrance from which Brishen and Ildiko emerged. The prince regent and his wife greeted their guest first with formal vows, then more affectionate clasps of forearms and embraces. Brishen clapped Serovek on the back, ushering him inside. Just before they disappeared from view, the margrave glanced over his shoulder and unerringly found Anhuset among the milling crowd. A quick tip of his head and another of those teasing smiles told her he’d known she was there all along.
Before the supper gathering that evening, she stood in her small bedroom in the main barracks and glared at the chest holding the garb she kept in reserve for more formal occasions. Were it strictly to her preference, she’d attend tonight’s feast wearing her usual everyday clothing of homespun and leather in muted colors of brown, gray, and black. Fashion never interested her, and she was far more inclined to admire the temper of a well-made sword than the cut of a finely sewn tunic or the sparkle of a necklace.
The lone candle in the room provided just enough light to illuminate the delicate embroidery on the fold of emerald green fabric in the chest. Anhuset reached inside and pulled it out, shaking the cloth so that it unfurled into one of the court tunics she’d worn on those rare occasions when she’d been summoned to make an appearance before her uncle, King Djedor.
She shrugged. It would do as well as anything else in the chest, and at least she didn’t have to tolerate the contemptuous stares of a herd of useless Kai aristocracy or the malevolent scrutiny of Queen Secmis. The galla had almost wrecked the Kai kingdom, and many had died in the onslaught, but Anhuset didn’t grieve the deaths of the old court, especially its monarchs. She had watched in silent triumph as Brishen, as a Wraith king, destroyed his mother, the queen, once and for all. Good riddance.
After a hasty sponge bath and a futile attempt at taming her hair into something a little more elaborate than a simple plait or queue, she dressed and finally paused to stare at herself in the cloudy mirror she’d bought from an itinerant trader years earlier. She’d ceded the battle to tame her hair and left it loose except for a pair of tiny braids at her temples. The tunic’s color emphasized the silver of her hair, the garment’s cut, her height. A wide leather belt, replete with buckles and metal rings from which to tie sheaths and carry weaponry, circled her waist. Protocol and civility demanded she leave her sword behind in favor of carrying two daggers. Plain black trousers and ankle boots favored by the Kai completed the ensemble.
Anhuset smoothed a hand down the tunic, chasing away non-existent wrinkles. This was as good as it would get. She was no court lady, nor was she a great beauty, and gatherings like these were ordeals to be suffered rather than enjoyed. She attended to please her cousin, nothing more. Still, she fiddled with the tiny braids and adjusted the belt before giving her reflection a dour smile. “Just Anhuset,” she said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
The bailey was sparsely populated as she made her way to the manor house and the great hall where Brishen planned to host the supper in Serovek’s honor. To avoid being formally announced by the steward, Mesumenes, she skirted the main entrance in favor of the one that took her through the kitchens and down a set of corridors, exchanging quick greetings with servants as they hurried back and forth between the kitchens and the hall. A familiar voice calling her name brought her to an abrupt halt.
“Why the hurry, sha-Anhuset?”
Ignoring the flutters dancing within her ribcage, she schooled her features into an impassive mask before pivoting to face Serovek. She bowed. “Margrave,” she said, congratulating herself on the blandness of her tone.