Knife of Rebellion: Battles of Eyenwar, Book 1

Chapter 9- Just a Little Death

"I hear you bullied my brother into taking down K'roth's body." Garen whispers to me. He sounds almost.. proud. We are both in the stables, in neighboring stalls. Apparently Jacqueline decided to undo the unpleasantness of yesterday by organizing a ride through the better known parts of the city. She mentioned something about a riviera. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm going to guess it has something to do with the river that runs through the city.

Garen, Mirabel, Alaric, Jacqueline and myself are apparently going on a romantic scenic ride, except I don't have anyone with whom to be romantic. Jacqueline offered to solve that problem by fixing me up with her younger brother, or any of the other young men in her court. I politely declined, saying I had someone else to invite.

I did not have anyone to invite, but after I said it I had to find someone or risk looking the fool. So I invited Branon.

The Queen clearly disapproved, but whatever social etiquette she followed forces her to smile and welcome him with open arms.

Mirabel is outside the stable, pretending to struggle to get onto Whisper, her gelding. I roll my eyes, knowing full well that mirabel has known how to ride like a warrior since she was five years old. Practically every Torranian is a natural in the saddle.

Garen leaves his own horse, a war horse that has clearly seen a few battles in his time, and goes to Mirabel's side.

"Here, let me help," Garen gently takes ahold of my cousin's hand and lifts her into the saddle.

I look away, feeling a surge of jealousy. It's not that I want Garen to treat me that way, it's just that I hate sharing one of my only friends with my attention hog of a cousin. I pull myself smoothly onto Heartfire's back and ride out of the open stall. He gets a bit frisky with Garen's warhorse, but I quickly tug on a few of his life-threads to get him to fall in line.

"Is everyone ready?" Jacqueline calls out cheerfully.

Branon pulls up beside me, making our party complete. I take a moment to appreciate Branon's ability to dress for the occasion. I have never seen him in anything other than a uniform or travel clothes, but I must admit he has outdone himself. His sleeveless black tunic shows off his tanned muscles well. It is made of fine cambric material, light, simple and elegant. He even shaved and trimmed his inch long strawberry blond hair.

"You look nice. You could almost belong here." I tell him.

"I could say the same about you." Bran retorts.

I laugh, "That's true."

This morning I allowed Gerta to twist my unruly curls into a tight braid and pin it all behind my head. I'm wearing a respectably fashionable ruffled blouse over my leather riding gear. Although i find the frills excessive, I do feel comfortable.

"Let's get moving," Mirabel complains from her place beside Garen.

A few soldiers fall into place behind us and the King and queen oblige her request by riding out the western gate which leads us right to the banks of the river.

Branon leans over to me, "This is Lanas River. Only the oldest and richest houses are built here. This is where most of the gentry live when they aren't in their rooms at the castle."

Why anyone would need two houses in the same city is beyond me.

As we continue our outing, I find that what Branon said was true. Only large mansion estates appear every half a mile or so. According to the Queen, most are only manned by a few year round staff at the moment. Only one family has come out to greet us. They did nothing but ask nosy questions about Mirabel, which Jacqueline seemed more than happy to answer. It wasn't until we were out of earshot that she mentioned how irritating it could be when people couldn't mind their own business.