Kitai flushed, heat touching her cheeks and throat.
Her father pretended not to notice. "What is done is done," he rumbled. He turned to her and cupped her cheek in one vast hand. He tilted his head for a moment, studying her. "I like his eyes on you. Like emerald. Like new grass."
Kitai felt her eyes begin to tear. She closed them and kissed her father's hand. "I wanted a horse."
Doroga let out a rumbling laugh. "Your mother wanted a lion. She got a fox. She did not regret it."
"I want it to go away."
Doroga lowered his hand. He turned back toward Walker, keeping his arm around Kitai. "It won't. You should Watch."
"I do not wish to."
"It is the way of our people," Doroga said.
"I do not wish to."
"Stubborn whelp. You will remain here until some sense soaks into your skull."
"I am not a whelp, father."
"You act like one. You will remain with the Sabot-ha." They reached Walker, and he tossed her halfway up the saddle rope without effort.
Kitai clambered up to Walker 's broad back. "But father-"
"No, Kitai." He climbed up behind her, and clucked to Walker. The gargant placidly rose and began back the way they had come. "You are forbidden to go. It is done."
Kitai rode silently behind her father, but sat looking back to the west, her troubled face to the wind.
Miles's old wound pained him as he trudged down the long spiral staircase into the depths of the earth below the First Lord's palace, but he ignored it. The steady, smoldering throb from his left knee was of little more concern to him than the aching of his tired feet or the stretching soreness of weary muscles in his shoulders and arms after a day of hard drilling. He ignored them, his face as plain and remote as the worn hilt of the sword at his belt.
None of the discomfort he felt disturbed him nearly as much as the prospect of the conversation he was about to have with the most powerful man in the world.
Miles reached the antechamber at the bottom of the stairs and regarded his distorted reflection in a polished shield that hung upon the wall. He straightened the hem of his red-and-blue surcoat, the colors of the Royal Guard, and raked his fingers through his mussed hair.
A boy sat on the bench beside the closed door. He was a lanky, gangling youth, a young man who had come to his growth but recently, and the hems of his breeches and sleeves both rode up too far, exposing his wrists and ankles. A mop of dark hair fell over his face, and an open book sat upon his lap, one finger still pointed at a line of text though the boy was clearly asleep.
Miles paused, and murmured, "Academ."
He jerked in his sleep, and the book fell from his lap and to the floor. The boy sat up, blinking his eyes, and stammered, "Yes, sire, what, uh, yes sire. Sire?"
Miles put a hand on the boy's shoulder before he could rise. "Easy, easy. Finals coming up, eh?"
The boy flushed and ducked his head as he leaned down to recover the book. "Yes, Sir Miles. I haven't had much time for sleep."
"I remember," he said. "Is he still inside?"
The boy nodded again. "As far as I know, sir. Would you like me to announce you?"
"Please."
The boy rose, brushing at his wrinkled grey academ's tunic, and bowed. Then he knocked gently on the door and opened it.
"Sire?" the boy said. "Sir Miles to see you."
There was a long pause, then a gentle male voice responded, "Thank you, Academ. Send him in."
Miles walked into the First Lord's meditation chamber, and the boy shut the soundproof door behind him. Miles lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head, waiting for the First Lord to acknowledge him.
Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, stood in the center of the tiled floor. He was a tall man with a stern face and tired eyes. Though his skills at watercrafting caused him to resemble a man only in his fifth decade of life, Miles knew that he was twice that age. His hair, once dark and lustrous, had become even more heavily sown with grey in the past year.
On the tiles beneath Gaius, colors swirled and changed, patterns forming and vanishing again, constantly shifting. Miles recognized a portion of the southern coastline of Alera, near Parcia, which remained in place for a moment before resolving into a section of mountainous wilderness that could only have been in the far north, near the Shieldwall.
Gaius shook his head and passed his hand through the air before him, murmuring, "Enough." The colors faded away completely, the tiles reverting to their usual dull, stationary colors. Gaius turned and sank down into a chair against the wall with a slow exhalation. "You're up late tonight, Captain."
Miles rose. "I was in the Citadel and wanted to pay my respects, sire."
Gaius's greying brows rose. "You walked down five hundred stairs to pay your respects."
"I didn't count them, sire."
"And if I am not mistaken, you are to inspect the new Legion's command at dawn. You'll get little sleep."
"Indeed. Almost as little as you will, my lord."
"Ah," Gaius said. He reached out and took up a glass of wine from the bureau beside his chair. "Miles, you're a soldier, not a diplomat. Speak your mind."
Miles let out a slow breath and nodded. "Thank you. You aren't getting enough sleep, Sextus. You're going to look like something the gargant shat for the opening ceremonies of Wintersend. You need to get to bed."
The First Lord waved one hand. "Presently, perhaps."
"No, Sextus. You're not going to wave this off. You've been here every night for three weeks, and it shows. You need a warm bed, a soft woman, and rest."
"Unfortunately, I'm likely to have none of the three."
"Balls," Miles said. He folded his arms and planted his feet. "You're the First Lord of Alera. You can have anything you want."
Gaius's eyes flickered with a shadow of surprise and anger. "My bed is unlikely to be warm so long as Caria is in it, Miles. You know how things stand between us."
"What did you expect? You married a bloody child, Sextus. She expected to live out an epic romance, and she found herself with a dried-up old spider of a politician instead."
Gaius's mouth tightened, the anger in his eyes growing more plain. The stone floor of the chamber rippled, the tremor making the table beside the chair rattle. "How dare you speak so to me, Captain?"
"You ordered me to, my lord. But before you dismiss me, consider. If I wasn't in the right, would it have angered you as much as it did? If you weren't so tired, would you have revealed your anger so obviously?"
The floor quieted, and Gaius's regard grew more weary, less angered. Miles felt a stab of disappointment. Once upon a time, the First Lord would not have surrendered to fatigue so easily.
Gaius took another sip of wine, and said, "What would you have me do, Miles? Tell me that."
"Bed," Miles said. "A woman. Sleep. Festival begins in four days."
" Caria isn't leaving her door open to me."
"Then take a concubine," Miles said. "Blight it, Sextus, you need to relax and the Realm needs an heir."
The First Lord grimaced. "No. I may have ill-used Caria, but I'll not shame her by taking another lover."
"Then lace her wine with aphrodin and split her like a bloody plow, man."
"I didn't realize you were such a romantic, Miles."
The soldier snorted. "You're so tense that the air crackles when you move. Fires jump up to twice their size when you walk through the room. Every fury in the capital feels it, and the last thing you want is for the High Lords arriving for Wintersend to know you're worried."
Gaius frowned. He stared down at his wine for a moment, before he said, "The dreams have come again, Miles."
Worry struck Miles like a physical blow, but he kept it from his face as best he could. "Dreams. You're not a child to fear a dream, Sextus."