“Calm now, kid?” Blint asked. “Good. Because I’m going to show you what your hesitation cost.”

Solon was ushered in to dinner by an old man with a stooped back and a smartly pressed uniform adorned with gold braid and the Gyre’s soaring white falcon on a field sable, which over the centuries had become barely recognizable as the gyrfalcon it was. A northern falcon. And not Khalidoran or even Lodricari, gyrfalcons were only found in the Freeze. So the Gyres are hardly more native to Cenaria than I am.

Dinner was set in the great hall, a strange choice to Solon’s mind. It wasn’t that the great hall wasn’t impressive— it was too much so. It must have been almost as large as Castle Cenaria’s own great hall, adorned with tapestries, banners, shields of long-dead enemies, enormous canvasses, statuary in marble and gold leaf, and a ceiling mural depicting a scene from the Alkestia. In the midst of such grandeur, the table was dwarfed to insignificance, though it was fifteen paces long.

“Lord Solon Tofusin, of House Tofusin, Windseekers of Royal House Bra’aden of the Island Empire of Seth,” the old man announced. Solon was pleased that the man had either known or dug up the appropriate titles, even if Seth was scarcely an empire these days. Solon walked forward to greet Lady Gyre.

She was an attractive woman, stately, with the dark green eyes and the dusky skin and delicate bones of House Graesin. Though she had an admirable figure, she dressed modestly by Cenarian standards: the neckline high, the hemline coming down almost to her slim ankles, the gray gown fitted but not tight.

“Blessings, my Lady,” Solon said, giving the traditional Sethi open-palmed bow, “may the sun smile upon you and all storms find you in port.” It was a little much, but so was having three people dine in a hall large enough to have its own weather.

She hmmphed, not even bothering to speak to him. They sat and servants brought out the first course, a mandarin duck soup with fennel. “My son warned me of what you were, but you speak quite well, nor have you seen fit to put metal through your face. And you’re wearing clothes. I’m quite pleased.” Evidently the good duchess had heard about her son’s luck with sparring Solon and didn’t appreciate having her son humbled.

“Is it true, then?” Logan asked. He was at one end of the table, his mother at the other, and Solon unfortunately in the middle. “Do the Sethi really go naked on their ships?”

“Logan,” Catrinna Gyre said sharply.

“No. If I may, Lady Gyre, that’s a common misperception. Our island splits the hottest current in the Great Sea, so it’s quite warm there even in the winter. In the summer, it’s nearly intolerable. So though we don’t wear as much clothing or as heavy clothing as people do here, we aren’t without our own standards of modesty.”

“Modesty? You call women who run about on boats half-naked modest?” Lady Gyre asked. Logan looked enrapt by the idea.

“Not all of them are modest, of course. But to us, breasts are about as erotic as necks. It might be pleasant to kiss them, but there’s no reason to—”

“You go too far!” Lady Gyre said.

“On the other hand, a woman who shows her ankles is obviously hoping not to go below decks alone. Indeed, Lady Gyre,” he lifted an eyebrow and pretended to look at her ankles, though they were too far away and on the other side of table legs. “Sethi women would think you quite brazen.”

Catrinna Gyre’s face went ashen.

Before she could say anything, though, Logan laughed. “Ankles? Ankles? That’s so …dumb!” He wolf-whistled. “Nice ankles, mother.” He laughed again.

A servant arrived with the second course, but Solon didn’t even see him set it down. Why do I do this? It wouldn’t be the first time his sharp tongue had cut his own throat.

“I see that your lack of respect isn’t confined to striking Lord Gyre,” the duchess said.

Now he’s Lord Gyre. So, the men weren’t stupid; they weren’t babying Logan; she’d probably ordered them not to hit Logan in practice.

“Mother, he was never disrespectful to me. And he didn’t mean to disrespect you, either.” Logan looked from his mother to Solon, and found stony gazes on each. “Did you, Lord Tofusin?”

“Milady,” Solon said, “my father once told me that there are no lords on the practice field because there are no lords on the battlefield.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “A true lord is always a lord. In Cenaria we understand this.”

“Mother, he means that enemy swords cut nobles as surely as they cut peasants.”

Lady Gyre ignored her son and said, “What is it that you want from us, Master Tofusin?”

It was a rude thing to ask a guest, and not least for addressing him as a commoner. Solon had been counting on the Gyres’ courtesy to give him long enough to figure out that very thing. He had thought that he could watch and wait, dine with the Gyres at every meal, and be afforded a fortnight or two before he announced any intention of his plans. He thought he might like the boy, but this woman, gods! He might be better off with the Jadwin seductress.

“Mother, don’t you think you’re being a little—”

She didn’t even look at her son; she just raised her palm toward him and stared at Solon, unblinking.

So that’s how it is.

Logan wasn’t just her son. For all that he was only a boy, Logan was Catrinna Gyre’s lord. In that contemptuous gesture, Solon read the family’s history. She raised her hand, and her son was still young enough, still inexperienced enough, that he went silent like a good son rather than punished her like a good lord. In that contempt and the contempt she’d greeted him with, Solon saw why Duke Gyre had named his son Lord Gyre in his own absence. The duke couldn’t trust his own wife to rule.

“I’m waiting,” Lady Gyre said. The chill in her voice made his decision.

Solon didn’t like children, but he loathed tyrants. Damn you, Dorian. “I’ve come to be Lord Gyre’s adviser,” he said, smiling warmly.

“Ha! Absolutely not.”

“Mother,” Logan said, a touch of steel entering his voice.

“No. Never,” she said. “In fact, Master Tofusin, I’d like you to leave.”

“Mother.”

“Immediately,” she said.

Solon didn’t move, merely held his knife and two-pronged fork—he was glad he remembered how the Cenarians used the things—over his plate, willing himself not to move.

“When are you going to let Lord Gyre act like Lord Gyre?” he asked her.

“When he’s ready. When he’s older. And I will not be questioned by some Sethi savage who—”

“Is that what the duke commanded you when he named his son lord in his absence? Let Logan be lord once he’s ready? My father once told me that delayed obedience is really disobedience.”

“Guards!” she called.

“Dammit, mother! Stop it!” Logan stood so abruptly his chair clattered to the ground behind him.

The guards were halfway to Solon’s chair. They suddenly looked caught, conspicuous. They looked at each other and slowed, vainly tried to approach quietly, their chain mail jingling with every step.

“Logan, we’ll speak about this later,” Catrinna Gyre said. “Tallan, Bran, escort this man out. Now.”

“I am the Gyre! Don’t touch him,” Logan shouted.

The guards stopped. Catrinna’s eyes flashed fury. “How dare you question my authority. You second-guess your mother in front of a stranger? You’re an embarrassment, Logan Gyre. You shame your family. Your father made a terrible mistake in trusting you.”

Solon felt sick, and Logan looked worse. He was shaken, suddenly wavering, about to fold. The snake. She destroys what she should protect. She shatters her own son’s confidence.

Logan looked at Tallan and Bran. The men looked wretched to be so visibly witnessing Logan’s humiliation. Logan shrank, seemed to deflate.

I have to do something.

“My Lord Gyre,” Solon said, standing and drawing all eyes. “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t wish to impose on your hospitality. The last thing I would wish to be is an occasion for strife in your family, and indeed, I forgot myself and spoke too frankly to your mother. I am not always attuned to …tempering the truth for Cenarian sensibilities. Lady Gyre, I apologize for any offense you or your lord may have taken. Lord Gyre, I apologize if you felt I treated you lightly and will of course take my leave, if you will grant it.” A little twist on the if you will grant it.