1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of ... (#6)

Breidentel

Berthen's arrival surprises everyone, including Geddis.

Cree cooperates with being sent to the dungeons—attended by enough other illegitimate persons to discourage anyone who might want to cause that elf to disappear.

The royal salon hasn't been used since Hastheem was killed. (Leathin, when he visited, had held court in the small garden outside—which, Geddis understands, is also where Hastheem died.)

Berthen looked at that room, the dust and dirt covering it, and called for an air user to clear it, overtly showing an acceptance of non-elves in his lands (since air is a human affinity).

Geddis wonders if that precedent counts as sabotaging the isolationism Berthen has going on in Marsdenfel, right now. She'll have to ask Dakadza, whenever she sees him again. But then, others who've left her haven't returned for years, so by then, she probably won't care to ask anymore, if she even remembers.

Berthen insists that Geddis stays with him as he questions various witnesses, and she finds out far more than she wanted to know about how Saf is on fire and the king is dead and nobody knows who his heir is supposed to be.

Geddis isn't sure how the last one is possible, but she does at least get a report that her sister made it to a boat headed for the Pardys Isles before things got really bad. There's no word about Silva's husband, though, beyond a mention of 'a' faerie—and Nirmoh's type of faerie always has a bodyguard, so which faerie is it?

As for the issue of one elf that attacked her and the other that beat and killed her attacker, she gets a front-row seat of the details as Bethen finds them, assisted by Hei's brisk organization and implementation of Berthen's desire to interview the persons involved.

He and Hei get along remarkably well.

Geddis might be the only one surprised to find out that her attacker's death had actually been illegal, though, considering how "The montai sometimes killed each other, back in Marsdenfel."

"Leathin ignored that the law applies to everyone in the realms, not just those of the realms, and those fights fell into a borderland of 'arguably legal,' anyway, since he accepted Lallie's authority over them, so her rules could trump his, where they were concerned." Berthan's gaze follows Hei as she bustles about, figurative smacking those who fight her organization.

(Geddis's favorite might be when Hei sweetly told the man bellowing that he had places to be that of course the king wouldn't begrudge him taking care of his incontinence, though the woman snidely refusing to believe Berthen was the king being escorted out of the realm entirely was a close second.)

The way he watches Hei bothers Geddis. It isn't lust—which would be uncomfortable enough, with he still looks like a child, to her eyes, and she thinks he'd still seem that way to an elf, too. (But he's past sixteen. Shouldn't he be an adult?)

There's appreciation, especially whenever she pulls off another slap, but the underlying emotion seems to be dread.

After Berthen finally wraps up the questioning and tongue-lashing for failures to follow proper procedure (which Hei and Kaul are not exempt from), Geddis takes advantage of that (and the distraction of the people bringing in lunch) to discreetly ask, "Why do you watch her like that?"

His sharp look makes her glad they're public enough he won't fling a knife at her, but his expression softens into something sour. "I have to marry someone like her."

"Isn't that a good thing? She seems good at managing all...this."

"She does, yes," he answers blandly. He glances at Geddis as he stretches a little, gives a little shake of his head and takes a few step towards the nearest exit. "Never mind. One batch of questions done. One more to go."