![]() ![]() ![]() They requested a private audience, and she has an obligation to keep them happy. Lia Mara is dining with one of her Royal Houses. Where is our young queen tonight? he asks. Or maybe like a father missing the son he once lost. He dotes on the boy like an old grandmother. He pockets the coin, but he’ll probably give it to Tycho later. Iisak smiles, and while the darkness paints his black eyes and gray skin in even darker shadows, the moonlight glints off his fangs. I toss a coin onto the table to acknowledge his win. ![]() With cards, there’s an element of strategy, of choice, but the dice are moved by nothing more than fate. I’m good at cards, but dice seem to hate me. ![]() Silver hell, I mutter as I tally his roll. Iisak shakes the silver cubes in his hands, then lets them rattle out onto the table. The only flame burning out here is the lone candle in a glass jar on the table between us. The others are clustered around the central hearth that burns in the main room of the Crystal Palace, drinking the cook’s first batch of winter wine, but Iisak loathes the warmth, so I’m braving the cold and the dark on the veranda to play dice with the scraver. It’s colder in Syhl Shallow than it would be in Emberfall, but it’s been so long since I experienced the gradual slide from autumn into winter that I’ve been reveling in it. The weather has begun to turn, allowing cold wind to swoop down from the mountains and sneak under the leather and fur of my jacket. ![]()
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