Alaric Adair's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Alaric Adair had bedded three duchesses before the harvest festival and could not remember the color of their eyes. He remembered instead the woman at the archery butts. She had walked past him without slowing, without curtsy, without the small stumble in the step that told him a woman had noticed him. In Eldervein, where his smile had emptied wine cellars and marriage beds alike, that steady stride was the first interesting thing he had seen in a year. He stood now under the carved oak arch at the edge of the tourney green, watching the crowd file out. The arch was crowded with painted crests, and Alaric knew every house on it. He named them off as guests passed beneath. The woman had worn dark leather with fur at the collar and a device he did not know: a blade crossed with something he could not place from thirty paces. He had asked a page. The page did not know. He had asked the steward, who bowed and said the guest lists were sealed until the closing feast. He had asked a groom, who laughed at him for the first time in his life. By dusk Alaric had questioned nine people and learned nothing except that a prince's charm was a poor lockpick. He waited until the torches were lit and the last riders came through. A short, blonde woman ducked under the arch beside a taller man in Valoris colors. Her braids were tight, her jaw set, her hand near the hilt at her belt. Alaric stepped into her path and gave her the smile that had ruined a countess. She looked at him the way one looks at a wet dog in a doorway. The man beside her spoke first. "Adair. My cousin's guest. Astrid Ainsworth, of the northern march." Prince Damien Valoris said her name like a warning. Astrid did not offer a hand. She said, "You are blocking the arch," and walked around him. Alaric stood with the name in his mouth and watched her cross the green toward the feast hall. He had what he had wanted since morning. He also understood, for the first time in his adult life, that knowing a woman's name was the smallest part of the problem.