Tahlen didn’t offer a warning for Zelli’s tone this time.
Bree shifted but said nothing. Zelli scratched his cheek, making a fine silver chain jingle. “If you had family or business here, surely you would say so. Which leaves me to wonder if you’re accused of a crime so horrible that you fled the capital…” Bree’s expression became indignant, so Zelli paused thoughtfully. “Or if you were not released from your oath of service. Did you ask and they denied you?”
“Whoareyou?” Bree demanded in barely a whisper.
“I’m Zelli of the Tialttyrin.” Zelli wiggled his feet. “The Tialttyrin are of the fae. You should know this if you plan to stay in our valley.”
“I can stay?” Bree asked with obvious surprise.
“Do you want to?” Zelli asked in return. “I have no objection, provided that you are not here for terrible reasons. Which is why I am asking about your former service. If you left over a personal difficulty, you may tell me in private. Shh,” he added before Tahlen could say a word, “you would be there too, of course, Tahlen.” He focused on Bree again. “But I will need an answer.”
Bree turned to look over Zelli’s head, to Tahlen, no doubt. Zelli couldn’t be angry about it; all the guards at the fortress looked to him too. “I did not ask,” she said at last, returning her gaze to Zelli. “The last of us to try that was refused and sent to escort one of the Lyralinah down the river. Where he perished… in an accident."
The murmurs through the crowd said they understood Bree’s pause as well as Zelli had.
“Why did you want to leave?” The mayor spoke up. Zelli had the same question.
Bree stood in silence for long moments, her expressions unhappy and conflicted. Then she pulled in a deep breath. “The new head of the family had ambitions, as many now seem to. He sent some of us to assist Tye of the Villucatto as she moved against the Racetia and the Diirlyian. We are not sworn toTye.” Bree spat the name. “Alliances made with our lives. Without our choice, or any say. We were sworn to the Lyralinah as honored guards, not as hired strength. But even those who had protected them through their family line for generations were not spared. Every guard for every family knows where this will lead. We remember the Vallithi and the guards who died with them for nothing more than staying loyal to the old queen and her succession plans. So some tried to leave as we are supposed to, and when that didn’t work, some snuck away. We broke our oaths. Is that a terrible reason to you, Tialttyrin?”
“Vallithi?” Zelli’s strained whisper nonetheless carried through the suddenly quiet room. He was slow to turn. Tahlen gave him a glance, then tightened his mouth before facing away.
Mayor Sar made a small, sad sound as though she also knew the name and the story of that family, or perhaps she recognized it because Tahlen had shared his family name with her. Zelli did not imagine many outside of the Tialttyrin fortress knew it, partly because Tahlen rarely offered it, and partly because many would not bother to learn the family of a guard. Zelli had no reason to question Tahlen about his family and Tahlen had no reason to answer him, so Zelli hadn’t dared.
Zelli considered Bree for a long time because he didn’t trust himself not to touch Tahlen. Despite Zelli’s recent efforts, he hadn’t made his way through the histories of all of the beat-of-four families yet, much less the lesser noble families. A three-beat name didn’t even necessarily mean they were a lesser family. The Rossick were descended from Earls but kept their name of two beats.
Tahlen still hadn’t spoken.
“The family was killed and their guards died with them?” Zelli finally asked, shaken, then raised his hand to prevent hearing the answer. Not where others would hear. Tahlen did not deserve that.
Maybe Tahlen was one of them, but a distant relation. Vallithi enough to mourn but not enough to have personally lived through….
Zelli didn’t want to think of it.Couldn’tthink of it with so many watching.
“Do you not know the story?” Bree wondered, almost with offense.
Zelli quickly shook his head. “I was young in the first years of this chaos. And the Tialttyrin do not take part in politics.” He desperately cleared his throat, though his thoughts stayed a tangle of frightened calculation. Tahlen could not have been that old, he realized, but tried to put it from his mind because Tahlen probably wanted him to. “So… so you were betrayed by the family you were meant to protect and you left?”
“Betrayed?” Bree seemed astonished. “I would not saybetrayed, merely…” She couldn’t find another word.
Zelli gestured impatiently. “You give them your oath but they offer one to you in return. Or… they should, if they did not. They have a duty to not risk your life needlessly and they failed. The sacrifice is supposed to be mutual. You protect your chosen family, they feed you and clothe you and house you, and reward you with as much peace as they can give you.” He wondered how many people outside of the home of a beat-of-four had ever heard that and then how many inside the home of a beat-of-four hadnotheard it. “You are not supposed to want your guards to fight for you,” he lectured the entire room, then swung back to Bree. “You swear to me that you have harmed no one in your time in this valley and that you have no intention to?”
“I…” Bree hesitated. “I scared some cows when I first came down from the mountains. No,” she went on over the sound of somewhat nervous laughter. “No, I have no plans to harm anyone.”
“Well, then.” Zelli was not relieved but he could breathe easier. “I suggest you seek work in a new field, if that suits you. Or, if you plan to return to sworn service as a guard, then to leave this valley and find a house who do not pursue the crown.” She would have to work for a while to earn money to travel and purchase new armor or weapons, but a few months in a busy village wouldn’t hurt her any.
“What of your house?” Bree asked boldly.
Zelli gave himself a moment by having a sip of cold tea. “You may follow this road all the way to the hilltop fortress that overlooks the river, but for the matter of hiring guards, you would have to speak to Ric, the guard captain, not The Tialttyrin.” That they needed new guards, he didn’t say. Tahlen should have been pleased.
At the thought, Zelli half-turned to consider Tahlen’s unbending figure. “When she gets to the lower gate, what should she do?”
“Tell them you are unarmed and ask to speak to the captain,” Tahlen explained to Bree. “They might take you in for the night, but they might not choose to keep you.”
“Ah.” Zelli did not flail helplessly though he wanted to. Bree nodded her head and thanked Tahlen, and Zelli wondered what she would do once she knew Tahlen’s family name, and if that mattered, and then whether or not she planned something wicked by joining their service, but that did not seem a likely plot.
Bree thanked Zelli too, and then, before he could ask her about her path through the mountains, someone in the crowd demanded, “But what of the others?”
That sparked many in the crowd to jump to their feet to anxiously ask the same question and then many new questions. People had glimpsed strangers passing through or hiding in the fields and wild spaces, strangers who did not follow the roads and seemed to want to stay hidden. Some were said to be like Bree, with scarcely the clothes on their backs. Others might be armed, might be looking for trouble, or searching for the best way to take the whole valley.
