In Which Setran Corrects and Is Corrected

February 11, 1170

"I told you we should have stayed in Tetran!" Setran hissed as he ushered his stepsister into the inn. It was getting chilly, and he figured it would only be common sense to warm up for a couple of minutes before embarking on the long ride home; of course, the weather was the least of their problems.

Evera rolled her eyes, what remained of their teal hue only intensified in the segmented state. "There are boys back home too, you know."

"None so forward! I knew we should have just gone to the village by the keep and waited for Father, by you wanted to go off to Veldora, where Fenrick and Jadin and Searle and their little group of followers might ogle you!"

"I didn't come here to be ogled!" she snarled back, an unpleasant scowl on her usually docile face. "I just wanted a change of pace for once--and who cares if the boys were looking at me? Boys do look at girls, in case you haven't noticed! They didn't mean any harm!"

Setran shook his head. It was true that she spent most of her time at home helping her mother with the children, but he hadn't expected her knowledge of the world to be this lacking. "Evera, they're boys! All they think about is sex!"

"Oh, so that's what you were thinking about when you were checking out Riala and Aerina in Laveria's shop, then?"

Damn. He'd hoped that that had gone unnoticed--he did have some defense, though. "That's different."

Evera sniffed--a very un-Evera-like thing to do. "Oh? How so? Just because it's you and not Fenrick or Jadin or Searle?"

"No!" Why did he have to explain this to her? "They were waving and calling me and batting their lashes! You were just minding your own business!"

"Then if I wasn't doing anything wrong, why are you yelling at me?" She drove her foot into the floorboards as she aimed her glare toward the ceiling.

"You did nothing wrong? You're the one who insisted we come here!" Setran crossed his arms and bit his lip so firmly that he could taste blood. "If you hadn't dragged me down here, then there would have been no ogling and you wouldn't have torn your cloak on that gate and we'd probably be home by now, perfectly happy--and I am not yelling at you!"

"You tell yourself that, kid." Startled, he glanced toward the bar to see the male speaker emerge from the door to the kitchens, a woman at his heels.

The man--presumably the innkeeper--closed his eyes and sighed. "I hate afternoons; the only customers we ever get at this hour are screaming kids."

The woman shrugged, stepping past him and toward Setran and Evera. She wasn't jaw-droppingly beautiful, but there was a certain spark to her that Setran had not failed to notice. "We still generate profit in the afternoons, darling."

"Yes, but is it worth it?" Her husband rubbed his neck, then followed her. "I am a businessman--I didn't come to Naroni to be the daytime nanny for a whole shire. Now, what do you kids want?"

Setran glowered at him; if he took notice, he didn't show it. His wife, however, was observant enough to catch the tear in Evera's cloak even in the dim light. "The new gate, I take it?" Evera nodded; smiling slightly, the woman shook her head. "You're certainly not the first. I can stitch that up for you, if you like."

"Oh, I don't want to be any trouble," Evera insisted. After that fight, it was nice to hear her speaking to someone else--someone she wasn't furious with.

"Nonsense! It'll only take a minute." The woman turned on her heel and headed back toward the kitchen, gesturing for Evera to follow. "Come along--my sewing basket is in the back."

Resigned, Evera shot Setran one last look of poison, then hurried off after the woman. "Thank you; that's very kind of you."

Setran watched as the pair made their way into the back, the door swinging shut behind Evera. She would probably be angry with him for the rest of the day. He wanted to apologize, but why should he? And for what? He'd been right, after all.

"Look, if you aren't going to order anything, you might as well wait for your little sweetheart outside."

Annoyed, Setran took to surveying the innkeeper. Was this the infamous Seoth? If so, he was beginning to see why his father disliked him. "She's not my sweetheart," he corrected him bitterly. "She's just my stepsister."

The innkeeper wiped his brow, then stared down his nose at Setran; he was by no means a tall man, but he still had the advantage of being full-grown. "Son, I've been around for a while now, so believe me when I say this--no boy alive gets so worked up about a girl who's 'just his stepsister'. Now, either buy a drink or get the hell out of my inn."

NEXT CHAPTER: