The bartender looked up as he sat down. She pulled a towel from her belt and wiped down the counter. “What can I do you for?”

“Ninavis, right?”

She smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. But shh.” She flipped the hair back down. “I’m in disguise.”

Kihrin laughed. “Right. I’d never recognize you. What are they having?” He pointed to Star and Dorna.

She chuckled, reached under the bar, and pulled out an amber bottle. “Here you go.”

Kihrin reached for the bottle, sniffed at the open top, and blinked as his eyes started to water.

“Try not to breathe while you’re drinking it. You’ll cough less,” the bartender advised him.

He gulped it back and, despite her warning, started coughing. It tasted like an ash fire and burned all the way down, as though someone had taken sassabim brandy and skimmed off all the smoothness. “What the hell is this?”

“Aris,” she said, sounding rather proud. “Local distillery makes it from barley, then ages it in wooden barrels for a few years until it’s mellow.”

“Until it’s mellow? Does he set the barrels on fire?”

“Gives it a nice flavor, don’t you think?”

He decided it would be better to be diplomatic. “I suppose I could get used to it. What do I owe you?”

She smiled. “Nothing. Tonight, a kind benefactor is picking up the tab.”

“When I was a kid, when someone said ‘a kind benefactor is picking up the tab,’ they meant they’d just robbed someone down to their undergarments.”

She grinned.

“Understood.” Kihrin set down the glass. “I’ll have another.”

Ninavis leaned forward on her elbows. “You’ve been talking with Janel awhile. Seemed like you were making friends there until the end. Or do you run with stallions?”

Kihrin thought over Janel’s earlier lessons in Joratese courtship rituals. Whether someone was a stallion or a mare had nothing to do with biology, unless the discussion involved sex—and then it did. “I’m pretty sure I run with mares.”

The woman chuckled. “Only pretty sure?”

“Very sure,” he corrected firmly. “This frankness takes getting used to.”

“Yeah, the Joratese are funny like that.” She grinned. “I like it. There’s no guessing with them, and it’s rare you meet anyone who has a problem hearing you say no. Their old god-king may have been an asshole, but Khorsal never got around to telling his people to be hung up about sex.”

Ninavis filled his glass and then stared past him. “Hey, Janel.”

“Hello, Nina.” Janel sat down next to Kihrin at the bar and turned her attention to him. “Was it something I said?”

Kihrin looked at her sideways. “It’s complicated.”

Janel snorted and waved at Ninavis. “A cider, if you wouldn’t mind, Nina. And a cup of kulma tea.”

“Anything else, Your Holiness?”

Janel smiled. “Put a pot of coffee on the fire?”