“You should have just accepted destiny and let me marry you,” Sir Oreth said. “Instead, here we are.” He gestured around him and then paused. “I mean, no offense.”

“Oh, the look on your face, little girl,” Darzin said to me. “Your whole world just fell to pieces, right before my eyes.” He looked over to Relos Var. “Seriously, name your price for her. What do you want?”

“I want you to be smarter,” Relos Var snapped. “But it’s not a sum you’ll ever raise.”

Next to him, the bald man in black began laughing.

I paid attention to their banter just in case Relos Var tried to sell me, but my attention was focused on Oreth. He’d started out laughing and sneering at my humiliation, but the longer Darzin read that damning letter, the more Oreth’s mockery turned to anger. An anger that, after all these years, I finally understood.

His actions had always been a mystery to me. We had danced around each other with the tender curiosity of two foals at play, knowing from an early age we were betrothed. But as the stories of Janel Danorak spread, it became clear I would grow up a stallion. His whole demeanor changed. He never showed me thudajé. He must have known about my parentage all along and thought it proof that he was better than I was. My common blood meant I was destined to be the mare to his stallion and never the reverse.

I had refused, for all these years, to know my place.

“Huh, well, that’s surprising,” Darzin said. “Here I assumed you just wanted a new flavor of young and innocent to corrupt, but I guess you might have feelings for her. Then again, Var, you do like marrying throwaways, don’t you?”

Next to me, I felt Senera tense.

“Enough,” warned Duke Kaen.

Relos Var raised an eyebrow. “Yes, yes. Janel’s real mother was a dancing girl, and her father was a Khorveshan soldier.” He leaned forward to look at Darzin. “Are you implying having a Khorveshan parent is an embarrassment? Wasn’t your mother Khorveshan?”10

I couldn’t help but notice that the eyes of those not focused on Darzin or Relos Var now looked toward Duke Kaen’s son. His clearly mixed-race Yoran son. Exidhar’s brown skin and black hair clearly suggested his mother hadn’t come from Yor.

Exidhar Kaen shifted in his seat, an embarrassed blush on his face. He saw me looking at him and schooled his expression into something haughty and malicious.

I hadn’t made a friend there.

Darzin seemed to realize his blunder. “Of course, I didn’t mean that. The Khorveshan bloodlines are the most honored in the empire. Anyway, despite young Oreth’s opinion here, your new bride’s not a commoner, not with those god-touched ruby eyes. Her mother must have been an Ogenra of House D’Talus, obviously.”