The nurse straightened and turned. Her coloring was startling: a gray-eyed milk mare, bleached of all hue save the subtle blue and violet veins marbling her skin. I’d have thought her another ice-cursed Yoran, but her features were wrong. Too long, with thin lips and a straight nose, compared to Yoran small noses and pouting mouths.

“The warden greets you.” Her accent betrayed time spent in the west. “He apologizes he cannot do a better job of addressing you, but red fever has left it difficult for him to speak.”

“Of course,” I said, speaking to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I smiled at the nurse. “Thank you for helping with translation.”

Those gray eyes rested on my face. She tilted her head in acknowledgment. Then she returned to waiting on the warden.

I had the feeling I had just been dismissed.

“And this,” Tamin said, motioning to the last person present, “is my esteemed teacher, Relos Var. I feared you wouldn’t be able to meet him before he left.” Tamin sighed at the man. “Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay?”

I remembered Ninavis’s words then; Kalazan had overheard Tamin speaking with his teacher about a prophecy …

The man looked unassuming, Quuros by ancestry, dressed in simple clothes appropriate to a servant. Relos Var wore his hair trimmed in a short cut, his face shaved, his boots suited for horsemanship or travel.

The man looked over at me, and our eyes locked.

Relos Var smiled.

I notice when people stare at me with desire. Men and women had been giving me such looks long before it was appropriate to my age. This was something else.

“Janel Danorak,” he said, smiling in pleasure. “The Lonezh Hellmarch’s only survivor.”

“Janel Theranon, Count of Tolamer,” I corrected. “And many souls survived the last Hellmarch, or we wouldn’t be having a conversation right now.”

Relos Var chuckled and ducked his head in a gesture a forgiving person might interpret as a bow. “Still, your reputation precedes you.” Relos Var gave the baron an equally insincere bow. “And my apologies. I’m so very sorry to leave your side, but I received word a relative has fallen into some trouble. I must return at once to see to his proper disposition.”

“What sort of trouble?” I asked.

I asked only because he presented a strange addition to an already strange tableau. Too many foreigners, too many mysteries, too many changes from how tournaments are conducted. And there was this talk of prophecy. Was Relos Var the same person Kalazan overheard talking to Tamin, about the “demon-claimed child”?

Something about him …

I’m not sure to this day what gave him away. Maybe he wanted me to notice him.

His confidence showed when our eyes met. Tamin hadn’t introduced him as being western nobility or royalty. He should have been a being of thudajé, comparable to the serving girl. He was … not.