Varthlokkur paused a few steps short of a smartly uniformed Palace Guard. Impatience peeped through his customarily neutral expression. He sensed the past rising inside her. He always knew, and always belittled her preoccupation.
She screwed up her courage and asked the question that irritated him most. "Varth, are you sure that Ethrian is gone? Isn't there any chance at all? I just don't feel like he's dead." Someday his answer might satisfy her.
His jaw tightened. He glanced at the Guard, controlled himself. "No, dear, I don't think so. I would've found him by now." He whirled, stamped to the door the Guard protected. The soldier snapped it open, clicked his heels as the wizard passed. He nodded amiably to Nepanthe.
She responded with a distracted nod. Was he someone she should remember? But she had known so many soldiers. How could she recall just one?
And then she was inside, bumping against the faces of her past like a swimmer bumping about in cold water crowded with chunks of ice. She did not know which way to dodge, which memory she most wanted to evade.
Two men in their late twenties were nearest her, their heads together as if their conversation portended conspiracy. Michael Trebilcock and Aral Dantice were their names. Once they had trailed her across half a continent in a noble, vain attempt to free her from the minions of the Dread Empire. Such quixotic youths they had been. "Aral. Michael. How lovely to see you again." The romance had fled the two, she saw. They were starry-eyed boys no longer. They had the hard eyes of men who had seen too much. The war changed us all, Nepanthe thought.
Dantice was short, wide, dark of hair. He looked as though he belonged behind a pitchfork in a stable. He responded with a delighted smile and effusive greeting.
His companion was taller, slimmer, bone-pale, and more reserved. His eyes were cold and remote. Rumor said he had become Kavelin's chief spy. Nepanthe's brother Valther had held that post till his death at the battle of Palmisano. She searched Michael's face.