Winter days should be short, yet this one felt like it had crawled past on its hands and knees, and Valeri Leufroy had crawled along beside it, minute by agonizing minute.
He'd spent the hours the way a condemned man spends his last, pacing the narrow span of his chambers, gathering up the words he meant to offer Telent Rundel, discarding them, gathering them up again. The note he'd received from Telent after breakfast made it clear that he'd have to offer up something, but he'd be damned before he gave the oily baron everything he wanted.
That whole time, Betrys had not come to him, and neither had Tulori. Even his own knights had found small, urgent reasons to be elsewhere, until at last there was nothing left in the room but Valeri, the scratching of his quill against parchment and the fading light of day.
