AYLETH
Ayleth slid into her seat at the head table just as her father stood to make the toast. She was glad, it gave her a moment—several moments, given her father's preference for making the most of a captive audience—to breathe and try to understand what had just happened.
She looked at her hand in wonder, touching the blood smeared across her palm, his blood as well as her own.
"Who has stolen your heart so quickly?" her mother murmured, shooting her a catlike smile from the side so that she appeared to anyone watching not to be speaking, but only greeting her daughter.
"What?" Ayleth hissed through unmoving lips, her heart hammering. How had her mother—
"You're late back, and without your ladies. My guess is that someone caught your eye already. I always feared you'd be like your father, too quick to give your heart away."
Ayleth sighed with relief. Her mother was curious. She didn't know.
