The steel point of Sera’s spear did not drop by a fraction of an inch.
Cold night air drifted across the porch, carrying the sour stink of mine silt and dried sweat from Garrick’s ragged tunic. The second son of the Vance Clan remained flat on his stomach, his forehead pressed against the damp timber step while his iron ankle-chains rattled against the cedar railing.
“Bring him inside,” Kaelen said from the doorway, pulling the linen belt of his bathrobe tighter. “If his muddy knees stay on the porch any longer, the ditch grease will ruin the varnish. Uncle Barnaby, lay a sack over the hearth rug.”
Barnaby Holt grunted, kicking a coarse hemp burlap bag across the sitting room floorboards. “Up, boy. Move those scabby shins before I use this ladle to crack your other brow.”
Garrick scrambled forward on his hands and knees, dragging his iron links across the threshold with a hollow clatter. He curled himself onto the sack in the center of the room, shivering so violently his teeth clicked like loose river pebbles.
Kaelen didn’t take the wooden armchair. Instead, he stretched out along the low bamboo daybed beneath the shuttered window, folding a cool, damp linen towel neatly over his eyes.
