Free Cursed by Fire by Jacquelyn Frank

they try to get at you again and again. If you must be on the defensive, make certain you have a defense in the first place.”
    Dethan dropped the candle onto the table, sat back down, and began to grab food off the serving plates in front of him. He ate as though he had not had a meal in decades. He savored it all, ate it all. And all the while he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was being stared at.
    “I say …” the grand said after several minutes.“Were you … How do you, a simple mud farmer, know how to do something like that?”
    “Who said I was a mud farmer?” Dethan asked, his brow lifting. The grand looked at his jenden acidly.
    “You are not a mud farmer?”
    “No, your lordship.”
    “Then … what are you?”
    “My trade you mean? I am a general. I once commanded a great army.”
    Grannish scoffed. “You barely had clothes on your back and you expect us to believe—”
    “I do not expect you to believe anything, nor do I care if you do. I do care if you call me a liar once more, Jenden Grannish, so I would use caution if I were you.”
    The jenden paled and grew angry all in the same breath. Selinda opened her mouth to say something to diffuse the situation but she was disrupted when Gwynn suddenly leaned toward her, her buxom chest nearly dumping into Selinda’s lap as she leaned eagerly toward Dethan.
    “So you are used to commanding leagues of men? Are they all as powerful as you?” She practically oozed the word “powerful,” leading everyone to believe she meant something else entirely.
    “Yes, but I have been on my own for some time,” he said carefully. “I have taken a sabbatical for some years. I will be returning to Toren as soon as possible, though. I must lead my armies once more.”
    “Armies?” Selinda asked, marking the plural.
    He seemed to catch himself. “I misspoke. I will lead one army. One is enough.”
    Selinda believed him. She believed without a doubt that all it would take was one army for this man to conquer worlds. Apparently her father did as well.
    “You must advise my general of the army. Perhaps your ideas can end this conflict with the Redoe.”
    There was a choked sound from down the table. Firru, a relatively short, stockily built man with a curling, grizzled beard and no moustache, clearly took offense at the idea of a stranger giving him military advice.
    “Your most honorable,” Firru sputtered, “the matter is clearly in hand. We are weeks away from a solution. You know the Redoe. They will tire of this nonsense outside the walls and they will retire to their nomad tents, content to have stolen a few supplies for the winter days. The temperature will soon drop and they will be gone.”
    “Only to return again next spring,” Selinda said with a scoffing sound. “And again. And again. Until one day they finally make it beyond the walls and win the city for themselves.”
    “I will never let that day come,” Jenden Grannish said.
    It was clear to Dethan that Selinda wanted to say something, something very bitter tasting, but for some reason she bit her tongue and backed down from the jenden’s claim. It was also clear, however, that she had no faith in his abilities to back up that claim. So if she outranked him, if she did not believe him, why would she not call him out on it? Dethan wondered. She had seemed so strong earlier. So able to take control of a situation. But now she was deferring. Now she was hiding behind her veil as if she were something to be ashamed of.
    “And what will you do to stop them?” Dethan queried, his tone hard and dark. He didn’t like what he was seeing. He liked what he was feeling even less. None of this should matter to him. None of it did matter to him, he insisted in his own head. “Because once they get beyond the walls, the end of your city follows quickly after, and no doubt your lives.”
    The observation cast a grim pall down the length of the table.
    “Well,” Gwynn said