Free Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) by Erik Scott de Bie

shore. We should be safe this night.” Ovelia shrugged off her cloak. “Shall I use the bed, or would you have me on the floor?”
    Regel tried to ignore her choice of words. He would certainly not be having her anywhere. He turned his back so she could disrobe with privacy. “Before the crew,” he asked at length, “why did you name me Norlest ?”
    He heard Ovelia’s borrowed leathers creak. “Why not?”
    “This name is not mine,” Regel said. “It belonged to the Winter King’s First Shield, before you.”
    “Norlest is the most common name taken by worthy boys of our generation.”
    “ Our generation , indeed.” Once, the six winters he had over Ovelia had seemed so long. Now, they had both grown old, and they seemed not so different.
    “What boy would not want to honor such a champion of Tar Vangr?” Ovelia shrugged. “Norlest, the hero. Norlest, the noble.”
    “Norlest, your father.”
    She said nothing as she stripped off her tunic and laid it on the bed. “You do not remind me of him, if that is what you are asking,” she said. “You never did. He was a man of honor.”
    Regel let that slight flow past him. “And who is Aniset?”
    “My mother. She—” Ovelia’s words cut off in a groan and she touched her belly.
    “What ails?” he asked, though he knew well. The green vial. The poison acted fast.
    “Not to worry,” she said. “The sea, mayhap. I’ve never had a sailor’s stomach.”
    “Would you take tea to settle it?” He drew a tin from his pack. “Jasmine, your favorite?”
    “Of course you remembered tea.” The tiniest of smiles crossed Ovelia’s face.
    Regel set the kettle to boil and took a ceramic tankard from the shelf. Into it, shielding his work with his body, he slipped a small measure of sweet-soul powder to delay the venom in her belly. As the tea brewed, he poured some of the antidote into the tin and shook it to mix the grains.
    When he turned back, Ovelia wore a blanket wrapped about herself, her hair ringing her head in a silvery corona. Their fingers touched as he gave her the tankard.
    “What now?” Ovelia ran her fingers along the bottom of the tankard with a soft whisper of skin on clay. “Will you sleep in here with me?” Her eyes widened. “I meant—”
    “I know what you meant,” he said. “I think a hammock among the servants is best.”
    Ovelia nodded, though he saw disappointment flicker briefly in her eyes. What did she expect?
    Regel shut the cabin door behind him. The coming morn dawned chill and dark, its gloom splitting around the few lanterns on the Dart ’s deck. As the smugglers went about their duties, Regel tried to force the image of Ovelia’s naked back out of his mind.
    He climbed down into the common area, where two dozen sailors eyed him. They were working men, stained with the salty winds and callused from years spent doing the mundane duties of a ship. Some could carry themselves well in a fight, he knew, and they sized him up immediately as a potential threat.
    Regel did nothing to allay or confirm their suspicions. He looked around for the empty hammock Fersi had promised, and found it strung haphazardly in a corner near a particularly foul-smelling sailor and what looked like the ship’s commode. Not that it functioned, of course—its purpose these days seemed to be to collect as much filth as possible.
    This would be a long voyage indeed.
    * * *
    Not too far from the docks, a man grunted as he worked his will upon hired flesh that writhed and feigned excitement. Their efforts steamed the grimy windows of the rented room.
    The Necromancer sighed and tried to put such cynical waste of life from his mind.
    Outside, the rain relented in its assault on low-city Tar Vangr, but thunder roiled in the distance and lightning split the gray clouds that shrouded the moon. They cast the soaring mountain that formed the center of the last remaining mage-city into sharp relief, making it loom over the lice-ridden docks like an