Page 7 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones (Tales from the Tavern #2)
Seven
“Again,” Lira said as she handed Thrain a steaming mug of chai, “I’m so sorry about the screaming demon impersonation. I thought you were an intruder.”
“No damage done.” Thrain brushed off his brown pants and the wool vest that topped it with one hand before he took the earthenware mug, his gaze fixed firmly on the flutterstoat riding Lira’s shoulder. “What do you call that thing again?”
Crumpet let loose a torrent of chattery protests.
“Crumpet is a flutterstoat.”
Thrain’s expression told Sass that the explanation hadn’t cleared things up. “And they’re common around these parts?”
Lira turned her head to grin at Crumpet. “Oh, no. As far as I know, Crumpet is the only one of his kind. My gran enchanted him and gave him wings. Accidentally, we think.”
Thrain’s eyes flared for a beat, but he didn’t ask Lira to elaborate further on how any of that happened when magic was frowned upon in the Known Lands.
Instead, he took a sip of his chai, his dark eyes shifting from Lira to Crumpet and finally to Sass.
“You’ve taken up with an elf and an enchanted beast? ”
“Half elf,” Lira corrected, clearly ignoring the suspicion dripping from Thrain’s words.
“She’s half human,” Sass said, feeling odd that she had to say that or that it mattered. “But most importantly, she’s my friend.”
Sass thought back to the days when she’d been wary of elves simply because they were elves. She couldn’t fault Thrain for his misguided opinion, since she’d also grown up hearing that all elves were arrogant and disloyal.
Thrain nodded, sizing up Lira. “I suppose you don’t look too elvish.” He cleared his throat. “And any friend of Sass’s is a friend of mine.” He bit his lower lip and cut a questioning look to Sass. “That is, if Sass still considers me a friend.”
Lira cocked her head at Sass, handing the female dwarf her own mug of chai. “Is he a friend?”
Sass avoided meeting Lira’s eyes, although she knew she couldn’t hide her past for one second longer.
She took a wee sip of the drink and allowed the warming spices to soothe her nerves.
“I wasn’t lying about Thrain being a friend.
We were as thick as thieves for most of my childhood, and as surprised as I am that he found me, I’m happy to see him. ”
Thrain muttered something about Sass having a funny way of showing it, but she ignored him as she faced Lira and tilted her head to lock eyes on the woman. “It’s everything else I lied about.”
Lira tucked a strand of hair behind a pointed ear, her face still flushed from an evening spent over a hot stove. “What do you mean?”
Goblin’s spawn, this wasn’t easy, Sass thought as she took a significant gulp of chai.
It was as if she teetered on a precipice.
One word would tip her over and drag her from the cozy life she’d created and the family she’d found.
Then again, if everything could disintegrate so easily, was it ever real?
Sass stared into her mug. “You know I told you I left home and traveled here on my own?”
Lira bobbed her head cautiously .
“Well, all that was true.” The words spilled from Sass as if saying them faster might lessen their impact. “What I didn’t tell you was why I left or what it might mean if the wrong dwarf found me. I lied when I said there was no one looking for me.”
Lira stiffened as her brow bunched with wrinkles.
Crumpet unfurled his wings and flew back toward the kitchen, as if uninterested in all the talking and perhaps sensing the conflict brewing.
Part of Sass wished she could follow him.
Instead, she drained the last of her chai and set the mug on the table with a thunk.
“I didn’t tell you that my family rules one mountain in the Ice Lands or that I left because I didn’t want to go through with an arranged marriage.
I didn’t tell you there might be search parties looking for me or that I ran off with an engagement present that my former fiancée apparently wants back. ”
Lira’s mouth fell open. “Why…why didn’t you tell me? I told you about my past and my secrets,” she bobbled her head from side to side, “eventually.”
“And I was planning on telling you—eventually.” Sass wrung her plump hands. “But with every day that passed, it got harder. Then things were so good here that I feared ruining it, and I convinced myself that I was safe and that my past wouldn't catch up to me.”
“But it did,” Lira said quietly with a furtive look to Thrain.
Sass’s heart twisted when she heard the hurt in her friend’s voice. Why hadn’t she trusted Lira with the truth when she had the chance?
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have.
Every day I thought about it, and every day I made up an excuse not to do it.
” Sass waved a hand at the great room. “I’ve never had something like this — some place where I truly belong.
I was afraid to do anything to break the spell, because to me The Tusk & Tail is magical. ”
Lira stared hard at Sass before quickly closing the distance between them and grabbing both of the dwarf’s hands.
“Why did you think I would care about your past? We all have secrets. Orc's blood, you know the secrets I kept from everyone when I first came back to Wayside. I’d be a pretty big hypocrite if I got mad at you for not spilling all of yours to me.”
Sass’s throat thickened. “You’re not mad I didn’t tell you?”
Lira hitched one shoulder. “I’m shocked, but I understand not wanting to spoil a good thing.
I know the feeling of wanting to protect a happiness that feels so fragile it might shatter in your hands.
” She threaded her fingers through Sass’s.
“As long as you don’t expect me to call you Princess Sass. ”
Sass laughed. “Please don’t.”
Lira released her hands and curled an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “We’ve dealt with unpleasant blasts from the past before. We can handle this one.” She glanced at Thrain, who was eyeing the pair over the top of his mug. “No offense intended.”
“None taken,” Thrain grumbled. “By the way, what do you call this funny tea?”
“Chai,” Sass said quickly, “and it’s one of our best sellers.”
Thrain took another tentative sip and tipped his head back and forth as Sass twisted to face Lira. “The unpleasant blast from the past won’t be Thrain. It will be Florin Trollbane.”
Lira repeated the name with raised brows. “Your former fiancée?”
“Along with what will most certainly be an armed search party,” Thrain added after swallowing a gulp of chai.
“This fiancée sounds like a peach,” Lira said under her breath.
“A peach who blinded her own sister in one eye because she thought the dwarf was prettier than her.” Thrain pointed to his left eye. “She’s not one to be crossed lightly.”
Lira’s face paled. “And this is all about an engagement present you ran off with? Can’t you just return it?”
Thrain sighed. “Like I told Sass, it's not that simple. Florin wants the amulet Sass took and is insisting she come home and go through with the wedding. ”
Lira held Sass at arm’s length. “You aren’t going to do it, are you? If you ran away to escape the wedding, why would you go back?”
Sass blinked rapidly at the thought of leaving everything she’d built with Lira. “I don’t want to go, but Florin is threatening retribution on my family if I don’t.”
Lira looked at Thrain, as if for confirmation.
He nodded grimly. “That’s why I tracked down Sass on my own. I had to tell her that Florin’s search party is closing in on her.”
Both Lira and Sass cut their eyes to the door, as if a horde of angry dwarves would burst through at any moment, boots stomping and axes swinging.
“This is ridiculous. No one can force you to marry them.” Lira then dropped her voice and gave Sass a questioning look. “Can they? Is this a dwarf thing I’ve never heard about?”
“There was a marriage pact, which would create an alliance between the clans,” Thrain said, “but the Thornshields wouldn’t force the issue if Florin wasn’t threatening retribution.”
Sass’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t let that happen. As much as I hate the idea of marrying Florin, I can’t subject my family and friends to the Trollbanes.”
Lira whirled around and started pacing her own small circle across the tavern floor.
“I think better when I’m baking, but I’m not firing up the oven again tonight.
” After a few more turns, she stopped and clapped her hands.
“I’ve got it. Instead of option one—you go back home and marry someone against your will—or option two, you stay here and cause trouble for your family, we pick secret option three. ”
She was smiling so brightly that Sass hated to ask. “What’s secret option three?”
“We negotiate, of course.” Lira bounced on her toes as she rubbed her hands together. “When this armed search party arrives, we use our best powers of persuasion to convince this Florin to accept something other than you.”
Thrain shot Sass a look that said he wasn’t impressed by secret option three. “Powers of persuasion?”
Sass remembered what she’d helped Lira recover — the leather-bound, moonstone-embellished recipe book that was also a spell book. “By persuasion, do you mean magic?”
“Magic?” Thrain swung his head from woman to woman. “Like the kind that gave that little weasel wings? Since when is that allowed?”
“Flutterstoat,” Lira corrected before she gave them both a mischievous grin.
“Technically, it’s not allowed, but those rules were created to stop the spread of dark magic not cozy magic like enchanted beasts and protective charms, right?
And maybe I don’t mean magic at all. Maybe I mean the healing powers of hot chai. ”
Thrain peered at his mug and muttered to Sass in a low voice. “I hope she means magic.”