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If these outland louts wished to stare rudely, let them. Kayli descended the stairs slowly and glided through the crowd of guards as if they were grass to bend aside at her step, giving Terralt and Brother Santee a brief bow before turning to her father.
    “I apologize for any delay my slowness may have caused,” she said calmly.
    “No matter.” Elaasar smiled. “Brother Santee and I were explaining to Terralt the custom of bloodbonding. Terralt, allow me to make known to you my daughter Kayli. Kayli, I make known to you Terralt of Agrond.”
    Kayli turned and gave Terralt the full bow accorded to an equal; until she became High Lady of Agrond, Terralt’s rank was the same as hers. He was even paler than most of the guards, his hair the color of dead grass, but his deep brown-green eyes, sparkling now with amusement, were mesmerizing.
    “Terralt, I am honored to make your acquaintance, and I thank you for your trouble in making this journey personally to escort me to your brother,” she said in Agrondish.
    Terralt raised one eyebrow, and the faintest hint of an admiring grin twitched the corner of his mouth. To Kayli’s amazement, he took her hand, kissing the back lightly.
    “My lady Kayli,” he said smoothly in heavily accented Bregondish, not relinquishing her hand, “if I had thought the journey an irksome chore, the moment of our meeting would have proven me wrong.”
    Heat rushed to Kayli’s cheeks. He might have learned her language, but apparently he’d not troubled himself to learn Bregondish custom, or perhaps he had and simply chose to flout it. To address an unmarried woman as “his” lady was a claim to intimacy, and to take her hand in public, to speak to her in so familiar a manner, was unthinkable. It took every bit of Kayli’s hard-earned self-discipline not to wrench her hand from his grasp.
    “Terralt,” she said serenely, “your respect for our language and customs is admirable. It is truly said that the measure of a man is his courtesy.”
    Terralt appeared pleased by the retort, rather than offended, and released her hand, bowing once again.
    “Why, thank you, my lady,” he said. “I believe that’s the last of your boxes going out the door. I beg your pardon that we can offer you no carriage for your comfort, but as there are no proper roads between Agrond and Bregond, we were hard put to find wagons equal to the journey, much less a carriage. I have, however, had a wagon outfitted for our comfort as we travel.”
    Kayli chuckled, diplomatically ignoring “our comfort.”
    “I thank you for your concern, Terralt,” she said. “But this is my first opportunity to ride in some time, and I will not be deprived of the chance to fly the hawk Lord Randon so kindly sent me.”
    Terralt looked momentarily annoyed, and Kayli wondered if he’d ridden in the wagon like an invalid all the way from Agrond. Surely he would not have expected to ride in a wagon with his brother’s bride-to-be.
    Kayli had turned to take her father’s arm, but she found that Terralt had taken her hand again; tucking it firmly into the crook of his arm so that Kayli was forced to walk beside him. This was almost too much to bear, and she saw her father scowl, but Kayli understood Terralt’s game now, and it was a game she’d played before.
    From her first day at the temple so long ago, when the haughty High Lord’s young daughter had been assigned to muck out the goat pen, to the day before her firewalk, when Vayavara had unexpectedly spat full in her face, her teaching had been interspersed with tests of her self-discipline. The Dedicates practiced amongst themselves as well, exchanging insults and pranks, endlessly worrying at each other’s sore points, and anyone who became provoked was sentenced to the chores of the one who provoked her. Whatever insult Terralt could offer could not possibly match the combined efforts of all her teachers and fellow Dedicates. Kayli almost laughed.
    “Whatever you