The Architect of Worlds

Eeza doesn't answer hard questions right away. She counts them out first, three breaths, always three, whether the question is about the road ahead or where to make camp before the light goes. Hadna noticed it early enough to time it once, silently, under her own breath, and never told her. It isn't hesitation. Ask anyone who's travelled with her, and they'll tell you the opposite: she's the first to decide, the first to move. The pause comes after she already knows the answe

Hadna has three separate names for her, depending on mood, and swears none of them count as an insult. Tahlira never explains why she answers two of them and ignores the third. She just does. Dhaelen learns this the hard way, early on. He tries clearing his throat. Nothing. He tries her name, clipped and impatient, the way he says everyone's name when he wants something done fast. Still nothing. It isn't until he slows down and says both syllables of it properly, like he's re

Hadna Drake travels with one instrument and calls it by name. Honey. Red-honey wood, worn pale at the neck where her thumb rides the same three inches over and over, whether she’s playing or not. She doesn’t clean it in taverns. She doesn’t hand it to strangers who ask to look. Dhaelen learned that the first week on the road, reached for it once, meaning nothing by it, and she’d moved the lute out of his hands before he finished the sentence. “Ask first,” she said. “Every tim