Nyla sensed the tension and looked between the two of us. "Right, you said he was your husband. How did the two of you et?"
Al relaxed fractionally since it had nothing to do with his role in the palace. He even managed a tiny, strained smile. "I first saw her at the seaside dancing carelessly in the waves. Less than five minutes later, she was chewing out a doctor for administering improper first aid. That left quite an impression on so when I saw her again at a dinner party I couldn't stop staring."
"Yeah, it was weird," I said, elbowing him in the ribs. Taking Nyla's lead to try and lighten the mood was the best course of action.
"Hey, at least I saved you from dancing with soone old enough to be your father," he countered. "I think that earned points in my favor."
I rolled my eyes and whispered conspiratorially to my new ally. "He introduced himself to as Al right off the bat! Nobody does that! I was baffled enough by that to keep thinking about him after the night ended."
It was the extrely watered down version but it was the truth. Nobility weren't the only ones to have balls around here. The rchant class and even the farrs had dances of their own to et people and escape a little from the drudgery of their daily lives. That much information wouldn't give us away.
Nyla eyed curiously after that. "You didn't know his full na when you first t?"
Oops. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say.
"No, I didn't find that out until we had t a few other tis." And he had already proposed to . But there was no need to ntion that.
"You two are interesting," she said after a mont of silence. "Don't you think so, Mama?"
Ayana nodded, getting emotional again. I felt sorry for her. It must be really hard eting your long-lost nephew again and not even knowing who he is or anything about his life. I wanted to nudge Al to tell her the truth but didn't think it was my place.
What could we tell her that wouldn't give away the fact that he was royalty? Given the fact that he vanished during the raids, he had to have been taken by a noble. Knights were usually the second or third sons from noble families who weren't set to inherit titles.
Nobles led pretty cushy lives but nobody was as idle as Al and I were. At least other nobles had jobs of so sort. Even Edmund, my ridiculous brother, had his duties as a second son.
"We play a lot of card gas," I hedged. "And go horseback riding when the weather is nice. For fun, I an. When we have ti."
The minimal information I offered pleased Ayana. She continued her line of questioning in a similar vein, not wanting to upset Al further. "What sort of foods do you like? Do you like to read? Do you have any children?"
"Katie has a sweet tooth and has rubbed off on . We eat a lot of pastries. I do read a lot but prefer being outside. And we don't have children yet," Al replied.
Small talk like this continued for a while. We learned that Ayana had three other children nad Nira, Rhea, and Ido. All of them were married but Nira, the youngest, didn't have any children yet. We had seen all of her grandchildren but Rhea's infant son and Ido's two-year-old daughter outside earlier.
The boy who had shown us to the barn was nad Jasper. He had two younger sisters nad Kari and Brisa.
The Kanta clan tended to favor nas that were a bit different than most in Annalaias. For the most part, they sounded more Middle Eastern or African. Most nas in Annalaias were old fashioned European ones.
I was no linguist but I had looked up endless lists of baby nas out of boredom and curiosity before when one of my coworkers got pregnant. She said she wanted to do sothing unique but not impossible to spell or pronounce that had a nice aning. That seed like a pretty tall order to but it got curious about na anings, hence my random research.
Alamar. Gilded. Al's real na had a pretty cool aning. Ironically, both Katrina and Catherine ant 'pure' because they ca from the sa root word. It was the sa no matter which na I used.
To , Alpheus was a character in a book that was quite different from my husband. He didn't look like an Alpheus to since I t him as Al and always referred to him that way. Finding out that the na he had been born with could also use Al as a nickna was kind of funny.
Another way we were alike. He could be Al as either Alamar or Alpheus like I could be Katie as Katrina or Catherine.
Suddenly I wanted to tell him the truth about that this was sothing we shared. But I couldn't do it because of all of the emotional upheaval he was experiencing right now. I had a feeling I was in for an earful when we got ho.
I watched him carefully as they talked. He seed to enjoy hearing what Ayana and Nyla had to say though I could sense turmoil brewing under the surface. Yep. Definitely in for an earful.
Al was obviously doing his best to hold it together for their sakes so it appeared that he liked them. There were so few people in this world he actually liked. Other than , I was pretty sure the only other people he didn't barely tolerate were Marcy and Edmund.
It was good that he liked them but it also posed a potential problem to our ability to leave Annalaias. If he had sothing to stay for, he might not want to go anymore. Our departure was supposed to be only a few months away.
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