Son of a slave

"Whether he does or not, I need to be ready to deal with it."

Lessa stopped mid-step, uncertainty in her soft, silver stare. "We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, and..." She sighed, visibly self-conscious. "I’m not getting in your way, am I? I don’t like thinking that you might get hurt one day because you spent time with me instead of focusing on your studies."

"You’re still thinking about what Master said?" He grabbed her hand and led them onward, converting all of the snow on the next twenty paces of pathway into water and then gathering it into a ball that he dropped into the frozen confines of a nearby fountain. "Don’t pay him any mind. He only thinks about fighting, drinking and eating, so of course he would look at a girl as a distraction."

"But he seemed so displeased."

"That’s just how he is. Actually, I’d say that he was in quite a good mood today."

"All he did was critique and complain, though?"

"Fitting words for his tombstone, I should think. Trust me, he was in high spirits today." Likely, Tramon had gotten his hands on a choice bottle of spirits and was simply eager to indulge in his favourite pastime. He was probably happy that Alistar was skipping out on his lesson.

"If you say so," said Lessa, appearing unconvinced. Raising a mitten-covered hand, she cleared the next stretch of pathway by about twenty paces, though she simply allowed the gathered water to drop onto a patch of frozen earth a short ways away from the pavement. "Ah, I ran into Corrie earlier while I was passing by the library. He said he wanted to talk to you about something."

He did?