The Baron of Latiz (16)

 16

Samh 9.30.1339

A couple days after the horrid message from Kieron, Amoranda found herself sitting on the couch next to Silvergor discussing the finer points of a novel she just read.

“I don’t want to be like the woman in this book, but I find my life to this point to be too similar. She relies on those around her to take care of her.”

“You might have been like her when I first came, but you are learning.”

“I would never be able to fill my uncle’s shoes in the military even with the training you are giving me.” She looked into his gentle, ice-blue eyes. “I wish you had a son. Then you could arrange a marriage for me with him and take care of me always.”

Silvergor laughed. “If I arranged a marriage for you with my son, you would have to rely on him to take care of you and not me. Either way, it’s always best to stand on your own feet.”

“Why did you never marry?” she asked. To her, he seemed as if he would make the perfect husband. He advised without force and taught by letting her make her own choices then shielding her so the consequences were not quite as hard as they might have been. 

“I guess I never found the right woman to accept what I have to offer,” he said after a few minutes of avoiding her question and her eyes. For a minute, a shiver went down her spine. She could almost imagine he was talking about her. She brushed it off with a little giggle, chiding herself for believing a man as old as him would have any interest in a foolish 18-year old. Just then a servant entered.

“A gentleman on horseback is at the gate. He desires to know if he might be admitted to your presence for a quarter of an hour. He insisted that his business was urgent but it would not take long to explain.”

Fear shivered through Amoranda’s spine. She had felt jeopardy on all sides lately and wondered from where this new danger had come.

“Silvergor, would you—” she didn’t need to finish.

“I will let you know who it is,” he said, rising.

Amoranda had been so lately in jeopardy that she had no desire to greet any new men without Silvergor to serve as a shield from them. He had turned on her robosentinals that were sitting in storage, fixed the ones that were broken, and upgraded their programming to take care of the perimeter, but Silvergor could ask questions and demand things that the robosentinels where not capable of doing.