Written for the Seanfhocal Circle's challenge 10.
"Please, I'm telling you this as a friend. Don't do it."
I stared at Alamid unseeingly. Gissa looked at me with something like triumph in her eyes.
"But…"
"If you do, you will lose everything. Everything. The Emperor will not take kindly to a duel between you and his favourite. You win, and you lose your position, your income, and Yolane. If you lose, you die, and Tristan will marry your widow."
"But the alternative…!" A cuckolded husband! I thought.
"Dunlath is a quiet place. No messages go to or from it, save to Carthak, and they will say nothing."
I wanted to strike his calm, dark face. More appealing, however, was the thought of gutting that two-faced, laughing Tristan Staghorn. To see the stain of blood spreading over his well-cut tunic, handsome face twisting in the agony of death, bright eyes clouding over as he was taken by the Black God.
And Yolane weeping over him, devastated at the loss of her lover.
No. No.
I turned to Gissa. She tossed her head defiantly.
"Why – why did you tell me this? When you – you knew – ?"
Gissa sneered at me.
"We are not all so fortunate as to be Tristan Staghorn's lover, Lord Belden. Quite frankly, I wonder at you. Yolane is, after all, your wife. Not Tristan's. Are you man or mouse?"
I jerked convulsively, spilling my wine. Alamid took my glass and placed it on the table.
"Quiet, Gissa," he said. To me, he added: "Don't be stupid. I told you what is at stake."
I nodded, still shaking. He was right.
That night at dinner, I spoke little and spent most of my time staring into my wine glass. Even when Tristan offered to escort Yolane to her bedchamber, and she accepted, I did not look up. But for a moment, just as the doors closed behind them, I could not resist a glance. Tristan saw me.
He smiled.