This was no fair rescue. Annoyance spread through Ryland as Kethaias stared, then nearly shoved him aside to look back at the castle. Ryland had imagined they were going to meet sweetly, after all the exchanges of letters, the soft words, the gifts, the obvious longing. Instead he got Kethaias hollow-eyed, angry, worn through.<br/><br/>How damned typical.<br/><br/><i>Teleyard.<br/>
</i><br/>"Yes," Ryland said. "I did say."<br/><br/>He watched Kethaias' shoulders sag, the rest of him seeming to deflate along with that slump. The roughness of his voice caught onto a sense of being lost.<br/><br/><i>I thought there might've been something else. I thought you were in serious trouble.<br/>
</i><br/>Ryland stared at him, lifting one eyebrow. "This is serious trouble. Just not the sort," he drawled, "that would require a contingent of soldiers." He paused, glanced back to the castle, where men with spears were riding round with Teleyard puffing on top of his horse at their front, looking ridiculous in a feather-topped helmet and red-faced, his seat stable but unrefined, with his much more capable looking guard captain riding by his side, just a nose ahead. "Perhaps a small contingent."<br/><br/>From their side, Gharreld was descending on the steps with his own flank of guards. But this was Banque. They weren't soldiers. They had some very good men, but few of them all around, and tension was spooling out everywhere, now weapons were on all sides.<br/><br/>And Ryland was in the middle.<br/><br/>He listened to what Kethaias had to say.<br/><br/>"Star's night, Kethaias," he said. "Can you never take a chance at happiness at face value? I am seizing it with both hands. Or did the letters we sent each other mean nothing to you?" He pressed his lips together, surveying the worn-out leathers and armor Kethaias sported, the way he leaned to one side as though he had a muscle cramp. "Do you really think you dropped everything to come get me because you thought I was in<i>serious trouble</i>? You are fooling yourself. It's the justification you gave, because you are smitten with me, and you were not going to let the chance go, and you couldn't talk yourself into it any other way."<br/><br/>Gharreld reached them first, of course, though he stopped a cautious distance from them. Teleyard was taking the same cautious feeling, sidling his troops sideways, as though they were going to surround them but were--rightly--worried they would spread themselves too thin for these seasoned, ready, hardened warriors.<br/><br/>Ryland pretended they all weren't there. It was Kethaias he was worried over, since the man was so keen to give up every other time until he was convinced.<br/><br/>"You came all this way to marry me. Are you really going to give me more of that self-defeating prattle and turn tail at an open opportunity? Stop being a coward, Kethaias. I thought you were<i>happy </i>to take what you wanted."