QUOTE : He sat, smoothing the wide legs of his trousers and hiding a smile. Glancing up through his lashes, he studied first Pjerin then Olina. The duc, in his late twenties, was a powerfully built man whose height made him appear deceptively slender. His aunt, eleven years older, was a slender woman who radiated power. He wore his thick black hair tied back at the nape of his neck with a bit of leather. She wore hers in one heavy braid wrapped around her head like an ebony crown. He smouldered. She flamed. They were both tall, and dark, and beautiful, and Albek loved to watch them fight.