were

after all.
“I—” she began, then chuckled.
“So?” he cocked his head to one side, and waited for enlightenment.
“Well—my friends will think I’m insane, but this certainly fits your Way of Balance—my grey hairs against your youth.”
“So—” the smile warmed his eyes in a way Martis found fascinating, and totally delightful, “—then we shall confound your friends, who lack your clear sight. We shall seek Balance together. Yes?”
She stretched out her hand a little to touch his, already feeling some of her years dissolving before that smile. “Oh, yes.”

Dragon’s Teeth

Trebenth, broad of shoulder and red of hair and beard, was Guard-serjant to the Mage Guild. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was Guard-serjant at High Ridings, the chief citadel of the Mage Guild, and site of the Academe Arcanum, the institution of Highest Magicks. As such, he was the warrior responsible for the safety and well-being of the Mages he served.
This was hardly the soft post that the uninformed thought it to be. Mages had many enemies—and were terribly vulnerable to physical attack. It only took one knife in the dark to kill a mage—Trebenth’s concern was to circumvent that vulnerability; by overseeing their collective safety in High Ridings, or their indi­vidual safety by means of the bodyguards he picked and trained to stand watchdog over them.
And there were times when his concern for their well-being slid over into areas that had nothing to do with arms and assassinations.
This was looking—to his worried eyes, at least—like one of those times.
He was standing on the cold granite