Perhaps she did resemble her mother in that respect, but Renata Viraudax hadn’t been what he’d expected. Beautiful and elegant, yes—but she was also shrewder than she let on, plucking the strings of the Gloria like an expert harpist. And he unnerved her. Not as a man or as a Vraszenian; it was the unease of someone being watched by a hawk. She’d hidden it well, even tried to divert him by flirting… but he’d once hidden that same unease, back when he and Kolya first arrived in Nadežra.
