Yes, I know, it's mean not to cross-post it here, but...you get a bonus here, though not the snippet.
Ever wonder why Arcolin didn't seem to have an interest in anyone? There was a doomed romance in his past, someone it took him years to get over...if he's over her. They're middle-aged now, and she's realized that she misjudged him years ago. In fact, she's known that for quite awhile...but the misjudgment did not include her own feelings, which were never the same as his.
She was enamored of someone else...who was enamored of someone else (and married that person)...and all this past history was affecting things in the original books but Paksenarrion did not see it (remember how she didn't realize Saben was stuck on her until after he'd died? She had her blindnesses, Paks did. Less so now, but she's still not that interested in that side of human relations.) Business relationships are colored by personal relationships, affinities and conflicts; the history of more than individuals would have been different if not for that tricky scalene triangle.
Meanwhile, Arcolin...Arcolin's origins are in the south. There's old baggage that may turn up to cause him some...um...difficulties in these books. He was honest with Kieri, but no one else in the north knows any of it, and he's inclined to think the past is all past. Characters should never assume that when their writer has a history degree. He wasn't a criminal, but there are those who have an interest in his past. I'm not sure how this will figure into the whole story yet...I'm not at a point yet where it could, much. But the snippet opens the possibility.
