Carrick indicated a leather couch. "Sit down." It was a command, not an invitation.
"This is better, isn't it?" he said quietly, hands folded in front of him. "Somewhere nice and private. Away from the public gaze. Somewhere that we can talk. And we have a lot to talk about, Samandriel."
He gazed at the slave for a long moment, then moved in the same lightning-fast blur of motion as he had done in the first moment that he'd heard Samandriel speaking in his ancient tongue. He came to rest looming over the slave, one hand on the leather couch cushions on either side of Samandriel's head, face close to the slave's own.