The Haverwood was a frightening thing in the cold-wrapped dark of night, but it was not half as terrifying as the men who had bound Roen to the gnarled trunk of an old beech tree. The light of a single torch, stuck into the cold earth some twenty paces away, silhouetted two of the men’s frames but provided little light beyond a few trees. She could not see anything past them. She could hardly see herself.
Roen tested her bonds for what seemed the fifteenth time, with no luck. It frustrated her. Every story she had ever been told, every tale that featured some hero tied to a chair or a bridge or a railing, seemingly helpless as imminent danger descended…. The hero always found his way out, somehow. Miraculously he would slip his bonds or find a way to cut them; he would persevere against all odds and would be on his feet in no time, escaping danger as quick as a fox, or swiftly bringing retribution to his foolish captors.
Roen was hard-pressed to believe those stories, especially now. She had initially been bound while prone on the hard earth, ropes securing only her hands and feet. Every time her captors glanced away, Roen struggled to free a hand or foot; she had tried everything—including gnawing at the rope with her teeth—all to no avail. The only thing she had succeeded in doing was rubbing nearly all the skin from her wrists and ankles, as well as bloodying her lower lip.
Worse, her captors had noticed.
In the stories, guards were nigh blind half the time, prone to recurring mistakes and comical lapses in judgment. But Horvath, the weaselly man with the pocked cheeks, had noted Roen’s struggles almost immediately. He slapped her roughly on the head, stripped off her boots, shoved her into a kneeling position, and re-tied the rope around her ankles so that it looped around the tree. The rope around her wrists was tossed over a thick gray branch and anchored where she could not possibly reach it, forcing her arms straight up over her head. Already the twinges in her back were making her forget the burning sensations in her wrists. She had never felt so vulnerable.
Roen thought about the Vertaens—how they had died, brutally murdered at the hands of Kula Toron and his highwaymen. Roen had been moved beyond sight of their bodies, but she could still see them in her mind’s eye. It had not looked as though they had put up much of a fight at all, or if they had even been given the chance to. In the end, it did not matter. They had come to Dorn Keep with good will and had died beneath their own banners. All she could think of was Jestin il’Valas’s blue eyes staring lifelessly back at her.
If there was any silver lining to this, Roen was reasonably certain these bandits were not going to kill her. At least not yet. But that did not bring any ease to her mind.
And there were many fates worse than death.
The one thing that seemed to have a chance at saving Roen was her high birth. Kula Toron had recognized Roen as soon as Ralton’s cloak was pulled off her head. After growling out a string of curses, he ordered the other two to bind Roen and wait for his return. Kula left quickly, muttering about time lost, riding off on Ralton’s horse.
Roen was left alone with the remaining two. She almost immediately found herself wishing Kula had not left.
Horvath was not impressed with the Knightlord’s daughter, and he made that opinion plain, often. He was proud to be lowborn, loudly cursing—with words Roen had never even heard before—the very existence of the noble tradition. By his account, the world would be a far better place with far less nobility.
“You lot only like to piss on us,” he said more than a few times. At one point, to Roen’s astonishment, he pulled his cock straight out of his patched breeches and urinated right next to her on the ground. She looked away but felt drops of piss spatter her trousers. “See how you like it, ah?” he sneered.
She did not like it at all. But the measured part of her mind told herself that if piss was the worst thing this night might bring, she could live with it. Roen kept her mouth shut and her head down. Every sneered question was answered with only one or two words—or silence when she thought the answer was a trap.
He kicked her foot a few times and pulled on her braid once, but it did not take long for Horvath to get bored. He soon turned to amusing himself by carving crude symbols into the trunk of a nearby tree.
It was not long before the other one took his turn.
Horvath called the grotesquely large man “Dreck”, so Roen supposed that was his name. Dreck frightened her more than Horvath did. He was massive, with thick arms and a belly the size of a large cider barrel, but had oddly thin, bandy legs, and small feet that were wrapped in filthy leather strips rather than boots or shoes. He walked hunched over, shoulders forward, making it appear as though he had no neck. The half-cowl he wore had a peculiarly deep hood—as though he did not want anyone to view his face.
She soon discovered why. At Horvath’s prompting, the obese man lumbered over to her, chortling as he walked; his laugh sounded like he was gargling little rocks. The faint torchlight made his eyes glitter in the shadows of his cowl, like little black gemstones. He eyed her in a way that made her uncomfortable.
Dreck slowly knelt in front of her. Even on one knee, he towered over Roen, his huge frame blocking out the torchlight. He made snorting sounds as he sniffed her. His own scent was terrible; Dreck smelled like he had rolled in dung, and his breath was like nothing she had ever smelled before. It made her eyes water.
Six thumbs away from her face, Dreck suddenly yanked off his hood and snarled at her.
His face was monstrous. His nose was massive, pig-like, his mouth unnaturally distended and filled with long, curling teeth sharpened like knives. Roen cried out, jerking back. The tree scraped her scalp and snagged her hair; the fact she was bound to it prevented any real retreat. For one terrifying moment she thought the grotesque man was going to take a bite out of her cheek.
Dreck…breathed on her. Loudly. Then he licked her cheek. His tongue was wet with spit. It left a cold, clammy trail on her skin.
“Tastes like children,” he declared.
Horvath laughed so hard he nearly fell over.
Dreck stood back up, chortling. His massive belly shook. He waddled over to the torch, yanking it out of the earth and returning to loom over her.
He waved the torch close so she could get a clear view of his face. Dreck was a monster, she realized—some nightmare combination of man and wild boar. He had a snout instead of a nose, curved tusks instead of teeth. Even his ears seemed more pig than person. They twitched and turned like a beast’s might.
“Sodded bint just got the piss scared out of her,” Horvath called over. He was still laughing.
Dreck looked down. “Only piss I see is yers. Still tempted ta eat ‘er, though.” His speech was rough, guttural. His black-blotched tongue hung from his mouth, licked at his nose. “Good shoulders for a girl.”
Roen stared at him, eyes wide. She was still shaking and could not seem to stop.
This seemed to amuse Dreck more than anything. “See, girl, I’m jus’ jokin’. I don’t eat no people unless I know I ain’t gonna get hanged fer it.” He snorted another laugh and grinned, his twisted tusks limned by the torchlight.
“You were gonna eat her brother,” Horvath pointed out.
“Wasn’t gonna get hanged fer that, neither,” Dreck retorted. “Boss’s orders. Still might eat ‘im if we catch ‘im.”
Roen said nothing. The horror on her face was plain enough.
“Aw, sweetmint. Do I scare ya?” Dreck asked, chortling. He leaned down and poked her cheek with a fat finger. She noticed he only had three fingers. His nails were thick and black with grime, and oddly pointed.
Roen did not answer.
“Pig’s got her tongue,” Horvath said with a snicker.
Dreck glanced back at Horvath—annoyed, if such a look was possible on such a creature.
“Pig’s what she sees,” Horvath said without apology, shrugging. “Locked up all prim in a knightlord’s keep? By my mark she ain’t never met no inhuman before, not in her life.” He regarded Roen for a long moment. “Hells, you ain’t never seen no monsters at all, huh.”
“Oi, that’s a racy term,” Dreck complained. “Ain’t no monster. No more’n you. You gonna lump us in with the orks an’ trolls an’ such? Piss off.”
“Like this girl could tell one from the other,” Horvath said. “Look at her. All she sees is fangs.”
“Tusks,” Dreck corrected, snorting. He leaned down and snapped his teeth in front of Roen’s face, just so she could get a good look. They were yellow-brown in color. She got another whiff of his fetid breath.
“Tusks is fangs,” Horvath said.
“Tusks is tusks,” Dreck insisted.
“Whatever they is, they make you uglier.”
Dreck rounded on the man, glaring. “Good tusks fetch good mates. Better these than the little peanut-teeth your mewling kind grows. Yer the ugly ones, not us.”
“So that’s the manners of a boar,” Horvath said to Roen. “Fetid beast. Farts like a man, tastes like a porkchop.”
“Go sod yerself, ya gingy twert,” Dreck snapped. “Like you know what we taste like.”
“If you don’t taste like pork, then I don’t wanna know,” Horvath muttered.
Roen’s mind was still spinning. When her day began, she had no inkling it would end with her the captive of a creature from a faerie tale. If goblins had climbed out of Dreck’s torch and started dancing around trees, she would not have been more shocked. The absurdity almost made her forget the danger of it all. Almost.
“I’m hunnerd percent boar,” Dreck said to Horvath, still irked with the man. He pounded a three-fingered fist against his chest. “Some of us just sit up straighter’n others. You? Yer a hunnerd percent nuffin’. You ain’t no better’n me. You don’t stake more silver’n me. Nubs is what I get, nubs is what you get. Hard times fer all.” He spat.
“Hard times is my lot,” Horvath seemed forced to agree. He slid an unkind glance to Roen again, running his thumb along the point of a cocked crossbow bolt, watching her. The crossbow rested casually in his hands. Horvath looked as though he was considering target practice.
Dreck fell silent, fixing Horvath with an even stare. He clearly thought the gesture was meant for him. For a moment Roen thought Dreck might charge the man. She held a faint hope that they would actually kill one another, and she could work on slipping her bonds.
The sudden crack of snapping wood out beyond the wood line made them all turn their heads, and a heartbeat later Kula Toron returned on Slicer. Another rider accompanied him.
It was her brother. But it was not Ralton.
Doryan the Younger trotted his horse over to where Roen was bound. He wore his black studded leather armor and a black cloak but bore neither Dorn crest nor Zhadran banner. He looked down at her, his expression unreadable in the dim torchlight.
There was a long silence. The other two held their tongues as well, deferring to him. They kept their heads bowed and eyes averted.
Doryan finally just sighed. “Ah, Roen. We finally find ourselves at this impasse, you and I.”
He slid off his horse and looked down at her, some odd semblance of sorrow in his gaze…before yanking a long, thin dirk from his belt.
“Alas for you.”
Roen supposed she should have felt grateful Doryan was not killing her yet, though she was not entirely certain it was off the table. Every logical choice seemed to point to her removal.
If it was on Doryan’s mind, he was not voicing it. “You’ve had a busy few days,” he murmured, sheathing his dirk. The rope that had bound Roen lay severed at her feet.
Roen only nodded. She struggled to her feet painfully, and rubbed her wrists, wincing.
“I trust you were treated as your station demanded.” Doryan glanced at the men. Horvath fidgeted nervously.
Roen said nothing to that. Her first instinct was to shed light onto all that had happened—Horvath’s piss and Dreck’s slimy tongue especially. But it would not serve her in any way right now. Doryan confronting his own men would probably not buy her any time to flee. And Horvath’s open bitterness still perplexed her. She wondered what her family had done that might invite a lowborn’s anger.
Not enough to get pissed on, though. Surely.
“I don’t suppose you actually know where our beloved brother is?” Doryan asked, casually. “It’s not like Ralton to miss a party.”
Roen shook her head.
“But he knew,” Doryan murmured. “About all of this.” He gave a vague wave of his hand.
“I do not see how he could have,” Roen finally spoke, her anger clear. “Who could guess you would lay such a trap? Lord Hammod certainly did not, nor did his son.”
Doryan laughed. “Ralton knew nothing of our Lord of Valas’ grisly end, though I assure you, Lord Hammod himself had an inkling. He made a valiant run at running. We had the advantage of knowing the Haverwood much more intimately than his men.”
“Why did you have them killed?” Roen knew she should not be astounded by her brother’s ruthlessness. But she never imagined he would kill anyone undeserving of it—much less command other people to do it for him. Executions were a grim reality at Dorn Keep, but they were reserved for invaders, traitors, and criminals. She was relatively certain the Vertaens were none of those.
“I thought I made it clear the other night. They were going to spread unfavorable impressions regarding our family. About you, mostly.”
Roen stared at him.
“We are avoiding the real conversation, sweet.” Doryan smiled his indolent smile. “What did Ralton tell you? Upon my return to Dorn, will I find a horse missing and be regaled with tales of a cloaked rider fleeing out the back gate?” He seemed somehow equally perturbed yet oddly amused at being fooled.
“I do not know,” Roen said.
Doryan sighed. “Give me your best guess. Protecting him would be a misplaced gesture. He did leave you to be murdered in his stead, after all.”
That part hurt her more than she had realized. Most of Doryan’s siblings hated their father’s heir; he had never done anything to win their love or loyalty, and Ralton and Halspan complained about Doryan often when he was not around. But Dorns were supposed to be loyal to family first. She had always been taught that House Dorn rallied as one when threatened. Duty, Faith, Honor, and Justice. Was she the only Dorn that lived by their creed? Those words seemed as much a faerie tale as anything now.
“I think he did know,” Roen finally allowed, her voice low. “Why else send me?”
“Why indeed?” Doryan grinned. “And let us be frank, you did not exactly endear yourself to Ralton by humiliating him in front of Father. Why should he even like you? Ralton is fond of Halspan’s company because that lumbering fool is slow of wit, which allows Ralton the rare display of superiority. Whereas you…” Doryan’s eyes had a strange cast to them. He gazed upon her in a discerning manner that made her uncomfortable. “You reveal his every weakness.”
“I did not mean to—”
“Oh, I know.” He laughed softly. “But does he? And does it even matter? I’ve never trusted him, nor should you. Ralton loves Ralton most of all. Be thankful you survived his first betrayal. It will leave you wiser to his next one, should you ever see him again.”
His betrayals and yours, she thought bitterly. Was every person at Dorn Keep more deceitful than she? Was she simply stupid? The thought brought renewed despair. Andric had been as honest as the stars on a clear night, though he could spin tales with words at a whim. Halspan was not prone to lying either, she thought, but how could she know for certain? If it came down to it, would he sacrifice his sister’s life so that he might live?
“Why?” Roen suddenly asked. She peered up at him—up into Doryan’s eyes. “Why kill Ralton? What is between you? Why do any of this?” Whatever the outcome, she needed to know.
Oddly, the question seemed to disturb him. “An old accounting, recently returned to roost,” Doryan finally murmured. “You would not understand.” His gaze held hers with an odd intensity, then looked off.
“Make me understand,” she said, intent on any answer she could get. If her suspicions were correct, Doryan would not simply leave her to live. If he was capable of killing Ralton…
She tried not to think about it, but the reality of her situation loomed like Dreck’s shadow. Doryan stood silent a moment, seeming to weigh his options.
“Very well,” he said with finality, as though the game had run its course. Roen tensed.
Doryan turned and strode for his horse.
“Come. I’ll return you to Dorn myself. And we will talk.”
The ride back was at a slow canter. Roen rode behind Doryan, hands grasping the back of his horse’s saddle. The Old Dorn Road was dark, the cloudy night sky low and black, but Doryan’s horse—a chestnut mare he had named Seraph—was as sure-footed as any steed in the stable and could manage the Old Dorn in her sleep.
Leaving the Haverwood, Doryan said nothing at all. They rode in silence.
Roen finally spoke. “With all that I know, should you not be killing me?” There was hard accusation in her soft words.
“I do not know. I’ve not quite decided. Should I?”
“No.”
He laughed softly. “Let us walk this line of logic together, then. Tell me how it benefits me to keep you around.”
She paused in silence a long moment, fighting back the sharper words that could end with her corpse left to rot in a roadside ditch. “Because it…because it would have been more suitable to do it back there.” She started slowly, her words carefully measured. “And disposing of me is moot if Ralton is already gone, because then I have no one to warn of your misdeeds.” Roen had already been through the logical points in her mind. She knew any argument was weak, but she certainly was not going to help talk him into murdering her. “It seems you should only remove me if you hate me,” she added, and could not keep the hurt from those words.
“I do not hate you. Despite what you think of my misdeeds.” That word seemed to amuse him. “But stay to logic. You could warn Halspan. Perhaps I am coming for him next.”
The very idea appalled her. The last memory she had of Halspan was of him sobbing helplessly in the chapel sanctuary. “Why would you? He is innocent!”
“You are implying Ralton is not,” Doryan said.
She frowned. It was true enough that Ralton was no innocent. He drank to excess, snuck maids into his rooms, mocked the weak, and gambled frequently; Friar Grygory once called him “inherently wicked”, and in truth he had as many loose mores as anyone she knew. Yet now she could only remember the terrified expression he wore when they spoke in the stable. His was a desperate fear; Ralton was grasping for anything to live—even if it meant her life.
The thought did not remove her anger, but it at least illuminated Ralton in a light Doryan could never be lit by. At least Ralton still seemed human.
“You could teach them,” she said after a moment. “All of them. All of us. Lead by example. Is that not what Father demands?”
This time Doryan did not chuckle. The Knightlord was a very serious topic. A long silence followed, Seraph’s hooves crunching on the road.
“Father’s demands,” Doryan the Younger finally said, voice soft. “Perhaps you are unaware of how many demands he has. Or how contradictory they oft can be.”
“It is our duty to House Dorn to exact Father’s will as best we can,” Roen asserted, using words Doryan the Younger had spoken to her on more than one occasion. Their father seemed his only weakness. “Father strives daily to improve our house and holdings, and to take one of his sons is akin to stealing from him. Why would you betray him? Does he even know of this impasse between you and Ralton?”
Another long moment of silence passed, before Doryan finally asked, softly, “Why sister, are you considering going to him with this complaint?”
Roen hesitated before saying, “I will not. What would that avail me?”
“What indeed?” He sighed. “Father would believe parts of your tale, no doubt, but it would change nothing. Ralton would still be gone, which would support your story, but the truth of it is that Father sees him as a useless son, quite recently humiliated by his baby sister. Halspan has a head made of brick, and simply was not meant to lead men. Father knows I am his only choice for heir. If anything, you turning against me would spur him to get rid of you even faster.”
“You would want that,” she accused.
He laughed. “I want no such thing. Ah, Roen, would that I could go through life wearing your cloak of naïveté.”
Anger flashed in her. “I am only twelve winters, and not privy to the things you are privileged to know.”
“Clearly,” he murmured.
They rode in silence some more. There was no visible moon, so Roen had little inkling of the hour, but in time a morning thrush wheeled overhead. It was approaching dawn, she realized. The sun was perhaps an hour from rising in the eastern sky. Another dawn. Her head spun with how much had happened in so little time.
Discovery worked both ways, Roen learned; she had, in fact, learned many things she had never wanted to know. It made her sad. Up until Northwind’s death, Roen’s world had been one of adventure—at least as much as it could be, being who she was and living where she lived. She was proud of being a Dorn, though; proud of her father’s keep, proud of the steadfast men he commanded, proud of all their loyal servants.
Horvath’s open disdain—and Dreck’s very existence—had awakened more than a few questions in her mind. There was an entire world beyond Dorn Keep that she had only the barest inkling of. Despite all her recent trials, Roen knew she was one of the lucky ones; the world beyond Dorn’s stout walls overflowed with hosts of needy and destitute folk. Every priest or oracle that had guested at Dorn Keep had taught her that. Dorn was beholden to the Duke of Zhadra, and therefore part of the civilized northern kingdoms of Crown’s Reach. Dorn’s people were protected by her father. It was the duty of every land’s lord to see to his people’s needs. Her father did just that, ruling his lands with a firm but just hand.
And Horvath was not a Zhadran, much less a Dorn. Why should he hate them? And why, then, did he work for her brother?
“Why do you have them?” she asked suddenly.
“Have what?”
“Those men. Kula, Horvath. Them.”
Doryan chuckled. “I have things that need getting done. They do those things for me, without question.”
“Father’s guards follow you without question.”
“Of course,” he said. “It is writ into their blood. Our men are good Dorn men.”
“So then—”
“Some things require a delicate touch, Roen. Soldiers are not the answer to every task.”
“Dreck is not delicate,” she pointed out. There was a flaw in Doryan’s reasoning, but she was still chasing the thread of it.
Doryan laughed loudly. “No, he is not. Vile ferine. I’ll never understand how a common beast can suddenly whelp a litter that grows to stand and speak. And they think they’re our equals.” He seemed amused by a thought. “I suppose it would be worse if Dreck had been whelped at Dorn. You’d have probably tried to befriend it, and wouldn’t that please Father. The smell that comes with that corpulent creature is the single worst price to pay for his services.” He shook his head. “That said, he has his uses, and he does not wear our tabard, nor does he carry our flag. Ofttimes, there are things that need to happen without the commotion a colorful banner might cause.”
“Illegal things, you mean.” Roen was beginning to understand. She did not understand why he was telling her, however.
“Laws are malleable,” Doryan said softly. “Father makes the laws. And so shall I, after he is gone.”
“I am half surprised you are not also plotting Father’s end,” Roen accused.
Doryan was silent for a long time after, not answering her charge. For a moment, Roen thought she had gone too far.
“I am,” Doryan finally said. “And that is why I need you by my side, Roen.”
She was stunned by the admission—and more than that, stunned by his assumption of her loyalty. She tried to speak but nothing came out. What could she say? This was a knife’s edge; Doryan was surely waiting for some answer. Her skin had gone numb, and it had nothing to do with the early morning cold.
“Oh, do not fret so,” he chided, as though she were worrying over some doll missing an arm. “That you should feel any loyalty to him is preposterous. Father treats you like dung. Granted, he does not even know how to attend the gentler sex, much less raise it to womanhood. Look at you, dressed as you dress. Zhadran nobility may seem rustic to the Paladors and the Flandres of the realm, but by rights you should be in skirts.” He sighed. “Your mother’s passing was the beginning of his end, as far as civility went. It is as though he refused to even acknowledge the presence of women after that. You’ve been poorly raised.”
Roen did not know what to do. For a long moment, she sat perfectly still, silent. Doryan was usually very calculating in everything he revealed to her. Why should this be any different? Her mind spun. He claimed to want her loyalty, but…
He seeks to ruin our father, perhaps even murder him. How could he ever expect to win me with so horrible a thought?
She should simply play along, she knew. She should ride back in silence, pretending complicity, biding her time. She could reveal everything to her father once she could get him alone.
But she could already see his eyes. There was no proof she could give. The Knightlord would not believe her. And even if he did…
He would hate her as he always had—more, perhaps, for bearing such news, for daring to soil the name of his son and heir. He would call her a liar and banish her to only the gods knew where. She loved her father, desperately wanted his approval, and yet…
And yet, she knew him. All too well.
The world I want will never be mine.
She let go of the saddle and slid off Seraph. Roen landed on the gravelly road hard, staggering before regaining balance. She backed slowly away from her brother.
He turned his horse. “What now? Are you going to walk all the way home? Do not be an imbecile.”
“I am not going home,” she said. Her heart broke just saying it, but even then, she felt it was the truth. “Ride me down, if that is your will. Or run me through.” Her throat was tight, her words raspy. “But I am leaving.”
Roen turned her back to Doryan and headed straight back down the Old Dorn road.
“For where? Mooring? And then what?” He laughed. “You’re a child.”
“I am not,” she whispered to herself, “not anymore.” Roen trudged, head down, away from Doryan and his mad plans. Hot tears slipped from her lashes and fell down her cheeks even before she knew they were coming.
Doryan’s horse trotted up behind her, iron-shod hooves crunching gravel. She heard him sigh. A part of her expected to feel the point of his dirk between her shoulder blades.
“It was a jest,” Doryan began. But that was too obvious a lie even to her ears, and he quickly changed tack. “Roen. There are truths you need to know.”
“I have learned far too many truths,” she choked, failing to hold back a sob. Even here, as bad as everything could be…even here she felt ashamed for weeping. Dorns did not weep.
“Well, here is one more,” Doryan said softly. “He is not your father.”
Roen felt as though she had been slapped. She stopped walking, but only because it felt like all the strength had been drained from her legs.
“He is,” she said, teeth clenched.
“No,” Doryan drawled. “He is not. And that is only part of what we need to discuss.” Every word seemed to drip like poison from his lips. To her horror she knew, then and there, that Doryan was speaking the truth. So many questions were answered by it. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. She did not know if she was weeping for sadness or relief anymore.
“If he is not, then I have even less business at Dorn,” Roen said angrily, doggedly. She tried to start walking again, but almost pitched forward. She covered her face with a hand. Another sob wracked her shoulders. “I h-have no place anywhere—”
“Oh, stop with all the fret.” He sounded wearied beyond words. “Your mother was assuredly your mother. The painting does not lie. And you surely have a place at Dorn. Father knows you are not his, yet he has claimed you as such these many years. To what end?”
“I do not know,” she said thickly.
“Well then, that is something we should discover together,” Doryan said gently. He had pulled his horse in front of her again. Through her tears it seemed as though he was holding a hand out to her…
He was holding a letter.
Andric’s letter.
Andric is still my brother. He was the only one she had left. Somehow, in the midst of her tiny world falling completely apart, everything was beginning to make sense. Roen took the crumpled letter with numb fingers.
“There. Now stop crying, I cannot abide it,” Doryan said. “Andric has a few interesting revelations in that poetic little sonnet of his. Read it and weep no more.”
She could not make out the writing in the dark. “What did he say?” She folded the letter with numbed hands and stuck it for safekeeping deep inside her tunic.
“Oh, some silliness about finding his path, tacked on to some other ridiculous lyrical declarations. He is still such a child.” This time Doryan did offer his hand to her. “Come. He should not be that difficult to track. I can find him and fetch him home again, if that is your wish.”
She hesitated, just staring at Doryan’s outstretched hand. She could continue to flee—or at least try to. But he needs me for something, she realized. It was the only thing that made sense; Doryan was not offering to retrieve Andric out of love. And it all somehow had to do with secrets the Knightlord kept.
Secrets he kept from Doryan. Secrets about me.
She doubted Doryan would let her live if she were truly intent on fleeing now. As ever, there were many things left unsaid with him—and those unspoken words were usually the most important pieces of the puzzle.
Roen took his hand and climbed back atop Seraph’s back.
Doryan is not my brother. She repeated it in her head. Neither were Ralton or Halspan. The thought made her both sad and…
Relieved. Somehow.
And it made Andric all the more important to her.
Seraph began the canter northeast, and Doryan was quiet the rest of the way. Roen’s head was still spinning. The largest question remained unasked.
If Doryan the Elder is not my father…then who is?
She had no idea. Stablemaster Haered might know. He was there the day her mother had conquered Trial Hill, before Raelisanne had even betrothed the Knightlord. Roen had to talk to him, to find out exactly what he might know.
Failing that…
I am returning for you, Father. I will call you “Father” until you tell me who my real father is, no matter how much you might hate it.
Here is your chance to be rid of me. You can finally tell me why you kept a child you despised so. And if you will not tell me what I need to know…
Doryan can have you.
Roen said a small prayer for Ralton in her head. Whatever his betrayals, he did not deserve Doryan’s particular brand of justice. No one did.
Especially not her father. Roen regretted her earlier impulse. That the Knightlord should suffer any part of Doryan’s plot had been a rash thought on her part, and she was ashamed she had even considered it. No, Doryan the Elder had never invested any effort to make her feel as though she belonged, but cold indifference was hardly a crime—especially for a man weighed down by duty as any knightlord would be. He was a Dorn. Affection was simply not a thing displayed out in the open, no matter how many bygone hurts a simple word or gesture might salve.
Duty, Faith, Honor, and Justice. Those were the words she needed to keep close to heart. The Dorn creed. In her short life, Roen had strived with all her might to live up to them, even though a part of her continued to question their meaning. The balance was not easy; the more questions she asked, the more questions arose, with each answer seeming to mock those seemingly simple tenets. The recent lapses her family had shown were appalling. The Knightlord’s disregard for his sons in light of their perceived weaknesses; Ralton’s lies and betrayals; and, most of all, Doryan’s wanton cruelty and seeming lust for their father’s position and title at their father’s expense.
Duty? What duty should ever eclipse that which one should hold for one’s own family? A father’s duty to his children was no greater than a son or daughter’s duty to him.
Faith? She feared she did not even know the barest meaning of it now. Should faith not be affixed to truth? If her brother was right, if Doryan the Elder was not her actual father…the oldest faith she held was gone.
Honor? If the only thing that mattered was maintaining the family’s public face, the word did not have the meaning she had always believed. Moreover, honor had always been affixed to the unspoken agreement between the Knightlord and those who served him and his family. The people of Dorn were loyal to House Dorn; it was thus her house’s duty to protect them. Now she could not imagine this tenet was given more than lip service as rote.
Justice seems lost as well, she thought. Where was justice when she needed it?
The truth mattered enough to seek it out, even when Roen’s most basic fears screamed that no good could come of the asking. She swore she would get the answers she needed no matter how much she dreaded them. And if hard truths came her way…
I will face them as a Dorn. No one could ever say I am not a Dorn at heart.
Roen decided it did not matter if the Knightlord was not her father by blood. Doryan the Elder was her father as far as she was concerned, in name if not in deed; she would call him “Father” until he told her otherwise.
In any case, the threat to his life eclipsed any need for her own validity. Protecting the Knightlord was any Dorn’s most basic duty, and that was set before her now.
She just had to figure out how to do it best.
As soon as Doryan was out the gate, Roen made her way swiftly through Dorn Keep’s dark halls, intent on her father’s sleeping chambers. Dawn was nearly here; the Knightlord should be roused and preparing for breakfast, so there was a small chance she could catch him and talk to him with no other ears present. There were few other real options. Simply telling his guards of Doryan’s plot would be futile. Most of the men would chuckle at the very thought of such a thing—the Knightlord’s own son and heir betraying him!—and her words would be treated as base gossip, or even the hysterical accusations of a spoiled daughter wanting her father’s attention.
Or, worse, one or two might already be in league with Doryan. A public accusation could force some sort of attempt on her father’s life. She had to speak to him privately.
The true difficulty was that no one spoke to the Knightlord privately. Doryan the Elder kept guards around him at all hours; “Favorable numbers in council and combat,” as he often said. Even now he would have a guard stationed outside his door, ordered to admit only a servant or two. No one was allowed near him alone—not even his heir. Knowing what she did now, that was probably a wise mandate.
She would have to distract the guard or gain her father’s undivided attention in some other way to impress upon him the urgency of Doryan’s threat. Simply pleading for an audience would do no good; in the past he had never been eager to be alone with her, and often had one pretext or another to avoid any sort of private conversation.
He could not avoid her forever. If he thought Roen stubborn before, he would learn the true meaning of the word today.
She went as quickly and quietly as she could. The darkened hallways only whispered the passing of her soft steps.
To her surprise, Roen found the Knightlord alone in the Great Hall, one floor removed from his sleeping chambers. He was at the base of the central stair—directly beneath the massive oil painting of his last wife, Roen’s mother, the Lady Raelisanne. The hall loomed over him, yet he stood within its vast span as though he commanded it, and he did. His arms were folded behind his back as they so often were when he was deep in thought, black-booted feet set apart as was their custom. His broad shoulders and thrust-out elbows seemed to take up extra space all their own; he was never dwarfed by the hall, or by anything. His black military jacket was pressed to perfection, of course, crisp and clean. Doryan the Elder stared up at the painting intently, as though seeking to discover some new detail he had missed before.
“I did all that you asked,” the Knightlord suddenly said, his voice distant and low, barely audible.
Roen halted, her soft footfalls whispering an echo in the arched stone hall. Doryan the Elder did not move, nor did he respond to Roen’s presence. He did not even appear to notice her there.
“And in the after, it comes to this,” he said. He seemed to be talking to the painting. “Tell me, have I not kept my word? Can you still say it was I who wronged you?” He asked his questions intently, words thick with fervor, as though Raelisanne could somehow answer him. “Am I not merciful?”
“Father?” Roen finally called to him. Her voice echoed in the vastness.
Her father did not turn at first, not for another long moment. When he finally did, he looked upon her with eyes as stern as any she’d seen.
“Roen,” he called her by name, which was rare enough. A spark of hope was struck in her heart.
She walked quickly toward him. “You need to know—” she began.
“I have decided you will be leaving tomorrow,” he said, his words cold. The touch of emotion she had heard just moments before was gone. “You will be gone upon the morn, and you will remain apart from Dorn Keep, from there and forever after.”
The Knightlord said nothing more. He turned on a heel and strode off toward one of the two parlors affixed to the hall, black boots clacking as each heel came down on the polished stone floor. His words echoed and then faded, leaving Roen there, startled and alone in silence. She stared after him, only realizing after a few heartbeats that he had beckoned her to follow.
Roen followed. Her mind raced. The warning she had for him spun away, distant and lost in the crash of old fears that came bubbling again to the surface.
Three years earlier, their father had sent Andric off to Bastion with those same words. “You will be leaving tomorrow.” Andric, a boy of ten winters, was terrified at the prospect of leaving the only home he had ever known. Roen, nearly nine, had not understood his fear at the time; she was jealous, in fact, having been told that girls did not attend schools for knights. Andric’s tears were comforted, but bitterly.
He is going on a grand adventure, she remembered thinking. She had wanted to go with him.
But Roen had no illusions that she might be sent off to train at Bastion, and the looming uncertainty brought her to the edge of panic. Marriage was still a possibility. But if so, to whom? She found herself wishing, impossibly, that Jestin il’Valas was still a possible candidate. There were assuredly many more conceivably horrible matches for her.
Doryan’s words still echoed in her mind. He is not your father. Roen’s noble blood had always been her shield. The fact that she might not be a true Dorn gnawed at her courage, filled her with doubt. She had been fully prepared to run away from Dorn Keep mere hours earlier, but now…
“I had hoped to marry you off to a local lord, or one of their heirs,” her father said, as she tentatively approached him at the door to the eastern drawing room. “Such was my reason for testing the waters with that Vertaen fool, though any one of two dozen worthy noblemen would have suited. I had wished to advance the Dorn cause with you. You were your mother’s parting gift, after all, and enough people have remarked of your resemblance to her that I had hoped some men might one day find you attractive.” He turned the door handle. “But of late I have realized that a proper marriage, for you, is simply not to be.”
He opened the door and the dim light of early dawn spilled out, reddened by the thick crimson and gold-twined rug within. The Knightlord held the door open for her. She went in, her mind still numb. Roen supposed she should be grateful he had decided against marrying her off. But there was still so much left unanswered. The uncertainty was like a lead weight in her stomach.
He followed her into the parlor, closing the door behind him.
The room was empty. Unlike the Great Hall, the lower drawing rooms were closed off; conversations within were buffered, muted and private. The room smelled of heady brandy and Walic tobacco, her father’s preferred vices when he was at leisure. It was a sanctum for relaxation, and for entertaining emissaries or temporary guests. The walls were warm lacquered cherry, partitioned with teak and lined with shelves of thick, leather-bound tomes. Tall windows, paned in nine squares and set with thick glass stood along the eastern wall. Auburn curtains fringed with gold tassels were pulled aside and tied off, allowing the sun its full illumination. A broad oak desk stood facing the door; her father’s prized broadsword lay atop, sheathed in hard black leather. On the other side of the room, a wide foot-table squatted amidst overstuffed divans. A map of Crown’s Reach was carved upon its pocked surface.
Doryan the Elder went to the small side table that held his crystal decanter and poured a small snifter of brandy. He kept his narrowed gaze on one of the windows, and said, “You will accompany Master Malacai to his home in northern Gault. There you will be enrolled in his academy. And you will be his problem, and mine no more.”
Her relief at the avoided marriage was drowned by the discouragement that came with the finality of her father’s words, as well as a quickening dismay at being given over to Malacai. She could not shake the unease she felt around the strange man. Her instinct was to argue it vehemently, but she bit the words back.
There were other questions to ask. She would have no other chance.
“Are you my father?” Roen asked him, softly but directly.
The Knightlord did not answer. He went to his desk and set down the glass without having taken a sip. His fingertips lightly brushed the black veneer of his broadsword’s sheath; the leather had been polished to a beetle’s sheen. His expression was, as ever, unreadable.
“Please,” she whispered. “For my mother’s sake, tell me. I—”
He seized the small glass again, turned, and hurled it at her, backhand. Roen did not even have time to think, much less duck, but the glass narrowly missed; it impacted the spine of the bookshelf behind her and shattered with a pop. Shards of glass and drops of expensive brandy showered the floor. She felt some of it patter like rain upon her hair and shoulders.
Doryan the Elder took a step toward her, his face and frame betraying a sudden and terrible fury. Roen stumbled back, but her second backward step was halted by the bookshelf. The wooden frame rocked slightly, and she steadied it, and herself, on instinct.
The Knightlord took two more slow steps to stand before her. The carpet drank his bootfalls so they made no sound. He had never seemed so gigantic as he did now, staring down at her. His eyes bore into hers.
“I am not your father,” he said. Every word was enunciated, slow and exacting. “And you are not your mother. If you know nothing else, know that. You are not the palest approximation of the grace and dignity she personified.” She heard his teeth click between words. He did not blink or glance away; this was a message he was intent on delivering. “Never dare speak her name to me when you speak of yourself.”
Her skin felt hot. His words stuck like pins. The verbal lashes he had given to her brothers over the years had always been given casually, flicked as if by a light whip, but always with some lesson in mind. There were never any lessons for her. To Roen he had only ever given cold silence and marked displeasure. The irony was sharp; she had long hoped to see a modicum of emotion, some chink in the Knightlord’s armor that might one day reveal the mortal man she knew must reside within. And here, finally, she had something from him. There was a fury in his eyes, and something else buried deep, some other rage he held back even now. Emotion was all she saw.
“Your mother was a great woman,” he continued, his voice hoarse. “She could shame a man with one look. I have never told anyone how I loved her.” Roen was startled to hear him utter the word “love”, yet there it was, that word, floating on the air. The smallest flickering light of hope had not yet dimmed in her heart; it was as stubborn as she was. Roen hoped beyond hope that this was some test—some odd trial of proud Dorn fortitude. She dared not show the fear that threatened to pry tears from her.
But it was no test. “You, I do not love,” he said with a sigh. “No. You I do not love, most of all.”
With quiet words he affirmed every fear she had ever had.
“You have appalled me since the day of your birth,” he said, “galled me through every year I was forced to look upon you.” He bit into her heart and would not stop chewing. “You are useless to me. I cannot marry you off, cannot reap the alliances a fat dowry might even bring. You would have me in daily fear for House Dorn’s repute. You are undisciplined and uncontrollable. I suspect you might try to put a blade through the bowels of any man who dared act a proper husband to you. You are no proper lady. You are not even a proper girl.”
His disgust was manifest. She smelled it on him; he reeked of contempt. Any hope for his regard fled her.
A fierce anger took her then, erupting from her wounded heart. “I can be a knight,” she said desperately, voice shaking, straight into his face. She put her hands on the Knightlord. Emotion surged through her shoulders, her arms, and she pushed Doryan the Elder back away from her with such force that he almost fell.
In a flash she knew it was the bravest and stupidest thing she had ever done.
Roen had not even noticed he had his broadsword in hand, but there it was, suddenly, raised before her eyes. The thick leather sheath was still affixed, the blade bound, but the steel was just as heavy. He brought the hard leather against her throat, slamming her back against the bookshelf once more and pinning her there. Her head bounced and pain blossomed anew in her skull. The bookshelf rocked again, harder. Tomes tipped from their shelves and fell to the carpet, thudding, paper thrashing.
“Never,” Doryan hissed. He was outraged, wrath mottling his features. His sword pinned her, held her up so that she was forced to stand on her toes lest she choke. She imagined he could unsheathe the blade with a flick of his wrist and be done with her.
But she did not fear his sword—did not fear her end, for here it was, in all other ways. She twisted her head against the giving spine of a book to gain some semblance of breath. “That is not answer enough, Father!” Roen cried.
“It is all I have for you,” he said, a ragged sound. “It is more than you deserve.” He pressed harder.
Roen choked, clutching at the bookshelf and at the sword’s leathery cover even as her feet struggled for purchase on the floor. The corner of the rug had turned, leaving slippery wood beneath her boots. Roen’s hair had come loose from its braid, a tangled, tumbled mess across her shoulder. She thrashed at first, angry and indignant, and then finally desperate, but her father’s hold was like an iron brace. The futility fell upon her and she stilled. It was all she could do to breathe. His eyes would not leave hers.
“I am sorry, Father,” she whispered at last. She looked at him through wet, blurry eyes, blinking hard, wishing they would dry, but the tears spilled, thick and heavy. She feared that soon she would be unable to speak at all, so she choked out, “I am so sorry that I killed her.” The apology was too many years in the coming, but the words needed saying. If they are my last, then so be it.
“You did not,” Doryan the Elder answered her through clenched teeth. “I did that.”
The very idea stunned her. What? Why? She had no breath to ask that last question aloud, choking on the attempt. But she already knew the answer.
Duty, Faith, Honor, and Justice.
Raelisanne, her lady mother, this perfect woman, had sundered the first three Dorn words utterly. And then the fourth, Justice, was brought directly to bear on her.
The Knightlord’s wife had become pregnant with another man’s child. The very act of begetting it was treason. What other answer could there be? The sword pressed harder. Harder. Roen could not breathe at all now. Doryan looked intent. He looked relieved.
His face was fading in her vision, black spots and starlight swimming before her eyes. Her father now seemed bent on killing her, here in the silence of his private room rather than publicly on a hill, as he did with most of his executions. There was panic in the thought that she might soon breathe her last, but it was an abstract thing compared to the sharp, serrated knowledge that her father despised her so.
I never knew. The darkness began to drown her.
“Doryan,” said a soft voice.
Roen fell. Books landed about her on the floor, and some of them struck her on the back. She did not feel them—she only felt a raw ache in her throat and the hollow pain in her chest.
Everything was numb, everything swathed in dark. She heard her own breathing, staccato and hard-fought. All else was a dull roar in her ears. Distantly, she thought she heard another man talking. The voice was low and commanding. It took her a moment to shake the other sounds away from her mind.
“…understand the contract,” the Knightlord said.
“A simple thing,” said the other man. Roen recognized his voice now. “It can be adjusted,” Malacai said. “No harm was to come to the girl, however.”
“I was merely communicating my regards,” Doryan the Elder said. He sounded almost guilty. “I did not invite you in here.”
“I will be leaving, but with my purchase,” Malacai said. “Before she is damaged more.”
Roen was on her hands and knees, trying to regain her breath. Her hair was a coppery waterfall that draped to the floor, impairing her vision. The walls kept tilting. She could only see the Knightlord out of the corner of her eye, standing by his desk. His sword had been set aside.
“As you will,” Doryan the Elder murmured. He had reined in his anger and wore a studied, neutral look, though his face was still flushed. He reached to the desk and picked up a cherry pipe, its face carved in the likeness of Duke Viktor vun Zhadra, the Black Duchy sovereign. He flattened some tobacco into it with his thumb and lit it with a taper.
“The mistakes made in her upbringing are mine to bear, which I acknowledge,” he said, puffing twice before shaking out the taper and removing the pipe from his mouth. “Her mother, my last wife, was taken from me when she came,” he said in a detached sort of way. Even in her haze, Roen found it amazing how he could lie so well and so quickly. He is more like Doryan than I ever thought.
Doryan the Elder continued, “In her absence I did not supply her with the proper caregivers, the correct instructors, or the best and most influential company. I trust that will change today.”
“Your trust is immaterial and unasked for,” Malacai said. Roen was clearly still dazed; no one spoke to her father in such a way, ever. She glanced through her hair to peer at the strange man.
Malacai was standing against the far window, silhouetted against it—a dark shape limned in the daylight that seemed too bright around him, his black clothes shadows. He was such a small man. Roen imagined the Knightlord could break this man over his knee if he so wished. Yet he did not.
“We march in three days’ time,” Doryan said casually, as though the man had not spoken poorly at all. “The men you promised me…”
“Two nights,” Malacai said. “Yorea will have the command. But they are yours to do with as you wish.”
The Knightlord grunted his assent. “You will want to travel the Old Dorn through Mooring, and then north on the Northron to Onby. The western reaches are rife with banditry, but from there the roads should be clear, to and through Baltanya, and then west to your fortress in Gault. Our treaties with the Gaulten remain an important cornerstone of the Black Wolf Alliance.”
“As you say,” Malacai said in his clipped manner.
“Take her then,” the Knightlord said. “And be done with her.”
There was a breadth of silence between the two men.
Roen’s head was finally clear enough to think. The shock and pain had been replaced with an aching sadness…though somehow, within it all, she felt some small relief in knowing it was not she who had killed Raelisanne.
Roen took one deep breath. A heartbeat later she was on her feet and running. She put her shoulder to the door and was out, sprinting across the Great Hall in her last, desperate hope to escape.