Here could begin the tale of a young woman, twenty winters aged.
She stands with one booted foot upon a rickety porch step, one foot still on the trodden earth. Her clothes are rumpled, her chain-mail hauberk spotted with rust. Her straight red hair is bound at her neck, its copper sheen muted with trail dust. She wears her sword loose on her left hip; the one she stole is hidden from view, wrapped tight in oiled leather and tied securely to a travel-stained pack that has seen better days.
The woman, resolute, crushes her doubts and takes that second step up onto the cabin porch. She stares balefully at a door made of aged pine split in three places and stained a dark color unbecoming to its grain. She raises her fist and brings it down hard.
The door opens for her. The page turns.
Here could begin that tale, told by the quill in my hand, and if I could, I would tell all of it. I would part the veils of time to describe her birth, brought squalling into the world amidst wind and thunder. Proud daughter of Dorn; the last girl born to an old line both great and tragic.
I would tell that, and more. The woman at the cabin’s door is but one small part of a greater whole, a single window opened to the entirety of a world. If I could, I would speak of friends won and lost, of victories and betrayals. I would sing a song of vindication, justice, and revenge. I would tell a tale of love.
Alas, such a story; I cannot compose it. I have not enough time left to me. These meager scratches may be the last notes I write, and there is still so much that needs to be done. I do not know if I will even survive the night. Remember me for the humble teacher, the patron I once was, not the harbinger I became.
It falls to you, my old friend, if hope remains for any of this to see the light of day. I know all that I place upon you, and it is no simple thing. The burden of the Blackstone weighs heavy. But tell it for the children, those innocent little weapons, so that their voices may be heard. Tell it for the ones who wrought good, and even for those who chose paths unwise in the aftermath of all that occurred.
Tell it for the ones who died. Especially them.
Mysteries cannot remain so forever, our world included. I have a dark hope that your account of this will reach the Firstrealm, despite our oaths. Some truths are best kept secret, but some secrets must be laid bare lest the lessons they would teach be lost.
Take this with my wishes and do me justice. I pray that I have not doomed us all.
Unsigned
Year 1487 S.V.C.
Roen ven Dorn spun her father’s courser once and then once again, tugging hard on his reins with her strong right hand. Northwind jerked his head back against each pull, white mane seething. The horse snorted and kicked in protest; he did not take well to being roused in the pre-dawn cold, saddled, and then held back from his run. Old snow and bits of frozen earth churned beneath belligerent hooves.
Roen smiled grimly. Northwind was an obstinate horse. He was testy and headstrong, disdainful in the face of praise or reward, but he was as swift as the wind he was named for and was exactly what she needed. Roen could point him in any direction, give him his head, and he would go—and go fast.
She would ride him the length of the course. She would do it at the touch of dawn, just as the sun peeked into the eastern sky, just as her mother had done eighteen years before her. Roen’s twelfth winter was not quite finished and she would become the youngest ever to ride Trial Hill—the first girl since her mother to conquer the course. She would ride it, she would win it, and the watchful men on Dorn’s wall would speak of her feat for years to come.
And with that victory came the chance she would finally gain some semblance of worth in her father’s eyes.
Talcey stamped his feet, gloved hands stuffed beneath the armpits of a thick coat that made him look even rounder than he was. It was starting to rain again, fat drops spattering down from a leaden sky, and the stable boy was getting more nervous by the moment. His nose was running but he did not look as though he cared about that. His eyes were full of worry.
“It might start snowing again, Roen,” he moaned, as if she could not tell. He stamped again then hopped in place. He looked as though he needed a run to the privy.
“It might,” she agreed over her shoulder.
“I just don’t think this is a very good idea,” Talcey grumbled in the dark.
“It never is.” She grinned a rare grin. Her hair had come loose from its braid, and she felt strands waving against her cheek. A few coppery locks flashed across her eyes when she turned. One clung to her chapped lower lip.
“I will not be long,” she added.
Talcey mumbled another protest she could not hear. It made no matter; words would not sway her. Roen was called “difficult” in her best moments and “out of control” most others, and was not of a mind to try and change opinions. Living with older brothers—ice-blooded Zhadran boys, all three—necessitated a sure and steady course, lest they bully her. Staying strong, quick, and agile helped her prevail beyond casual reach, lest they attempt to gift her with beatings.
Mastering the skills of a boy was not enough for a girl to persevere. Not at Dorn Keep. Here she had to exceed them.
Roen was close to doing just that. She was faster than Halspan, and better at spears than Ralton, held or thrown, despite her lord father’s refusal to let her train with one. And she was a better rider than any of them, save perhaps her eldest brother Doryan, their father’s namesake and heir. Her brothers were all on the path to knighthood; she swore she would be too, one day, no matter that Dorn Keep did not knight girls. Roen was unique—the only daughter born to Knightlord Doryan and Lady Raelisanne ven Dorn. That had to count for something. None of the other local children could come close to matching her skill, and most of the older youths were as meek as mice when it came to competing against her. The boys were afraid to be seen being beaten by a girl, so they tended to avoid her altogether.
Roen understood part of their hesitation came with the title her family bore. She, better than most, knew the long shadow her father cast.
Talcey knew it as well, yet here he was with her, undaunted. It mattered little to Roen that he was round and clumsy and full of fret; Talcey was her best friend, ever stolidly by her side—even now, even if he did not understand why she had to do this. He asked once, she answered, he gave her a confused look… but that was that, and here he was.
She did not expect him to understand. Talcey was still just as commonly born as the rest, not a blooded Dorn. He did not have her mother’s legacy looming over him.
It had been eighteen years since her mother had done it, to the very day—eighteen years of dawning. Trial Hill had seen the sun rise to meet her mother’s greatness, and the people of Dorn Keep had been forever changed by it.
Roen’s dawn was now.
She kicked the piebald’s flanks with bare boots, digging in for lack of spurs. Northwind spun one last time of his own accord, froth whipping from his lips in a thick stream, then surged, muscles rippling, straight down the hill. Churned snow, chunks of dirt, and a trail of misted breath rolled in his wake.
Talcey gave a yell but Roen heard none of what he might have said, only the sound of it. Her ears were filled with wind, hooves, and her own hoarse, joyful cry.
The obstacles of Trial Hill were well known to her. The remnants of her father’s old gibbets and gallows, used for hanging traitors, as well as rotten breaking wheels, lash posts, and quartering stakes rose from the hill like hunched, shoddily-made scarecrows. The Knightlord thought punishment, like discipline, should be a ceremony unto itself, and believed men became more penitent when they were able to view the construction of the fates that awaited them. New ones were erected with each trial and the older ones were broken and cast down the hillside. Dorn Keep kept no graves for common men, but Trial Hill was a boneyard all its own.
She could barely see the obstacles now—and that was the trick. Almost anyone could navigate the steep slope on a sunny day with the right horse. It was made much harder when half the hurdles were buried in old snow, and nigh impossible beneath the shadows of a cloud-blighted dawn.
Unless you knew the course. Unless you could already see it in your mind.
Roen could. She had dreamt of it enough.
Northwind thundered down, iron-shod hooves smashing over the still-frozen earth. Roen imagined Talcey was probably running to keep up, as quick as he could in his four layers of clothing and his thick dung boots, red cheeks puffing, but she was not going to hazard a look back. She bent over Northwind’s flying mane as the darkness threw wind and rain at her face.
The first broken gibbet came and was leapt quickly; she knew where it was, and by the courser’s surge he knew it as well. Then came the second, third, and fourth leaps, broken racks and a draining wheel, then a quick turn past an erect gallows pole that marked the course’s edge. Northwind skidded only a little, hooves gouging and throwing chunks of hard dirt. Roen leaned off, then in, offering balance for them both. When the horse surged forward again, she gave a whoop in his ear.
Roen and Northwind flew at the darkness with abandon. Trial Hill was theirs for the taking.
It was not until she was four-fifths of the way down, the dark silhouette of Haered’s stable well in sight, that Northwind jumped a broken stock. Roen felt him clear it with ease.
She could not have said what Northwind’s front left hoof impacted upon landing—only that she heard the tang of old iron, felt something jerk the courser’s leg, pitching them both suddenly, hard. There was a muffled crack. For the briefest span, Roen was flying without a horse; she felt nothing save the rush of wind and the insistent kiss of raindrops on her cheeks.
Too quick to fear it came the ungiving impact of frozen earth, followed by crushing blackness.
“Give her soup,” Talcey implored from the dark. “She should have soup.”
“We do not have soup.” Stablemaster Haered’s patient voice floated somewhere above her. She heard the rustle of hay. A horse nickered.
“The kitchen does,” Talcey insisted. His usually piercing tone was muted by a stuffy nose, but that did not make it any less strident. The boy’s voice was wedging its way into Roen’s mind like a splinter and would not let her go back to sleep. The sound of horses and the smell of hay and manure were comforting, otherwise. She only then began to question why she was sleeping in the stable.
“Marne cooked up a pot with beef and peas last night, and onions too,” Talcey prattled on. He liked soup. Talcey liked all sorts of food, as did Roen. On occasion and at odd hours, they would sneak into the kitchen and steal what fare they could. Talcey was not very good at stealing food, even though the kitchen hands were not truly attentive when Marne was not there.
“I cannot go to the kitchen, Talcey.” The stablemaster sounded weary. “It would be questioned, and what would we tell them? Breakfast has come and gone for us, and kitchen people talk. If her lord father finds out what happened, he will be wroth. Do you want that?” Haered was Talcey’s father, and was usually patient with him.
Talcey was not quite letting go of the idea. “No, but—but I could go! I could get whatever is left, and I could say it’s for Lick.” Lick was the stable mastiff.
Haered sighed. “I do not think they will give you soup for Lick, but…” He paused. “If you think you can get some then go try, son.”
That was odd to Roen’s ears. The kitchen staff did not usually let food just wander off beneath their noses, especially for dogs. But she heard Talcey dash away, as quick as his slow feet would take him.
Roen tried to sort her thoughts through the thick weight of a crushing headache. She realized her boots were off, feet bare. For a moment Roen thought she had overslept the dawn. Today was for Trial Hill. Today was the day she would—
“How do you feel, girl?” Haered’s voice pushed through her jumbled thoughts. Roen tried to open her eyes, but sunlight peeking through a crack in the stable wall made her head blaze in pain, so she closed them again. She realized she was lying on the stable floor, covered by a cloak in a horse stall. Hay was stuffed beneath her head.
The memory of it all came back to her. The dread that accompanied it hit harder than anything she had ever felt. It was like freezing water poured onto her face.
“Northwind—” Roen choked. Her voice was little more than a croak, her throat dry as paper. She was so very thirsty. She tried to sit.
“He was a good horse,” Haered said quietly. His hand was on her shoulder, stolid and solacing, but still insistant that she lay down again, and she found she had no strength to fight.
Roen squeezed her eyes shut as a wash of sadness came over her. Clarity brought remembrance, and it made her ache.
“Did you help him?” she asked hoarsely. She did not even have to ask what happened; she remembered the sound. Broken legs were death sentences for horses.
“Aye,” he said. She could not see Haered nod, but she imagined it—the slow tilt he always gave when offering a sad answer, like when a foal did not survive the night.
The guilt came then, like a cold, black-gloved hand pressing its accusing finger straight into her heart. Roen usually met blame with open defiance, but condemnation of her own making was a different feeling altogether, and all her bravado had been left on Trial Hill. She had killed Northwind, as surely as if she had been the one wielding Haered’s knife. There was no avoiding it even if she wanted to—not the guilt, nor the punishment.
Punishment. That thought came with a fear all its own, sudden and sharp and nigh close to panic. She would be disciplined, yes, but that was the least of it. In her mind, Roen could already see the crushing disapproval on her father’s face. She knew it so well, and this time would be the worst. She sat up forcefully, shivering, pushing the cloak aside. “My father—”
“The Knightlord will be informed,” the stablemaster said quietly, “but not yet.” Haered was kneeling at her side, one strong hand steadying her shoulder. She fought to find focus; her eyes could barely see past Haered’s long chin, peppered with uncharacteristic stubble. She saw dried blood splattered across his tunic as well.
“I took Northwind into the wood, just off the trail,” he continued, “and I will let your lord father know he broke his leg testing the summit run.”
“No,” Roen breathed in dismay, and not in fear for herself. “You cannot take blame for this, Master Haered. It is my burden and must needs fall on me.” She would be brave no matter what, even in the face of her father’s fury.
I wanted to show him my worth and have done precisely the opposite, she thought with dismay. Roen blinked rare tears from her eyes. Zhadran girls did not cry, Dorn girls especially.
“Now would be a bad time for that,” Haered said softly. There was a tone to his voice she did not recognize.
“You are lowborn,” Roen responded. She said it without guile or insult. His base birth was a simple fact. “You could be tried for it.”
There was no surer truth. Everyone knew of her lord father’s fondness for Northwind; the Knightlord made his feelings plain in that regard, at least. He liked to boast of the courser’s fierce mien and ferocious speed. Anyone so foolish as to kill a knightlord’s horse could be accused of thieving his property, and criminal elements were not treated with kindness within the Black Duchy—and at Dorn Keep least of all.
“I will be fine,” Haered murmured in an assuring tone. He helped Roen stay sitting with a gentle hand to her back. “Your father made an oath as to my care, years ago.” Then he added, lower, “He owes me that, at least.”
Roen could think of nothing to say in answer. She did not easily admit fear to herself, and worse was the shame she tried to bury beneath it. The fact that her heart seemed eager to let a common man take the blame for her recklessness was not an easy guilt to face.
She wanted to argue the matter more, but her mind could not yet find a purchase. She felt a wave of dizziness and put her hand to the floor to steady herself. The smells of the stable seemed pungent to her now. She shifted, touching her throbbing forehead, and noticed her brow was bandaged.
Clear sight was slow in returning. She saw motes of dust crossing her vision, floating lazily through the shaft of sunlight that illuminated the stall. Beyond, she had to squint to make out the specks of rust on the iron pegs that held horseshoes and spare tethers to a nearby support. She saw drops of water glimmering on the lip of a trough, but only because they were lit peripherally by a stray slant of sun which seemed, to her eye, far too bright.
Roen glanced about and realized they were in the stable’s fourth stall—Northwind’s pen. She noticed her riding boots lay aside, half covered in hay. The mud on them had completely dried.
“What hour is it?” she asked. She reached for her boots and began to slowly put them back on, but even that task seemed weighted.
“You’ve been waylaid by your fall nearly all morning,” Haered said, “and I do not advise going anywhere the remainder of the day. I’ve already sent Dam Dirch a message that you will miss your lessons.”
Roen said nothing to that. Her general disinterest in book-learning was a continuing source of irritation for her tutor, one that the old woman claimed drove her to drink. Roen did not think the Dam would be particularly put out by her absence. But she was hardly comforted by a reprieve from school. Her mind raced over the series of events she had so foolishly begun. Stablemaster Haered was going to lie for her, just so she might escape her father’s anger. The risk of discovery was too great—especially with Talcey’s inability to keep secrets longer than a day.
Duty, Faith, Honor, and Justice. Those were the family’s watchwords, their creed—the Four-Towered Tenets of House Dorn. Knightlord Doryan ven Dorn took them to heart with deadly earnestness.
“I must tell him what occurred,” she said stubbornly. “The men on the wall would have seen—”
“The men on the wall saw nothing at that hour, I assure you,” Haered said.
Roen frowned. “When my mother made her ride before dawn, all the men cheered her.”
Stablemaster Haered had the faintest hint of amusement cross his craggy features, though his eyes looked oddly sad. “Roen, the men who watched Raelisanne take the Hill were gathered before dawn because they knew she would attempt it.” He shook his head at the memory. “The entire keep turned out for Doryan’s challenge, aye, and the sun was more than just a glimmer in the sky by the time enough people had gathered to witness. She did not attempt such a ride in the black of night, and I would have put an end to that foolish notion if I had ever thought you’d latch onto it.”
“She won it though,” Roen insisted stubbornly. “At dawn, after Father said she could not.” She felt a little stupid for not seeing the truth of things, but to Roen it was not the hour of her mother’s challenge that remained important, so much as what happened afterward. Her father had lost his wager and his heart to Raelisanne of House Moriet that very day. And he wooed her, and then did wed her. The tale of Trial Hill was akin to love at first sight for Roen. It oddly fascinated her.
She knew so little about her mother, but Roen often found herself trying to picture her parents as a couple; her strict, austere father standing tall and proud alongside his headstrong, defiant, red-haired bride. Roen’s mother had been the Knightlord’s third and final wife, and the greatest love of his life, many said…
But she was many years gone. Raelisanne ven Dorn had died birthing Roen as a black tempest thundered over Dorn Keep—a bitter truth that everyone knew. Yet Raelisanne was ever alive and wild and vibrant in her daughter’s memories; Roen could sometimes see her mother’s face, as clear as day, even though she knew those recollections to be imagined. She could not have any real memories of the woman whose life she took at birth.
Roen glanced at Haered again, but he was looking to the far wall, his eyes distant and disquieted. Troubled memories, she thought. His earlier words triggered the memory of another fact. “That was your first day here,” she said softly. “The day Mother conquered the Hill.”
He said nothing for a moment, but finally nodded. “It was, indeed. I arrived in time to see your mother’s finest hour.” The stablemaster seemed older than he ever had before; he looked weathered, tired, and his eyes were moist.
Roen’s eyes felt the same. Tales of her mother had always affected her, and speaking of her now, like this…
Haered’s words had put a fire back in Roen’s chest, though the sadness she felt for Northwind remained. Emotions conflicted but seemed to share the same space. She wondered how a person could feel two things at once.
Roen impulsively rose to one knee and hugged the old stablemaster, clutching him tightly. She could not say why she did it, save for simply wanting to. Embracing commoners was not something noble Zhadran girls did. Even Haered seemed surprised. Roen closed her eyes and smelled the hay dust as it came up from his work tunic, smelled leather and sweat and horses. She thought she smelled Northwind too. After a moment, Haered hugged her back.
He is my only true link to Mother, she realized. Her father did not speak of Raelisanne to anyone, much less Roen, and most of her brothers had been too young to truly recall her. It had always been Haered’s voice through the years, telling the tales of her strength and beauty. Hugging the old stablemaster felt like a connection to Raelisanne. When at last Roen pulled back she was able to smile, just a little. Despite the dull throb that persisted in her skull, she felt heartened.
But when she met Haered’s eyes again, he looked strangely troubled, as if a shadow had fallen across his gaze. “Roen,” he began, his voice oddly hoarse…
It was then that Talcey burst back into the stable, huffing and puffing. He skidded to a stop, nearly falling over himself, thick boots sliding on loose straw.
“Roen—” Talcey tried to say more but could not for lack of breath. The look on his sweating face said he did not quite know where to begin. “I saw—” he started, stopped, and started again. “There’s a—” He paused for what seemed dramatic effect.
He finally just blurted out, “I couldn’t get soup!”
Roen stared at him. Talcey then launched into a colorful and breathless account of his grand kitchen adventure, one that had Rib the kitchen cat guarding the kettles with a determined look, and several suspiciously placed people eyeing him with distrust. He ended with, “Old Marne was right by the door. Her boil stared right at me the whole time!” Most of the other Dorn children thought the boil on Marne’s neck had an evil eye. Roen was not so sure, and pretty much thought a boil was a boil, though Marne’s was certainly interesting.
Stablemaster Haered frowned. “Is that all, boy?” he asked.
Talcey sagged, breathless, against a stall pole. He held up a hand, as if to intimate there was more to the tale. Running any distance was not something Talcey did without great drama.
“There’s a letter for you, in the kitchen,” he finally said to Roen, finishing with a deep breath. “It’s from your brother!”
Roen was surprised. None of her brothers were the sort to—
“It’s from Andric!” Talcey blurted the clarification as though she were the slow one.
That brought her staggering to her feet, shocked. “Andric?”
Talcey nodded rapidly. “The letter said so. Well, the outside didn’t say. Only the inside. I wasn’t going to read it,” he added defensively, protesting a complaint that had yet to come.
Roen traded confused glances with the stablemaster. Haered looked as puzzled as she had ever seen him look.
Roen spun on her heel, stumbled, shook it off, and sprinted for the stable doors. Talcey called after her, but she was already outrunning his voice.
She ran with loosely-bound boots up the cold, muddy road that led to the keep’s main gate. The gray walls of Dorn loomed over her, casting long, thick shadows across the snow-spotted moraine, even as the day neared highsun. The keep’s fortifications had suffered attacks in years past—the stone face had been scarred by arrows, cracked by catapult stones, and scorched by a hundred fires over time—but they had remained steadfast and intact for generations, impassable to any who tried the keep’s patience.
A few curious men glanced down from the battlements at her, crossbows shouldered, halberds up, sunlight glimmering on their helms. None questioned her; Roen was the Knightlord’s daughter. She could go where she willed.
And Roen said nothing to them, nor to the men standing gate. Her eyes were squeezed shut as her pounding head fought to make sense of it.
Andric could not send letters. Andric ven Dorn—the only brother who shared her mother’s blood, Raelisanne’s only son—was dead.
Or at least that was what she had been told.
Roen burst into the kitchen, one step ahead of a trailing dizziness that threatened to send her sideways into a wall. Marne was chopping garlic cloves by the backdoor table. The old cook did not even look up. Roen running here or there was nothing new.
“Letter for you by the spice pots,” Marne croaked. Her infamous boil wobbled on her flabby throat. “Stable boy tried to steal it off,” she added, “but I got ‘im with my spoon.” Marne’s spoon was wet and always within reach, ever quick to attack.
Roen dashed past the cook, finding the small folded letter. The parchment envelope was a road-stained, wrinkled mess. Her name was scrawled out in small letters across the front but had been smudged with soil and streaked with rain and was nearly illegible.
She tore it open, ruining the careful seam Talcey had already made, ripping the thin paper letter from its brittle envelope.
The letter was scanned quickly, and Roen’s heart leapt in her chest. Even with blurred vision she could tell the handwriting was his. She checked the date. Two weeks ago, she realized. Roen closed her eyes and held the letter to her chest, breathing a sigh that was half wonderment, half relief.
My brother is alive. But how…?
Roen glanced over to the uncaring cook. Marne was not even looking, busied dicing yams for today’s lunch. Rib the cat watched her with swaying tail, crouched atop the potato barrel. Roen turned her back to the old woman to read the letter. Her eyes raced across the flowing script.
“Roen, I have a story,” the letter began—
A hand snatched it away from her.
“What is this?” Doryan the Younger asked, his voice low and even, a near-perfect mime of their father’s. Doryan had a long stride and an equally long reach, even whilst standing in the shadow of the kitchen doorway. He held the letter out and appraised it with a critical eye.
“Nothing,” she said, then quickly added, “A letter from Andric. Old. It must have been lost.” The lie came before she even thought to speak it. The years had taught Roen the things her eldest brother could do with truths.
“I should think so,” Doryan murmured. “Else he is writing us from beyond the grave.” There was no hint of mirth in his deep-set eyes. Doryan had the same blue eyes their father had, the same dark brown hair. Their brother Ralton once joked that Roen and her eldest brother should wed—that they would make a perfect miniature copy of the Knightlord and Raelisanne. Ralton did not say it while Doryan the Younger was present, however. Doryan would have made him bleed for it.
Roen had not even known that Doryan had returned from campaigning in the west. He still had his riding boots on, flecked with mud, though he had removed his chain-lined surcoat; it was folded and draped heavily over one shoulder. Roen’s heart sank a little, watching Doryan with her letter; there was little hope of her reading it any time soon.
She tried anyway. “Can I have it back?” Roen looked her brother in the eye. A Dorn should never be cowed, even by a Dorn.
“You may,” he allowed. “After you gift me with first read. Unless you would suggest I was less of a brother to him than you.” He said it casually, though it sounded like a challenge.
I would more than suggest it, Roen thought sourly. Doryan had not taken half a moment from his busied life to attempt to endear himself to any of his siblings—young Andric least of all. Andric had taken the brunt of all her brothers’ various regards, more so than she. At least she could outrun most of them; gangly Andric could barely outrun Talcey.
Doryan’s eyes just watched hers, half-lidded and lazy, but the challenge was still there. Roen usually took dares, but she sensed she would lose this one. Worse, she might never see the letter again, depending on her volatile brother’s whim.
“What happened to your head?” Doryan asked suddenly, frowning, noticing her bandage. He stepped from the shadows of the doorway. “Did someone beat you?”
“I was playing,” she said, looking off and shrugging.
“You always play too rough,” he said softly. He raised his hand and brushed her cheek with what seemed near to fondness. Roen almost winced; she felt at odds with his touch. Doryan rarely showed affection to anyone—Roen, especially—and Zhadran girls were not supposed to welcome it in the first place. Regard was a father’s duty, endearment a mother’s. And Doryan the Younger was not her father, no matter how much he pretended to be. Roen said nothing in response.
Doryan must have seen something in her look he disliked. “Playtime is over,” he said flatly. He folded Andric’s letter and slipped it into the breast pocket of his linen shirt. He patted it once, his smile cold.
“You did not ask me why I have returned so early,” Doryan added with a sniff. “Clearly I can count you among the uncaring. No matter. Father says you are to be present at dinner tonight. I have brought back a gift for you from Vertaes.”
Vertaes? That surprised her more than the idea that he had brought back any gift for her. That was Mother’s home. Doryan was in the west?
Doryan the Younger had ridden out the gates into the teeth of a northern winter, a cadre of nine Zhadran knights and a militia of five-and-thirty in his wake, for the purpose of rooting out traitors and bringing them to the capital for justice. The nation of Vertaes was far beyond Zav Zhadra; it was past Palador, beyond the shore, perched on the far coast of the Storming Sea. Her mother’s homeland was at the furthest end of the world, as far as Roen was concerned—a distant gateway to the western wonders beyond the Northern Kingdoms of Crown’s Reach.
Zhadrans cared little for that which did not directly affect their borders; they had enough trouble keeping other border kingdoms at bay and protectorates leal. Doryan being across the sea made little sense. And then there was the matter of the gift.
“What gift?” Roen asked, her brow knitted in suspicion.
“Had you greeted me upon my return, you would have perchance noticed my retinue had swelled, sister. Alas.” His words were edged with disdain. “You could not know I was escorting a young man to call on you.”
Roen stared, slack-jawed. “Call on me?”
Doryan pursed his lips. “Father’s design, blame me not. The boy is pretty, if that is what you like.” Doryan’s mouth tilted in the approximation of a smirk. “He is being shown to our guest chambers, him and his lordly father. They seem well bred and mannered. For westerners.” He shrugged as if to dismiss the guests from his mind already.
“At any rate, that is for later. I’ll say naught more. Clean yourself up. Be presentable by tonight. I’ll not be the one to tell Father you greeted your future husband smelling of filth.”