Roen stood twenty paces from the action, leaning against a high cracked wall, arms crossed. Her thick wool vest and stitched leggings were scant protection against a skin-stinging easterly wind that whipped down the long length of the interior wall, but it was a cold only her cheeks felt. She shifted her stance slightly, ignoring it.

The activity in the drill yard occupied her mind more than weather could distract—when it was not usurped by her own gloomy thoughts. The new day could not drive away the remembrance of all that yesterday had wrought. Northwind’s death, Andric’s lost letter, the disastrous dinner and Doryan’s games…. Each scene played repeatedly in her head, pieces of a nightmare that would not have a dream’s benefit of fading with time.

She could not imagine a more terrible day. Worse was the sharp realization that her place within the walls of her home was changing. And there was nothing she could do to impede it.

Dam Dirch had awakened Roen in the early morning, as cross as ever. The sour old tutor had been ordered to teach Roen anything that could remotely affix the word “etiquette” to it—a directive purportedly from her lord father, though clearly the result of Doryan the Younger’s meddling. It was an order that made neither of them happy. Dam Dirch was a self-proclaimed academician, a title at odds with the puff and pageantry being aimed in Roen’s direction. The old woman was oft heard remarking, “Civility is squired in study, not song,” which was her way of discrediting the ballroom in favor of the classroom.

This morning’s lesson had lasted exactly three hours, upon which time the old woman seemed to realize she was not armed with a sufficient array of teaching tools suitable to the imposing task at hand. Dirch announced the day’s instruction was through and promptly set out for Dorn Keep’s closest town, Mooring, voicing her intent to pick up “ennoblement edification” books, weaving looms, posture primers, dance compendiums, and other painful-sounding supplies.

Roen suspected what she really needed was to refill her flask, which had been sipped dry during the first stubborn hour of tutoring. Dam Dirch would probably find apricot brandy much faster in Mooring than she would tomes containing courtly decorum.

And so, with Dirch gone for the afternoon, Roen inevitably found her way to the yard. This was the learning she craved.

The fact that it was the very learning denied to her chafed, today more than ever.

The drill yard and its sights, sounds, and smells were as familiar to Roen as anything at Dorn Keep, akin to the stable she loved so dearly. In Stablemaster Haered’s realm, she could brush down a horse, clean a saddle, repair a bridle, or help Highsmith Aolfor fix a shoe. If Talcey were present, she could help him with the morning runs. The horses Roen ran were always frothing and happy by the time she was done. She could even muck a stall. She did not mind.

In the stable she at least felt as though she was a part of something. In the drill yard she merely felt apart.

The din had subsided for a moment. Roen’s brothers, Ralton and Halspan, were getting ready for their turns as other lesser-born young men looked on. Weaponsman Fores was busy making certain the boys were armored, securing the straps on suits of padded leather as befitted noble sons. Rust-spotted visored helmets protected their highborn heads, though to Roen’s eye the helms seemed a little unreliable: wobbly and a risk to good vision.

At least they were given helmets. Lowborn trainees went bare-headed and had to make do with makeshift armor of ratty stuffed burlap­—and that was only if it fit them. Some were fortunate to be armored at all.

Once Ralton and Halspan were deemed ready, Fores barked the command to begin.

At sixteen winters, Halspan was younger than Ralton by a year but larger by a half-pace and twenty pouns, and he came in as he always did, head down and straight on. Ralton’s quickness and experience usually allowed him to get the better of his stocky brother, but Halspan looked motivated. Roen knew Ralton was probably hungover from drinking the night away—a habit both brothers shared, though alcohol never seemed to affect Halspan half as much as it did other people. Ralton looked a step slower than usual. Roen’s early guess was that Halspan would win the day.

Roen’s own weapons instruction had progressed well enough as a younger child, back when she was allowed into the yard with the other youths. All the children of Dorn were taught the rudiments of self-defense, in case the keep were to ever fall to invasion; the knightlords of years past decreed no subject of Dorn would ever go to the afterlife claiming to have gone quietly in the face of conquest, and so even the smallest lowborn child knew how to hold a knife—even if practice was with sticks.

Ralton and Halspan were not fighting with sticks. The Knightlord did not allow wooden sparring weapons in the hands of anyone older than the age of eleven. To his thinking a man needed to avail himself to conditions as close to actual combat as possible, and wood—no matter the weight—did not feel like steel. And so, steel it was, forged heavier than regular swords to build young muscle, but with blades blunted, their edges and points scoured off.

The sparring steel was far from safe, however. Roen knew firsthand the kind of damage a “safe” blade could inflict. Blood was routinely shed; bones were broken. Lessons were learned, all in the name of perfecting the art of warfare. Roen would have gladly shed some blood in the drill yard, if for a single opportunity to show her skill.

Those days had long passed. Her father had made certain of that.

In years past, the idle days of Roen’s youth had been filled with raucous bouts of “war play,” boys and girls alike leaping at one another with brandished toy swords and staves, yelling and laughing with wild abandon whilst whacking one another bloody. Roen had proven herself skillful far beyond her peers, giving four times as many bruises as she got. But that ended abruptly two years ago, soon after her tenth winter, when Havrald Stefson had snuck two actual sparring blades into the wood yard. The tall boy challenged Roen with “real steel in trade for a real kiss” if he won. Roen took the dare, took the sword, and kissed him with it; she broke Hav’s collarbone with a well-placed blow, resulting in her father’s attention.

“Your lady mother did not roll around in the dirt playing at sticks with her inferiors,” Doryan the Elder had said to her, his usual disapproving scowl affixed.

And that was that. Roen was forbidden from continuing in the yard with the other children. Even when the other girls were eventually ushered off to looms and needles—and the boys advanced from wooden toys to traditional blunted steel—it somehow hurt more. She was better than them. By all rights, she should be out there, a real weapon in hand, winning her share.

She still attended every session she could, but always standing to the side, and mostly out of sight. Watching was tolerated, if barely, so she did that, unapologetically and openly envious. She watched and she learned, and she practiced every lesson—in the later hours, by herself in private.

After her banishment from the yard, the only hands-on sword training Roen received came in those rare moments she could wrangle Ralton or Halspan into sessions behind the grainhouses. She usually had to secure a trade of some sort: pilfered food or ale for Halspan, or wine and the promised delivery of love notes—to and from various maids—for Ralton. Both brothers took full advantage of this arrangement, especially when their moods were sour; Roen made for a game opponent, feisty and quick, but she was never a match for Bastion-trained young men four and five winters her senior. Ralton and Halspan were usually kind enough not to send any blows to her face where the bruises might be visible. Halspan even apologized for the more painful ones, usually.

Roen touched the large bruise on her forehead. Not all wounds were made with swords. Most bruises did not come with guilt. Her thoughts returned, as they often had this morn, to Northwind.

“Halspan, just finish him,” Weaponsman Fores called out irritably. Fores stood upon his usual vantage point, booted feet planted apart on the short wooden dais overlooking the yard, his annoyance ever apparent. Fores was a bone-thin yet powerful man, straight of spine and bearing a nigh-constant shadow of dark scruff on his chin that seemed perfectly suited to his nigh-constant scowl. Nothing ever pleased him. A grunt of brief satisfaction was the best praise a trainee could hope for in Fores’ yard.

Halspan glanced up at the Weaponsman, streams of sweat trickling from beneath his visor. He was bent over, breathing hard, hands on knees; his practice sword was shoved point first into the dirt. Ten paces away knelt Ralton, grimacing in pain and clutching the hand Halspan had soundly smacked.

“Up and have at him!” Fores commanded. Halspan groaned the way he always did when he saw something as unnecessary. He had beaten Ralton into the dirt three times already and did not like prolonged drill sessions. Roen also knew he secretly did not like humiliating his older brother, despite the string of colorful insults Ralton continued to spit at him.

The extended break was causing Weaponsman Fores to become truly angry, which was a sight; his face was red, and not from the cold. There was little that irked Fores more than sloth.

“Did he yield?” Fores barked at Halspan. “Finish him, else I’ll don my mail and finish you both.” Roen knew that particular tactic would not work. Fores often threatened bodily harm but never followed through with any of the Knightlord’s children.

Halspan shrugged his broad shoulders and huffed. He grabbed again for his blunted steel sword, gesturing for Ralton to rise. “Unless you yield,” he said, hopefully.

“I’ll yield to your fat arse, but only if you bare it,” Ralton said. Ralton had their father’s square jaw but little of his height. He talked more than most Dorns ever felt a need to.

Halspan gave his brother a look that said he truly deserved what he was about to get. Roen thought he looked far too tired to dish it out, however, and Ralton was too smart to let his ponderous brother come near.

After two halfhearted charges, Halspan turned and glared up at Weaponsman Fores. “If he’s running, he’s yielded!” Halspan complained.

“A retreating foe is not a defeated one,” Fores growled. “Neither of you will be given leave to exit my yard until one or the other yields. Or lies unconscious.”

“Hal can find unconsciousness on his own,” Ralton called over. “Last night’s mead did the trick, though not enough that it made him forget the letter he received from Daise ven Darish. Alas his broken heart!” He sniggered.

Roen had not been the only recipient of a letter from yesterday’s deliveries, apparently. At least Hal got to keep his, she thought sourly.

By the look on Halspan’s face, the letter had not borne good news. House Darish was loyal to Dorn, but only nominally, and Daise was a local beauty who liked to boast she would find a marriage outside of provincial Zhadra. Roen knew Halspan harbored feelings for the girl against advice, and the recent Maslentza—Zhadra’s winter festival—had ended in a particularly humiliating way for him. Daise had essentially ignored every clumsy attempt at conversation and laughed in his face when he haltingly asked her to dance.

Roen truly felt for her stocky brother. If any Dorn were in possession of less social grace than Roen, it was Halspan.

Ralton’s jape seemed to raise some ire. Halspan came at him again, anger flushing his thick neck…but he was spent. Ralton might not be able to solve the riddle of Halspan’s growing frame, but Halspan could not seem to get it to catch Ralton’s leaner one either. Around and around they went, Ralton staying just out of reach and Halspan dogging his every step, both seemingly ignoring Weaponsman Fores’ yells to just end it.

Halspan finally howled a curse and yanked off his dented helm, hurling it at Ralton. It missed by nine paces and bounced noisily across the yard. Halspan collapsed and Ralton laughed at him between wheezing breaths.

“Your foe is winded,” Fores barked at Ralton. “Move in and finish him!”

“That is what he wants me to think,” Ralton complained. “Tell him to yield, and I’ll accept his surrender.” Ralton leaned on his sword and gestured irritably with his shield. “From afar!”

Fores’ face was slowly turning purple. “Rise or yield!” he snapped at Halspan. But all Halspan could do was glower at his brother and pant.

“Roen!” Weaponsman Fores suddenly called over to her. She stared back at him blankly for a moment.

Fores pointed his finger right at her. “I have heard some of the boys speak with respect of your prowess.” His voice carried across the yard so that all could hear. “Heft a blade and do me the kindness of making Halspan learn the meaning of true exhaustion. I want him to yield to a worthy foe.”

Some of the boys laughed nervously, but most were shocked. Ralton glowered at the implied insult. Halspan just looked tired and confused.

Roen hesitated only half a heartbeat before pushing off the wall and stepping forward with pace. She did not want the Weaponsman to change his mind. The caution that flashed to her mind—the fact that her much larger brother was probably going to beat her bloody—came and went with a single deep breath. She had long wished for the chance to simply compete. Now was that chance.

Excitement prickled her skin as Fores strode down from his dais to equip her.

“I don’t expect you’ll do much,” Fores muttered, his look a withering one. He fitted her shoulders with a boiled leather jack. “But your fool brothers aren’t responding to my words, and none of the other lackeys in the yard will give them a fair accounting.” Fores added padded thigh girds, and a leather coif to buffer the helmet she would wear.

“And fall as you will, I imagine you’ll at least give them your undivided attention,” he added. “Yes?”

Roen only nodded as Fores buckled the coif loosely beneath her chin. He set a dented helm on her head and held a small wooden shield out for her arm. Roen slipped one wrist into it, testing the heft and grip. She stepped to the weapons rack and selected one of the broader blades. It was chipped and slightly bent, but heavy.

“That one’s too small,” Ralton jested, finding his tongue again. “You’re going to be larger than Hal one day soon. You should have something to befit your frame. A galley oar, perhaps.”

Roen ignored the words, much as she always did. She looked to Halspan, who seemed more than a little consternated. This was no friendly spar behind a barn. She saw it in his eyes; Hal already understood his sister would not yield easily. She never did. He would have to make it hurt. He glanced at Roen apologetically and went to retrieve his helm.

Roen backed away.

Halspan slammed his fist down on top of his helmet to set it in place, hefted his heavy practice blade, banged it once against his shield, took a deep breath, and came plodding after her.

Halspan was as strong as any of her father’s adult guards, but Roen recognized how tired he was. The brief respite had seemingly put some steadiness back in his step, but it was superficial. Even as Roen circled away from him, she saw the tip of his weapon waver and dip. He was still sweating heavily, his breaths taken in huge gulps. He would want to end it as quickly as possible. She expected he would rush in and overwhelm her with his power. The smart play for her would be to weather the rush and counterattack. There was a chance that, if she played it smart, she might even win this.

She knocked aside his first casual thrust—and attacked. It wasn’t what Halspan expected at all, and she nearly caught him off guard, throwing a hard flurry of blows at him—a rapid burst of youthful power and speed carried on the edge of a blurring length of blunted steel. Her final blow before leaping back was a rabbit-quick thrust that poked him hard in the ribs. Halspan winced. By the time he came with a counterattack Roen was away.

Halspan coughed and glared at her. He came again. She danced back and circled away, sidestepping around him and leaping back in with another flurry. Again, she caught him in the ribs. Again, she leapt away.

Halspan shook his head at her, as though in silent plea. He looked nearly as irritated as he was exhausted. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but there was no place for that now, and deep down he had to know that. He was as much a Dorn as she.

She saw his shield dip for a moment, opening an opportunity up high; Roen took it, sending a looping overhand blow toward his head. Halspan surprised her by leaning into the blow, checking her steel with his helmet. The clang echoed off every wall.

Roen recognized, too late, that she had opened herself to his counter. She was too close, she realized in a flash of panic, lunging away and bringing her shield to bear for a powerful strike sure to land squarely.

It did, and the blow was the hardest she had ever been hit with a sword. Halspan connected with a side-armed swing that brought the full weight of steel and muscle against her. She felt the blow shiver her shield—felt pain shoot all the way through the bones of her arm and shoulder. Part of the wood splintered and cracked, and the top lip of Roen’s shield caught her just beneath her helm’s visor, cutting her cheek. Roen was lifted off her feet by the impact and thrown back.

If I fall, I am done, she thought wildly. Halspan, despite his labored breaths, would not hesitate to follow through.

She landed on her feet, stumbled in the dirt, but didn’t fall. Roen skidded to a crouch. She looked up through her wobbling helm’s visor—

Halspan, breathing like a laboring bull, loomed over her. Roen threw her shield up again.

She yanked it away just as the blow came. Roen spun, and Halspan’s blunted sword pounded dirt with a heavy thud.

Roen leapt back into him. She attacked his ribs again, landing two solid shots, and continued past him, pivoting, staying close. Close is good, she realized. Halspan was dangerous at close quarters, but it limited his power. If he did not simply drop his shield and grab her head with his armpit, she thought she might get through this.

Every way Halspan turned, Roen turned with him. Her braid had come loose from beneath her helm and trailed after her, brushing her cheek as she veered, attacked, and dodged. Even though he was barely moving from his stance, the constant turning and defending was wearing him out. Roen attacked with as many quick, short strikes as she could, just to keep him moving. Halspan’s sword and shield struggled to keep up.

Roen feinted and then ducked, slipping inside Halspan’s guard, sending two more chopping strikes at his ribs. Each one elicited a louder, more painful-sounding grunt.

Halspan was moving slower and slower. He tried to position his sword for an approximation of retaliation, but it was all he could do to remain standing and breathing at the same time. Every time he opened himself up, she set her steel against his ribs.

It was like chopping at a tree. Eventually it had to fall. She circled, swung, connected, circled, swung again, connected again—

“I yield,” he gasped, before sinking ponderously to one knee. He could hardly breathe and looked close to passing out.

Roen stumbled back, soaked in sweat, panting. Her heart pounded in her ears. She had won. She had won!

The significance of her victory was only beginning to wash over her when she realized complete silence had fallen over the yard. Roen expected every disbelieving eye to be on her—she had just beaten her strongest brother, after all—but no one was even looking at her.

All eyes were cast down. The trainees and the yardmen were all beginning to kneel.

“I see my son is undone,” a voice called from above. Roen peered up through her visor.

Knightlord Doryan ven Dorn, Lord of the Keep and Adelar Protector of the Black Duchy of Zhadra’s northeastern territories stood on the keep’s guard wall parapet, appraising the scene below. Standing beside him was his eldest son and heir, Doryan the Younger, accompanied by a small retinue of Dorn guardsmen.

None of them looked amused, Roen’s father least of all.

Doryan the Elder was a tall, stolid, stately looking man. He wore a black Zhadran military jacket with the Dorn towered crest set high on his lapel. The doublet he wore beneath it had silver buttons. The high wind off the wall stirred his black cloak and ruffled his dark hair, shot through with gray at the temples. His salt-and-pepper beard was trimmed short and kept neat and orderly, like most of the things in his life. His eyes were blue, and as cold as they had ever been.

Weaponsman Fores opened his mouth to reply, but the Knightlord spoke before he could.

“I will have a full accounting told to me by my son,” Doryan the Elder said. “Halspan, ready your explanation of this incident for me in writing. I will expect it before dinner tonight.”

Halspan bowed to his father, flushed. He stumbled off meekly without a word, still trying to catch his breath.

Roen was already trying to come up with some reasonable excuse to put down the sword her father would not rejoice to see her holding. For some reason her hand gripped it all the harder.

“Ralton,” Doryan the Elder called down, looking to his second son. “Your younger brother has fallen. What is your duty?”

“My lord?” Ralton stood up straight. Even he had no quip for this.

The Knightlord repeated himself, which he was loath to do. “Your brother has fallen in combat. What is your duty?”

Avenge him, Roen thought, knowing the answer with dread. She turned to face her sibling.

“Avenge him,” Ralton said grimly.

“Do that.” Doryan the Elder’s softly spoken words carried on the wind. His stare was like ice.

Ralton nodded. He had rested during her fight with Halspan, and a semblance of his usual cocky façade had returned. He swung his practice sword experimentally.

“You’ll not have the same advantage,” Ralton said coolly to her.

“No,” she agreed. She knew she would not.

Roen attacked. She dropped her shield in the dust, gripped her sword in two hands and—with a shout—came right at Ralton.

Her first swing was a hard, looping blow that arced up from the hip and crashed into Ralton’s partially raised sword. The force of the blow was such that it almost sent the practice blade flying from Ralton’s hand. He had to stumble backward just to buy time to regain his grip.

He almost did not. Roen charged straight into Ralton’s defenses. She ignored his shield. She ignored him. Roen attacked Ralton’s sword, sending blow after blow after blow at it. Ralton could not even begin to mount a counterattack; it was all he could do to not lose his sword. He backed away, trying to regroup, but still she came, the full measure of her strength and speed behind every blow. Again, and again she attacked his sword, knocking it out of its defensive position—he nearly lost his grip again, forcing a quick drop of his shield in order to get his other hand on it. Soon he was stumbling over his heels just trying to keep his sword in hand.

Roen attacked with a ferocity that none of them had ever seen from her, and Ralton’s defenses began to crumble utterly. Every blow, sword on sword, made a sharp pop, steel cracking the air. The muscles in her young shoulders burned with each looping swing, each reaching thrust, but she would not relent. Roen felt the eyes of her father on her all the while.

She battered aside an opening that left her brother completely defenseless. The blow that she envisioned—she saw it so clearly in her mind’s eye—would have cracked against Ralton’s jaw, sending him to the dirt.

She did not take it.

They might not understand. Her father, Doryan the Younger…all the eyes watching in the yard. They might see Ralton fall, but they might find an excuse for it. “It was a lucky blow,” they might say. “He slipped,” they might whisper. “He was undone by overconfidence.”

She lived in a world of boys and their excuses.

I must show them.

Roen felt the shortest pang of regret in her heart for Ralton. It came and went quickly.

She destroyed her brother’s defenses with three more precise blows, and with a snarling overhand strike sent Ralton’s sword into the dirt with a resounding clatter.

Ralton scrambled away in near panic. She chased him down. The look on her brother’s face was akin to terror.

Finish him! her mind screamed.

She did. And she let them all see the despair in her brother’s eyes—one heartbeat of it—before lunging straight in, hard and fast, elbows cocked and hands together. She thrust the blunted blade so brutally into Ralton’s midsection, it looked for a moment as though she had buried it in his armor, running him through.

Ralton doubled over, his breath leaving him in a choking burst. By the time his cheek impacted the dirt, Ralton had blacked out.

I am sorry, brother, Roen thought, even as her blood rushed through her veins, exulting in victory.

She pulled off the oversized helmet and dropped it in the swirling dust. Roen looked up, panting, sweat dotting her face and plastering her hair to her neck. Dirt and grime and blood smeared her cheek and chin. Her eyes met her father’s disbelieving stare. They did not look away.

The silence that filled the drill yard was palpable. No one went to attend Ralton.

Doryan the Elder turned to his heir and said something so quietly Roen could not hear what it was. He then turned and strode off, leaving Doryan the Younger alone.

Roen noticed another man standing just behind her father; he had been watching all the while, and he peered down at Roen with an unreadable gaze.

Malacai. She recalled the small, dark-clothed man from the hallway yesterday—the one who had told her to call him Master. Something warned Roen she should not call him that, even in her mind. She remembered him speaking into her mind…even though she knew that was impossible.

But what is impossible? Roen had just beaten both of her older brothers, one after the other. She was not entirely certain what the word entailed any more.

Malacai said nothing—to her face or to her mind. He turned and silently followed the Knightlord in exit.

“Weaponsman Fores,” Doryan the Younger called down when they were gone. “The Knightlord begs your attention immediately. Do be a fine fellow and attend him in his study.”

Weaponsman Fores looked as pale as Roen had ever seen him. He bowed his head in acknowledgement, glancing only once to Roen before striding off to follow orders. Roen could not have said what his expression meant.

She never saw him again.
 
 
 

 
 
        Silence permeated the darkness within Dorn Keep’s chapel sanctuary, broken only by the distant sound of a man’s quiet sobbing.

Roen kept her own silence and remained kneeling before the rostrum. Her tiny hour candle had burned down past half, the yellow flame flickering weakly, its meager light doing little more than limning her face. Other candles placed about the sanctuary brought sparse illumination to a room that stained glass windows could never fully brighten.

She did not know who was crying. The man was hidden behind a closed door in one of the sanctuary’s small antechambers. But his sorrow had taken Friar Grygory’s attentions away from Roen and her recent misdeeds, and a part of her was selfishly grateful for it. The friar had an unnerving stare, and his beard was long and black and smelled of old food. Roen always imagined Grygory could hide things in his beard.

The friar also had a habit of ignoring the purpose of an hour candle, especially if he had Roen at chapel. Grygory often seemed to believe the Knightlord’s daughter was in dire need of extended counsel.

It was probably true. Roen was the furthest thing from pious. Even if she tried to shirk her religious obligations—and she certainly had tried before—Grygory was sure to find her, and Roen would inevitably end up on her knees before the rostrum. Grygory seemed to take personal satisfaction in seeking out nonconformists, no matter the hour.

Afternoon prayer was required four times a week for all who lived within the keep, save her lord father. Roen knew from experience this was a battle she could not win, so she grudgingly attended chapel at her appointed times, head bowed, silence maintained, piety feigned. There were other, better fights to be had.

Today she just wanted to finish her prayers without the friar’s eyes boring into the top of her skull. If only she could somehow make the candle burn quicker, she might avoid the cleric and his beard altogether. The candle never burned fast enough for her liking, however.

For Roen, the chapel sanctuary was not the refuge it was meant to be. It was a confusing space—a narrow, high-ceilinged room that was either too hot or too cold, too bright or too dark, and echoed or muffled sound, depending upon where one stood. The sanctuary held a clash of styles and influences. Carved wood and painted veneer were placed over dull squared stone. Half-finished frescoes sat in darkened alcoves that seemed at odds with color and cheer. At the front, oaken balusters bearing the Sun and Sword of Holy Avalon supported a raised rostrum. That, in turn, held a pulpit for sermons draped in purple velvet and cloth-of-gold…but looming over all was a massive arch of old gray stone marred by time and maligned by bloodstains that had seeped into the stone’s deeper cracks. Many were the servants who had tried to scour them clean. None had succeeded.

Dorn Keep had a bloody past. The old stone told tales that paint and etched wood could not hide.

The sanctuary had not always been a place of worship. Built hundreds of years ago, it had started as a simple, strong-walled shelter—more a vault than anything else. In times of siege, noble wives and children would be shut within, the hall’s massive door locked and barred against intrusion.

Even the door had stories all its own. Nine thumbs thick and banded in iron, it was said to be nigh impregnable. Highlady Slava Kullstaven once famously put that to the test when she used the sanctuary and its redoubtable door to keep her drunken husband off her, eventually perishing in her stubbornness for lack of water. Legend said it took seventeen hours for Knightlord Kullstaven to batter down the door to attend his wife’s corpse. Kullstaven was noted to have rebuilt the door twice as strong—then wed a girl twice as willing and twice as young, just to ensure he would not have to break the door again.

Times of war brought times of faith to the sanctuary. The passage of years welcomed the addition of small shrines and other dedications to various deities, many of whom Roen could not name if her life depended on it. Devout men and women came to Dorn from every continent, appealing to the knightlords and highladies for bread and succor and the chance to speak for their gods. In thanks they would leave tokens of their faith behind. Some departed after a night, others after a fortnight; a rare few found purchase and followers within the walls and stayed on for decades.

But Dorn Keep was not the sort of place to inspire random worship, nor did it submit its prayers to weak gods. The people of Zhadra had always kept faith with the Zvystni Bohova—the “Remainder Gods”, as some called them—a collection of stern immortals who brooked no weakness in belief. Thunderous Perunor; powerful Magnir; grim Dispar; these were the gods that held sway in the guarded hearts and girded walls of Zhadra’s hardened people. Dorn Keep turned no holy men away, but neither did it suffer ones who had only prayers to offer.

The Knightlord merely tolerated faiths. Doryan the Elder was pragmatic to a fault, and not a man for prayer, though he insisted his children should pray as tradition demanded. The old gods were a part of the Zhadran tapestry—its very identity—much as they were for the rest of the kingdoms of Crown’s Reach. On his order, the Knightlord’s children prayed. No Dorn would ever say they were not granted the right of faith.

But faiths could change. Roen knew that all too well.

“The Illumination Reformation” was a phrase Roen had heard many times in the early years of her childhood, long before she understood what the words meant. The Reformers had come to Dorn preaching the gospel of the One True Light, in pairs or solitary, two or three times a year; different men but always dressed the same. They arrived on foot and were garbed in bleached hooded robes made of flax or linen. The robes were tied at the belt by a simple hemp rope. Swinging from the rope’s knotted ends were an iron censer and a padded clay vial that would inevitably clonk together as the men walked. Within the censer were herbs that, when lit, were meant to frighten demons; within the vial was holy water for the occasion of blessings, baptisms, and for protection against ghosts.

To Roen it all seemed unnecessarily vigilant. The men were armed with nothing more dangerous than a cudgel, and their other defenses were for things that did not exist. Roen had never seen a demon, nor was she frightened of ghosts. She often thought she would like to meet a ghost, in fact, and had once thought up several questions to ask a ghost in the event of an encounter, even if she doubted ghosts could talk.

The Reformers began arriving in greater numbers following Roen’s sixth winter. It was they who expanded the sanctuary, knocking out the ceiling—and by default removing the floor of the second story trophy room—to invite the light of the sun into the chamber. The trophy room’s oaken shutters were replaced with leaded frames and stained crystal. Angels and clouds and suns and swords of glass now glimmered from above.

The windows were beautiful, everyone said so. But the colors still brought memories that made her sad.

Roen shifted her knees slightly, just to relieve the throbbing in her left leg. Her earlier victory in the drill yard came with its own price; she could not remember ever having felt this sore before. The scrapes and bruises she had earned were painful enough that they almost made her forget her still-aching head.

The whirlwind of recent events made Roen feel as though she had been running for days just trying to catch her breath, but now that she was forced to be in one place doing nothing, she felt even more stifled. Roen muttered quietly to herself, bowed her head again, and resolved to see this through.

The song Dan’y Dwir drifted through Roen’s mind, as it often did when she came to the chapel sanctuary. The words of the song trickled across her memory like the water within the song’s repeated verse:

Dan’y Dwir had been one of Oracle Berys’ songs. It was Berys’ voice Roen heard whenever the melody came to mind, no matter how many years she had been gone. Oracle Berys had been an adherent to Rosmerta, the goddess of serenity, and was once an integral part of Dorn Keep. Like Berys, many of the old clerics were akin to family, offering to Roen a friendly knee or wise counsel or stern advice. She remembered with fondness most of the good diviners who served the old gods; people like jovial Cleric Wlascha, quiet Vesta Fern, even grim Skarl Agmon….

“The old gods and their sad songs should be left for dead,” she was once told. But songs were hard to forget.

Friar Grygory had arrived at Dorn Keep one blustery autumn morning, three years past. His devotion to the One True Light was as fervent as any, and he preached the doctrine with a passion few could match. Grygory pronounced the chapel sanctuary adequate, and promptly made it his home.

Soon after, Roen’s father announced that the Light would be Dorn Keep’s sole religious devotion. This mandate at first seemed odd; the old faiths usually welcomed clerics of differing—even opposing—gods to preach beneath a shared roof. But the Reformers’ Light was not as accommodating. Grygory called the old faiths superstitions at best and heretical at worst. Doryan the Elder ordered the clerics of the old gods to depart.

Friar Grygory taught the people of Dorn new words, new songs, new prayers, which Roen repeated with no qualms. She had no reason not to. Faith was such a small matter in the grand scheme of things—and in the end, faith really aided no one at all.

The proof was in death. One only had to go as far as Trial Hill to see the holy symbols strewn amongst the skeletons. Some of the older, more stubborn diviners did not make way for the Reformation fast enough to suit Roen’s father. Examples were made.

Gentle Berys’ bones lay there as well, scattered amongst the others.

Roen had not understood their refusal to leave, then, nor did she fully understand now. Her father had been explicit in his dismissal, yet some defied him. Skarl Agmon claimed the strength of Magnir was in his soul, but strength was not enough to prevent him from being drawn and quartered as a heretic and traitor. What could make a person choose death over something so uncertain as faith?

Roen did not know. Faith seemed a sort of madness.

Friar Grygory said the One True Light was different. He said that these were to be new and glorious times; days lived under the divine sun, where truth was the law, and zeal and piety were rewarded with a heavenly afterlife, not a senseless journey through some gray, cheerless underworld.

It was hard to deny his certainty. The Reformation promised a future that was as bright and limitless as the midday sky…and Roen could find no proof that it was not exactly as he said.

The distant sobs from the antechamber had turned to low, muffled cries. Roen heard the telltale thrash of Grygory’s repentance crop, its cadence as sure as clockwork. The friar always said he was loath to resort to the scourge, though it inevitably found its way into his hands at least once a week. Roen could not tell if Grygory liked administering it or not, as the resolved look in his eyes never seemed to change.

She risked a glance back in the direction of the anteroom, but all was silent now. Her candle seemed close to guttering, but not enough that Roen could chance an exit. Grygory was probably kneeling in shared prayer with the man.

Roen finished her faked prayers with a short, sincere one, whispering the words to Dan’y Dwir. Everything about her world was changing. She could feel it, even if no one else would acknowledge it. The “Remainder Gods” remained not at all, bowing in absentee deference to the One True Light, and Roen did not think anyone who remained really saw a difference. Even she had to admit that thoughts of faith did not cross her mind until her feet crossed the sanctuary threshold.

It was the people she missed. And it was the old songs she kept in her memory.

Roen realized her hour candle had finally burnt out, and she rose, grateful that she would escape Grygory’s beard for another day. She made the requisite pious gesture—the Sun and Sword before her chest—before turning quickly to go.

Her steps brought her past the closed antechamber door. The man within was sobbing again, but quietly. Roen knew it was probably unwise to slow, but her feet seemed to pause of their own accord.

“A better son,” the man behind the door said softly, his voice choked with emotion. “I just want to be a better son.”

It was Halspan, Roen realized.

Friar Grygory murmured something in response, but Roen could not quite hear. She stepped closer to the door, even when guilt told her she should just go.

“I do not think I can be,” Halspan said, choking. “Forgive me, please,” he whispered, “Please, forgive me, please,” again and again, so softly Roen could barely hear.

“You will not be forgiven.” Grygory’s deep voice was stern as ever. “Death by one’s own hand is an abomination unto the Light. You were baptized under the Cant of Truth, setting aside the falseness of the past. Forsaking your body and casting your soul away does not beget a chance to start anew. The reincarnation preached by the dead gods is a fallacy. There is no new beginning. You are one with the Light, now and forever.”

Roen stood there, stunned. Her brother had come to confess his intent to end his own life.

“I have tried and tried,” Halspan said, his hoarse voice catching. “What more can I do?” He sounded so broken.

Roen caught herself almost reaching for the door.

It opened anyway. Friar Grygory stared down at her, his eyes full of fury.

“Roen. Your confession must wait,” Grygory said with a low growl. “A father’s sons take precedence. But I will have it in due time tonight.”

Roen looked past him. Her brother Halspan knelt within the antechamber. He was shirtless, his bare skin reddened from fresh lashes and blood, courtesy of Grygory’s cleansing. His large frame was hunched, wounded; the bruises along his ribcage were blotched purple and yellow. His right hand he kept tucked to his midsection, but even from afar she saw it was wrapped in bandages. Halspan’s face was puffy from tears—as well as bruises and cuts, swollen from a recent beating.

More recent than the drill yard, she realized. She had not done that to him. Was this punishment their father had doled out? Roen reasoned it could not have been; Halspan had yet to give his account to the Knightlord at dinner.

Doryan then, she thought. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Halspan’s eyes met hers, and she saw every ragged emotion play out across his face. Pain flashed to the fore, and then guilt, then resentment, and finally shame. He turned his face from her.

Roen’s heart felt as though cold water had been poured onto it. Halspan had been one of the few good brothers she had. And she had brought this upon him.

“Light another hour candle,” Friar Grygory said to Roen with disdain. “I will see to your repentance when I am done here.”

He closed the door in her face.

“Hal…” Roen called out tentatively, but she had no idea what she could possibly say. The door was closed, and the chapel sanctuary seemed to swallow the sound of her brother’s name.
 
 
 

 
 
        There was only an hour left before dinner by the time Roen left the chapel sanctuary. She stepped out beyond the gates of Dorn Keep, in need of a friendly ear more than ever before. Friar Grygory’s repentance crop had mercifully stayed from his hand, but he still held her captive for over two hours, and his words were shaming, pointedly reminding Roen of her many failings as a daughter, a sister, and a Dorn. He only once mentioned her appalling lack of piety, which made her suspect he was learning what did and did not actually trouble her—which was in and of itself troubling.

The sky was overcast and darkening early. Roen could see the flickering light of a lamp through the cracks in the outer stable wall, so she went directly to the stable door. So much had happened since Northwind’s death just yesterday morning. She needed to speak to Haered, needed his earthy wisdom…though at this point she would even take Talcey and his prattle, just to get her mind off everything else.

When Roen stepped into the stable, she saw Ralton instead. He was saddling his horse, Slicer, and spun to face her as soon as she entered. He looked startled to see her.

Roen raised her hands. “We are not fighting anymore,” she said.

“I know that,” he snapped. He looked anxious; his hands fumbled to tighten the reins on his horse.

“I am…sorry for what happened,” she said, tentatively. It was the truth. Seeing Halspan in the sanctuary made her see there were deeper repercussions to her victory than she had ever realized.

“That makes four of us,” Ralton muttered, turning away from her.

“Where are you going?” she asked. As she stepped nearer, she noticed Ralton’s face was terribly bruised on one side. His left eye was monstrously swollen, purpled and closed. Fresh cuts stood out on his lip and cheek, much like Halspan’s wounds.

“My business is not yours,” Ralton said.

“Was it Doryan?” she asked. She already knew the answer.

“I have to go to Mooring,” he said suddenly, turning back to buckle a traveling pack onto the saddle of his horse. “Our heir needs a message delivered to Kula, so I have to run it.” Kula Toron was a man Doryan often hired for odd jobs outside of Dorn Keep. He was a coarse, brutish sort who stank of ale and old sweat and other unsavory things; a mercenary, they called him. Roen did not like him.

“He cannot send Jares?” Jares was Doryan’s ill-used, oft-miserable manservant.

Ralton looked at her as though she were the stupidest creature in the world. “It’s not that he cannot, it’s that he will not,” Ralton said acidly. “He’s sending me. I just…need to make sure Slicer is ready to run,” he added, quieter.

Roen looked doubtful. “You can hardly see,” she pointed out.

“You’ve certainly a gift for bluntness today,” Ralton shot back. “This is your doing.” His words were pointed, but he sounded miserable.

“I said I was sorry for it,” she said, glancing down. She took a deep breath, then added, “I will do what I can to set things to rights.”

Ralton looked at her suddenly, oddly, a faint glimmer of what seemed to be hope in his eye. He stepped closer. “Roen, can you—” He stopped, looked past her out into the yard. His voice lowered. “I have another task. Father…he told me to ensure all the drill yard weapons were cleaned and in good repair by nightfall. I cannot very well run Doryan’s message and finish in the yard before dusk.”

Roen was immediately suspicious. Ralton was infamous in his ability to avoid work.

He saw the look. “Come, you can take my horse. He needs a run. I just…. You said it yourself. I cannot.”

“Slicer?” Roen looked at Ralton’s horse; the chestnut gelding was probably the fastest horse in the outer stable. Ralton never let anyone ride him outside the walls.

“Yes,” Ralton said quickly. “About time, right? Mayhaps you earned it today.” He chuckled, though it sounded half bitter. “Do this for me, and we are even. For the trouble you caused this afternoon.”

I won it fairly, Roen thought darkly. Though Ralton had not actually said she did not.

Still…a dusk-time ride to Mooring seemed like just the thing to clear her head. Slicer ran like lightning. And it was technically at the request of an elder brother. She could not actually get in trouble for it. If anything, Ralton would bear the brunt if Doryan found out. And if their father had also given him a directive…

“Fair,” she said quietly. She was through with acceding Doryan’s whims and she thought her brothers should be as well.

Ralton immediately helped her up into the saddle, tightening the straps one more time. Roen spun Slicer experimentally; the gelding knew Roen, so he snorted and chuffed the stable floor, looking forward to a run.

“Have you seen Haered?” Roen asked Ralton as he went to the stable doors, peeking out into the yard—likely worried that Doryan was somehow watching.

“Not for a day,” Ralton muttered. “Him or his fat boy. Else I would not have had to ready my horse all by myself.”

The first faint taste of worry drifted into her mind. Haered has been gone for a day? She had no idea where he might have gone.

“Roen, wait. Here….” Ralton unclasped his cloak and tossed it to her. “For the cold.”

Roen caught the cloak, brow furrowed.

“You’ll need it more than I will. The Old Dorn Road sucks the teat of every northern wind it’s ever met.” He smiled. It looked slightly gruesome with his swollen eye, and he still had dried blood between his teeth.

She thanked Ralton hesitantly as she nudged Slicer to the doors.

“Wind’s speed,” he said softly. He looked like he wanted to say more, though his voice seemed to catch, which made her look at him; Ralton’s face betrayed an odd mixture of relief and regret.

Roen clasped his cloak beneath her chin, nodded her farewell, and rode out.
 
 
 

 
 
        The Old Dorn Road was little more than a simple point-to-point causeway. It stretched from Dorn Keep to the small town of Mooring, the first half-trek winding its way through hills and lonely farmlands before plunging southwest into the Haverwood. Muddy but well-kept, it was the only real road connecting Dorn to the rest of the world. Smaller paths led to and through the wood, but the Old Dorn was the road everyone used.

Roen put her heels to Slicer’s flanks, just to feel him run. Ralton’s horse was agile and game for a gallop. The sky was still overcast; the clouds low and gray, a cold wetness hanging in the air. Darkness would fall well before she arrived at Mooring, but Northwind’s fall was not enough to make her fear a ride in the dark.

The wind on her face was enough to almost make her forget all that had happened in the last two days, though Northwind’s ghost was never far behind. She closed her eyes and, for a time, let herself imagine she was still astride her father’s horse once again. The shadowed silhouettes of sad farmsteads and hovels flew past her with little notice.

The Haverwood crept up almost before she knew it, a wall of tangled beech trees that appeared ominous in the growing twilight. Most of the Haverwood was a confused mess of overrun vegetation. Pines and yews dominated the higher hillsides; beeches and elms and black oaks stood in clotted copses on the lower ends, tangled and thick, with occasional dells and glades cropping up at random.

Roen plunged in, her head instinctively down, leaves and branches and twisting trunks flying by.

She slowed Slicer to a canter once the road took a bend. Another bend and she slowed to a trot. She had ridden through the Haverwood before, but never alone, and the fading light brought caution to the reins in her hand, even though Slicer tossed his head impatiently.

The next bend brought her face to face with Kula Toron.

The mercenary was less than a throw away, casually sitting astride a large mottled warhorse fitted with dark leather barding. Kula wore a jack of iron rings and black leather; dirty fur trimming poked out beneath his armor and lined a travel-stained cloak. His arms were thick with muscle.

He looked as though he had been waiting.

“Ralton,” Kula called out her brother’s name with a casual drawl. “So good of you to come. Horvath had his doubts.”

He thinks I am Ralton? It took only a moment for Roen to recall she was wearing Ralton’s cloak and riding his horse. Roen reined Slicer, wary. Ralton had said Kula was supposed to meet him at a tavern in Mooring called the Fine Point.

Roen heard the click of shoe on stone behind her; she realized two other riders were guiding their horses up behind her onto the road. Both men were cloaked and hooded; she could not quite see their faces. One held a crossbow tucked casually in the crook of his arm. The other had a nasty-looking sword drawn, the blade slightly curved, its edge chipped.

Everything was wrong about this. Her mind screamed more warnings at her than she could count.

Ralton, what have you gotten me into?

“Made me lose the bet,” one of the men behind her said. He was the one with the sword, and the leaner of the two. Roen noticed he also had a smaller crossbow hanging from his saddle.

The one with the raised crossbow was hulking and portly. His horse was small by comparison and looked bowed by his weight. The man spoke with a slight accent. “Boy’s alone,” he called over to Kula. “Didn’t bring no one wit’ ‘im.” The man talked as though he had a stuffed nose and a mouth full of rocks.

“Right then,” Kula said casually. He spat. “Let’s be done with this. I have an ale back in town singing my name.”

Roen did not need to see the portly one aim his crossbow—she saw his arms raise peripherally, so she kicked hard at Slicer’s flanks and yanked his reins, shouting in the gelding’s ear loud enough to startle him.

Slicer whinnied and reared, then bucked hard. Roen expected it, and she hung on with all her strength. She never heard the crossbow fire—but she heard the bolt hiss through leaves, impacting the trunk of a tree two spans behind her.

Roen shouted again and leaned forward, kicking. Slicer tossed his head, eyes rolling in fright—then lunged, shoulders surging, straight off the road. The horse half-slid down the embankment, nearly pitching forward in his haste. Roen kept them both upright, and as soon as he had his balance again, Roen rode Slicer straight to the trees.

Distant curses from the men followed Roen as she plunged in. Another crossbow bolt punched into a tree trunk just two paces from her. She ducked her head as low-hanging branches flew by, ignoring the urge to close her eyes. Slicer needed her eyes as much as she needed his legs. She spurred him to speed.

By mad chance, Slicer’s path intersected a small deer trail. Roen wheeled him onto it. She still heard the three men shouting to each other. They had horses too. Roen knew she needed to put some distance between her and them, and quickly.

Ralton, did you know? she wondered as Slicer raced the trail. It seemed impossible that he could know a roadside murder might await him, and yet….

He was desperate not to come. If he did not know, he suspected. The horse, the cloak…Ralton had made certain they believed she was him. Roen was not sure if that made her sad or angry.

She only knew she did not have time for either emotion right now. Right now, she just had to survive.

Slicer flew past a copse of thick birch and burst into a clearing—and only too late did Roen realize it was not an empty one.

Six people lay sprawled in the grass of what appeared to be a makeshift camp. Roen grit her teeth, silently cursing her stupidity for riding straight into a trap. Broken down tents, small piles of clothing, traveling packs, and an old fire pit were strewn about the sleeping men….

Something was wrong. They were not asleep—

They were corpses. The stink filled her nose.

Even in the deep shadows of the faded twilight she knew them. They had been very much alive when she had spoken to them yesterday.

Jestin il’Valas, all of fifteen winters in age, stared back at Roen with lifeless blue eyes. The blood that had trickled from his nose and mouth was dried and brown, congealing beneath his cheek; more blood was pooled beneath him where a crossbow bolt had taken him between the shoulder blades. There was dirt in his pretty blond hair.

His father, the once-arrogant Lord Hammod il’Valas, lay only a half span away, eyes wide and staring. His flabby throat bore a ragged cut from ear to ear.

Piled about the Vertaen nobleman and his son were their four guards. Their wounds were brutal looking.

Bandits? Roen doubted it as soon as the thought came to mind. There was no sign of any of their horses, but it did not seem as though the Vertaens had been robbed; each man still bore thick cloaks and well-made boots.

The regret she felt for Jestin passed in less than a heartbeat. Roen knew she had to ride on—though try as she might, she could not find an exit to the clearing. The trees surrounding it seemed too tightly packed. It would be too dangerous to try to go back the way she had come—

“Dead end,” Kula Toron said. Roen wheeled Slicer to face the mercenary, fear clutching at her heart.

The other two riders were cantering up the deer path. Their crossbows were reloaded. The man with the chipped sword had lost his cloak in the pursuit, and Roen saw his face—long-jawed and scarred from pox, with squinted eyes.

Faces did not matter if she was going to die, though. Not unless her ghost could recognize them. Roen sat still in Slicer’s saddle, eyeing the three men in silence. The words to Dan’y Dwir came to mind again. She wondered if a sad song would be her last thought.

Kula nudged his horse closer. He spat on one of the Vertaen corpses as he circled around, eyes narrowed at her.

He shook his head. “Take the girl,” he finally said.

The other two came for her.

Roen had already resolved not to give them the satisfaction of a scream.