“What are you to me now? What could you hope for? Come at me, son! Kill me! Your skill is nothing, nothing! ”
Haern felt his mind change, becoming something whole, focused, and dangerous. The entire world ceased to exist, and even time struggled to keep him under its rule. He let out a cry and attacked. This time his father’s attacks were no longer so frightening. Despite his feints, his parries, Haern saw through them all and refused to be controlled by them. Faster and faster he whirled, his body lost in a dance, their blades intertwined, their motions in constant reaction to each other. He managed a snap-kick into Thren’s face, dropped to the ground, and then swept his feet out from under him. As he fell, Haern lunged, one sword shoving his father’s defenses out of the way, the other stabbing for his throat.
Instead of piercing flesh, he stabbed dirt. Thren scattered as if his body were made of dust, and then he was back in the alley. The wound on his chest vanished, his pain along with it. Senke leaned against the complex, his arms crossed. Haern felt naked before him, his heart exposed and bleeding.
“Your hatred for him is so great,” Senke said softly. “It’s all that keeps you alive, isn’t it? You can’t live like that, Haern. You have every reason to escape his shadow, yet you still let it lord over you. What have you become? How many have you murdered in his name?”
“They were all guilty,” Haern shouted. “Thieves and murderers!”
“Were they always? I just saw what lurked behind your eyes, Haern, more frightening than anything your father might have done to me.”
Haern thought of all the men and women he’d hunted in the night. They’d worn guild colors, yes, but how many had been innkeepers, farmers, smiths and butchers? How many had he killed for doing business with them, smuggling and trading and selling? Night after night, he felt the waves of his dead. For Ashhur’s sake, he’d written his name with their blood!
“It’s not hopeless,” Senke continued. “I thought I’d lost you, but now finding you, I wonder what is left of that small boy who loved to read. The one who asked me about jewelry for a girl he liked. I’d always hoped that, if you’d survived, you’d have gone and experienced everything Thren denied you. Now I see you denying yourself…love, faith, friendship…and you do so out of revenge? ”
Senke walked over and sat down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry about the illusion,” he added. “Just a trick of this ring Tarlak gave me. I had to see. I had to know who you are, how good you can be.”
“Now you do,” Haern said, feeling his insides tighten and twist behind his ribs. “Is it truly so bad?”
Senke squeezed, then smacked his back.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said with a wink. “I’m still here for you, as is that pretty red-head Tarlak has for a sister. He’s a good man, Tarlak. A bit strange, but he’s a wizard, so that’s to be expected. Stay with us. Put these streets behind you. If you’re to have a legacy, it shouldn’t be this. You’ve become the feared reaper of the guilds. Should Thren ever find out you still live, I cannot help but wonder if he’d be furious…or proud.”
He stood and moved for the door.
“Go back to your streets,” he said. “Think on everything I’ve said. There’s so much good in you, I can see it still. It’s never too late to change who you are, so long as you’re willing to bear the consequences. You’ve carried heavy burdens your whole life, Haern. Maybe it’s time you let some of them go.”
Not waiting to see if he stayed or not, Senke stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. As its lock shut, Haern felt thrust back into the world he’d called his home for the past five years, but for once, the streets seemed foreign, their alleyways and rooftops offering no safety, only a winding path deeper and deeper into confusion.
He took them anyway, getting farther with every step.
16
“D o you think he’s telling the truth?” Matthew asked his wife as they cuddled in bed for the night.
“I don’t see any reason for him to lie.”
“I can think of plenty. He’s hurt, sick, and in a stranger’s home. Truth might be the farthest thing from his mind. What if he doesn’t know Lady Gemcroft, only hopes she’ll take him in if we show up at her doorstep?”
Evelyn put her arm across his chest and pressed her face against his neck.
“It would explain a lot though, wouldn’t it?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Why those men were searching for him. We both knew he was no ordinary boy, not to be hunted like he is.”
“But why would Arthur’s men be after him? The whole bloody north knows he’s been courting her.” An unspoken question hovered in the air between them, until at last Matthew gave it voice. “What if the men we killed were actually trying to rescue him?”
Matthew waited for his wife to speak, trusting her to better understand these complicated matters. He could list the price of every vegetable that grew in Dezrel, what the color of the soil meant and what could grow in it, but these things were beyond him. He liked living outside the city, where so long as you paid the taxman when he came, you could live unbothered by your lord and always trust your neighbors. Hard luck comes in strangers’ hands, his ma had always said.
“That man, Haern, might have kidnapped him,” Evelyn said. “If he were wounded and low on food, he’d need someone like us to help out, but why leave the boy here? Why tell us to take him back to his parents whenever he could talk? Everything he paid us for, he could have taken by force. Still, I won’t pretend to understand Arthur’s reasons, and neither does Tristan.”
“He says his name is Nathaniel.”
Evelyn kissed his neck.
“I told him his new name, and we’ll use it so long as he’s with us. No need to risk undue attention should we go out and about.”
Matthew grunted. Fair enough.
“It might be Arthur himself that came for him, though everything’s just a jumble when Tristan tells what happened. But I think you’re right. Those men weret up to no good. Could see it in their eyes.”
“So what do we do?”
Matthew sighed. He wished he knew. While he thought, he ran his rough fingers through her hair, enjoying its softness.
“We got to get him home, even if that means travelling all the way to Veldaren.”
“What if you stop in Felwood and deliver him to lord Gandrem? He’s always been a friend to the Gemcrofts.”
“So was Arthur.”
He was right, of course, and he could tell she knew it.
“Let us all go, then. I don’t want to be left here, and it won’t be safe for the kids, either.”
“Our livestock’ll die.”
“With how much Haern gave us, we could buy our farm back twice over.”
Matthew shook his head side to side, thinking of all the work he’d put into raising his cattle and pigs.
“Still no good reason to let them die, waste all they’re worth. Besides, me going to the city might be strange, but it ain’t unheard of. All of us packing up to go? If there’s more soldiers looking, and you know there are, then they’ll hear about it in a heartbeat. I’ll go alone, just me and the boy. He’s light enough. We can ride together, make good time.”
“We have no horses.”
“I’ll buy one from the Utters in the morning.”
Evelyn pulled her arms tight across her chest as if she were cold. She recognized that tone in his voice. He’d made up his mind, and it’d take tears and a hysterical fit from her to change it. She didn’t have it in her. They had to do something before more soldiers showed up looking for Tristan.
“Trevor’s old enough to look after most things,” Matthew continued, as if trying to reassure her. “And with the cold already breaking, we’ll easily last until spring on what wood we have. I’ll leave you half the coin, too, in case something happens. You can afford salt or meat if need be.”
“I know I can do it,” she snapped. “Don’t mean I want to, or will enjoy it. I’m scared, Matt, scared witless. What if men come looking while you’re gone?”