Hinterland

A GIRL WITH A WOODEN SWORD

Dart hurried down the spiraling flight of stairs. The fourth morning bell had already rung, echoing through the throat of Stormwatch Tower. As she ran, she hiked the edge of her cloak to keep from tripping.

Mustn’t be late…not again.

Pupp kept pace with her. Her ghostly companion trotted and bounded ahead down the steps, his fiery tongue lolling in the excitement of it all. His form passed through legs and cloaks, unimpeded and unsensed. Nobody could see Pupp, and only stone was solid enough to block his passage.

Dart was not so lucky.

At this hour, the central stair was crowded, thwarting her progress. Messengers dashed about in blue livery, burdened with clutched scrolls or shouldered satchels, as frantic to climb as Dart was to descend. The occasional Masters, their bald and tattooed heads bowed together, moved more sedately, rocks in the flowing stream of activity.

But most of those who shared the stairs were of Dart’s own caste: pages in their half cloaks, squires in their hoods, and towering over all, a jumbling crowd of full-blessed shadowknights. Dart’s brethren marched the stairs in all manner of moods. Some were cloaked and buried in matters that weighted their shoulders; others wore bits of bright colors, enjoying the freedom here. Only in Tashijan could knights walk bare-faced, free of their black cloaks and muffling masklins.

Here was their home.

And it had been Dart’s for going on a full turn of seasons.

Laughter and whispers, shouts and curses, accompanied Dart down the tower toward the practice yard. With the retinue from Chrismferry due in another four days and the festivities to follow, knights had been gathering back home, packing the place full. Even the outlying sections of the sprawling Citadel, long abandoned, had been reoccupied, swelling the ranks.

Along with the bustle came a thousand requests, suggestions, complaints, threats, and bribes, all rising like smoke to the castellan’s private hermitage at the top of the tower. And since Dart served as page to Castellan Vail, her duties had also multiplied, leaving little time for routine.

Like her training practice.

She carried a wooden sword tied to her waist. It was a far cry from the handsome swords of the truly knighted, those rare blades adorned with the black diamonds on their pommels. Still, hers was long enough to bump against her side and threaten to trip her at every step.

At last she reached the bottom of the wide stairs and broke into the cavernous hall beyond. She kept near the wall, skirting the milling crowds in the center.

“Hothbrin!”

She almost didn’t recognize the barked name, not even after a full year here. Then again, it was not really her name. Born an orphan, she had no surname. Only Dart, after the yellow and thorny dartweed that grew stubbornly between stones. Filling the void, Dart had borrowed her friend Laurelle’s family name, taking it on as a mark of their deep bond-though Laurelle was far away, back at Chrismferry, continuing to serve as the Hand of tears for the new regent, Tylar ser Noche.

“Hothbrin!”

Dart turned and spotted one of her fellow knights-in-training, a bristle-headed squire named Pyllor, aide to the swordmaster of the school. Though only two years older than Dart, he stood as tall as any knight, and taller than many. He strode toward her.

Pupp appeared from the throng and stepped between Pyllor and Dart. His molten form grew fiercer, reflecting Dart’s own mood. His mane of spikes bristled at Pyllor’s stormy approach.

“There you are!” Pyllor strode straight through Pupp and grabbed Dart by the shoulder. “Late again! Swordmaster Yuril ordered me to fetch you. By your heels or hair, she said.”

“I-I-I had to attend-”

“I-I-I.” Pyllor mocked her, silencing her. “It’s always about you . Just because you serve the castellan you think you can walk with your nose high and come and go as you please.”

Pyllor’s words could not be further from the truth. Dart’s service to the castellan offered her little freedom of movement or time. And she surely held herself in no higher regard because of it. In fact, the contrary was true. She always felt set apart from her peers, less prepared, always struggling to catch up with her studies and training.

But most importantly, Dart felt herself to be an impostor. She had not earned her place here at Tashijan. Her position was all a ruse to hide her behind the tall walls of the Citadel, to keep her safe and near at hand. Only a year ago, Dart had learned her true heritage, that she was a child born of two rogue gods. And while her humours flowed with none of the rich Graces of the gods, her blood carried a single blessing: the ability to whet Rivenscryr, the Godsword of Myrillia, into existence. Thus, she had been sent here, away from Chrismferry, away from the sword itself, to make it harder for both to be stolen at once.

Otherwise, she was no different from any other girl.

Only perhaps more lost and alone.

“Swordmaster Yuril has everyone laboring with drudges as punishment for your tardiness.”

“But why should the others pay-?”

“‘A knight is only as strong as the Order itself,’” Pyllor quoted with a disdainful smirk.

Dart had heard the same throughout her training. The true strength of the Order lay not in a single knight but in the breadth of the Order itself. As one failed, all suffered.

Such was the lesson being taught this morning.

Courtesy of Dart’s tardiness.

She needed no further prodding to hurry out of the tower and toward the tiers of training fields beyond. The pages apprenticed to the Order held the grounds farthest afield. Dart passed a group of squires practicing lunges on horseback, kicking up clods of mud, earning jeers and accolades from their peers. She sensed the deep brotherhood among them all. What would it be like to be so accepted?

Dart hurried on, eventually spotting her fellow knights-in-training. They were yoked like oxen to wooden and iron drudges, dragging the sleds across the frozen mud and yellow grass, a hard exercise to strengthen back and legs.

Overseeing their labor, Swordmaster Yuril stood with her arms crossed, a pipe of blackleaf clenched between her teeth. Though the woman’s dark hair was streaked with gray, she remained whip-thin and hard of countenance. She heard Dart’s approach and turned to face the late pupil.

“Ah, Hothbrin, good of you to join us.”

Dart dropped to one knee, bowed her head, then regained her feet. “My duties-”

“-are here,” Yuril said. “Not up in the castellan’s hermitage. Castellan Vail knows this as well as I. And you can tell her that from me.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Yuril whistled around the edge of her pipe. “Enough with the drudges! Gather round!”

With grateful groans, Dart’s peers slipped yokes from sore shoulders and hobbled across the field. Dart shied from their hard-eyed glares. All knew whom to blame for their sore morning, but they all also knew better than to complain aloud. That would come later. When they were out from under the baleful eye of Swordmaster Yuril.

“We’ll start today with basic form and position, then proceed with a few sparring matches.”

They lined up in rows of four. Dart wanted to slink toward the back, but the swordmaster would not let her so easily shirk away. She was made to stand at the front of one row. For a full ring of the bell, they ran through the basic forms of defense and offense: Swayback Feint, Dogtoed Parry, Cusp-to-Cusp, Trailing Hilt, Thrusted Lash, and a blur of others.

Dart tried her best, but her lack of practice showed in the dropped point of her blade during Jackman’s Tie and the tremble in her wrist as she moved from Honeynest to Sweeper’s Row. Swordmaster Yuril corrected each mistake. She snapped out with a cane, striking Dart’s wooden sword, stinging her fingers, making her repeat the form.

At these moments, all eyes were on her. Dart felt the weight of their attention, sensed the ill will, the bitter amusement. Tears threatened to rise, but she refused to relent.

Finally she reached the last form, a complicated dance of wrist and steel named Naethryn’s Folly. It was a feint used to disarm an opponent. It was a risky maneuver. If not performed flawlessly, the dance would end with your own sword on the ground. Still, if you could lure your opponent into the dance and not fail, it was almost impossible to counter.

Dart did her best to perform the exacting series of moves.

And failed.

A final twist and her hilt slipped from her tired fingers. Her sword spun into the mud.

Laughter applauded her mishap.

“Disarmed by the wind,” Pyllor said as he strode across the field, arms behind his back, plainly imitating the swordmaster he idolized.

Yuril glowered at Dart, exhaling a trail of smoke from around her pipe’s stem. “Collect your sword, Hothbrin.” She turned her back on Dart, not even bothering to have her repeat the form this time, as if recognizing the impossibility. “We’ll move on to some open sparring now. I’ll be studying each of you to see how you have learned to apply the forms to actual swordplay. In the field of battle, you’ll need to flow smoothly from one to another, to recognize the waxing of one form, to react accordingly, to counter with another.”

The group quickly paired up. Dart soon found herself alone, standing forlornly with sword in hand.

Yuril nodded to Pyllor. “You’ll spar with her.”

Pyllor’s eyes widened in surprise. He was five years her senior in swordsmanship. But he merely nodded. “As you wish.” The pairing was beneath him, but still a glint of wicked delight flashed in his eyes.

Yuril lined the combatants around the field and raised an arm in the air. “Take your stances!”

Dart backed a step, trying her best to settle into a ready guard. She was all too aware of her opponent’s weight, reach, and skill. Would her humiliation never end?

“Swords up!” Yuril barked. “Begin!”

Pyllor attacked immediately. He step-lunged, crackling fast. Dart barely got her guard up, parrying his sword aside. The tip of his sword sailed past her ear. She flinched when she should have taken the advantage with a counterattack.

Pyllor sprang back deftly, turning his shoulder and striking down with his blade. The strength of the impact knocked Dart’s sword almost to the mud. Pyllor rocked forward and slammed Dart square in the chest with the point of his sword, hard enough to knock her back.

She tripped and fell onto her backside.

Pyllor stood over her.

Dart rubbed where he had struck, knowing it would bruise. If the blade had been steel instead of wood, she would be dead.

Around her the clack-clacking of other practice swords echoed. She was the first defeated. In a matter of breaths.

Yuril rolled her eyes and surveyed the others.

Dart regained her feet and stared glumly across the field. There was much crude hacking and slashing, bouts of brawn over skill, but several of her peers demonstrated flashes of talent: a turned feint, a roundhouse parry, a double thrust.

Yuril called out a few rare compliments-which usually caused the receiver to stumble and lose his match, but the loss was greeted with embarrassed grins.

“Again!” Yuril commanded.

Dart picked up her sword. Two more matches and she was on the ground again, favoring a stinging wrist slap. Pyllor was not holding back-neither with his skill nor with his muscle.

Tears threatened, but Dart let her anger pull her back to her feet.

Pupp, bristling and fiery, stalked around her ankles. Dart waved him back with her free hand. Though without substance, Pupp could sometimes rile himself enough to have some impact on his own. Dart didn’t want him interfering.

“Again!”

Dart took her stance. When the call to start was shouted, she took the lead for the first time, lunging out with a feint to Pyllor’s sword. He countered, trying to smack her blade back. She anticipated and nipped her sword point under the swing of his blade.

Pyllor’s eyes widened in surprise, caught off guard.

Dart lunged into the opening, going for a tag to Pyllor’s torso.

Instead, Pyllor reached with his free hand and grabbed her wooden sword, trapping it. He yanked it closer, dragging Dart off her toes. As she stumbled toward him, he clubbed the hilt of his sword into Dart’s chin.

Her head snapped back, and she fell hard onto the frozen field.

Yuril had missed the maneuver, witnessing only the end.

“Hothbrin, never close guard! Learn to keep your distance!”

The swordmaster turned away again.

Pyllor sneered down at her.

He had cheated and now gloated over his ill-gotten victory. If they had been sparring with steel, he would never have been able to grab a razor-edged blade like that. He would’ve lost fingers, and Dart’s lunge would have struck home.

“That’s enough for this morning!” Yuril called out. “Off to your bread-boards! I’ll see you all on the morrow. And you’d better practice your stances!”

Yuril barked the last while staring straight at Dart.

A few chuckles rose from the others.

With the lessons over, everyone headed across the cold fields toward the warm towers and halls. Most left in groups or pairs. Only Dart walked within a mantle of disgrace thick enough to hold off all others.

A final glance back showed Pyllor with Yuril. The swordmaster’s back was to Dart, but she seemed to be sharing a few hard words with the young squire. Pyllor opened his mouth to offer some protest, but something in Yuril’s face made him close his lips. His eyes, though, noted Dart’s attention and flashed with fury at her. Plainly the discourse concerned Pyllor’s sparring match.

Dart quickly glanced back around.

Had the swordmaster witnessed his deceitful grab of Dart’s sword after all? Or was he merely being scolded for being so hard on such a lesser pupil?

Either way, the black cloud around Dart grew a few shades lighter. Even Pupp shook out of his hunkered tread and trotted more brightly.

Dart felt a renewed determination settle through her. She would practice, every night. She would not end up on her backside in the mud again.

Still, her gaze stretched upward, following the rise of Stormwatch Tower into the steel gray sky. Up near the top lay the hermitage of the castellan, where Kathryn ser Vail held sway. Dart had her responsibilities there, too. The knighting ceremony for Tylar was only days away. There were a thousand details to attend to.

Yet despite her duties here on the field and up in the tower, Dart had never felt more alone. She stared again at her laughing, jostling peers with a heavy heart. She missed her friend Laurelle, sharing a bed, talking in whispers all through the night. She had no friend like that here.

No one even knew her real name.

Pupp must have sensed the clouds about her shoulders, for he bounced back to her, biting at her training sword, his teeth passing harmlessly through the wood. She could almost hear his determined growls.

A small, tired smile formed.

She had at least one friend here.

“Let’s go, Pupp-we’ve got a long climb.”

Dart hurried up the stairs, around and around. After so many flights, her attention drifted, caught in the press and flow of the busy day-then a shout startled her back to alertness.

“Mind the robe!”

Dart danced around the rotund form of Master Hesharian, head of the Council of Masters. He huffed on the stairs ahead of her, filling the passage, one hand on the wall to support himself. His bald pate shone with a slick of sweat, highlighting the eleven sigils tattooed around the crown of his head, marking his mastered disciplines.

He must have important duties with Warden Fields to have climbed so far out of his subterranean den. The levels of the masters were said to delve as deep below the land as Stormwatch climbed into the sky. It was the masters’ sole domain. Down below lay their domiciles, alchemy labs, and storehouses. Dart had heard rumors of Hesharian’s personal menagerie, where he studied new alchemies on beasts of the field.

Dart pushed past him with distaste, earning a disgruntled glare from the massive man. He climbed with another master, one Dart didn’t know, an ancient man in a muddied traveling cloak. He also noted Dart’s passage. His gaze fell upon her. She glanced up-then shuddered, almost tripping on a step. His eyes were the color of milk. He should’ve been blind, so scaled did his eyes appear, but Dart sensed the cold weight of his attention. For a breath, she heard the flutter of ravens’ wings, taken back to another moment of terror, of violation.

Then his gaze drifted off, freeing her.

She hurried past, followed just as quickly by Pupp, his stubby tail tucked low. She was relieved to finally reach the twenty-second flight, where both the Warden of Tashijan and Castellan Vail had their rooms. She fled the stairs, happy to be rid of the midday crowd ascending and descending Stormwatch Tower, though at this lofty height, most of the crowd had thinned. The only folk still on the stairs were those who had matters to settle with Castellan Vail or Warden Fields.

Like the two masters.

Glancing back, Dart saw them enter the stone hallway.

What matters had drawn them so high?

Dart turned away from them, toward the tall doors that marked the Warden’s Eyrie. The doors were open but flanked by a pair of knights. Dart noted the crimson stitching at the shoulder of their cloaks. A perfect circle crisscrossed with two slashes. The sigil of the Fiery Cross, marking them as the warden’s men.

A small crowd gathered outside the open door. They were cloaked and dressed in shades of browns and blacks, plainly finery, but gone a bit tattered.

A voice called from inside the doorway, “Again it is an honor to have a Hand of Lord Balger join us for the ceremonies! My manservant, Lowl, will take you to your rooms, where you may refresh after your trip. He’ll see that your trunks are unloaded from the flippercraft and brought to your rooms.”

Dart stepped against the wall to allow them to pass. The retinue from Foulsham Dell had already arrived, undoubtedly early enough to take full advantage of the flow of wine and ale. She also noted that Lord Balger, god of that realm, had sent only one of his eight Hands to attend Tylar’s knighting. A veiled slight. Plainly there remained ill will between the god of the Dell, a realm of brigands and cutthroats, and the new regent.

Over the past moon, bets had been placed among the knights on which realms would send emissaries and how many Hands from each would be in attendance. Dart eyed the passage of the lone Hand from the Dell, a pot-bellied man with a palsied gait. Few would make money on this wager.

Once the party had passed, Dart continued down the hall.

The pair of black-cloaked guards, who even here kept the wrap of their masklins over the lower half of their faces, barely noted her passage.

Unfortunately she did not escape another’s attention.

“Page Hothbrin…”

She froze.

“A moment, if you please.”

Dart turned to find Warden Fields standing a few steps past his threshold. He was a commanding figure, tall in black boots and trousers, with a gray shirt and silver buttons. His manner was casual as he passed some trifling gift that the Hand of Lord Balger had presented to him to another manservant.

Despite the few streaks of gray in his dark auburn hair, tied and braided with black leather, Argent ser Fields remained solid of muscle and stolid of countenance. He studied Dart for a measuring breath. His attention was disconcerting; one eye had been lost during an acclaimed campaign against a ravening hinterking. The old scar was now covered by a plate of bone, taken, it was said, from the skull of that same king.

Dart backed a step-but she could not escape that easily.

Warden Fields waved her forward with a warm smile. “Fear not, child. I won’t bite.”

Swallowing hard, Dart drifted toward him. She could not refuse. Despite the difficulties last year, he remained the leader of the Shadowknights. She stepped across the threshold and entered his Eyrie.

Argent spoke to the knights at the door. “Have Master Hesharian and his guest indulge me a moment-when they arrive.”

Dart had noted that the large master remained halfway down the hall, greeting Balger’s Hand, wheezing and wiping a brow.

Argent closed the door, nodded to her again, and strode into the room. A fire crackled in a large hearth. The windows that overlooked a central courtyard were heavily draped against the cold. There were few furnishings. Even the back corner of the room had its rugs rolled back to bare stone, with a rack of weapons against one wall. A spot for the warden to spar and keep his skills honed. It was said he remained one of the more formidable swordsmen.

But Dart noted the layer of dust on the weapons rack.

Argent had turned his attention to other battles of late.

Keeping his place here in the Eyrie.

Though he had been voted into position with almost unanimous backing of the knights and masters, all knew by what means he had stretched to capture Tylar when the regent was an outlawed godslayer. All had seen the petrified body of the warden’s former right-hand man, Symon ser Jaklar, accidentally cursed to stone by Argent’s own hand, wielding a sword black with corrupted Graces, a forbidden weapon. The disgrace went far toward unseating the man-but seemingly not far enough.

Symon’s form had disappeared into the masters’ domain, deep under the Citadel, supposedly to seek some way to cure him, but more likely to whisk the corruption away from all eyes, to let time dull the horror.

So with the backing of the likes of Master Hesharian, high master of the Council of Masters, Argent had initially kept his perch here in the Eyrie. And now his position grew more solid with the passing of every moon. Memories ran short when all of Myrillia was holding its breath and searching over its shoulders. Rumors and stories continued to abound: of strange beasts plaguing outlying realms, of madness among gods, of disappearances across the lands.

And as this long winter stretched on, Argent found his support growing. Before his disgrace, he had founded the Fiery Cross among the knights. Over the recent centuries, the shadowknights had been dwindling in both numbers and esteem, seemingly becoming no more than couriers and sell-swords. Argent had promised to reverse that course, to return the knights to glory, to become its own force among the gods, all symbolized under the banner of the Fiery Cross.

Such a conceit found fertile ground in many hearts.

Even corruption could not fully unroot it.

And now this latest ploy: to return to Tylar his shadowcloak and sword. The offer was made more to help Argent than Tylar. But it could not be refused. Such a gesture of unification was necessary. During these dark times, Tashijan needed to be strong, for there were greater dangers than those represented by Argent ser Fields.

“Come inside. I wish to share a few private words with you.” Argent motioned her forward. “Knight to knight.”

Dart remained where she was, head bowed, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. The warden had never once even spoken to her. To all, even the warden, Dart was no more than some page scooped up by Castellan Vail, a servant and courier. The warden remained ignorant of her true role and the secret hidden in her blood and heritage.

So what could he want with her now?

Argent crossed to a small table with a silver platter of brandied nuts and dried baby plums. Fingers waved at the fare. “Please help yourself. I imagine Mistress Yuril has worn you thin and hungry.”

Dart’s belly was indeed empty, but she made no move, mumbling something that was incomprehensible even to her own ears.

Argent plucked up a plum and rolled it between his fingers. “I’ve heard from a certain squire that you seem to be lapsing in your training.”

Dart’s eyes flicked up, her face reddening.

“We can’t have that. Perhaps it would be best if I freed you from your duties with the castellan.”

“Ser,” Dart said, suddenly finding her voice, “please, no!”

“No, I don’t suppose you’d like to lose such an esteemed position. A page serving the castellan. It is a rare honor.”

Dart’s brow crinkled. What was all this about?

“I’m certain the deficit to your training could be corrected…with a tutor, perhaps a bit of fortifying Grace…but such an expense. I daresay it must be beyond your means, yes?”

Dart just bowed her head. She could not stop her knees from shaking. Across the room, Pupp wandered about, poking his nose into corners.

“But in the long run, it might be to the Order’s best suit to have such an esteemed member as yourself, one serving the castellan, to avail herself of such a boon.”

“That would be most generous,” Dart said.

Argent popped the plum between his lips and chewed for a moment, nodding as if in private conversation with himself. He finally spoke again. “Still, what is a boon if unearned? What sort of lesson would that be for a knight-in-training?”

“Ser?”

Argent sighed. “With all the tumult of late, the castellan and I have found so few moments to sit and share our thoughts on matters of Tashijan’s well-being. That is certainly not good for the Order. Perhaps as recompense for the additional expense of tutors and drips and drabs of special Graces, you, Page Hothbrin, could serve an additional duty-bringing to me Castellan Vail’s thoughts and words on matters of interest to the Order.”

“I’m sure, ser-”

Warden Fields silenced her with a stern look. “Of course, we wouldn’t want the castellan to know of your duties. I’d hate for Castellan Vail to think herself neglectful in making time for private meetings here at the Eyrie. She has enough to juggle as it is. So this would be between just the two of us.”

Dart’s mouth dried, and her heart climbed to her throat.

“If this is too burdensome, I’m sure we could find another page who might serve the castellan with more alacrity.”

“No, ser…”

Argent smiled again. The warden was asking her to spy upon the castellan, plying her with promises of boons while threatening to displace her from her position. All the while couching it as for the good of the Order.

“Fine, fine…so it’s settled.” He strode back to the door. “I won’t keep you from your duties any longer.”

He opened the door, and Dart slid through as soon as there was space enough for her. She came close to colliding with Master Hesharian.

“Mind the robe!” he called to her.

But Dart was already away, ducking from the mysterious master in the traveling cloak. She hurried down the hall to the next set of doors, those that opened into the castellan’s private hermitage. Though neighbors on this high level, the occupants of the two sets of rooms could not be further apart in stance and outlook.

She knocked on the door, keeping her eyes fixed to the tight grain of the stout ironwood planks, willing it to open.

Pupp simply ran straight through the door.

Lucky dog.

Moments later, Dart was paid for her patience.

“Uncle Rogger!”

Dart dashed into the castellan’s hermitage, cloak flagging behind her.

The door had barely been opened when she spotted the former thief. It had taken a startled second look, though, to recognize him. Rogger had shorn his usual ragged beard into straight edges, his peppered red hair was oiled and combed, and he wore the sashed purple robe of a learned scribe, those blessed with Grace to write letters sealed and coded with alchemies. Even all his fingers were dyed purple to the first knuckle. Such scribes could be found throughout Tashijan, especially of late.

Rogger had come in disguise.

Kathryn ser Vail rose from a seat by the crackling hearth as Dart flew into the room. She slipped a flap of cloth over something resting atop the table by the hearth. It hid an object the size of a small melon.

A third occupant of the room, Gerrod Rothkild, esteemed master and ally, remained seated, leaning over the table, encased in his usual bronzed armor.

Dart caught the whiff of some foul alchemies-then she was in Rogger’s arms. She hugged him tight to her. It had been an entire year. Too long. He chuckled at the fervency of her greeting.

She didn’t care. Of those who knew the truth about her, there were few who seemed to care less.

“Unhand me, foul wench!” he said after returning her hug.

Dart grinned and backed away.

Rogger searched around the room, then held out an arm. A bit of sweetcrackle appeared in his fingers as if out of the very air. “I think I owe someone else a greeting. Here you lice-ridden slab of mutton.” He bent, resting his other hand on a knee, dangling out the tasty tidbit. “Now where are you?”

Dart pointed toward the table where Castellan Vail stood. “Pupp is over there.”

“Ah,” Rogger said, straightening. He shared a strange glance with Castellan Vail. “Mayhap he should be away from there. Not something to be nosing, that’s for sure.”

Gerrod stirred, collected the covered object, and stood. “I will take the artifact down to my rooms among the masters. See what I can make of it.”

“Thank you, Gerrod.”

“And be careful with the skaggin’ thing,” Rogger added.

With a nod to the thief and a half bow to the castellan, Gerrod strode off with a whir of the mekanicals that drove his armor. Though Dart had never seen the man’s face, hidden behind bronze, all knew his story, how his body had been wasted by the alchemies necessary to attain the fifteen masterfields, the most disciplines ever mastered by a single man. Now he was forever dependent on the blessed mekanicals of his armor for support.

Once Gerrod was gone, Rogger waved Dart to one of the three seats by the hearth. Kathryn took the other. Rogger settled into the third, resting his heels by the fire. He tossed the bit of sweetcrackle to Dart for nibbling.

“What are you going to do now, Rogger?” Kathryn asked.

“I figured I’d stick tight at least until Tylar gets his cloak and sword back. Meantime, I’ll shed these robes, slink into the lower realms of these black halls, and listen about. Have you ever figured out who slew that young knight last year?”

Kathryn’s countenance darkened. She wore a knight’s black leathers, as if she had come in from a recent ride. Even her hair, a dark golden red, was woven into a horseman’s knot at the nape of her neck. It was one of the few ways the castellan relaxed these days, on horseback, the wind in her cloak. Rogger’s arrival must have thwarted a midday ride.

“No. And I fear we may never discover the truth.”

Dart had not seen the murder firsthand, but she had heard the tale in great detail: a knight’s body found slaughtered, sacrificed, drained of blood, alongside a pit of burnt bones. The murderers remained free.

“The trail has gone dead cold by now,” Kathryn explained. “Even Tracker Lorr has given up after spending an entire moon in the warren of sewers that drain the city.”

Rogger grunted. “And I thought my travels were harsh.”

“And now we have the abandoned sections of the city swelling with returning knights and rooms being readied for all the various guests. Any tracks we might have missed or overlooked are surely trampled, swept away, or muddied.”

Kathryn shook her head in defeat.

“So no way to pin it on One Eye?” Rogger said.

Dart knew that the castellan highly suspected Argent ser Fields in the deaths and disappearances. Especially with the warden wielding a cursed sword in his hunt for Tylar. Still, suspicions were not proof that could be brought before any adjudicators. Argent had even passed inspection by soothmancers, bloody-fingered men of fiery alchemies who could probe the truth in one’s heart.

Still, Kathryn was sure the Fiery Cross was somehow connected to the sacrifice. The fire pit, the circle of blood, and the spread-eagled man-all suggestive of some ritual with the Cross. But now they had all slipped away.

“Have there been any more disappearances?” Rogger asked.

“We’re keeping a daily roll now, especially among our younger knights. It seems Perryl was the last to vanish.”

Perryl ser Corriscan was another of their allies, a young knight new to his stripes, one who was taken from his room, leaving only a splatter of blood on his bed. Dart sensed this was who Kathryn sought more than any.

“With all the new knights arriving,” Rogger said, “perhaps a few words will slip, a bit of bragging done under the hem of a cloak. I’ll see what I can discern.”

“Be careful.”

Rogger seemed to read something in Kathryn’s hollowed gaze. “We’re not defeated yet. If One Eye is to blame, or those in his service, we’ll bring him low.”

Her expression didn’t change. “With all that’s happening beyond our walls, maybe that isn’t even for the best. Rather than looking back, seeking to place blame, maybe it is time to make peace. Shaking Argent out of his Eyrie will weaken us most when we need to be at our strongest.”

Dart’s eyes widened, shocked. She had never heard the castellan express such a sentiment.

Even Rogger was struck silent.

“No!” Dart said into the sullen quiet, remembering the artful bit of deceit and bribery just perpetrated against her. “It’s a false strength! He doesn’t seek the good of Myrillia, only his own power.” Dart related what had occurred just moments before in the Warden’s Eyrie.

Now it was the castellan’s eyes that widened. “Argent sought to set you up as a spy here? In my own hermitage?”

Dart nodded vigorously. “Do not let your guard down, Castellan Vail. Better to be few and true of heart than legion and corrupt.”

Rogger chuckled. “From the mouths of babes come the simplest wisdoms.”

Kathryn sagged back into her seat, but she nodded. “I’ve been too long in this tower.”

“But you’re not alone-never alone,” Rogger said. “And Tylar will be here in another day or so.”

These last words only seemed to wound more than heal. Dart had known the castellan long enough to recognize the pained narrowing of her lips, the tightening at the corners of her eyes. Matters between Kathryn and her former betrothed were even more complicated than between castellan and warden.

Rogger seemed blind to all this. “Once Tylar is here, all will be clearer.”

Dart sensed nothing could be further from the truth.

But this time she stayed silent.

Much later, as the sun sank and the first evening bell rang, Dart closed the door to her private room. Sore and tired, she shed her half cloak and wooden sword and pulled out of her boots. She could hardly think.

After Rogger left, Dart had found the rest of the day a blur of errands for the castellan. It seemed as each bell rang, bringing them only that much closer to the day of Tylar’s ceremony, more duties befell them all. Dart also had to attend a class explaining proper horse grooming and the care of riding tack, where a surly gelding had stepped on her toe. She still limped. It made the final climb up to the top of Stormwatch all that much harder.

But here her room waited. The room was really a closet, formerly a maid’s chamber adjacent to the castellan’s hermitage, but it was gloriously all her own. She even had a slitted window that looked out on the giant wyrmwood tree that graced the central courtyard.

As Dart limped to the window in her stockings, Pupp stretched, circled a few times at the foot of her bed, then settled to the floor.

Dart stared at the lesser moon, a sickle slicing slowly through the leafless limbs of the great wyrmwood. A few stars shone with cold light. She stared, lost in her own bleary thoughts of things she had to remember for the following morning. Another two retinues would arrive tomorrow-from Five Forks and Nevering.

Finally, her warm breath fogged the cold pane and she turned away.

With her thoughts on those arriving, her mind drifted to another worry, one she had been shying away from over the past half-moon since she had traveled with Castellan Vail to Oldenbrook. Dart again pictured the bronze boy, formerly a fellow student at Chrismferry, now a handservant of Jessup. She recalled how his emerald eyes had sparked when she’d last seen him, half-crouched in the High Wing.

Would he come? Would he be one of the emissaries Lord Jessup sent to witness the knighting here?

Dart found the possibility unsettling. He had recognized her, knew her from their days at the school. It would be dangerous to associate with him. Still…a part of her warmed at the thought.

Sighing, she shook her head.

She crossed back to her bed, but left the blankets where they were tucked. Her day was not quite over. She took up her sword again.

Alone in her room, she lifted the sword, shifted her knee, and began pacing through all the forms. With no one watching her every turn and twist, she relaxed into the rhythm, at first haltingly, then with more confidence. She sensed for the first time how one form flowed into another. Again and again she ran the paces, slowly coming to realize that it wasn’t the sword that defended and attacked-it was one’s own body, one’s own heart.

Deaf to the ringing of the evening bells, Dart continued, long into the night, dancing with her sword.

Alone.

Still, a small part of her wondered.

Would he come?