Castle Chrenste. His family’s home. Something stirred inside him as he thought of all the generations of Torchanes kings who had lived and died within those walls.
You are of the senior paternal line.
He wondered again if his father had known about his royal blood. It was important. He and Audrey had a right to know where they had come from. He suddenly missed his little sister very much, and wished she could be here with him to see this. If only there had been some way he could have told her—just her, and nobody else ...
As they moved down the river, the walls rose higher to block his view of the city, street by street, until only the basilica domes and the castle towers still surmounted the battlements. The water gates stood open, massive white stone slabs channeling the offshoot of the river into the city. Two large guardhouses commanded either side of the channel, and pairs of soldiers in green tabards stood at ceremonial attention. Green flags of the royal house of Carhlaan, emblazoned with the silver wolf, flew from the walls, gates, and guardhouses. Graegor could imagine the flags purple, and the wolf a falcon, but he couldn’t take the next step and imagine himself a prince.
Well, you’re not a prince. You’re a sorcerer.
Lord Contare still stood at the rail, and at that moment lifted an eyebrow at him. “The smell is less pungent the further we go.”
Graegor hadn’t consciously noticed any smell, but he did now, the underlying river-as-sewer stench he’d learned to associate with Farre the first time his father had taken him on the trip. And now he could also hear the underlying murmur of a thousand separate sounds fused together into Chrenste’s voice. Closest were the shouts along warehouse wharves where barges were unloading, and a bit further away, he could hear music—but not the harps and gitars he knew from Lakeland. Then a splash broke through the other noises, and the reek of fish through the other smells, as a net being lifted by a hoist broke and all the catch tumbled back into the water.
At a large landing a few hundred yards past the water gates, their floating inn drifted to a stop and the crewmen leaped up to the dock to tie up. A real inn, painted with the same white and red trim as their boat, sat back from the landing, and servants and guests started coming out to greet the passengers as they disembarked. Lord Contare seemed in no hurry, and all the other passengers sought him out for farewells. They had all left before Karl appeared on deck with the packs, and Graegor hurried to take his own. It still felt awkward to be waited on.
Once he had shouldered his pack, he looked back at the landing, where a man wearing blue and white livery now stood at the heads of four horses. The man, who seemed about forty, had short-cropped black hair, and his badge showed him to be a magus. “My lord,” he called, “please forgive the delay.”
“We made good time,” Lord Contare said easily as he strode up the ramp, and Graegor and Karl followed. The man bowed deeply.
“Magus Andru.” Lord Contare gestured Graegor forward. “This is my successor, Lord Graegor Torchanes.”
It was the first time Graegor had been introduced as such, and it startled him. “My lord,” Andru murmured, bowing again, and Graegor nodded helplessly. There were still other people in the inn’s courtyard, but they spared only idle glances. Apparently in this part of the city bows were used in greetings as often as not.
They moved to the horses, and Graegor took the reins of one of the two browns. The mare whuffed softly at him before falling in line behind Andru, with Lord Contare behind him and Karl bringing up the rear. The mare was strong and fine, and she held her head high as they moved up the street.
And up it was, the slope of First Hill, steep enough to require switchbacks and even stairs in some places along their route. It couldn’t be the main route—it was much too narrow, too lightly traveled, and too quiet. Graegor could see high walls and trees enclosing the backs of gardens. Then they passed through a narrow gate in a wall even higher than the others—a postern gate, he realized, leading to what had to be the palace grounds, because they had reached another garden at the top of the hill.
A tower rose in front of them, so close it took Graegor a startled moment to realize that it actually wasn’t very high. It was round, tapered, and joined at the base by a long, enclosed causeway to another tower beyond. That tower was enormous, one of the four watchtowers of Castle Chrenste, and it filled half the sky. Graegor sat his horse and stared, like the backward rural peasant he was.
How could I belong here? What am I doing here?
There were people around him, all wearing blue and white livery. Someone was taking his horse’s reins, someone else was taking his pack. Graegor dismounted, but held onto his saddle with one hand and the quarterstaff with the other, the sense of unreality growing thicker around him. Everyone near him seemed to be moving in a different direction, and above him the watchtower loomed higher and higher ...
Lord Contare stepped in front of him. Immediately the dreamlike chaos receded, as if a shade had been pulled across a window. The servants fell silent, and Graegor could feel their averted eyes as he steadied himself with a deep breath and let go of the horse, gripping the staff closer. “I’m all right,” he murmured. Lord Contare nodded, then turned and gestured to a staircase up to a pair of open doors.
Through the doors, the foyer of the small tower was itself small, but marble sheathed the floor and the next staircase, which curved up the wall to the higher levels. One of the servants, a boy no older than Audrey, paused in an open door with Graegor’s pack and glanced from Graegor’s quarterstaff to Graegor, then to Lord Contare.
“The servants’ rooms are on this floor,” the old sorcerer explained. “I must apologize, but since there are no guest suites, you’ll be sleeping down here. Zacharei and I didn’t think all the way ahead to you when we designed the tower.”
The idea of a small bed in a small room somehow made Graegor feel better—a little more grounded. “I had no home when you found me, sir,” he said, and he gave his quarterstaff to the boy. “I’ll take any bed with a roof over it.”
Lord Contare smiled, then started up the stairs, so Graegor followed. They emerged into a room that took up the whole width of the tower, divided by screens or by steps raising one area and lowering another. Every few feet along the outer wall was a big square window. A dining table and chairs sat near the sunken center of the room, on a thick, fancy carpet. There were chairs, small tables, bookshelves, and potted plants—many, many potted plants, on the tables, on the floor, on the shelves, on the windowsills, and hanging from the ceiling, scenting the air with green. But Lord Contare didn’t linger, instead continuing up the next staircase, and again Graegor followed.
The top floor of the tower was filled with light. The draperies were lifted up from a continuous circle of square windows that looked out at the city, the sea, the adjoining castle, and the wide blue sky. Karl was there, in the middle of unpacking. He brought Lord Contare a boot jack as the sorcerer sat down, with apparent relief, in a large upholstered chair not far from the curtained bed. A table and two chairs, the tub and privy closet, and a spiral staircase in the middle of the room were all accompanied by small chests and cabinets, and by plants—again, so many plants, large and small, in every shade of green.
Lord Contare saw Graegor’s puzzled expression. “Plants feed energy to maintain static spells,” he explained.
“That’s why you have so many plants? They help with spells?”
He smiled. “Yes. Also, I like plants.” He indicated the spiral staircase and the trapdoor in the ceiling. “That leads to the roof. You can go up if you like.”
The salt scent of the bay was strong as Graegor emerged onto the roof, and he could feel the stiff rush of the wind. On high poles, three flags flapped and whipped in the air’s confusion, and in the middle of the platform was a bolted-down tripod, presumably for a telescope. But Graegor went immediately to the eastern balustrade to look once more at the castle.
The western watchtower of Castle Chrenste stood over Lord C
ontare’s tower like a mother over a child. The squared-off battlements and green Carhlaan banners seemed almost black against the bright grey of the sky. To its left, lowered by distance, was the north tower. If Graegor looked way over to the right he could see the top of the south tower behind a stand of tall evergreens, but the east tower was hidden behind the bulk of the castle walls.
His eyes descended along the west tower’s length, picking out slits of windows scattered across its upper half, finding grooves and scars in the granite blocks that perhaps were remnants of the Last Siege. The covered causeway that connected it to Lord Contare’s tower was roofed in dark green slate, with copper gutters to channel the rainfall. He remembered glimpsing a flower garden on the other side, but the ground here was simply green lawn, neatly trimmed. And quiet. He could still hear the voice of the city, and even human noises from the castle itself, but all was muffled, unable to cross into this sanctuary.
Again he wished that Audrey could be here. This was their heritage, where their family had begun—had built—had ruled. Had ended. Torchanes kings had watched the masons mortaring the stones into place, course after course; Torchanes princes had raced each other up and down the staircases; Torchanes queens and princesses had watched at the windows for ships bringing their men home from war.
His fingers hurt, and he realized that he was gripping the balustrade very tightly. He let go, but caught hold again when a wave of dizziness swept over him. His muscles seized up with conflicting impulses—to just sit down and breathe, and to get up and run as fast as he could.
Be still. Be calm.
The salty wind stirred past him again. Because looking at water was soothing, he turned southeast, toward the bay, and the sea beyond.
It was nothing like the lakes and rivers he had known his whole life. Past the ring of ancient breakwater stones, the Central Sea stretched to the eastern horizon, to the southern headlands, and to the mighty river in the north. Together the sheer pale of the moving sea and the hazy sky utterly dwarfed the city and harbor. Graegor could hear the thin screech of birds—seagulls, he supposed—but they were only specks and flickers in the clear air between him and the immensity of water.
He wondered what it might have been like to grow up here. With so much wind, he would have learned to build a sailboat instead of a canoe. In such a big city, he never would have had to leave in order to find something to do with his life.
Ships moved toward the wharves, and it was interesting to look at them, because he’d never seen a real sailing vessel with more than one mast. From here they looked quite a lot like the toys and pictures he had seen, and he was eager to explore one.
Far off, he could see another ship. Or two? He squinted into the light and wind, then crossed the platform to the other side, but the blur on the horizon remained a blur. More ships would be coming into port, this close to Solstice—schooners carrying dispatches, freighters bringing in cargo, barges from the pearl farms, yachts with noble passengers. From this distance the blur could be any of those, or some other kind of ship altogether.
As he looked out toward the barely visible ship or ships, he remembered Lord Contare asking him to try to “stretch” his vision. He wondered if he could.
You can. You already did—you were in a trance, but you did it. Try it again.
He would try it.
When he had been sitting in the tavern in Farre, he had been very tired, unable to keep his thoughts organized, and they had drifted into the current of his latent power. He set his feet shoulder-width apart and rested his arms on the balustrade, relaxing his shoulders and breathing, as Lord Contare had taught him, without expanding his chest too much, but inhaling deeper and deeper inside. As he breathed, he mentally recited familiar prayers, to center his mind on rhythm and repetition. Holy Lord Abban, bless me with Your wisdom and Your strength. Help me to see.
The bright light and the expanse of the view were hard to contend with at first. It could not be more different from the close darkness he had peered through when he had done this before. But gradually, the motion of the sea helped carry his thoughts. Grey wrinkles in the pale blue canvas flowed in a pattern fore and aft, fore and aft, easing toward shore. The tide was coming in. There were many more birds than he had first noticed, and so many kinds that he had never seen before. They wheeled over the waves, turning as one, as if entire flocks had all had the same idea at once.
He could see ships near the harbor. They seemed no closer; it was not quite like looking through a telescope. But they seemed clearer now, details made miniature by distance, but distinct. He was doing it. He was using his power!—He quickly backed away from the exhilaration, afraid it would literally break the spell, and concentrated his sight on the line between sea and sky, where he had glimpsed the mystery ships.
There. Three. Three vessels, three masts on each of the first two, two masts on the third. Not fishermen. Merchants with an escort? Was there still piracy in the Central Sea? All the pirate stories he’d heard supposedly happened long ago. The sails on the three ships were all set full, plain white, no emblem. Was that normal?
He hoped he could hold onto this for a while. This was incredible, seeing so much from so far away. And eerie, because he couldn’t hear any accompanying sounds. When he tried to hear more, he felt the world wobble and tilt. He refocused on his breathing, on his vision, and everything slowly steadied, but he understood now—he shouldn’t try to do two things at once.
The ships were odd. Their proportions seemed different from those in the harbor, and it didn’t seem to be due to perspective. He willed his eyes to see more, and soon he could make out the sailors. They wore sleeveless tunics, showing the dusky cast of their olive skin.
Kroldons. From the southern continent, like Aedselis and Tolanders. He’d seen some Kroldon traders in Farre, last year—he’d seen a few of almost every foreign race in Farre—and these sailors were their kin. They were pagans, and in most of the stories, they were assassins.
He realized then how very little he knew about the world. He had no idea if a Kroldon fleet, however small, on Chrenste’s doorstep was cause for alarm. He had heard about the wars at sea between Telgardia and Kroldon, Telgardia and Medea, Telgardia and almost every other kingdom in the world, but those wars all belonged to history. Didn’t they?
Lord Contare would know. He needed to tell Lord Contare.
But he waited, centered on the lead ship, looking for anything that might be important. A dark green flag streamed from the top of the mizzen, but he couldn’t tell what the abstract emblem on it was supposed to be. He could not see a ballista or anything else that looked like a weapon. The sailors were just sailing the ship, not acting like warriors, and certainly not like assassins. But the ship was riding high in the water, and Graegor would be willing to bet that it carried no cargo.
Then he saw two men standing together at the aft rail who were not sailors. They wore dark cloaks, and as one of them turned to speak to the other, Graegor could see the badge on his collar—the red fang. They were magi.
And that meant that these Kroldons were not here to trade. Even the richest merchant in the world would not have two magi in his entourage.
Suddenly the sounds of wind and birds filled Graegor’s ears, and the grey stone of the balustrade was so close to his face he could smell it. His eyes felt dry and gritty as sand. He rubbed them with both hands as he braced his elbows on the ledge. It would be nice, he thought, to not get dizzy every time I did something. After steadying himself, he made his way to the trapdoor in the center of the platform, and it seemed heavier than before when he heaved it open.
Lord Contare was still sitting in his chair, drinking from a mug, while Karl unloaded a tray of food at the table. “There are Kroldon ships coming in,” Graegor said before he even reached the bottom of the spiral staircase. “Three of them in convoy, but they aren’t traders. I saw magi on the deck.”
Karl looked up, and Lord Contare’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”
“Smudge?” The sorcerer looked at Graegor, and then his blue eyes widened. “You did it, didn’t you? You stretched your vision.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well done! I’m glad to hear it.” He turned back to the window. “Now, as to what you saw ... one moment ...”
Well done. He didn’t think his father had ever said that to him.
He waited as Lord Contare looked out to sea for what seemed a long time, and he wondered how long he himself had stood and stared. Finally Lord Contare stirred, touched his hand over his eyes and drew a breath. “Yes,” he said, blinking and turning toward Karl, who was watching them intently. “It’s him.”
Karl’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s interesting, m’lord.”
“Indeed. Please tell Andru I need to speak with the king.”
“Yes, m’lord.” Karl bowed his head, and went quite still.
Lord Contare had his arms crossed over his chest as he eyed the smudge on the horizon. “King Raimund expelled the Kroldon ambassador last year,” he told Graegor.
“But those are his ships? The same ambassador?”
“Yes. Very curious.”
He went silent, staring off into space as Karl was, and Graegor quickly figured out that they were using telepathy to speak with the king’s magus, and by extension the king. He wished that he didn’t have to be left out of the conversation. The silence didn’t last very long, though, and both Lord Contare and Karl stirred as Graegor was looking wistfully at the food on the table. “King Raimund thanks you, Graegor,” Lord Contare said, quiet satisfaction in his voice. “Since you saw the ships from so far out, he has time to arrange a suitable welcome.”
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