“Nothing?” Aron asked as Stormbreaker let him go.
Relaxing into his more typical stance of arms relaxed by his sides, Stormbreaker said, “Nothing that I am not prohibited from sharing by edict of Lord Baldric or guild tradition.”
Aron tried to mimic Stormbreaker’s posture, despite being nervous about his next question. “Then why do you hate Falconer?”
Stormbreaker remained casual in his stance, but he looked so pained Aron almost regretted his rash prying into the man’s private history. When Stormbreaker did speak, his words were quiet and even, as if he had imagined telling his tale, but never practiced it. “The First High Master of Thorn was correct. I’m a child of Vagrat—as most suspect, given my appearance.”
Aron reminded himself to nod, so Stormbreaker would keep talking. Overhead, the sun seemed to blaze like a bright blue eye, staring down at them, warm despite the ever-cooling air of the season.
“Perhaps I should have told you this story long ago, Aron, but I did not know how you’d take it.” Stormbreaker’s smile was apologetic. A bit sad. “When I was a child, life in Dyn Vagrat was very different than life in other dynasts. Lady Vagrat—Vagrat’s seat passes through the female bloodline, you’ll remember from your lessons—she did not stay in a castle. Like her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother before her, she lived in the marshes and villages, moving from place to place among us, as one with us.”
Aron’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He had never heard such a thing about Vagrat, or come across it in his studying of history and protocols. In fact, he had discovered next to nothing about Dyn Vagrat, save for brief mentions—which was fine by him, as it was Brailing and Altar he studied most fiercely.
“There were no nobles and goodfolk. Lady Vagrat decided disputes, but she shared her wealth with us, and bore her daughter and heir in the tradition of Vagrat—without naming a father, or forging allegiances based on the child.” Stormbreaker smiled, as if remembering a private joke, but just as fast, the expression faded, and his stance grew more tense. “When Pravda Altar took her seat with the Thorn Guild, she began to protest Lady Vagrat’s ‘Brotherless conduct,’ and the fact she kept no proper seat of government, no ‘nest’ of her own.”
Aron could imagine his mother saying such a thing, after one of her visits to the nearest village. Brotherless conduct. He had heard that phrase more than once, before his parents died. He had never liked it then, and he liked it less now.
Stormbreaker closed his eyes, and now he seemed to be laboring to speak instead of relating an enjoyable yarn about his past. “At first the Lady Provost’s protests came in the form of entreaties and letters. Then she began enforcing obscure agreements Thorn made with Dyn Vagrat upon the formation of their stronghold on the island of Eidolon. When her efforts to corral and control Lady Vagrat failed, the Lady Provost declared Lady Vagrat of infirmed mind, and asserted her right to act in Lady Vagrat’s stead.”
Silence fell between Stormbreaker and Aron for a moment, and Aron found himself looking back at Iko and Raaf. Part of him wanted to run away from Stormbreaker rather than hear the rest of his story, the story Aron himself had as much as demanded—because he had a dread sense of where the tale was headed.
“They were in our village at the time,” Stormbreaker said, and he stopped again when his voice broke.
“You don’t have to—” Aron began, but Stormbreaker plowed forward, now staring intently into Aron’s eyes.
“We hid her, of course. Lady Vagrat and her daughter.” His voice broke again, and he folded his arms across his chest as if to hold himself upright. “Thorn let it be known that Lady Vagrat must have been taken hostage. Since Vagrat had no army, the Lady Provost sent an armed contingent of Altar Dynast Guard to track and retrieve Lady Vagrat.”
Aron’s heart squeezed, and his own throat closed a little tighter.
“My village had no weapons. That wasn’t how we lived, or how we thought.”
Stormbreaker opened his hands and stared at his palms.
“No one made it out of the village,” Stormbreaker whispered a few moments later, his gaze so distant Aron feared he might be losing touch with here, with now, that his essence might sweep back to that terrible past and remain there, grieving for eternity. “Not even Lady Vagrat. Later, Thorn claimed it was a terrible accident, that her madness drove her to hurl herself against the blade of one of her rescuers.”
“How did you survive?” Aron asked, his question barely audible.
Stormbreaker gazed into the sky, into the brightness of the sun, and blinked over and over again. “My sister and I were at play with Rakel Seadaughter, Lady Vagrat’s heir, in the marsh leeway. Falconer, two other Thorn apprentices, and three Altar guardsmen took Rakel from us, but Tia and I escaped their vengeance by swimming away under the marsh surface. Then we walked to Dyn Cobb, and we were eventually discovered and dispatched to Lord Cobb at Can Lanyard.”
So that’s how he came to know Lord Cobb, and well enough to return to visit him later. And of course he would have wanted to see Rakel Seadaughter again, when he had the chance.
Aron could well imagine the surprise of Cobb villagers at finding fair-haired, fair-skinned children of Vagrat trying to hide amongst them.
“Lord Cobb took no position on the tale we told him, but it was clear he feared for our safety. He arranged for some visiting Brailing guardsmen to escort us to Triune to be sheltered.” Stormbreaker held out his arm and ran a finger across one of his dav’ha marks. A sun linked with Eyrie’s two moons. “The Brailing guardsman who personally saw to my safety on that journey gave me this to remind me that time passes, that the sun and moons rise no matter how deeply my heart may ache.”
Aron stared at the mark, his memory of his own father’s dav’ha runes flickering like a dim flame at the center of his essence.
“He helped me, your father.” Stormbreaker withdrew his arm, then met Aron’s shocked gaze. “I tried to help him in return, tried to save not just your life, but his and your family’s as well, but I failed. For that, Aron, I am sorry, and I’ll be sorry forever.”
Aron completely lost the ability to respond for a time. He stood on the byway with Stormbreaker, staring everywhere but at the man, until he was certain he could do so without losing what little control of his emotions he yet possessed. Through his teeth, he asked, “Why did Thorn never pay for their crimes?”
“Some did. Eldin Falconer’s guild master, for example, and a number of the Altar Guard. But in the end, the Lady Provost insisted the action had been necessary to rescue Lady Vagrat and her heir.” Stormbreaker frowned, and Aron recognized how hard his guild master was working to manage his own anger. “After all, there were none to speak against her, save for two Brotherless orphans locked away at Triune.”
Stormbreaker and Snakekiller.
Suddenly, Aron wanted Snakekiller to return to Triune alive and well.
“Thorn has always been powerful,” Stormbreaker continued, once more resuming his relaxed stance. “Most of the dynast lords and ladies were educated there, and ties and loyalties run deep. I think Pravda Altar imagines an Eyrie under Thorn’s rule, or at least its control. I think she’s seeking to surround herself with those who possess powerful legacies, beginning with Rakel Seadaughter, to bring that vision to fruition.”
“About the orphans,” Aron whispered. “Will we just… surrender?”
“This is not a battle, Aron.” Stormbreaker crushed one fist into his palm. “Would that it were. In the end, going against our own charter, becoming oathbreakers, that would be as destructive to Eyrie as this damnable war. If Thorn wishes to resume its rightful and proper duties to orphans, Stone has no legal cause to stand in its way.”
Aron gulped back a shout of frustration, then once more glanced at their audience down the byway. His mind whirled through the possibilities of finding some way to use his graal to affect this situation. He could confuse Falconer and send him back to Thorn empty-handed. Or instruct any beast of b
urden Falconer employed to return to Triune at sunset. The possibilities were limitless.
Would he be within bounds to do something to stop this travesty?
No, his mind told him.
“What about Raaf?” he asked.
Stormbreaker’s eyes flashed in an entirely new way, and when he spoke, the thunder came back, only this time in his voice. “Raaf can take vows to Stone, if he wishes to stay.”
Aron’s jaw loosened from surprise. “I thought you wouldn’t allow a rescue to pledge himself to Stone until he reached at least twelve cycles of age.”
“That was before Thorn chose to assert itself in such a fashion.” Stormbreaker sounded both grim and triumphant. “If Raaf and any of the other rescues don’t choose to submit themselves to Thorn, they may remain here as apprentices. Thorn has no claim on Stone apprentices.”
“So it is a battle, of words and rules and wits—and wills.” Aron realized he was speaking out loud, then decided not to censor himself despite an approaching group of Den apprentices. “One Thorn may find difficult to win.”
The Den apprentices passed by, Galvin Herder in the lead, and as always, the older boy—the perpetual apprentice, Zed now called him—reserved a special, threatening glare for Aron.
Stormbreaker made as if not to notice.
“I will probably need punishment by morning,” Aron muttered to release his own tension. “Galvin and I fought again last evening. If you need to send me to Endurance House for smashing his teeth with my fist, I’ll understand.”
“Herder again.” Stormbreaker shook his head and glanced at the apprentices as they made their way past Iko and Raaf on the byway. “Did he wound your lip?”
Aron raised his fingers to the swollen, cut tissue, and suddenly the story of the previous night’s events seemed too great to tell, especially the part about him almost using his Brailing graal against the bandits who attacked them. “No,” he said. “Blath can explain better than me.”
And perhaps she’ll omit the more troubling aspects of the night.
Stormbreaker didn’t seem to believe him about the lip and gestured toward Galvin. “Leave it be, Aron. Leave him be.”
“I can’t, because he won’t.” Aron sighed. “Am I to be his punch-dummy forever?”
“I don’t care what Herder does or doesn’t do.” Stormbreaker adopted a firmer tone. “I expect you to take the next right action—and fighting with your Brothers and Sisters is never the next right action, especially in such a difficult time, when we are being pressured from outside these walls. Find another way.”
Aron didn’t answer, but he did lower his gaze, then offered Stormbreaker a bow of capitulation.
He would try to stay away from Galvin. He always tried. He just never managed to be successful.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
ARON
You should use your graal on the girl again. Convince her of your affections, and the truth of her own feelings for you.
The Goddess spoke to Aron as she always did, in a kind voice edged with blood and murder. She wore the same radiant silver robes, and she looked even more beautiful than usual with her blond hair piled atop her head in flows of ringlets. Aron had grown used to the soft blue of her eyes, to the silver energy and strands of copper essence that seemed to highlight every perfect feature of her face and body.
She does care for you. More deeply than she understands.
He knew he was dreaming, so he didn’t bother to answer, to tell the Lady—for that was how he thought of this being now, as the Lady, the Mother of Mystery herself—that he would never do something so awful to Dari.
You know she is lonely. With a few moments of effort, you could comfort her—and bind her to you for all time.
Aron felt himself smiling at the thought of easing the pain in Dari’s heart, but he held his silence. He couldn’t even consider what it would be like to have Dari bound to him. That seemed impossible, and wrong, though also beautiful and desirable in its own way.
The Lady’s answering smile warmed him and chilled him at the same moment. No? Not yet? Then finally, finally allow me to give you this gift.
Aron tried to rouse himself, but waking deliberately from these dreams was never easy. He pinched himself, but felt nothing. He bit his own lip, but remained where he was, drifting in what felt like a soft blanket of nothingness, next to the Lady.
She stretched out a graceful hand, and a vista opened beneath him. He knew what he would see, knew he shouldn’t look, but he couldn’t help himself.
Below him, hundreds of soldiers wearing the sun blue and yellows of the Brailing Guard were gathered on an open field next to soldiers bearing banners with the steel and copper colors of Dyn Altar. They were facing soldiers bearing banners of Dyn Mab’s crimson and white.
Night after night, I offer you your due, for all you have suffered. The Lady gave him a loving glance. Will you still refuse my generosity?
Energy flowed through Aron, from his mind to his hands to his fingers, and he had a sense that if he stretched out his own arm like the Lady had done, some of the Brailing Guard would fall dead. Maybe the very guardsmen he wanted to find and hold accountable for the deaths of his family.
As if in response, a few of the guardsmen glowed more brightly than the rest.
If you practice, you could become proficient. First one, then several. We can’t begin to know your limits, or lack thereof. Try it now, with these, the ones you seek.
The faces of the guardsmen etched themselves into Aron’s mind. Beards and moles, scars and marks, the color and length of their hair, their height, even how they wore their uniforms or carried their weapons. He thought he might recognize them now, anywhere, anytime.
The skin on his fingers hummed and buzzed, then began to burn with the need to touch these men, to command each of their hearts to stop beating. He could do it. He knew he could, and no one but the Lady would ever know. She was the Goddess, and she was as much as telling him to do it.
The Lady waited, more patiently than she usually did. Her voice grew even lower and more inviting. Stone does not understand you, Aron. If you had killed the outlaws who tried to claim you, I would have come to your defense against these barbarians. Use of your graal to protect your life, and the life of someone else, would have been a blessing.
Aron stared at his fingers, which now glowed a brilliant sapphire. He felt a dizzying need, a flash of inner power and will, then a spark of guilt over never telling Stormbreaker about how he almost used his legacy to strike down Canus the Bandit’s men in Dyn Cobb.
The Lady stroked his shoulder with long, warm fingers. Go to High Master Falconer and petition him to return to Eidolon. I will bless his efforts, Aron. It will happen, if I command it.
Aron turned his hands palm upward, and the sapphire energy arced between his wrists and fingers.
So after all this time, he had a choice about his future, at least in his dreams.
Stone or Thorn.
Service to one guild master, or service to another.
If he had been given the choice the day he was Harvested, Aron had little doubt which path he would have chosen. He never would have known Dari, never come to understand a man as complex as Stormbreaker. There would have been no Raaf, no Zed, no Iko in his life. But also no Lord Baldric looming to menace him each time he became angry, and no Galvin Herder to hit him or kick him or try to get his talon killed.
Perhaps Thorn didn’t have so many restrictions on the use of legacies.
Aron kept staring into the sapphire energy of his own hands. In the glittering light, he saw an image of Eldin Falconer in his cardinal robes, delayed these many days at Stone while Lord Baldric found excuses not to release the children Thorn wished to absorb into their folds. Falconer stood side by side with an image of Stormbreaker in his Stone Guild gray. The two men merged and separated, merged and separated, as if each was forming the other—or destroying him.
“Stormbreaker,” Aron whispered, and the word was loude
r than the crack of rock breaking in a deep canyon. He slammed his hands together, and a hot blast of blue fire shattered his muscles, his bones, his skin and teeth—
He woke without shouting, and without startling Raaf, who was sleeping in a third bed that had been placed between Aron’s and Zed’s after Raaf took his vows. Sweat bathed Aron’s neck and shoulders, and when he swallowed, his throat felt raw and abused.
That dream had been worse than most, and he sighed as he assessed the reasons.
His worry for Dari, who had been distant since he saw her shift into her Stregan form.
His self-recrimination for not telling Stormbreaker about his confusion over using his legacy in the battle with the bandits.
His concern for Raaf, who had become Stormbreaker’s junior apprentice to avoid being forced to leave Triune. There were many new junior apprentices these past few weeks. More than should have been, had Thorn not attempted to insinuate itself into lives better left without their influence.
Some of those things, Aron was powerless to change, but others, he knew he needed to make more effort to correct.
These were only dreams. He had discussed them with Stormbreaker and Dari enough times to know that. They were expressions of hidden desires, or even his deepest fears. Nothing but wishes, made into pictures.
Still, Aron wondered what might happen if he took the Lady up on her dark offers, if he ever surrendered to that type of temptation even in his dreams.
That, he didn’t want to imagine.
“Up,” Aron said as he climbed out of his bed to rattle Raaf awake as Zed had roused him so many times his first few days at Triune. “Come on. We’ll be late for fael’feis.”
• • •
At the end of his morning training with Dari, Aron mastered his own anxiety enough to tackle one of the main causes of his heightened dreams. It took a great deal of determination, but he caught her attention by placing his hand on her wrist. When she met his gaze, he swallowed hard, then got the essential words out without major disaster. “What happened two cycles ago, it didn’t bother me.” He swallowed again. “Seeing you as you are in your Stregan form, I mean.”
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