Symon studied him for a breath, then rolled the scroll between his fingers until the red wax seal faced Graylin. “This is pressed with the mark of the Cloistery.”

  Graylin’s heart clenched in his chest.

  “From the Mýr,” Symon added.

  “I know where the Cloistery is,” Graylin grumbled darkly. “Why does this concern me?”

  Symon leaned back, fingering the scroll around and around. “The skrycrow arrived a day ago,” he said. “Sent to me—but meant for you.”

  “If so, then you failed to keep your word. For anyone to know I still live, to know you could reach me, then you must have shared what you swore to keep secret.”

  Symon shrugged. “Breaking an oath to an oathbreaker. Surely you can’t hold that against me.”

  Graylin stood up, tightening a fist.

  Symon sighed. “Calm yourself. There were a few who needed the truth and could be trusted with it.”

  “Like you?”

  “Like the prioress of the Cloistery.”

  Graylin knew the woman and respected her. He slowly settled back to his stool.

  “You are not a fool, Graylin. Nor a naïve sop. Surely you must understand that some matters overrule even a sworn word. You certainly demonstrated that amply in the past. Did not love break your oath?”

  Graylin felt his face heat up, not with shame, but with rising anger. “You think you need to remind me of—”

  Symon cut him off with a raised hand. “Fair trade.”

  Baffled by his words, Graylin took a breath, then sputtered, “What do you mean?”

  “Since I gave away your secret, in payment I will give you one of my own.”

  Graylin frowned. He did not care about any of the confidences that Symon kept, but he was intrigued enough to wave to the man.

  Symon planted his pipe between his lips and bent over. He used a finger to pull the worn hose from his left foot and tossed it aside. He then lifted his leg to expose his sole to Graylin. “What do you think about that?”

  Graylin leaned closer and came to a firm conclusion. “You need a bath. With plenty of lyeleaf soap to strip that reek from your flesh. If that’s even possible.”

  “Look closer, near my heel.”

  Holding his breath, Graylin pushed forward. He squinted and spotted a small raised scar. It looked no more than what one might get from stepping on a hot coal rolled from a fire. “Are we comparing burns?” he asked.

  Symon tilted his foot slightly, and the scar transformed from a knot of thickened skin to a vague outline of a rose. Graylin shifted back.

  No …

  Symon lowered his foot.

  Graylin studied his former alchymist anew. “You’re not suggesting you’re part of—”

  “The Razen Rose?” Symon lifted a brow.

  He scoffed. “They’re just stories, concocted by those who see shadows where there are none.”

  “You’ve heard me belch and fart. Is that not real enough?”

  Throughout his years in the Legionary and beyond, he had heard rumors of the Razen Rose, a confederacy of spies aligned to no kingdom or empire. They were said to be stripped alchymists and hieromonks who had been secretly recruited to use their skills to a greater purpose: to protect and preserve knowledge throughout the rise and fall of realms. Some suspected their true agenda involved steering history, believing the Rose was the hidden hand that ultimately moved the gears of the world.

  Graylin stared over at Symon.

  If this man is part of that hand, the Urth is doomed.

  “Does that not pay my debt?” Symon asked.

  “Assuming what you say is even true.”

  Symon shrugged. “A secret sold does not require a buyer’s belief. It’s a value unto itself.”

  Growing exasperated, Graylin stood. “Consider your debt paid, but I want nothing to do with the greater world.”

  Symon remained seated, even leaned back. “It’s not the greater world that you need care about.” He puffed hard on his pipe, then lifted the scroll over the smoldering bowl. “This missive concerns Marayn’s child.”

  Graylin went cold. All the blood drained to his legs. The unquiet peace he had settled upon suddenly fractured into a thousand painful shards.

  “A daughter, as I understand it.” Symon lowered the parchment toward the pipe’s fiery bowl. “But if you don’t wish to involve yourself…”

  Graylin lunged and snatched the message. He clutched it as his past overwhelmed him.

  * * *

  KNEELING IN THE sailing skiff, Graylin clasped Marayn’s shivering hands between his warm palms. It was the only way he could keep her from speaking, to stop her from refusing what he asked of her.

  He felt her tremble. She tried to free her hands, her eyes forlorn, tears running down her cheeks.

  “You must go,” he insisted.

  He nodded toward the strip of grassy sand where he had nosed the skiff after poling it as far as he could into the swamps. He could traverse no farther. Marayn’s best hope for her and her unborn child was to hide in the swamp while he tried to lure away the legion’s ships that closed down upon the coastline of these drowned lands.

  She tugged her hands free and clenched a fist to her chest, then opened her fingers like a budding rose. [I love you.] She motioned quickly, nearly too fast for him to interpret, but her frantic face was easy to read: [Let me go with you. We must stay together. Even if it means our deaths.]

  He placed his hand on her belly, believing he could feel the babe stir under his palm. Even now he didn’t know if the child was his or the king’s. “And what of the baby here?” he asked. “Would you risk its life for another few breaths together?”

  She covered his hand with her own. He felt a determined kick under his palm. Must be my child. Despite his terror, he found himself smiling. He looked up as Marayn offered a sad version of his same expression. He leaned his forehead to hers.

  “You must go,” he whispered. “If only for the sake of your child.”

  She pulled back, pointed to his chest, then cradled her fingers together.

  [Our child.]

  He nodded. They had come to this decision with the first swelling of her belly. He didn’t care who the father was, only that the child would be his. It was why they planned this flight. The king had waited this long to decide if the child would live or die. Toranth already had two boys, but he considered a third heir, even a bastard, could cement his throne in case his elder sons should die. Then a scryer threw bones, tested Marayn’s chamber pot, and deemed the child to be a girl. As Toranth placed great stock on his soothers and bone-readers, he ordered Marayn’s babe to be expelled through draughts of Bastard’s Herb tea, and failing that, through knife and blood.

  So, they fled that same winter night.

  “We dare wait no longer,” Graylin said. “If I’m to lure them away, I must set off for the open water now.”

  She finally relented, weeping silently, her shoulders shaking. He helped her out of the boat and onto land. He drew her into one last kiss. He tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. He wished he could stay there forever, but it could never be.

  He pulled back, fighting his own tears now. As she stood there trembling, he pressed a knife into her hands.

  “Travel as far as you can,” he instructed. “And hide. If I can lose the others, I will find my way back to you. I swear it.”

  She nodded, clutching the dagger.

  He returned to the skiff and poled off the beachhead. He glided across the black brine, staring back at her.

  She stood with a fist at her chest and bloomed her fingers.

  He repeated the sign, knowing that was where all their troubles had begun. A year ago, Marayn had been offered to Graylin to serve as a private tutor, so he might learn the gesturing language shared by the tongueless pleasure serfs. As captain of the king’s guard, he had hoped to learn that means of communication, to employ it as a tool for the legion to correspond silently among them or even across battlefields.

  Graylin thought himself so clever for considering this tactic.

  And so did King Toranth.

  Graylin and Toranth had been friends for ages. They had gone through their nine years in the Legionary together, growing into bosom companions through hardship and strife. Graylin could still remember a young prince thrust into training from his pampered rooms at Highmount, a waif with girlish blond curls. Though he was destined for the throne, the teachers offered the prince no special favor, as was tradition. The coda of the legion’s school was a simple one: It takes the hottest temper to forge the toughest steel. And their teachers—all hardened soldiers—beat that into them on a daily basis.

  To make matters worse, Toranth had been equally bullied by the other recruits. Graylin—a head taller and instilled by his parents in the Brauðlands with a strong sense of justice—shielded the prince, not to curry favor, but because it was right and fair. He also worked with Toranth to hone the young man’s skills, to learn to defeat others older or larger than him. In the process, the two added a new caveat to the school’s coda: The toughest steel of all comes when two metals are folded into one.

  Their friendship grew to be unbreakable.

  Even years later when Toranth assumed the throne, and life drew them in different directions, their love for one another continued, until finally Graylin bent a knee to the king and took over his personal guard, swearing undying fealty and loyalty.

  So, years later, when Graylin brokered interest in learning the silent language of the pleasure serfs, the king invited him into his personal palacio. The king was not possessive of his serfs. He shared them freely, all except for one.

  Marayn.

  Graylin knew why when he first gazed upon her. She was a beauty unlike any of the others, a goddess carved of marble. Her hair was dark gold, as if spun by the Father Above. She was shapely of form and generous of bosom, but more than anything, she was quiet and calm, warm and inviting. Her eyes were so deep a blue that one could get lost in them forever.

  Toranth trusted Graylin with Marayn due to their long friendship, reinforced by sworn oaths. Also, Graylin had recently been betrothed to a young woman from his family’s town, a match that did not warm his heart but was well suited to all back home.

  Over many moons, he met with Marayn and learned her unspoken language. It involved much touching: how to fold one’s fingers, where to shift a hand, when to move from one gesture to another. The training involved plenty of laughter between the two, then quieter conversations spanning words and gestures. He slowly learned the inner lives of the serfs, what the women never shared, what they held close to their breasts, their fears, their despairs, their boredoms, and their hopes.

  It broke his heart and challenged his sense of justice. More so, he read far more in Marayn’s face than she ever expressed with her hands. He sought to help her and the others by leaning on his friendship with the king, but his efforts proved futile and fruitless, which only frustrated him more. He felt as if he were rolling a boulder up a hill that only grew steeper.

  Still, Marayn had never held him at fault for his failings. Instead, one night she had drawn him to a silver cage where she kept a tiny lyrebird. It had chirped and sung sweetly, hopping across its perches, though she kept the door forever open.

  She had signed to him. [We all live in cages of some making.] She smiled sadly. [Knowing this, we must sing when we can.]

  Over time, something finally cracked inside him.

  Without ever kissing her, he had fallen in love with her.

  Eventually, neither of them could deny the truth silently held between them.

  As he poled away now, he remembered their first night together. Fear had made him gentle, knowing how much she had been hurt in the past. He entered her slowly, allowing her to pull him deeper. Soon their passion grew to a fiery heat that could not be resisted or denied. She shook under him for the longest time afterward. Only once she let him go did he see how her pleasured trembling had become quiet sobbing.

  She had explained her tears, how they were stirred forth by joy and sorrow. In all her life, she had never been taken with such love and tenderness before. Afterward, they enjoyed many nights together, locked in each other’s arms, discovering more about each other than words could express—until eventually her belly swelled with a child. He did not know if the babe was his or the king’s. But when Toranth ordered its expulsion, like so much shite from a chamber pot, Graylin knew what he had to do.

  He had to break his oath.

  He stared now at Marayn, standing forlorn at the swamp’s edge, and he knew the truth in his heart.

  I ruined us all.

  * * *

  GRAYLIN TREMBLED AS he held the curled scroll in his hand. He gazed down at it. What did it contain? Was it hope for redemption or a cruelty that I will never survive?

  As much as it unmanned him, he had to know.

  He broke the wax seal and unrolled the missive. The first words, written in a handsome script, tore open a wound long scarred close.

  To Graylin sy Moor …

  The honorific—sy—signified his status as a knight. Over a decade ago, it had been stripped and forbidden to him. Even among his many false names, he had never dared to use it. Those two letters were full of pain, both of body and heart. He wanted to toss the scroll into the hearth, but his fingers clenched.

  I’ve come this far.

  He read the rest of the message. It was brief, yet the implication so large he could not hold it all in his broken body. It was too poor a vessel.

  Marayn’s child lives, or so we have come to suspect.

  Tears blurred his vision as he consumed the rest.

  Get to Havensfayre between The Twins. Wait at the Golden Bough. I will do my best to get her there or send word elsewise. Fetch her to the Rime, hide her there.

  It was not signed, but Graylin believed Symon concerning the missive’s author. If Marayn’s child had miraculously survived the swamps, it was possible that the babe had ended up at the Cloistery.

  He lowered the scroll. “Could it be true?” he asked both himself and Symon.

  The former alchymist—perhaps a member of the Razen Rose—grabbed the scroll and tossed it into the hearth’s fire. “As I said before,” Symon intoned, “a secret sold does not require a buyer’s belief. It’s a value unto itself.”

  Graylin stared into the flames as the missive curled to fiery ash.

  “In the end,” Symon continued, “all that truly matters is how you respond.”

  Graylin struggled, balanced on a sharp edge. He knew of Havensfayre, a town located between The Twins, a pair of lakes at the heart of Cloudreach. But he also knew what it meant to try to reach there.

  “I broke an oath and swore a new one,” he said, his voice hoarse with misery. “To never set foot in Hálendii again on penalty of my life.”

  Symon leaned over and lifted something hidden on the far side of the chair. It took both his arms to rest its wrapped length across his knees. “That is not all you swore. You also bled an oath never to touch steel again, to never carry a knight’s weapon.”

  The alchymist folded back the cloth and revealed a scabbarded sword. He unsheathed its silvery length, shiny and bright. Inscribed upon it were twining vines heavy with grapes. The decoration celebrated Graylin’s county in the Brauðlands, a roll of hills cooled by the shadow of Landfall’s cliffs where his family’s vast vineyards spread.

  “Heartsthorn.” Graylin took a step back, recognizing the blade. “I thought it had been melted to ruin.”

  Like my life.

  “Only lost for a time,” Symon corrected. “The Rose believes some artifacts are worth preserving, of being treasured away.”

  Symon returned the sword to its scabbard.

  “My oaths…” Graylin whispered. “How many can I break and still be the same man?”

  “As I see it, you forsook that first oath in the hope of saving Marayn’s child. Thus, it holds precedence over those that came later. If you return, you are merely continuing that same violation, one you set aside for a time and for which you have already been punished.” He shrugged. “The most honorable act from here is for you to see that first bit of treachery through to its proper end.”

  Graylin’s head ached from Symon’s twisted path to this conclusion, but his heart hurt far worse. Still, he knew what he had to do.

  He crossed to Symon, grabbed the scabbard, and strapped Heartsthorn around his waist. He stood and tested the weight of its steel on his hip. It felt right, as if a severed limb had grown back.

  Symon grinned at him. “Welcome back to the living, Graylin sy Moor.”

  28

  GRAYLIN DROVE HIS small wagon swiftly through the woods. He followed a trail that was not even rutted, only an unmarked path twining through a forest of white-barked alders. Ahead, Symon rode atop a foul-tempered mare who kicked at Graylin’s pony if it dared get too close.

  Graylin suspected the mare’s nervy disposition was in large part stoked by the pair of shadows sweeping the trail to either side. Aamon and Kalder easily paced the horses, even after hunting all day. But Symon had insisted that Graylin had one hope to barter for passage back to Hálendii, and it meant traveling throughout Eventoll to get there.

  Despite Graylin’s misgivings, he allowed Symon to guide him south of the town of Savik. They headed toward a breadth of coastline where few dared to venture. It was a broken scape of deep fjords packed with towering jagged rocks. Its waters were run through with dangerous shoals and unpredictable riptides. All along, sea caves pocked its cliffs, rumored to form a subterranean maze twice the size of Savik.

  This swath of broken coast was home to various clans of pirates, cutthroats, and brigands of every ilk. They preyed upon the seas of the Crown, though most often on the pleasure crafts gliding from Hálendii to the terraced homes and palacios stacked along the cliffs of Lyria, north of Savik. It was where the kingdom’s richest escaped the summer’s scorch and sailed to the cooler climes of Aglerolarpok’s coast, whiling away the hottest time of the year.