“And I still believe it,” Harold answered. “But the farm’s not doing well, and I’m not a sailor. I need the money, Ralda, plain and simple.”
“You make it seem as if going to war is our choice, Ralda,” one man said softly.
“The fighting’s getting serious, that’s what he told me,” she said. “You know there’s a chance none of you will come home.”
“That it is. We’re supposed to invade Darinia by the week’s end,” Harold said.
Silence answered him, broken only by the sounds of shuffling feet and mugs scraping against the counter top.
“Excuse me,” Aidan said, stepping into view. Everyone turned to look at him. His face was concealed within his cloak.
“What can we do for you?” one spoke up at last.
“I couldn’t help but overhear that you were joining Torel’s Ward.”
“We are indeed,” one said. “And I reckon you are yourself.”
“Of course. We invade Darinia by week’s end, then?”
“That’s what we heard,” another said. “Right through Sharem, we’ll go. Others’ll be taking ships across the Avivan.”
“Torelian ships?” Aidan asked.
The man called Harold snorted. “Not unless you fancy walking along the bottom of the river. No, these are Leastonian ships,” the man finished, a mark of pride in his voice.
“The merchants’ guild sided with the Crown?” Aidan asked, amazed.
Another man shrugged. “Seems that’s way. Call to arms came just last night.”
“That’s why we’re leaving immediately,” another put in.
“Aye,” Harold said with a nod. “The threat of treason is as compelling as the Torelian coin.”
“Like what happened to Aidan.”
“
Prince
Aidan,” one corrected, drawing a deep harrumph from his friend.
“Not a prince anymore, is he?”
“Maybe not, but you still need to show respect toward—”
Aidan appreciated the man sticking up for him but didn’t wait around to offer his thanks. He crossed the common room in three long strides, bursting through the door and into the Lady’s light.
Chapter 32
Homecoming
A
IDAN PLUNGED ACROSS THE
continent, shifting from village to hilltop to city to plains like a stone skipping across water. He alternated between kindling from his lamp and the Lady’s warm, springtime light. He rested at night, but never inside walls where anyone might recognize his face and bring Wardsmen or worse down on him. Heat bubbles stitched from the light of his lamp were his blanket, the hollows of tree trunks his bed. Each night he forced his eyes shut and tried to push away thoughts of what awaited him at Sunfall, and to keep a quick but reasonable pace. He felt fully rejuvenated from his mad jump from Sharem to Sunfall, and he knew he would need every scrap of strength he could muster to confront Tyrnen and the harbingers.
Closing his eyes did him no good. The anxiousness that plagued his every step took root deep in the back of his mind and grew into monolithic fear that chased him through his dreams. He saw Tyrnen blast away his mother’s legs, and her look of fear as she scrabbled away from him on her hands. He saw the harbingers peel away the faces of his parents to reveal their puckered eye sockets and fleshy bars over their mouths.
On the morning of the fourth day, Aidan no longer needed to look out over the horizon and pick a spot to land from his shift. He knew where he was. He popped into existence in the woods a league south of Calewind, the very trees he had considered fleeing to on the morning of his birthday. Squinting, he saw forms in snow-white armor patrolling the walls and manning the pylons tucked into each corner of the city. He sipped light from his lamp and shifted just outside the tower he had crossed through on that fateful morning so many weeks ago, appearing in the lee of a stack of crates piled against the wall. A vendor’s stand stood in front of him. The wiry merchant himself juggled his wares in front of his booth, shouting prices to tempt passersby.
Aidan took a breath, pulled his hood low, and slid from the shadows and around the stand to slip into the traffic flowing through the south district. Feet and carriages churned away the last traces of snow and mush along the smoothly paved cobblestone. Vendors held up their wares from storefronts, proclaiming springtime sales and promising more goods once Leastonian merchants took to the roads again.
Frowning, Aidan glanced around. At first, winding through the capital city’s boulevards had helped him to relax. Calewind’s maze of shops and homes were as familiar to him as Sunfall’s dustiest rear passageways. Despite the dangers lying in wait for him, he was home. Now, though, something did not feel quite right. Unease settled over him like a too-heavy cloak. He heard shouts of vendors, the steady clomp of horse hooves, the creak of wagons rolling down roads. He did not hear the babble of voices that always filled the marketplace like the constant chatter of a stream running over rocks.
He looked around. The people scuttled more than walked, hustling to where they needed to go, and practically tripped from their haste to get inside. They kept their eyes to the ground, ignoring the calls of vendors and never stopping to talk to friends from far off who had not made the trip to the capital since the wind had grown chill. The few who did stop exchanged only a few words and spoke under their breath as if afraid of being overheard.
Aidan rounded a corner and collided with a man coming from the opposite direction. Out of habit he looked up to apologize, only to drop his eyes and hurry on. It was a Wardsman. Nine other Wardsmen fanned out around him. Frowning, Aidan stepped behind a shop and examined the group. Passersby edged around them like water cutting around a large rock. Each man carried a shield emblazoned with a family crest; the other fist gripped spear or sword. They strode through the crowd, eyes set straight ahead.
“Don’t even watch where they’re walking,” came a growl at his side. Aidan turned to find the shopkeeper whose establishment he’d ducked into standing beside him and staring after the departing party with a baleful expression.
“Why are they out in such large numbers?” Aidan asked, adjusting his hood.
“Are you a fool?” The man spit as he flicked away a tuft of hair. “The war, man. Orders direct from the Crown. She says the streets are dangerous, though I ain’t seen nothin’ to account for harassing people the way some of them do.” He snorted and huffed back into his shop.
The merchant didn’t seem to be the only one unhappy with the armed Wardsmen. All around him furtive glares stabbed at armored backs. Those who looked up to where Sunfall sat narrowed their eyes and quickly looked away, as if the palace might suddenly pounce on them.
Aidan’s stride quickened. His stomach churned. He was home. The reality of what that meant sank in like a stone. He had to confront Tyrnen and the impostors, but how? He could not just walk up to Sunfall and ask for an audience. He—
“... have to pay for that like everyone else.”
Aidan turned toward the voice. His eyes found a rotund man standing in front of an apple cart. The vendor’s face was bright red. Across from him was a Wardsman. He leaned against the cart, smirking as he bounced an apple on his palm.
“Surely an exception can be made for a loyal member of Torel’s Ward,” he said. Some of the Wardsmen with him looked a bit uncomfortable. Some wore amused or excited smiles, like wolves watching prey that had not yet realized it was cornered.
“I’m as loyal as the next man,” the merchant replied, “but I’ve also got a family to feed.”
“And one apple will put your family on the streets, will it?”
“It might, ’specially during these times,” the man replied. “I preserved those apples through the whole winter. They—”
“Perhaps you should join up,” the Wardsman said. “The sooner we rub all those wildlanders into the ground, the sooner your worm-ridden fruit may turn a profit.”
The vendor went pale. “I wouldn’t fight in the Crown’s foolish war if it would save my own mother.”
The Wardsman straightened as if struck. “Foolish?” he repeated, tossing the apple aside. His fellows tensed; the ones who had been watching in amusement looked eager.
“That’s right,” the vendor replied. “And I wouldn’t serve in the Ward for all the gold in—”
The Wardsman’s sharp backhand sent the man staggering. He gaped at them, one quivering hand touching his cheek.
“You’d better watch what you say, friend,” the Wardsman said. “One might think you were speaking treason. We know what happens to those who speak out against the Crown.”
Aidan heard his name sweep through the crowd in nervous whispers.
Suddenly the merchant spit in the Wardsman’s face. The nervous whispering ceased.
“Kahltan take you,” the vendor croaked, “and Annalyn, and her damn war, too.”
The Wardsman’s face darkened. He lunged and grabbed two fistfuls of the man’s collar. A few men in the assemblage raised their voices in protest, but fell silent when other Wardsmen drew steel.
Aidan was not so easily cowed. He pushed his way through the crowd and shoved the Wardsman away from the trembling vendor.
“Don’t touch him,” he said. Instantly he was aware of every gaze in the growing crowd locking on to him. What he did not realize was that his brisk march forward had pulled his hood from his head.
“An accomplice to treason, are you?” the Wardsman asked, then cut off with a strangled gasp.
“This man was being bullied,” Aidan said. “Everyone here saw it.”
“You,” the Wardsman whispered. The crowd inched away, murmuring. Aidan again heard his name pass through dozens of lips in tones of fear—and another tone, one he didn’t recognize.
“Well, well, well,” the Wardsman said, confidence replacing his initial shock. “Aidan Gairden. Welcome home. Things have changed since you ran off, boy. The biggest change of all being the price on your head.”
“I am here to settle things with my... parents,” Aidan replied. “You will take me to them. Now.”
For the first time the Wardsman appeared unsure. Glancing around, he straightened. “You will come with us,” he said loudly. “As our prisoner.” He stepped forward.
“Do not lay a hand on me.” Aidan’s hand rested easily on the hilt of Heritage.
—Don’t hurt him,
Charles said.
He is an ass, but he is also a man of the Crown.
I
want
to hurt him,
Aidan sent back.
But I won’t.
The Wardsman drew back, hesitant. The crowd watched in silence. “Very well,” he said, not as assertively as before. “If you would please—”
At that moment all heads turned toward a ruckus from up the street. Columns of Wardsmen mounted on armored horses draped with caparisons of striking colors marched ten abreast down the street toward Calewind’s southern gate. The crowd parted like a curtain, hugging storefronts and dropping back into alleyways to make room for the force.
This must be the force leaving for Darinia
, Aidan thought. Then he noticed the figure at the head of the procession, and his mind went blank.
Tyrnen led the sinuous column that wrapped through Calewind’s streets and up the mountain pass that led to Sunfall.
Aidan’s mouth went dry. He was unable to move, barely able to breathe. A flurry of emotions whipped through him. Part of him wanted to cry out in rage, to ask why the old man he had loved had betrayed him so viciously and completely. Another part of him loved the old man still, and wanted nothing more than to shut himself away in Tyrnen’s tower and drink hot cocoa while Tyrnen told stories.
He watched Tyrnen lean over to speak to the man riding beside him. No, not a man, Aidan realized as his father nodded and straightened, sweeping a cold gaze over the people huddled along the street. The harbinger wore Edmund Calderon’s face, but that
thing
was not Edmund the Valorous, General of Torel’s Ward. It was
not
his father.
Aidan remained standing in the center of the road, lips drawn together, one hand gripping the hilt of Heritage hard enough to stamp imprints of jewels and grooves into his palm. At first the Eternal Flame seemed not to recognize Aidan.
“Get out of the way,” the old man shouted at him. Then he drew his horse up and gaped. Noticing Aidan, Edmund’s face went hard. He shouted the command to halt. The order echoed down the columns behind them. Horses snorted into the silence.
“So you’ve come home,” the impostor said. His voice carried down the still, silent street. Aidan said nothing, glaring at the creature seated atop his father’s horse, wearing his father’s armor and face.
“Have you had a change of heart, son?”
“You are not my father.”
The harbinger’s eyes narrowed. “No, I am not. Not anymore. Aidan Gairden, you are under arrest for treason. You will surrender yourself to—”
Aidan’s hands burst from beneath his cloak. He kindled and whispered a prayer for pure-fire, wanting nothing more than to see the impostor burning and screaming until he became a pile of melted flesh and bones.
—Watch out!
Charles cried.
Tyrnen’s hands had appeared, too. Aidan turned to the Eternal Flame, swallowing his first prayer and forming a new one. Too late. A sharp pain gripped his chest, spread down into his gut. He winced as tears formed in his eyes. It felt as if claws were rending his stomach. Desperately he tried to draw light again, but the Lady’s light did not soak through his skin to heat his blood. He had been tied.
The sword
, he remembered. His ripped Heritage from his scabbard just as something crashed into his side and drove him to the street. Air left his lungs in a great whoosh. Heritage flew from his hands and skittered to a stop in front of the Eternal Flame. Aidan struggled in the arms of his attacker—the Wardsman who had bullied the apple vendor, he saw—as hard as he could, but the other man was bigger, stronger. The Wardsman wrenched his arms behind his back, strung thick cords between his hands, and hauled him to his feet.
The Edmund-harbinger stepped down from its horse and came to stand before the sword-bearer. Aidan’s eyes radiated hatred. The harbinger smiled and slapped Aidan across the face. At Sharem, the harbinger had slapped him with a bare palm. Now it wore a gauntlet. Pain exploded across Aidan’s face. Tears filled his vision. He felt warm blood run down his nose, over his lips, dribble down his chin.