own property, I’m all for it.”
Ree didn’t go to the manor often—he kept himself to the farm and the forest, mostly, so he didn’t unnerve people. Today was different.
Today was the ceremony Lenar had concocted to make him human. Not that Ree had any illusions about it: He’d still be killed on sight anyplace outside this valley, but here he’d be officially human and able to do all the things any other man could do, at least unless Lenar’s Lord, or his, or further up all the way to Emperor Melles himself said otherwise.
To hear Lenar tell it, that didn’t happen unless a Lord started abusing his people.
The important thing was, once something like this started, it was hard to take it away. People would get used to the idea that hobgoblins could take a test and become officially human—although Ree didn’t have any idea what was in the test. Lenar had said it was better that way, and for official things, it was better to trust that Lenar was right.
Which was why Ree walked up to the manor in his best clothes with his tail wrapped tight around his left leg and his stomach wrapped even tighter into knots that made him wish he hadn’t eaten before he left the farm.
The thick wooden gates stood open, with two men watching the stream of people coming in. It looked to Ree as if everyone in the valley had taken advantage of a fine winter’s day to come see what would happen. That was a good thing. It was just that Ree’s stomach didn’t agree.
He recognized both the guards; they’d been village boys once, among the one’s he’d helped free from rogue soldiers years ago. Now they looked every inch the real soldier, but they both waved to Ree and smiled.
Inside, the manor’s Great Hall—a big, low-ceilinged room that could fit everyone in Three Rivers with space to spare—was filling up fast.
Ree couldn’t help wondering how many had come to see “Garrad’s hobgoblin” perform and how many actually cared about him. He didn’t let any of that show; he just walked through the crowd to the front of the room, where Lenar had a solid chair, a chest to hold important documents, and a guard watching the people.
The guard nodded to Ree—he was another of the young men Ree had helped save—and gestured to a spot to the right of Lenar’s official chair; it was far too plain to be called a throne. Ree took his place there and tried not to let his nervousness show. This was all he’d been told, to come to the hall and stand where he was told.
He should have worn a hat; at least then he’d have something to do with his hands. He couldn’t have said whether it was better that he couldn’t hear the words in the buzz of whispered conversation, but at least this way he didn’t hear anything he didn’t like.
Ree hadn’t tried to find out what Lenar was telling people about today’s ceremony. He figured it would be enough to get people to come to see without letting them know too much. The more people who saw this, the better, according to Lenar. That way they’d be talking about it as a good thing before the official documents started their long trail through Imperial bureaucracy.
Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long. Lenar must have been watching for his arrival, because he walked out from a side door. He’d obviously chosen to make a point: He was wearing a red silk shirt and a cloak of snow- bear fur. His cloak pin was the Imperial crest, and it glittered as though it was worked in gemstones and precious metal. People fell silent, the hush cascading through the hall as people who’d noticed him elbowed their neighbors and pointed.
The ceremony itself went by in a kind of blur for Ree. He read a passage from a book he’d never seen before, then swore an oath of loyalty to the Empire and its local representative—namely Lenar. The rest of the test was to explain what the oath meant. Ree thought he managed that well enough.
After that, Lenar’s Mage came forward, and Lenar announced that the Mage would examine “the applicant.”
That made sure no one’s attention went wandering. Three Rivers had never been big enough for a Mage even before the magic storms, and most people had never seen a Mage actually do magic. The thought didn’t make his stomach rest any easier.
The Mage smiled and whispered, “Relax. This is going to make you feel strange, but it won’t hurt.”
That wasn’t what Ree was worried about. What if he didn’t . . . if he wasn’t . . . No. He’d deal with whatever the Mage found when he found it. He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready.” He spoke loudly enough for his voice to carry, and if it shook a bit, well, that was to be expected for something as important as this.
The Mage must have been waiting for him to speak, because he made a complicated gesture, and everything went . . . odd. The hall and everyone in it seemed to be a long way away, or maybe it was Ree who was a long way away, and there was a pressure on his mind, not really doing anything there, just looking. He fought down the instinctive desire to push that pressure away and make it leave him alone. It had to be the Mage, doing . . . whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.
The pressure moved, and Ree found himself remembering things he’d thought long forgotten. The smell of Jacona in the summer, clutching his mother’s skirt at a fair and watching a Mage make lights spark from people’s fingers, the cold and hunger and fear that never went away when he’d lived on the streets of Jacona, running from larger boys, hiding and hoping they wouldn’t find him, hating that they were bigger and stronger than him . . .
The magic circle, with its blur of pain and the screams that had started as two animals and him and became just him. And the fur that kept him warm after that, the claws that made it so much easier to catch food and escape gangs, at least until the searches started and the street rats got rounded up and taken away. Losing what it was to be human, bit by bit, until he found Jem, and Jem brought him back to life, made him human again.
Then the weird distance went away and the pressure was gone, and he was back in the hall, with the Mage saying something to Lenar that Ree’s ears rang too much to hear. His face fur was damp.
Whatever the Mage said, it must have been good because Lenar smiled and came over to shake Ree’s hand. “Welcome to the Empire.” He gave Ree a parchment certificate that had to have been done up before the ceremony.
The certificate didn’t say anything about whether Ree was human or not; instead, it said that Lenar had examined him and made him a “citizen of the Empire,” There was other legal-type wording there that, as Ree understood it, gave him the same rights—and responsibilities—as someone born and still human. “Thank you, my Lord.” That wasn’t a title Ree usually used, but here, now, it felt right.
He heard a soft harumph of approval from behind him and, turning around, saw that Garrad was there. He’d had two sturdy lads carry him up on a litter, and he was sitting straight on the chair in the litter, holding his stick. His eyes glittered.
When Ree went to him, he found himself pulled into an embrace by the elderly man’s frail arm. “Welcome to the family, heir,” the old man said, softly.
They buried Garrad on a bright day when the snow crunched underfoot and the wind was quiet. Ree, Jem, and Lenar had spent the day before digging beside Garrad’s long-dead wife’s grave, sharing memories and being grateful that in the end he’d gone peacefully, in his sleep.
Ree didn’t say, but he figured the old man had held on until he knew his home would pass on the way he wanted it to, then stopped fighting the call of all those who’d passed before.
When you’d outlived most of the folk you’d known, it must get lonely. He wanted to find a quiet corner to grieve, but with Jem and Lenar both barely holding together—oh, they were being strong, and family-stubborn about it, but Ree could see how brittle their control was—it fell to Ree to arrange everything and make sure Jem was too busy to let go until after the burial, when they’d have a bit of time to themselves to sort out life without the old man.
He suspected Loylla would have helped, only she wasn’t able to get about and wouldn’t be for a while yet.
It was the people that surprised him. People he’d once told off for ignoring that an irritable old man’s chimney had been smokeless for days, people Garrad had once had no use for . . .
Men stopped by the farm with wrapped pots of stew or haunches of beef, and helped with the chores without anyone saying anything, then wouldn’t let Ree or Jem thank them. And now, they trudged up the path to the farm, men, women, and children, all of them in their best clothes, even the mayor, and they seemed to Ree to be . . . well . . . to mean it.
Lenar’s priest gave a short speech, mostly asking any gods that might be listening to help Garrad’s soul get where it was supposed to be. Ree supposed that was the way the army priests did it because there were so many different religions and gods in the army that you couldn’t pick any one set of them without offending most of the
