The god’s eight Hands, including Brant, lowered to one knee.
The emissaries from Tashijan bowed, even Castellan Vail.
Lord Jessup waved them all up. “Kathryn ser Vail, Castellan of Tashijan, Magistrate of the Order of the Shadowknights, be welcome,” he said formally. His manner then melted to warmer tones with a tired smile. “It is an honor to have you gracing Oldenbrook once again.”
“My lord,” the castellan said, bowing more deeply, then straightening with a shift of her cloak.
“How long have you been away from our shores?”
“I believe six years, my lord.”
Brant recognized the slight pause, the inflected lowered timbre in her voice. It was an awkward subject, one to be skirted. And with good reason. It surely had to be a tender matter still to the castellan. She had been betrothed to Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight once in service to Lord Jessup. All in Oldenbrook knew their story. Balladeers still struggled to capture the pain and tragedy in strum of string and chord. For the ballad of Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight stripped of cloak and love, remained unfinished. First lover, then murderer, then broken knight and slave, and finally godslayer…now risen anew as regent of neighboring Chrismferry.
The other half of the tragedy stood here. Tylar’s betrothed and lover. Forced to damn him with her own testimony, she was equally cursed, banished and humiliated into a secluded life. Some even whispered that an unborn child had been lost to her sorrow and heartbreak. But her wheel had turned also, and she rose again as castellan of Tashijan.
But did the song end even there? One served in Chrismferry, the other in Tashijan. And with no true end, the balladeers struggled for a satisfactory final chord.
But Lord Jessup held no such conflict in his heart. “It is good to have you here again,” he said. “What brings you from the Citadel to our shores with such haste?”
“Haste arises because of a dire storm due to strike from the north. Wyndravens sweep south out of Mistdale and Five Forks with messages of a last great winter squall, the worst of them all, one raging with snow and bitter winds. The northern edge of Mistdale forest lies blasted and dead, trunks burst with ice. The rivers of Five Forks are frozen solid to the sea, and the freeze continues to flow south, crushing ships, stalling all movement.”
“I have felt the echo of pain through the waterways,” Lord Jessup said. “Is that why you have come with such speed?”
“I come also at the behest of Warden Fields.” Stiffness entered her voice. “He has asked that I personally attend each god of the First Land and announce a ceremony of noted distinction to be held at Tashijan, one which is meant to heal a rift across our Land.”
“And what ceremony might that be?”
“The sanctifying of a knight to a new cloak.”
Lord Jessup’s brow pinched with curiosity. Brant could almost read his thoughts. It was a common rite when a knight first gained his shadowcloak for the god whom he first served to oversee the sanctification, to bless the moment with the god’s own Grace. But then why come with such a distinguished emissary for such an ordinary event?
Understanding suddenly smoothed Lord Jessup’s face. “The knight to be cloaked?” he said. “Am I to assume this is Tylar ser Noche, regent of Chrismferry?”
Castellan Vail bowed her head in acknowledgment.
“Is Ser Noche not already a knight? Did he not bend a knee where you now stand when I first blessed his cloak?”
“And that cloak was stripped,” the castellan reminded him in a pained voice. “The ceremony I come to announce is one to reinstate Tylar-Ser Noche-to the Order of the Shadowknights. He will receive back his cloak and his diamond-pommeled sword, certifying his station. Warden Fields has asked that I request all the gods of the First Land to send high representatives to Tashijan for the event.”
Lord Jessup raised his hands, steepling his fingers before his lips. He spoke between them, one eyebrow lifted. “And so to heal a rift…”
Brant read the layers of meaning in those few words. The knighting ceremony was more than an attempt to right an old wrong. It was fraught with layers of import and consequence. All winter long, rumors had abounded of a continuing tension between Tashijan and Chrismferry. Whispers spread of how Warden Fields had employed Dark Graces during his bloody and savage pursuit of Tylar, back when the broken knight had been declared a godslayer. As such, there continued to be enmity between the two most powerful men in all the First Land. It could not last. All of Myrillia looked to the First Land for stability and guidance. The histories of Tashijan and Chrismferry stretched back to the Sundering, when the gods first came to Myrillia and settled its Nine Lands out of savagery.
The growing rift threatened all.
The knighting ceremony plainly was intended to unite Tashijan and Chrismferry once again, to spread a healing balm over the recent frictions. And the gods were being called to witness and bless the new union.
It now made sense why Kathryn ser Vail had been sent as emissary. The woman stood between all: between the two men, between the two strongholds, between the past and the present.
“When is the ceremony to be held?” Lord Jessup asked.
“In a half-moon’s time.”
“So soon?”
“Thus the urgency.”
Lord Jessup nodded his head once. “Then we must hope that the coming storm is truly the last dying breath of this interminable winter.”
As final matters of scheduling were discussed, along with minor issues of trade and conflicts, Brant’s attention drifted.
Motion drew his eye.
Castellan Vail’s page-the girl he had once known as Dart-was staring hard at him. Or rather at his knees. Brant glanced down, fearing his leggings were soiled or torn or somehow offensive enough to warrant such heated attention.
But nothing appeared amiss with his wardrobe.
Glancing back up, he watched the girl make a dismissive, shooing motion at him. What had he done so wrong to irritate the girl? Though they had not known each other well back at the school, neither had there been animosity between them.
His face reddened as he found himself obeying her silent command. He backed toward the door. Her eyes followed him. Across the hall, matters of the realm were quickly settled, and Lord Jessup stood, signaling the gathering at an end.
Happy to be freed from his obligations here, Brant edged out the door and back into the High Wing of the castillion. He closed the way and muffled the low cacophony of the voices inside. He suspected it would be another full bell before the gathering would truly disband. It was seldom that a god-realm had the privilege of Tashijan’s second-highest-ranking personage in attendance.
Alone, Brant turned to the empty hall.
Before he could take a step, his skin prickled. He tensed, going dead still. As out in the forest, he sensed something near, unseen, hunting him. He even heard a growl inside his head, an echo of the Fell wolf’s hungry warning.
What could-?
Brant’s chest suddenly burst with a searing fire. A silent cry burned from his lips as he fell to his knees. One hand ripped at the hooks and strings of his shirt, tearing to his woolens, fighting for the source of the flame. He yanked on the twisted leather thong around his neck, tugging free what hung from it. It was the only piece of home he had carried out from the misty jungles of Saysh Mal.
The black stone fell free, glassy and iridescent.
Brant knew it was the source of the fire. The stone had burned like this once before. It was one of the reasons why he still kept it near.
He stretched the talisman as far from his body as the corded braid around his neck would allow. The stone appeared no different than before, drilled through the middle and threaded with the leather cord.
With his other hand, he hauled his woolens lower, expecting to see a ruin of blistered and charred flesh. But the skin of his chest was smooth and unblemished.
