Sun turned back, looking up at Albern. “You will keep telling the story if I come with you?”
Albern’s smile widened. “Until the tale’s true end.”
Her pulse raced. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat, and she was not sure she could feel her fingers. But she stepped up next to Albern’s horse, and as he nudged it to a walk, Sun followed.
She expected Albern to continue the tale immediately, but as they left the town heading south and passed into open country, still he remained silent. He only made gentle noises to the horse as he nudged it one way or another. Sun gave the steed another glance, half expecting to see the roan gelding from his tale. But that was ridiculous, of course. That had been decades ago. This horse was a deep chestnut brown.
“What are you thinking, child?”
Sun had been thinking many things, but none seemed like the right answer. So she asked him the question that had not left her mind, despite his reassurances. “Did all of this really happen?”
Albern cocked his head. “I told you already that stories are—”
“—Are meant to be learned from, yes,” said Sun. “I understand, but … how can you expect me to take it to heart, to learn from it, if I do not know for certain that it even took place as you say it did?”
Albern looked at her askance. “Do you think I am certain of how it happened?”
“I … what?” said Sun, frowning up at him. “Of course you are. You lived it.”
“Hm,” said Albern. “I see the lesson still has not taken root. Let me ask you this, then. Tonight you told me your name, but you left out your family name. Do you know if that answer was true or not?”
“Of course I do,” said Sun. “I knew what the truth was, though I did not speak it.”
“Mayhap. Or mayhap, in crafting a lie, you struck upon a deeper truth.”
She frowned. “I do not understand.”
“Do you really think you are still the noble daughter who first entered that tavern?” Albern chuckled. “I doubt she would have gone scarpering off with a decrepit, one-armed man. Those sound like the actions of a girl with no family, the actions of Sun of No Name.”
This was almost too much. Sun’s thoughts spun, and her feelings gave her no peace. She had often wished she was not a daughter of the family Valgun, but she was. Was she not?
Her parents’ guards must have reported that she had gone missing by now. She knew there would be consequences, and that they would be worse the longer she remained away. Yet she was not returning to her family, but traipsing off with an old man, simply because he was telling her a good story.
That did not, in fact, seem very like something Sun of the family Valgun would do.
Her mind whirled, and she felt that strange, unmoored feeling again.
“Why are you telling me all this, about Northwood and the rest of it?” she asked. “Why will you not tell me what happened to your arm, or what happened to Mag?”
“Because you want to hear one story, Sun, but you need to hear another,” said Albern. “Any talespinner must seek a balance. He must tell the listener what they need to hear, but tell it well enough that the audience is willing to stay and listen, no matter what they demanded in the first place. Do you think, when your Dulmish king brings a skald into her court, that she merely searches out the one with the best voice? No, not if she is wise. She seeks the skald who will tell her the stories she most needs told, even—mayhap especially—when she does not want to hear them.”
“So you think you know better than me what story I need to hear?” said Sun. “You are just like my parents, and that is no compliment.”
“I think I do, yes,” said Albern mildly. “But if I judge correctly, I am different from your parents in one important respect: if you do not wish to take my advice, I will not force it upon you. You are free to go at any time—or, if you wish, you can simply ask me to stop telling the tale, and we can talk of other things.”
“You compare yourself to a skald,” said Sun. “Yet if a king demands a tale, her skald will tell it if he is a true servant.”
Albern’s eyes flashed as he looked at her, and for the first time he appeared truly angry. “You vastly misjudge us both if you call me a servant and yourself my king.”
Hot blood rushed into her cheeks. “I am sorry. I did not mean it like that.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. But then the hostility in his expression faded somewhat. “No, I suppose you did not. It is clear to me—forgive me for saying so—but I would guess you have little opportunity to exercise your skill at argument. I would wager that people in your life have been of two kinds: those who obey you, and those who you must obey without question.”
“Is it so obvious?”
“As obvious as the fact you come from Dulmun. You walk like you wear a crown, and those leathers of yours are hardly Dorsean, nor are they the garb of a poor commoner. I knew nothing about you when you stepped through the door of that tavern, but you told me much in the way you moved and spoke. And you are avoiding my point.”
Sun still did not wish to look at him, for her cheeks still burned with shame at the way
