The sound of the pen began again. It filled the chamber, because nobody else wanted to make a noise. Perhaps they, like Branwyn, were afraid that if the world survives would come out the instant one of them opened their mouth.
“It’s snowing,” said Starovna, who was standing by a clear part of the window.
They didn’t murmur, nor did they all go to see; there was discipline in nobility, at least in this part of it.
“It’s winter,” said Kolovat. “That’s all.”
Nobody argued because they wanted him to be right. Nobody spoke again for a long time because they couldn’t quite believe that he was.
* * *
Snow was falling when Zelen left Letar’s temple—not heavily, but steadily. The Mourner and Blade who’d been examining him had glanced out the window when it had started and said nothing. People outside weren’t nearly so composed, not with the tales going around the city.
“Been snow in the Oak Month before,” said a young man in brown laborer’s clothes, paused on the street corner with a cart of wood.
“Once in a while,” said his bearded friend. “It’s not common.”
“But it doesn’t mean—”
They didn’t even glance Zelen’s way as he passed. He wore no circlet of office now, nothing to distinguish him from the common man he was.
It was a pity, in a way. He could have done good on the council once, if he’d ever really been a member, but his family had prevented him in both life and death. Best to let the role go to someone who could truly act in the city’s interest, with no hereditary ties binding their hands.
He could serve better elsewhere.
“You know,” said Branwyn, suddenly at his side, “it takes a while for me to pick you out of a crowd without your finery.”
“Altien said the same.” Zelen turned to face her, brown cloak flaring with the motion. “I think you’re both exaggerating. It’s not as though I’ve gone completely drab.”
With Gedomir in his memory, Zelen doubted he could ever do that, even when he did put on the Mourners’ official regalia. He wore a scarlet wool tunic rather than velvet, though, with long sleeves and a high neck. It kept him warm, now that he’d abandoned most of the magical heat at his house, and it was less effort to take care of, freeing his servants to take over some light duties at the clinic.
A few of those from his family’s estate had joined them. Nislar had a talent for setting bones, it turned out, and the senior housemaid had learned a bit of herbalism in her youth. The pay wasn’t wonderful, drawn as it was from Zelen’s own accounts and the proceeds of selling his jewels, but they didn’t give any indication of caring.
“That would be physically impossible,” said Branwyn.
“Much obliged, madam.” Zelen noticed that she was pale inside the hood of her cloak, but that her cheeks were flushed. “What news? Are we acting?”
“We are… You are. Kolovat will announce it by sundown.”
“Good,” he said, and then made a rueful face. “Well, better than the other options.”
Don’t worry, said Yathana. Neither of us thought you were going to fling your hat in the air over it.
“I’ll save that for when the war is over. When Thyran is gone. And when I have a hat to throw.”
“Touch steel when you say that, and not about the hat,” Branwyn said. Her short laugh was underlaid with solemnity, and Zelen wasn’t entirely joking when he tapped the hilt of his knife.
“What now?” he asked.
“Kolovat said I’ll receive more information within a day or two, and then”—Branwyn hesitated, but not for long—“I’ll need to inform the Order.”
“But that’s tomorrow, if not later,” Zelen said, and offered her his arm. “Now I’d say we both could use a meal.”
“I can’t argue with your professional opinion.”
Branwyn’s grip was light on his bicep, sure and easy now. She’d gotten used to him, if not the custom. Briefly, Zelen stood beside her, not yet walking, taking in the street he’d known most of his life.
Half the young people around them would likely go to fight. The others might join the army as well, as scribes or laborers or healers, or know the agony of waiting at home for bad news. None of them knew yet. None of them had known, for all the past weeks, what fate was approaching through a series of small rooms.
“If you don’t object,” he said, “let’s not head back to my house. I’d rather be out when the word gets around.”
“No,” said Branwyn, turning the word over, “no, you’re right. Show me to that place you’d mentioned before, then, and let’s see if we can manage it without assassins this time. I’ll even pay.”
“My circumstances aren’t that reduced.”
They weren’t what they had been. Zelen had sold every stick and stone of the country house and given the proceeds, along with what his father and brother had left him, to the families of the sacrificed children. Idriel had delivered it: Zelen hadn’t wanted to see the reaction.
That left him what he needed for the clinic, as well as enough for clothing, a few rooms of his city house, and food—much of which the Temple of Letar would provide him before too long.
“How was the lesson?” Branwyn asked as they headed off into a moving curtain of snow.
“Surprising for everyone, I’d wager.” Zelen grinned at the memory of the Blade’s expression of shock during the magical inspection and the Mourner’s pithy phrasing. “But they’ve begun to teach me a good deal already, and they say my training will help. I should be ready for the front lines in a week or two.”
“The front lines?” Branwyn stared at him.
Zelen nodded. “They’ll need healers. You know I’m decent
