GALLOWSBIRD, DISPLAYED SABLE : AGAIN
(a Birthright Lord High Executioner Story: 12)
by Dru Pagliassotti
p. 2
* * *
Aeric's rings draw blood as the blow rocks my head sideways. I lose my balance for a moment, then scramble back to my knees.
"You failed," he hisses furiously, standing over me. I keep my eyes fixed on his heavy black boots.
"Yes, your grace."
From years of experience, I know the next blow is coming; but I'm not certain what form it will take.
He shoves me backward, kicks me in the ribs. I wince, curl. Another kick. He is truly angry this time. Normally he's more restrained with me. I could move, dodge the blows, but instead I masochistically welcome them. With each kick he strengthens my resolve.
I have not told him that Cynric is alive.
I wanted to find out what he would do.
Now I know.
At last he turns, gripping the mantlepiece, staring into the fire with hunched shoulders.
A man who believes that his last child is dead.
I harden my heart. If he hadn't lied to me fifteen years ago, I might have children of my own by now. The thought is as bitter as the taste of blood in my mouth.
I gingerly uncurl, pull myself to my knees again. My ribs throb. I will heal them later, out of his sight. For the moment, I use the pain to hold back the self-doubt that threatens to rise.
"I want her dead, Rook."
"Who?" I leave off my customary, 'your grace.' He doesn't seem to notice.
"The duchess."
Of course.
There was a time when her family connections would have made such a move impossible. But now the realm is plunged into war, and assassins have already started to pick off Aeric's family.
Who would be suspicious of yet another murder?
"Make it look like Avan," he says harshly. "And do it tonight."
I hesitate. But I have my own grudge to settle against the duchess. I would have liked to have talked to Gwenavaere. To have found out how she had survived. How much she had known.
"Yes, your grace."
I would kill the duchess for myself, not for him.
"Get out of here."
I back up and leave, arm pressed against my aching ribcage. He doesn't seem to notice that I'm gone.
Killing the duchess is easy. Nobody questions my presence in the castle anymore, and I had long since made a master key to the rooms. She dies more swiftly than she deserves, but I'm not in the mood to linger over my work. I don't bother planting any evidence against Avan. Everybody will leap to that conclusion, regardless.
Instead of reporting back to Aeric, I leave the castle. Down Castleroad. Across Market Street. Up to the church of Cuiraécen.
I need a safe, quiet place to think.
I am pulling off my gloves and settling down in a pew when a voice interrupts me.
"Rook?"
I turn, recognizing the voice with pleasure. She stands in full military garb, a warrior-priestess, her fierce demeanour lightened only by the warm smile that appears on her lips as she sees me.
She is my second friend in Seasedge, though she's seldom been around since the wars of the Long Night began. To some extent, I've been glad of her absence. She's a friend, but I fear what she may learn of my forbidden Bloodline. I know that if she learns I have Azrai's taint, she will kill me.
Knowing that doesn't make me respect her any less.
I stand and we meet in the middle of the aisle, hands closing over each other in firm welcome.
"You're back?"
"Just for a day," she says. "I had some reports to turn in. Tomorrow I'm off to the front again."
"It's good to see you, Laile."
"And you." She cocks her head, gives me a frank look. "What brings you to church so late?"
"I ... I just came to pray for a while."
"Ah." She kicks her sword out of the way and sits at the end of one pew. I sit at the end of another, facing her.
"The last time you came here just to pray," she says quietly, "you were arrested a day later on charges of murder."
I wince. She's always been blunt and far too insightful for my good. I don't know if she's aware of what role I played in Aeric's plans since that terrible day, but I think she suspects. I don't know if she approves or not. Cuiraécen can be a ruthless god, but Laile is a woman of honor.
"Tell me that won't happen again," she says.
I shudder.
"I hope not." But I wonder. If Aeric is angry enough....
"Tell me."
I look away from her. I would value her advice, but she fights for Boeruine and thus for Aeric. I am not sure she will see my side of the problem.
"I ... I have a question about duty," I say at last, voice low. "I just came to pray for guidance."
She smiles, sadly.
"That's what you told me last time." She reaches forward, takes one of my hands. The gesture startles me. "Rook, I can tell that you're angry about something. Angry and frightened, too. Tell me how I can help."
I want to. I really do. But I'm afraid of what she will say if she learns I've lied to Aeric. If she learns who I've hidden away in the forest.
After a long moment she sighs, then stands, releasing my hand.
For a moment I wish ... but there's no point. We walk very different paths, Laile and I.
"Come here."
I follow her back to the small chapel in the rear of the church where Seasedge's executioners have always kept vigil on the Eve of the Dead. I had not intended to pray there, but she points to the prie-dieu. I dutifully kneel before the swords and lightning-blazoned shield upon the chapel altar, feeling vaguely ridiculous. Laile has always been a friend, not a priestess, to me. But perhaps, I think guiltily, now that I've shown that I don't trust her friendship, I've driven her into her other role.
She stands before the altar and makes the sign of the Bolt. I hurriedly follow suit, then bow my head as she begins to pray. After a moment or two I forget that she is Laile. She is simply a priestess, distant, awe-inspiring, a stranger.
She speaks familiar words, words I've heard since I was a child accompanying my father to church and squirming with boredom. My mind drifts, and I wonder if I am wrong to come to the church straight from murder, with a slain woman's soul so freshly on my conscience. I think of other women I have killed; not so many women as there have been men, thank the gods. I think of the gipsy woman I'd asked to marry me and whose husband had tried to kill me. In the end, I hanged her. I think of Gwenavaere, whom I'd also asked to marry me, in the hope of saving her. In the end, I left her my knife and walked away. But unlike the gipsy, she had lived, and in exchange for her life I had given up mine, given up the life I had expected and hoped for. Given up life as an executioner and taken a new life as a spy and murderer. And now --
"Now the time has come for you to make a choice, Corbin Rook."
I look up, terrified that Aeric has found me, and I see a stranger standing where Laile had been. He wears bright chainmail and a white-crested helm, and his eyes flash silver and white as he regards me.
I unfold my hands and clutch the top of the prie-dieu to steady myself, and everything goes white.
Before me, a battlefield. I hear the familiar groans and screams and sobs of the dying. Also familiar: the sharp scent of blood, the sweet scent of gangrenous flesh, the earthy scent of voided bowels and spilled guts. Banners lie trampled in the mud, the garish colors of Avanil, the regal colors of Boeruine. I don't know which side won. But I know who has not won. The women in the village at the edge of the field are screaming as they struggle beneath ruthless soldiers.
Lightning flashes.
Another battlefield. Fire bathes the corpses in bloody, flickering light. It rises from farmers' crofts and fields as troops raze the earth to make it useless to the foe. I have seen it done many times. Crouched by a well, a man in his fifties wraps his arms around a woman of the same age, a weeping girl, an elderly man.
Lightning flashes.
I recognize the border between Osoerde and Elinie. Wood creaks; rough laughter, a scream of agony. Soldiers nail a young enemy to one of the X-crosses that line the border. The crosses stretch on as far as my eye can see, crude frameworks suspending dead and rotting enemy corpses.
Lightning flashes.
The irregulars have gathered, men and women and boys dressed in ill-fitting armor, wearing rusted and makeshift weapons. Above them snaps a hand-sewn banner of Ilien. I look past them and see ranks of soldiers from Avanil approaching. The rag-tag army shifts. Sweat trickles down faces, fear-white lips draw back in terrified snarls.
More lightning.
One after another I see them all. Anuire convulses in the grip of war, regent against regent, realm against realm. And through it all I see what the regents do not. I see children slain and youths mutilated, girls raped and women enslaved, farms sacked and herds slaughtered. Blood and tears run through the land in a violent flood, until the earth itself rejects it and cries out with horror.
My voice joins Anuire's in a howl of horror and outrage. Where is the honor? Where is the glory?
Lightning flashes.
A great plain. On one side a dark army amasses. I shrink back as I see the Gorgon's banner flying overhead. The faces beneath the soldier's helms are not human.
White flashes and for a moment I think it is another bolt of lightning, but this time it does not vanish, but draws closer. A winged horse as silver-white as Cuiraécen's bolt flashes through the air. The horse bears a rider, and the rider bears the banner of the Anuirean Empire. The two sweep in an arc, surveying the Gorgon's troops, then fly back. I turn as they land.
The rider is a woman. She wears chainmail and the imperial sword and crown of Michael Roele. She looks familiar.
I know the man to whom she rides better. He leans forward in his saddle and takes her banner. His grey warhorse stands motionlessly, eyes alert and brave. The warrior's bright blue eyes flash in the pale light as he looks up at the banner, then down at the shield by his side.
He wears plate armor bearing the arms of Boeruine. A large bastard sword is slung across his back. He seems older and harder than the Cynric I know, but there can be no doubt that it is the same person. I see Aeric in him, but a younger, nobler Aeric. My heart aches for wanting to speak to him, for wanting to know if he is now regent, and if it is the right choice for him.
He lifts the shield and hands it to the pegasus-rider. The shield, too, bears the Roele arms.
The woman turns to address Cynric's companion. This other knight sits astride a black warhorse and wears dark field plate, a crow-shaped helm. The shield hung off the saddle bears arms I have not seen before: sanguine, a crow displayed sable holding two lightning bolts argent. The colors are familiar, the heraldry suspect.
"Sir Corvus," the woman says. "It is as you said it would be. The Black Prince comes for the Iron Throne." She pauses. "I hope we are enough."
"We must be, your highness," the knight replies. I reel backward, for I know the voice. "All Anuire is depending on us."
The voice is mine.
Lightning flashes.
The man in chainmail still regards me, but now I'm cold with sweat and dizzy with fear. My fingers dig into the leather padding of the prie-dieu. The hair on the back of my neck rises as if I stand in the center of a lightningstorm.
"Choose," he says again. "Choose between the Stormlord you pray to and the Sister of Thieves you follow. Choose between the tyrant you serve and the oath you swore to my father. Choose between Corbin Rook and Corvus Stormcrow. Choose now and never look back."
Leather stretches and rips beneath my nails but I cannot wrest my eyes from him. Horror and awe unman me as I realize who he is; terror renders me mute as I realize what he demands of me.
I have never been confident in my own choices. I've always trusted others to guide my steps.
But not to choose is no longer a choice left to me.
I shudder at the thought of leaving behind seven generations of service, abandoning my family tradition, discarding my birthname. But neither can I imagine continuing to serve Aeric, continuing to live as his pet assassin and bodyguard, knowing how he has betrayed me.
Pray Cuiraécen I do not make the wrong choice again, I think wildly, as cotton batting tears beneath my fingers and my nails dig into wood.
"Corvus," I choke around thirty-seven years' worth of moral inertia and self-doubt.
Lightning flashes and white fire sears through me from head to toe. For a moment I can hear the furious crack of thunder, and then my heart leaps, stops, and I am thrown off the kneeler.
Reflexes assert themselves; I roll to all fours and look up at the altar.
He is gone. Laile stands there instead. Wide brown eyes meet mine and widen further.
We both start violently as my corpse slides from the prie-dieu and tumbles, motionless, to the chapel floor. The tips of its fingers are red with blood.
I settle back to my knees and hold up my own hands in wonder.
There's no blood on them. But they are mine.
"Laile?" I ask, and my voice shakes uncontrollably. "Am -- am I dead?"
"Yes." She whispers, and takes a step forward. Then another, past my corpse. "No."
She leans down and grasps one of the hands I am staring at. With her help I stand, still shaking, as if lightning yet plays through my nerves. She reaches up with her other hand and wipes her fingers across my cheek. I realize tears are running down my face.
"You've been Marked," she says softly, and there is awe in her voice. I do not need to ask her if she saw what I saw. Her expression is answer enough.
"What do you mean?" Nothing makes sense yet, except that I feel as weak as a newborn, and my own body lies sprawled at my feet.
"Look." She guides me around toward the altar, and I look into the highly polished shield hung over it. My face is distorted by its curve, but I can see enough. I can discern the livid lightning-scar that runs from my scalp down the left side of my face, down past my jerkin collar.
"A Bloodmark," she says, though even I can recognize it as such. Fresh fear grips my heart.
"But how --" I shakily reach up, touch the scar. The skin is raw, like a fresh burn. "I can't --"
All of my life I have known that should Azrai's taint ever reveal itself, I will be killed.
"It's all right," Laile says, and helps me sit at the base of the altar. I cannot look at my own body on the floor, so I look at her instead. "I've known you were Blooded since you returned."
"Then why --?"
"You didn't seem to want to talk about it. And I would never be so rude as to ask."
There is so much to talk about. We dance around the central subject, the question of what just happened. But I am not ready to address that question yet. I grasp the lesser question first.
"You don't want to kill me, then?"
Laile stares at me as if I've gone mad. She may be right.
"Why would I want to kill you? I mean, I assume --" she pauses and starts again, carefully. "Obviously, you must have been Blooded before you were exiled, but I assume your line was weak, since I never sensed it before. When you came back, I could sense it clearly. I don't want to know what happened to strengthen it. I can guess. But I trust that you never deliberately hunted others for their bloodline."
"But, A-" I stumble over the name, "Azrai's line?"
There. I have said it. For the first time in my life, the words have passed my lips.
"Azrai?" She gives me a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"
"My bloodline." To admit it is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am afraid to look away from her eyes, afraid to see her hand curling over a dagger's hilt. "Azrai's."
Her lips part and she gives me an incredulous look that swiftly transforms into shock and then pity.
"Rook --" she corrects herself, "Stormcrow --"
"Corvus." The name is unfamiliar on my lips, but I don't want her to use the other, which sounds too pretentious for me. Too -- much. "Just Corvus."
"Corvus." A brief flash of smile that fades back into deep concern. "Do you really believe that you're carrying Azrai's bloodline?"
I lick my lips nervously.
"That's what the Rooks have always believed," I say uncertainly. For generations, that is what each child of our line has been told once he or she is old enough to understand and to stay silent. It is our dark secret, the curse of the Rooks.
She slowly shakes her head, eyes holding my gaze.
"Rook -- Corvus. Why didn't you ever ask anyone?"
Plaintively: "How could I?"
She sighs, then reaches out and rests a hand on my shoulder. I stare at her and this time tears blur my vision as I anxiously anticipate her next words.
"Oh, Rook. If I'd known that, I would have told you years ago. What a horrible thing to believe about yourself. You have Anduiras's line. Not Azrai's. Anduiras."
This time I can't stop myself. I drop my face into my hands, letting the tears come. Too much -- I am crumbling under the strain of the past few days, of the past few minutes. I am ashamed to weep in front of Laile, who has always been so strong; I am ashamed to let her see my defenses collapse.
But I can't help it. A great, terrible weight has been lifted from me. I feel like a condemned man whose sentence has been commuted at the last minute. I feel like a sick man who has been healed at last.
I feel redeemed, for the first time in my life.
Laile says nothing, but her hand is still on my shoulder, a gentle pressure, reminding me that she's there. At last I look up, taking a shuddering breath, and wipe my face on my sleeve.
"What's happening?" I ask her, begging her to make some sense of all of this.
"You've been given a second chance." She pulls away slightly to look at me. Her expression is solemn. "Corvus Stormcrow. What just happened -- do you understand it?"
I look at my own body, then at her again.
"A second chance." This time I can control my voice better. I wipe my face again, reassert some control over myself. I think of the knight on the warhorse in my vision. That is the man I must become, I think to myself. A knight in the service of the empire, not a killer in the service of the archduke. A man who can wear a name like Stormcrow without flinching with embarrassment.
I know I'm not that man yet. But I've been given the chance to become him.
"I understand enough of it," I say at last. I swallow. "I have a job to do, don't I?"
"For a far better master than Aeric," she agrees, voice soft. "Cuiraécen has called you to battle."
I look down at my fallen body, then stand and crouch beside it. I pause a moment, reluctant to touch it for fear we might, somehow, be drawn together again. I feel as though I'm gazing at a reflection of myself. To some extent, I am -- of another self, of a fate that might have been. I steel myself, feel for a pulse. None. I am dead.
Slowly my mind begins limping forward again.
"I'll have to leave." I look over my shoulder at Laile. She looks disconcerted, gazing at the two of me. I stand. "Aeric will think I'm dead."
She nods, then cocks her head, seeing something new. I follow her gaze and drop my hand on the hilt of my sword.
Not Whisper. I look down at the black-and-silver scabbard, a black-and-silver hilt. I look at my body. Whisper isn't there, either. It has been transformed. Or replaced.
I slowly draw the blade. Sparks and lines of lightning surround it in a crackling nimbus. No, not Whisper at all. There will be no more sneaking in the shadows with this blade in hand.
"Stormclaw," Laile says, reading the runes along its length for me. She gives me a faint smile. "The crow's claw, I suppose. It's a sacred sword, Corvus. If you ever need help from a cleric of Cuiraécen, show that and you'll get what you need." She looks at me. "Cuiraécen is the herald of Haelyn, Corvus. And I think you will be the herald of the woman we saw."
I firmly resheathe the weapon. At last I see what Cuiraécen has done. Marked, I can no longer hide. Surrounded by a storm, I can no longer lurk. A herald, I can no longer follow. I have chosen a warrior's path, not a thief's, and everything around me is rearranging to block off the latter path forever.
Choose now and never look back, he said.
Still, I am ill at ease. For thirty-seven years I have faded into the background. I feel awkward now, out of my element.
"What should I do with the body?" I ask.
"Leave it here," Laile says. "Leave it here, and I'll report your death to Aeric. Struck down while praying."
"You don't think he'll be suspicious?"
"Why would he?"
I slowly nod. It is, after all, undeniably my body. I have known it all my life.
And Aeric will know, though no others might, that I was struck down the very same night I killed his wife. Perhaps it will make him nervous. I hope so. Some caution about taking others' lives would do him good.
I have to smile that I, of all people, am thinking this. Laile looks at me and smiles, too.
"You look better now," she says. "And it's always nice to see one of your smiles."
"I feel better now." It is the truth. "Laile, I -- thank you." How can I tell her how I feel? All my life I've lived one lie after another, and now, all at once, they have all been swept away.
She stands and reaches out. We grip hands again.
"I'm grateful that I was given the chance to witness this," she says quietly. "You can't imagine what it means, to have been Cuiraécen's vessel for such a call."
I look down at our clasped hands.
"I may never see you again," I say suddenly, stricken at the thought. To never see her or Bracken. That hurts. I hope she will somehow let Bracken know that I am alive. I'm not sure Cuiraécen will permit it. "Never --"
Her grip tightens.
"Oh, I expect we'll run into each other again," she says, with confidence. "Have faith in Cuiraécen, Corvus. Besides," she grins, "I'm looking forward to seeing the new you. Especially if this you smiles more often."
An old joke between us; she has always chided me for my grim demeanour. I can't think of what to say, so I step forward and pull her into an embrace, instead, and she hugs me back. We separate and hold each other at arm's length.
"Be careful," I say to her.
"Go with Cuiraécen," she says to me. "And don't worry. I'll talk to Captain Bracken for you."
She has read my innermost thoughts again. There is nothing else to say. I go.
***
Cynric's look of relief changes to shock as I step through the door of the woodsman's hut.
"What happened?" he asks, staring at me.
"I have some things I need to tell you," I say. I sit down. He continues to stare, but gingerly takes a seat across the room.
I tell him everything. How I knew his mother. What I thought had happened to her. How I was sent to retrieve them both, fifteen years later. Who his father is. And what I have foreseen for him.
He looks as dumbfounded as I must have when I first learned the truth about his mother.
"You'll have your birthright," I tell him at last. "I've seen it. But now isn't the right time to claim it. If you go to Aeric now, you'll be trapped in the same prison I was. He'll make you his, he'll take you to war with him, and somewhere along the line, he'll kill your conscience."
Cynric looks at me, as though wanting to protest, but then falls silent. I wonder what, exactly, he sees. I have yet to look at myself in a proper mirror. The hut contains nothing of the sort.
"Will you come with me, instead?" I ask. "There's a place for both of us in a greater fight than these border wars."
"Where?"
"I'm not sure," I admit. "But if the empire is going to rise again, there's one man who will be at the center of it. Dosiere."
"The regent?" Cynric looks doubtful. "I heard he was in exile. Will he see us?"
Of that, I have no doubt. I'm not sure what he will say, especially to me, after I abandoned his Guardians to return to the warmonger Aeric. But I'm sure he will grant me an audience in order to say it.
"Yes. Will you come?"
"I have to think about it."
That seems fair. I've given him much to consider. I nod and walk outside to check the two horses that are still tied there. I feed them, groom them, and then go back inside again.
Cynric looks up. He's only fourteen, but already I can sense the man he will become. The man I've foreseen.
"I'll go with you," he says heavily.
"Good." I pause. I have a strong urge to swear the same allegiance to him that I had once sworn to his father -- to be the first man in Anuire to take an oath to this future lord. Rook would not have hesitated. But Corvus -- I quell the urge. I must not fall so easily into old patterns again. I will not. Perhaps, someday, I'll be proud to place my hands between his and swear my allegiance. But until then my duty to him is somewhat different.
"There's no time like the present," I say, instead.
The ride to Mhoried takes a week and a half. We ride carefully, avoiding patrols, taking the long and inconspicuous way past disputed borders. I learn more about Cynric in that time, and he, about me. He tells me much about philosophy and strategy, myth and ideal, and I tell him about politics and warfare, reality and disillusionment. He speaks of knights, and I speak of peasants. He speaks of duty and I speak of heartache. We learn much from each other, I think. He is a good lad, and when I look at him I feel a hollowness inside, and think of the life I might have had.
"If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?" he asks me one night as we sit by the fire. I sigh.
"A wife," I say wistfully. "Children. A steady job I can be proud of. A chance to play violin. Friends. Peace."
"Then why do you do all this?" he asks, confused. I shake my head. He is too young to understand about the sacrifices that must be made for duty. To him duty is still all golden trumpets and glorious battles.
"Life just turned out differently." I think of the things I have left behind. Bracken, the last of my family. Laile, the last of my friends. Young Gwynneth the scullery maid, the last of my responsibilities. My violin. My lute. Sheafs of music. Volumes of family records. Everything I once held dear is gone. All in the name of duty.
He tries to assure me that it is not too late for a family, but I dismiss his words and the conversation turns to other matters. I have chosen my own fate, after all. I fear I will be the last of my line. The thought saddens me, but I'm used to being alone.
A week and a half to Mhoried. We enter as starving men. Neither of us had food enough to last the time, nor hunting skills enough to keep us fed each night. Our clothes are brittle with ice and sweat, our beards growing out, our hands and faces chapped raw with the cold. Our horses are weary and hungry, their heads drooping, their hooves barely rising above the cold ground as they walk.
I lead us to the castle and beg audience with Mhoried's chamberlain. He was a Guardian, too, when I meet him years ago. I hope he will remember the name I give to the servants. Malachai Gothos, the name I used for the two years that I worked for Dosiere.
He does remember. We are called in. Few castles are warm, but compared to the bitter cold of the winter outside, the Mhorr's stronghold is paradise. We follow the servant silently. I have warned Cynric that we must be circumspect. I don't know how much will be proper to reveal, yet. My goal is simply to gain entrance to the castle; after that, I will decide what I tell the Mhorr and Dosiere.
But Dosiere awaits us in the room to which we are escorted, so I must decide quickly.
"Rook," he says, as I enter. "I've been expecting you."
I halt, taken aback not only by his presence, but by his use of my real name. My old name, I correct myself.
"Lord regent." I bow, and flash back to the times I stood before him as a Guardian, in the Imperial City of Anuire. His opulent surroundings then had been a far cry from this rustic setting. "I am ... Corvus Stormcrow, now." I blush as I say it. The name still isn't a good fit, although Cynric has used it with me over the last eleven days of travel. "Corbin Rook is dead."
"Oh?" He gestures us close to the fire and leans back in his leather chair. He still looks well, though the years have added more white to his hair, more lines to his face.
"This is Cynric Kincannon," I say, introducing the boy. He bows respectfully, though there is frank curiosity in his eyes as he regards the regent.
"I see." Dosiere looks curiously at Cynric, then turns back to me. "Make yourselves comfortable. We have much to discuss."
Cynric takes a chair by the fire. I stand before the hearth, feeling the warmth seep into my frozen bones, too uncomfortable to sit in front of Dosiere. He may be a regent deposed, but I feel obliged to give him the respect due his former rank. Respect I too often withheld when I was Aeric's spy.
"You've been Marked," he says, unknowingly repeating Laile's words. I nod, wondering exactly what he sees. "You're no longer working for Aeric?"
"He thinks I'm dead, and I'd like to keep it that way," I say, feeling a twinge of guilt. All of my life I've served the archduke. Even now I can't help the nagging feeling that I am doing wrong to leave him. "Cynric and I came here looking for political asylum." I look at Dosiere, see only curiosity and interest in his expression. "And to join the Guardians again, if you'll have me," I finish, awkwardly.
"You know the Guardians can't condone the things you've done," Dosiere says quietly. I nod.
"Rook did those things," I say, as confidently as I can. "He's dead now. I'll do better."
"Corvus Stormcrow." He seems to test the name. Then he slowly nods and looks at Cynric. "And you, Cynric Kincannon. How do you fit into this?"
The boy hesitates, glances swiftly at me. I cannot counsel him. Dosiere sees much; if he knew my real name, then it is likely he knows Cynric's parentage, too. But I won't be the one to reveal the boy's secret.
"Corvus rescued me from assassins," he says, far more comfortable with my new name than I am. He takes a deep breath and seems to draw his rank around him like a cloak. "I'm Aeric's son. He thinks I'm dead, too."
"And why are you here?" Dosiere asks. I want to step in, deflect his questions as I might an enemy's arrows, but I restrain myself.
"I want to be a Guardian," Cynric says with a trace of defiance. "I want to learn how to be a good leader."
Dosiere smiles.
"Then you'll be welcome," he says. Then he looks at me. "And you, too. I can't afford to turn away anyone. We have a great deal of work ahead of us."
"I know," I say, and this time I do speak with confidence. "I know."
So now I sit in a small room heated by hearth and brazier. A pot of tea hangs over the hearth, and I hold a cup in my hands, warming them. We have been given rooms, modest but sufficient, and a chance to bathe, shave, change our clothes, eat a hot meal. Night has fallen and soon I will go to sleep, but for the moment I'm content to sit beside the fire and think.
I don't know what I've done to earn a second chance. I don't know what's expected of me. But I do know that thirty-seven years of habit and training must now be overcome. I must move from assassin and spy to -- to what? I'm not certain. I will defend Cynric as well as I can, and seek to prepare myself for the battle with the Gorgon that I know must lie ahead. Beyond that, I don't know. Perhaps there will be little for me beyond that moment I have foreseen.
A standing mirror looms beside the washbasin. I glance at myself and wonder what I have become. The Bloodmark is white, a long jagged lightning-streak marking me from crown to sole along the left side of my body. It bisects the Guardian's sigil, the hidden magical mark that each of us bears as identification. My hair is silver-white where the Mark begins; my eye silver-white where it crosses over. I will no longer be able to fade into the crowd, to melt inconspicuously behind others.
Choose now and never look back, he said.
I set the tea down.
I'm not sure what I will do tomorrow. But I know that whatever it is, Corvus will welcome it.
