Bloodline Awakened: Rise Of The Nameless Knight

The Prince Who Came Looking

Tarn would not let go of his sleeve.

"I have to go back," Ryn said, for the third time. "Only for a little while."

*...you said you would stay...*

"I did. And I will. But if I vanish from Greywatch, they'll come looking, and I can't have them looking here."

They stood at the edge of the Silverwood in the amber light of late afternoon. The elven healers had cleaned the iron burns from Tarn's flanks and wrapped her ribs in pale herb-poultices, and some of the storm-gray color had come back into her scales. She still pressed against Ryn like a child afraid of being left in a crowd.

"She will be safe here," Sylwen said gently. "The Elders will not argue with a dragon at the gate."

"And if the Spire comes?"

"Then they will meet nine hundred years of arrows." Sylwen's mouth curved. "We have been waiting for an excuse."

Ryn crouched in front of Tarn and put his forehead against her snout. Her breath was warm and smelled of rain.

"Listen to me," he said quietly. "I'm not leaving you. I'm going to a job. People who love each other go to work."

*...love...?*

"Yes. Love."

A long silence. Then, very small: *...no one has said that to me before...*

Ryn's throat closed. "Then I'm sorry it took so long."

*Do not promise what you cannot keep,* Vaelthor murmured. *Promise what you can.*

"Ten days," Ryn said. "Every ten days I'll come, and sooner if you call. Anywhere you are, I'll hear you."

*...and if I call in the night...?*

"Then I'll come in the night."

Tarn made a low, rumbling sound that was almost a purr. At last, with great reluctance, she let his sleeve slip from her teeth.

"Eat," Ryn told her. "Sleep. Make the elves bring you the big fish."

*...the big fish...*

"The biggest one."

Sylwen caught his arm as he mounted. "Dragon-born."

"Ryn."

"Ryn." She said it as though trying out a stone in her mouth. "What you did in that ravine, you did not have to. You could have walked past."

"No," Ryn said. "I couldn't have."

"I know." She released him. "That is why I am telling you. When the Council asks what manner of man the Dragon God's blood has become, I will have an answer."

***

Greywatch's gate was already open when he rode in, and Lucan was standing in it with his arms folded.

"You are four hours late."

"I got lost, ser."

"You have never been lost in your life." Lucan's eyes dropped to Ryn's sleeve, where a thread of silver elven fiber clung to the cloth, and rose again without a flicker. "The prince arrived this morning."

Ryn's stomach dropped. "Prince Aldric?"

"Inspecting the frontier. Which is a polite way of saying he's hunting for someone." Lucan lowered his voice. "He's told the garrison that a stranger saved his life in the ambush. A man with gold eyes who vanished into the smoke. He wants every soldier in the keep paraded before him by nightfall."

*He saw your eyes,* Vaelthor said, quick and quiet. *Keep them down. And keep the flame cold.*

"I'm a Null, ser," Ryn said. "Nobody's going to mistake me for a hero."

"No." Lucan almost smiled. "That is precisely what I am counting on."

The yard was packed by sundown, three hundred soldiers in ragged rows, torches flaring in the wind. Ryn stood near the back, between Wick and a boy from the stables, staring at the cobbles and trying to look like furniture.

A trumpet sounded. A gold-and-blue standard rose over the gate.

And Prince Aldric Valemont walked in, with six royal guards at his back and his left arm in a sling.

He was younger than Ryn expected. Twenty-two, perhaps, with dark hair, a narrow, intelligent face, and the kind of tired eyes that came from a lifetime of being watched. He didn't look at the commanders or the banners. He walked straight down the first row, pausing before each soldier, studying faces one at a time.

"Name?"

"Garret Holt, Your Highness."

"Where were you on the night of the ambush at Dunmere Road?"

"Here, Your Highness. On the wall."

"Thank you."

On to the next. And the next. Ryn's palms had gone damp. Deep inside him, Vaelthor was very still.

*Breathe. You are a stone in a river.*

"I'm a very small stone," Ryn whispered.

*The best kind.*

Then the prince stopped in front of him.

Silence. A guard shifted his boots.

"Name?"

"Corvin Ash, Your Highness."

"Look at me, Corvin Ash."

Ryn raised his eyes. He kept them plain, gray, ordinary, exactly the color of every other frontier recruit in the yard. Aldric searched them for a long moment, and Ryn had the odd, dizzying sense of being read by someone who had learned to read very young, and very carefully.

"Where were you on the night of the ambush?"

"Westmarch, Your Highness. Near Hollowbrook."

"Hollowbrook." Aldric tilted his head. "I'm told that village burned in a flood. All its records were lost."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Rather convenient."

"I wouldn't know, Your Highness."

"No," Aldric said softly. "I don't suppose you would."

A pause. Somewhere behind them, a torch popped. Ryn's pulse thudded in his ears.

"Everyone at court lies to me," the prince said, quietly enough that only Ryn could hear. "They do it beautifully, smoothly. I have been lied to by experts since I was six years old." His eyes didn't leave Ryn's face. "You, I think, lie very badly."

"I've never been important enough to lie to anyone, Your Highness."

It was the truest thing he'd said all night, and it showed. Something flickered across the prince's face, surprise, then something gentler, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

"No," Aldric murmured. "I'd guess not."

Then he turned and addressed the yard at large. "Thank you, all of you. That will be all."

The ranks broke. Soldiers shuffled and muttered, and Ryn let his breath out slowly, praying he'd imagined the whole thing.

"Ash."

He froze.

Aldric stood a few paces away, half-turned, his sling catching the torchlight. "Walk with me."

"Your Highness, I'm only a baggage-hauler—"

"Which is exactly the sort of man I find I'd like to talk to." The prince's tone was light, almost playful, but his eyes weren't. "I won't ask for anything you can't give. I promise."

Across the yard, Lucan met Ryn's gaze, and gave the smallest nod.

*Go,* Vaelthor said. *If he wanted you dead, he would have said so in front of his guards.*

"That," Ryn muttered under his breath, "is not as comforting as you think."

*It was not meant to be comforting. It was meant to be accurate.*

He fell into step beside the prince, and the two of them walked out of the torchlight into the dark.