THE HEIR OF THE FORGOTTEN GOD

CHAPTER 3: What a Man Carries

He spent the rest of the morning building a list in his head.

It wasn't much of a list. That was the problem. He owned one change of clothes, a small knife he used for eating, and approximately fourteen copper coins he'd saved over three years by spending almost nothing. He had no horse, no contacts outside the estate walls, no family to run to, and no idea where he would go if he left. He knew Solrath's capital city by reputation only — big, expensive, indifferent to people arriving with nothing.

What he had was the mark on his hand and two strangers' voices telling him that someone was already on the way.

He kept working. That was the only sensible thing to do. Running now, in daylight, with the yard full of people, would guarantee questions he couldn't answer. So he forked straw and refilled water troughs and avoided Dain, who seemed to have already filed Cassian under *not worth managing* and moved on, which suited him perfectly.

By midmorning the stable had filled up with noise — two grooms arrived, then a boy of about twelve whose job appeared to be carrying things from one place to another without being told why. Cassian watched them the way he'd learned to watch everyone in the estate. Who paid attention, who didn't. Who reported upward and who kept things to themselves.

Maren came to find him just before noon.

She appeared at the stable entrance with a cloth-wrapped bundle and the expression of someone who had decided to do something and was already regretting it. She held the bundle out when he approached, and he unwrapped it to find half a loaf of bread and a wedge of hard cheese — better than the stable hands' usual midday ration.

"From the kitchen," she said. Meaning she'd taken it herself, which meant she'd risk a dressing-down if Drost's housekeeper noticed.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I know." She crossed her arms. Looked at the middle distance somewhere past his left shoulder, which was how Maren looked at things she didn't want to look at directly. "The physician left this morning. Early. Before the household was awake." She paused. "He took his bags."

Cassian felt something tighten in his chest. "All of them?"

"The big one. The one he never takes on day trips." She finally looked at him. "He's been here eleven years, Cassian. He's never just left."

He broke off a piece of bread and made himself chew it slowly. The cheese was sharp and a little dry. He focused on that. "Did anyone else notice?"

"The housekeeper. She's furious. Lord Drost doesn't know yet." Another pause. "There were two men in the yard this morning. Before sunrise. I saw them from the kitchen window when I came in early to start the ovens. They weren't staff. I didn't recognize either of them."

"What did they look like?"

"Ordinary. That's what bothered me." She unfolded and refolded her hands. "Men who look ordinary on purpose look different from men who are just ordinary. Do you know what I mean?"

He did, actually.

"Maren." He kept his voice level. "If someone came asking about me today — anyone, even someone from the house — don't tell them anything you don't have to."

She stared at him for a long moment. She was not a stupid woman. She'd worked in noble houses for twenty years and had developed a precise sensitivity to the specific texture of trouble, the way some people could smell rain before it arrived.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I'm not sure yet."

She looked at him another moment. Then she nodded, once, tightly, and walked back toward the main house without saying anything else. He watched her go and felt something that wasn't quite guilt and wasn't quite gratitude but lived in the same neighborhood as both.

He made his decision at two in the afternoon, when he saw the rider.

The man came through the estate's north gate at a pace that wasn't quite urgent — careful, controlled, the speed of someone who didn't want to appear to be hurrying but was. He wore a grey traveling cloak with no visible insignia. His horse was good. Too good for a courier, too plainly kept for a noble. He spoke to the gate guard for less than a minute, and the guard pointed him toward the main house without hesitation.

Cassian watched this from inside the stable, through a gap in the boards, and felt the decision settle into place with the particular finality of something he couldn't take back.

He went to his corner of the tack room, where he'd left his jacket on a nail that morning. His fourteen copper coins were in the jacket's inner pocket. The small knife was on his belt. He had the clothes he was standing in, which smelled of horse and blocked drain, and a half portion of bread left over from lunch.

He thought about leaving a note for Maren. Decided against it. Writing things down created evidence, and he didn't know yet who might come looking or how thoroughly they might look.

He left through the stable's rear door, the same one the two men had stood outside that morning. The back of the estate gave onto a service lane used for deliveries, which connected to the main road about a quarter mile north. He knew this because he'd walked it dozens of times carrying loads that the cart couldn't manage, and knowing the geography of a place you couldn't afford to underestimate was the kind of habit that kept you employed.

Today it was keeping him something more than that.

He walked at a steady pace. Not slow enough to look aimless, not fast enough to look like flight. The service lane was empty. The main road, when he reached it, had a cart heading north with an old man driving it who didn't look at him twice.

The estate disappeared behind a bend in the road.

He kept walking, his marked hand curled at his side, that second pulse ticking steadily in his palm, and he did not look back. Looking back, he'd found, never showed you anything useful. It just reminded you of everything you were leaving behind, and right now he couldn't afford the weight of that.

He had fourteen copper coins, half a loaf of bread, and a mark on his hand that had apparently survived a thousand years waiting for him specifically.

Whatever came next, he was going to need more than that.