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Chapter 118: Hobb
Lyanna had not slept more than an hour. At first bell she was sitting on the low wall at the second turn of the east wall path, where she always sat after a run, except that this morning she had not run. Her hands were cold in her lap. The party on the pond lawn had gone on well past midnight, and nobody had told her anything, and the whole time Roran had laughed in the way that meant a door was being held shut behind him.Zara came along the path first, in the gray light, and sat down beside her without a word. She had her arms folded and her eyes on the gravel. A few moments later Roran and Hadrian came round the bend. Roran walked with his arm pressed against his ribs and his left hand tucked inside his sleeve. Hadrian walked half a step behind, pale as paper, with the bird on his shoulder. Zara did not look up at him as he stopped, and he did not look at her."You said everything," Lyanna said, before either of them could speak. "Last night, on the lawn. Hadrian, you said everythi
Chapter 117: The Warden's Yard
The pull came again before they reached the end of the willows. It was a small, patient tug against the thread in Aethros's chest, like a fisherman testing a line he suspects is snagged. He kept walking. If he stopped, Roran would stop, and a boy who halted in the middle of a path to stare at nothing was exactly what the other end was waiting to see."Say something," he murmured. "Anything ordinary. Complain about your ribs.""My ribs hate everyone." Roran's voice came out hoarse and natural, and he did not turn his head. "I'm also starving. I ate four dumplings and I'm hungrier than before. Is that normal?""After a match like yours, yes.""Good. I thought something was wrong with me. Where are we going again?""To get my bird. She's been sulking at the Roost since the party started, and you're tired of hearing about it.""Right." Roran managed a laugh. "She bit me last time. I want that on record."Aethros let the words go through the thread, and nothing else. He had learned that mu
Chapter 116: Outnumbered
Lyanna had meant it to be small. By the time the lanterns were lit along the pond lawn that evening, an hour after the final, about thirty people had come, and more were drifting over from the commons to see what the noise was. Aethros stood at the edge of the grass with a bowl of dumplings he had not touched and watched it grow. He did not like crowds around Roran. Every extra face was one more pair of eyes on a cheek that looked perfectly ordinary and was not.Roran sat on a low stone bench at the center of it all with his ribs strapped under a clean shirt and the green and gold sash across his knees. Someone had put a cup of hot rice wine in his good hand. He was telling the story of the final for the fourth time, and each time the gust that threw him across the platform got a little faster. His friends from the general cohort sat around him on the grass, laughing and interrupting. Nyx walked along the back of the bench, pecking politely at the sweet buns people held out to her, an
Chapter 115: The Sixteenth Place
Roran did not push himself up. His arms would not have done it. He rolled onto his stomach, dragged his right hand across the stone until it closed on Drakeheart's grip, and set the pommel against the platform like a stick. Then he hauled on it with everything he had left, and got one knee under him, and the other.The referee's mouth had already opened on the next number. It stayed open. Roran was on his feet, swaying, the sword point scraping a groove in the stone, and the arena made a noise he felt in the soles of his boots."On your feet," the referee said, and Roran nearly laughed. The man glanced to the council's bench, only for a moment, and Roran saw Halvard's hands refold themselves slowly in his lap. "Resume."Joren Falk looked surprised for the first time. It was a small thing, a tightening at the corner of his eye, but it was there. He lifted his sword and sent a crescent across the platform, and Roran did not try to meet it. He dropped to a crouch so low that his good kne
Chapter 114: Ten Count
The afternoon bell rang over the arena, and Roran walked out onto platform one as if he had not spent the night on a stone bench. The stands rose around him on every side, packed to the rim, and the noise hit him like a wall of hot air. He had imagined this walk for three days. In every version he had imagined, he could breathe all the way in.His ribs were strapped so tight that the cloth bit his skin. Under it the old break throbbed with every step, and the new bruises from Tamar's chain had stiffened overnight into a dull ache along his forearm and shins. His left hand was the worst. Two fingers had swollen where the iron had sat, and when he closed them around Drakeheart's grip a bright needle ran up to his wrist. He had not told Aethros. He had barely told himself.Joren Falk was already waiting at the far side. He was a lean young man, a little taller than Roran, in a pale green tunic with the sleeves rolled. His sword hung loose in his right hand, and his face showed nothing at
Chapter 113: Closed Doors
The council house roof was cold, and the tiles had a skin of dew that soaked through Zara's sleeves. She lay flat behind the chimney on the east wing, forty paces across the lane from the front steps. Lyanna thought she was asleep in her room. After the guards had turned them away from the headmaster's door that evening, the two of them had walked back to the dormitory without a word, and Zara had lain on her bed with her eyes open until the house went quiet. Then she had climbed out of the window.When the bell rang twelve, a lantern came up the lane. Three men walked in its light. She knew the thin clerk by his gray sash and the way he carried himself, as though the street belonged to his ledger. The big man behind him was Garo, and his right arm was bound from wrist to elbow. Halvard came last, bareheaded, in plain gray, walking at the pace of a man on his way to a dull meeting. The guards at the door straightened as he passed. Then the doors closed, and Zara was alone with the sou
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