“What did you tell her?” Alornis had moved to his side, her expression still guarded but not quite so fierce. “You must have told her something to make her leave us.”
This had been a worry for some time now; what to tell her. What lies to tell her, he corrected himself. I lie to everyone, why not her? He would tell his sister, his trusting sister who didn’t know he was a liar, that Reva had fled due to her god-worshipping shame, born of her acceptance of his tutelage and her feelings for Alornis, feelings the bishops held as a sin. It was perfect, mixing in enough embarrassment to forestall further questions on the matter.
He opened his mouth but found the words died in his throat. Alornis still regarded him with angry eyes, but there was trust there too. She looks at me and sees him. Did he ever lie to her? “What did Reva tell you about her father?” he asked.
And so he told her, all of it. From the day he was taken to the House of the Sixth Order to the night he returned to his father’s house. Unlike the tale he had told the Alpiran scholar on the voyage to the Isles, this was his unvarnished and complete account, every secret, every death, every tune from the blood-song. It took a long time, for she had many questions, and another week had passed before it was done, the shore of the Northern Reaches appearing on the horizon the morning he finished.
“And the song lets you see her?” she asked. They were in the cabin the first mate had given up for the Tower Lord and his sister. She sat cross-legged on her bunk, the near-completed carving resting in her lap. She had continued to whittle away as he told his tale, the figure becoming more refined with every passing day, in time revealed as a statue of a tall, lean man with a bearded face. She had borrowed some varnish from the ship’s carpenter and was carefully applying it to the wood with a small sable brush, making it shine like bronze. “Sherin, wherever she is?”
“At first, when I had learned how to sing,” he replied. “But the visions faded over time. It’s been more than three years since I had any sense of her at all.”
“But still you try?” His sister’s gaze was intent, entirely lacking in disbelief. There had been some initial scepticism when he first told her of the blood-song but he borrowed a trick from Ahm Lin’s tale of his apprenticeship and had her hide his belt-knife somewhere on the ship whilst he stayed in the cabin. He found it within a few minutes, slotted into a gap between two ale barrels in the hold. She tried again, this time enlisting the help of a sailor to hide it in the crow’s nest. Vaelin had opted not to climb up after it, simply calling on the look-out to toss it down. She hadn’t required any further demonstrations to trust his word.
“Not for some time now,” he said. “Hearing the song is one thing, singing is another. It’s very taxing, possibly deadly if I put too much effort into it.”
“That thing that had taken Brother Barkus, you searched for it?”
“I catch glimpses now and then. It’s still free in the world somewhere, deceiving, killing at the command of whatever it serves. But the images are vague. I suspect it can mask itself somehow. How else could it hide in Barkus for so long? It’s only when it thinks of me that the glimpses come, its hatred enough to burn through the mask.”
“Will it come for you again?”
“I expect so. I doubt it has much choice in the matter.”
“What happened when you called at the Order House?”
Again he was tempted to lie to her, the information garnered during his visit left a bitter taste and he had no desire to voice it. But instead of a lie he chose concealment. “I met the Aspect.”
“I know that. What did he tell you?”
“Not just Aspect Arlyn. I met the Aspect of the Seventh Order. And no, I won’t tell you who it is. For your own protection.” He leaned forward, holding her gaze. “Alornis, you must always be careful. As my sister you are a target. That’s why I brought you with me, that’s why I’m telling you this tale. The Northern Reaches are safer than the Realm, but I’ve little doubt that thing and its cohorts can reach for us here if they choose to.”
“Then who can I trust?”
His gaze dropped. I’ve told her nothing but truth so far, why stop now? “Honestly, no-one,” he said. “I’m sorry, sister.”
She looked at the statue in her hand. “When father died, did you . . . ?”
“Just the echo of it. He’d already passed the day I sang for you. You were watching the pyre with your mother. It was snowing. There was no-one else there.”
“No,” she said, with a small smile. “You were there.”
? ? ?
The North Tower came into view two days later. It was an impressive structure, wider at the base than the top, some seventy feet tall, surrounded by a stout wall half as high. It had the look of the older castles Vaelin had seen in Cumbrael, no hard angles and a general lack of statuary or ornamentation, a fortification from another time, after all it had stood here for near a century and a half.
The port was busy with fishing smacks and merchant vessels, their crews hauling ropes and oars to make way for the Lyrna as she made a stately progression to the quayside. Captain Orven ordered his men down the gangplank first, lining them up in two ranks, polished armour gleaming. They made something of a contrast to the line of twenty men in dark green cloaks standing at the opposite end of the wharf. Their line was somewhat uneven and their armour, mostly of hardened leather rather than steel, had a non-uniformity to it that wasn’t exactly ragged but neither was it particularly tidy. Most of the green-cloaked men were dark-skinned, the descendants of exiles from the southern Alpiran Empire, and none seemed to be less than six feet tall. Standing in front of the line was an even taller man, also in a green cloak, and a diminutive dark-haired woman in a plain black dress.
“How do I look?” Vaelin asked Alornis at the head of the gangplank. He was dressed in a fine set of clothes supplied by the King’s own tailor, a white silk shirt embroidered with a hawk motif on the collar, trews of good cotton and a long dark blue cloak trimmed with sable.
“Very lordly,” Alornis assured him. “You’d be even more so if you actually wore that thing rather than just carry it around.” She pointed at the canvas bundle in his hand.
He placed a smile on his face and turned to walk down the gangplank, approaching the dark-haired woman and the tall man, both giving a formal bow.
“Lord Vaelin,” the woman said. “I bid you welcome to the Northern Reaches.”
“Lady Dahrena Al Myrna,” Vaelin returned the bow. “We’ve met before, although I daresay you don’t remember.”
“I remember that day very well, my lord.” Her tone was carefully neutral, her handsome Lonak features lacking expression.
“His Highness sends his warmest regards,” Vaelin went on. “And sincere gratitude for your dutiful labours in continuing to administer this land for the Crown.”
“His Highness is most kind,” Lady Dahrena replied. She turned to the tall man at her side. “May I present Captain Adal Zenu, Commander of the North Guard.”
The captain’s tone was less than neutral, and absent of any note of welcome. “My lord.”
Vaelin glanced at the line of mismatched men. “I assume this is not the entirety of your command.”
“There are three thousand men in the North Guard,” the captain replied. “Most gainfully employed elsewhere. I didn’t think it appropriate to gather more than was strictly necessary.” He met Vaelin’s gaze, waiting a while before adding, “My lord.”
“Quite right, Captain.” Vaelin beckoned to Alornis. “My sister, the Lady Alornis Al Sorna. She will require suitable quarters.”
“I’ll see to it,” the Lady Dahrena said. Vaelin was heartened to find she managed to summon a smile for his sister as she bowed. “Welcome, my lady.”
Alornis returned the bow a little awkwardly; noble manners were new to her. “Thank you.” She offered another sketchy bow to the captain. “And you, sir.”
The captain’s bow was considerably more accomplished and his tone markedly warmer than when he had addressed his new Tower Lord. “My lady is very welcome.”
Vaelin looked up at the tower looming above, a dark mass against the sky, birds flocking around the upper levels. The blood-song rose with an unexpected tune, a warm hum mingling recognition with an impression of safety. He had a sense it was welcoming him home.
? ? ?
The base of the tower was surrounded by a cluster of adjoining stone-built buildings comprising the stables and workshops required for the smooth functioning of a castle. Vaelin guided the horse they had given him through the main gate and into the courtyard where the servants of the tower had been arrayed in welcome. He dismounted and made an effort to speak to a few, finding only clipped responses and a few obvious glares of hostility.
“Friendly bunch, these Reach dwellers,” Alornis muttered as they made their way inside. Vaelin patted her on the arm and kept smiling to all they met, though it was starting to make his face ache.
The Lord’s chamber was situated on the ground floor of the tower, a simple unadorned oak chair sitting on a dais looking out on the large circular space. Against the wall stone steps ascended in a spiral to the next level. “Remarkable,” Alornis said, drinking in the sight of the chamber with evident fascination. “I didn’t think a ceiling of such size could be supported without pillars.”