James Clemens - Shadowfall

He offered only one word as he passed: “Below.”

Caught in his wake, Kathryn’s rebuke for his reckless haste died in her throat. She and Gerrod Rothkild followed at his heels. Perryl strode to the tower door and fought the storm winds to open the way. He calmed enough to wave them through first.

Kathryn ducked past the threshold to the stairs beyond. As Gerrod followed, a spat of hail burst out of the sky, pelting stone and wood with balls of ice the size of goose eggs. Yells and shouts echoed. Perryl caught a blow to his cheek, ripping his masklin loose.

He slammed the door and turned to them. His face was deathly pale. “Tylar’s escaped… fled…”

The silence that followed was punctuated by a barrage of hail against the wooden door, sounding like the strikes of a hundred mailed fists.

Kathryn attempted to digest this information. She unpinned her masklin and shook back her cloak’s hood. She had failed to braid her hair into its usual fiery tail and finger-combed it away from her pale face. Never a beauty, she was still considered fair of feature, though nowadays a certain hard edge frosted her blue eyes. She stared stolidly at Perryl, demanding elaboration.

“A raven reached the flippercraft while I was en route,” Perryl continued. His eyes would not meet Kathryn’s, and his tongue stammered. “Against my orders, the fools attempted to execute Tylar, but he somehow called forth a daemon. Several guards were killed as he fled.”

“A daemon?” Kathryn asked.

“That is all I know. But the message was sealed with the mark of the Order. Darjon ser Hightower. The only Shadowknight to survive the slaughter.” Perryl finally met Kathryn’s eyes. “I didn’t know there were any of Meeryn’s Shadowknights still alive after the attack upon her. Our brother leads a force in pursuit. Word suggests the Black Flaggers abetted Tylar’s escape to the sea.”

Kathryn turned. “Pirates and daemons…” As she stood on the steps, time slipped backward. She had watched the man she once loved hauled in chains onto a slave barge, headed across the Deep, a knight no longer, face bared to all, an oath breaker and a murderer. Tylar’s eyes had searched for her on the river docks, but she had remained hidden in the shadows of an alley, ashamed that her own words had doomed him. But she could not lie to the court, not even if soothmancers hadn’t been present. He had to know this. Then he was dragged onto the barge, gone from sight-but not from her heart, never her heart.

“I thought him innocent,” Perryl said from the top of the stairs.

Kathryn started down the stairs. As did I once… long ago.. She cleared her throat. “Castellan Mirra must be informed of all that transpired. She awaits your attendance.” They began the long hike down to the main keep of Tashijan. Ser Henri’s old castellan had assumed the duty of governing the Citadel until this evening’s winnowing, when a new warden would be chosen by a casting of ballot stones.

Gerrod Rothkild kept pace with her down the stairs. His voice was soft, meant for only her ears. “Save judgment for now. Not all is as plain as it first appears, little Kat.”

“Then again, some is,” Kathryn answered. She had to bite back a sharper retort. She knew Gerrod sought only to comfort her. But even Gerrod, with all his mastered disciplines, could not fathom the emotion that welled through her with Perryl’s damning testimony.

It was not despair that filled her-only relief.

Though ashamed, she could not deny it. Tylar was clearly guilty, a godslayer of one of the Blessed Hundred. If he could kill a god now, then oath breaking and murder were not beyond him in the past.

Tears rose. Tylar had to be guilty. Her past words had banished him, broken him. Over these past years, the only way she had survived her betrayal was to place all her faith in the justice of the Order and the Grace of her cloak.

Tylar had to be guilty.

Still, she remembered the touch of his hand on her cheek, the brush of lips on her throat, the whispered words in the dark, dreams and hopes for a future… together. A hand found her belly, rested a moment, then fell away, cold. There was one last betrayal even Tylar had never learned.

By all the Graces, he had to be guilty.

Castellan Mirra’s private hermitage lay in the north wing, overlooking the Old Garden and shaded by the twisted branches of the lone wyrmwood, a tree as old as Tashijan itself.

Kathryn found herself staring out the window, watching a tiny tick squirrel hopping from limb to limb among the dark, sodden leaves, searching for any nut yet unfallen. But already the spring buds hung from stems, heavy yet still folded. All the nuts had long since fallen. Still, Kathryn appreciated the creature’s dogged determination.

Especially in the rain.

The storm that had swept Perryl here had broken into a steady downpour, falling like a veil across the view.

Off to the side, Perryl continued relating the events and tragedies that had befallen the Summering Isles. Gerrod Rothkild had already left to gather the Council of Masters.

Two steps away, the castellan sat with her back to the window by the room’s hearth, wrapped in an old furred cloak edged in ragged ermine. Her feet rested almost in the hearth’s flames. Some said she was as old as the wyrmwood tree outside her window. But the passing of winters had not dulled her sharp intellect. She stared into the flames, nodding. Occasionally one finger would rise from her armrest with a rare question, asked in a firm, unwavering voice.

The crooked finger lifted again. “Boy, tell me about this Darjon ser Hightower, the one who sent the raven messenger.”

Perryl, clearly irked by the condescending manner of Mirra, glanced to Kathryn, drawing her attention.

Kathryn’s frown deepened, warning him to simply answer her question. One did not cross Castellan Mirra, especially when she was in such a harsh mood. She had almost refused to see them. The death of Ser Henri had struck the old castellan hard. She had retreated to her hermitage, leaving Tashijan to rule itself until the night’s ballot stones were cast and a new warden was chosen.

Perryl continued. “Ser Hightower is well respected, Your Graced. He was second in command at the Summer Mount.”

“Yet he wasn’t at Meeryn’s side when she was murdered.”

“No. Duty had called him to another isle on that dreadful night.”

Mirra nodded, studying the dance of flames in the hearth. “And now he seeks vengeance.”

“He leads a contingent of castillion guards aboard a fleet of corsairs. They scour the southern seas for Tylar’s track. They believe he’s escaped into the Deep.”

Kathryn spoke softly. “If he’s reached the open ocean, then there is no telling where he might head. All the Nine Lands will be open to hide him.”

“But he will be welcome among none of them,” Perryl said. “Word has spread among the Hundred. All the god-realms know of his crime.”

“He could always flee to one of the hinterlands,” Kathryn contended. “He could hide forever in one of those godless lands.”

“Perhaps,” Mirra said. “But even within the hinterlands, there are gods.”

“Mere rogues,” Kathryn answered. “Vile creatures, maddened and raving.”

Mirra stared into the hearth. “Such were our own Hundred… before they settled the various realms so many millennia ago.”

Kathryn cocked an eyebrow. What is the castellan implying? There seems some hidden meaning hinted here.

Silence settled around the room.

“Tylar must be found,” the old castellan finally stated, as if she had decided something to herself.

“He will be,” Perryl said. “Already Ser Hightower is closing a net over the southern seas.”