“Rin, I’m—”
He found himself staring at a clutch of strangers. A man, a woman, and how many children? Five? Six? All crushed tight about the firepit where he used to warm his aching feet and no sign of Rin among them.
“Who the hell are you?” Fear clutched at him, and he put his hand on his dagger.
“It’s all right!” The man held up his palms. “You’re Brand?”
“Damn right I am. Where’s my sister?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew would I be asking? Where’s Rin?”
IT WAS A FINE HOUSE in the shadow of the citadel.
A rich woman’s house of good cut stone with a full second floor and a dragon’s head carved into its roof beam. A homely house with welcoming firelight spilling around its shutters and into the evening. A handsome house with a stream gurgling through a steep channel beside it and under a narrow bridge. A well-kept house with a door new-painted green, and hanging over the door a shingle in the shape of a sword, swinging gently with the breeze.
“Here?” Brand had labored up the steep lanes with crates and barrels to the homes of the wealthy often enough, and he knew the street. But he’d never been to this house, had no notion why his sister might be inside.
“Here,” answered the man, and gave the door a beating with his knuckles.
Brand stood there wondering what sort of pose to strike, and was caught by surprise halfway between two when the door jerked open.
Rin was changed. Even more than he was, maybe. A woman grown, she seemed now, taller, and her face leaner, dark hair cut short. She wore a fine tunic, clever stitching about the collar, like a wealthy merchant might.
“You all right, Hale?” she asked.
“Better,” said the man. “We had a visitor.” And he stepped out of the way so the light fell across Brand’s face.
“Rin …” he croaked, hardly knowing what to say, “I’m—”
“You’re back!” And she flung her arms around him almost hard enough to knock him over, and squeezed him almost hard enough to make him sick. “You just going to stand on the step and stare?” And she bundled him through the doorway. “Give my love to your children!” she shouted after Hale.
“Be glad to!”
Then she kicked the door shut and dragged Brand’s sea-chest from his shoulder. As she set it on the tiled floor a chain hung down, a silver chain with a silver key gleaming on it.
“Whose key’s that?” he muttered.
“Did you think I’d get married while you were gone? It’s my own key to my own locks. You hungry? You thirsty? I’ve got—”
“Whose house is this, Rin?”
She grinned at him. “It’s yours. It’s mine. It’s ours.”
“This?” Brand stared at her. “But … how did—”
“I told you I’d make a sword.”
Brand’s eyes went wide. “Must’ve been a blade for the songs.”
“King Uthil thought so.”
Brand’s eyes went wider still. “King Uthil?”
“I found a new way to smelt the steel. A hotter way. The first blade cracked when we quenched it, but the second held. Gaden said we had to give it to the king. And the king stood up in the Godshall and said steel was the answer, and this was the best steel he ever saw. He’s carrying it now, I hear.” She shrugged, as if King Uthil’s patronage was no great honor. “After that, everyone wanted me to make them a sword. Gaden said she couldn’t keep me. She said I should be the master and she the apprentice.” Rin shrugged. “Blessed by She who Strikes the Anvil, like we used to say.”
“Gods,” whispered Brand. “I was going to change your life. You did it by yourself.”
“You gave me the chance.” Rin took his wrist, frowning down at the scars there. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Rope slipped going over the tall hauls.”
“Reckon there’s more to that story.”
“I’ve got better ones.”
Rin’s lip wrinkled. “Long as they haven’t got Thorn Bathu in ’em.”
“She saved the Empress of the South from her uncle, Rin! The Empress! Of the South.”
“That one I’ve heard already. They’re singing it all over town. Something about her beating a dozen men alone. Then it was fifteen. Might’ve even been twenty last time I heard it. And she threw some duke off a roof and routed a horde of Horse People and won an elf-relic and lifted a ship besides, I hear. Lifted a ship!” And she snorted again.
Brand raised his brows. “I reckon songs have a habit of outrunning the truth.”
“You can tell me the truth of it later.” Rin took down the lamp and drew him through another doorway, stairs going up into the shadows. “Come and see your room.”
“I’ve got a room?” muttered Brand, eyes going wider than ever. How often had he dreamed of that? When they hadn’t a roof over their heads, or food to eat, or a friend in the world besides each other?
She put her arm around his shoulders and it felt like home. “You’ve got a room.”
WRONG IDEAS