Vaelin rose and went to the door. “Remember you are not alone in this. Your brothers will not allow you to fall victim to grief.” Outside he lingered at the door listening to Nortah’s hard, pain filled sobs. So much pain. He wondered if his own father had been on the gallows if he would have fought so hard to save him. Would I have even cried?
That night he collected Scratch from the kennels and took him to the north gate where they played fetch the ball and waited for the boy Frentis to arrive for his knife throwing lesson. Scratch seemed to be growing stronger and faster with each passing day. Master Jeklin’s dog feed, a hash of minced beef, bone marrow and pulped fruit, had put even more meat on his frame and his constant exercise with Vaelin left his physique both lean and powerful. Despite his fierce appearance and unnerving size, Scratch retained the same happy, face licking spirit of an overgrown puppy.
“Don’t you normally take him to the woods?” It was Caenis, slipping from the shadows cast by the gate house. Vaelin was a little annoyed at himself for not sensing his brother’s presence but Caenis was unusually skilled at remaining hidden and took a perverse delight in appearing apparently from nowhere.
“Do you have to do that?” Vaelin asked.
“I’m practising.”
Scratch came scampering up with the ball in his mouth, dropping it at Vaelin’s feet and greeting Caenis with a sniff of his boots. Caenis patted him uncertainly on the head. Like the other brothers he had never lost his basic fear of the animal.
“Nortah still sleeping?” Caenis asked.
Vaelin shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about Nortah; his brother’s tears had left a hard knot in his chest that was taking a long time to fade.
“The coming months will be hard,” Caenis went on with a sigh.
“Aren’t they always?” Vaelin hurled the ball towards the river, Scratch hurtling after it with a joyful yelp. “Sorry you didn’t get to see the king.”
“No, but I saw the prince. That was enough. What a great man he’ll be.”
Vaelin gave Caenis a sidelong glance, seeing the familiar glint in his eye. He had never been comfortable with his friend’s blind devotion to the king. “He… was a very impressive man. I’m sure he’ll be a fine king one day.”
“Yes, he’ll lead us to glory.”
“Glory, brother?”
“Of course. The king has ambitions, he wishes to make the Realm even greater, perhaps as great as the Alpiran Empire. There will be battles, Vaelin. Mighty, glorious battles, and we will see them, fight them.”
War is blood and shit… there’s no honour in it, Makril’s words. Vaelin knew they would mean nothing to Caenis. He was knowledgeable and often frighteningly intelligent but he was also a dreamer. He had a mental library of a thousand stories and seemed to believe them all. Heroes, villains, princesses in need of rescue, monsters and magical swords. It all lived in his head, as vital and real as his own memories.
“I think we have different notions of glory, brother,” Vaelin said as Scratch came bounding back with the ball in his jaws.
They waited for another hour but the boy didn’t come.
“He probably sold the knives,” Caenis said, after Vaelin had told him the story. “He’ll have tanked up on grog in a gutter somewhere, or gambled it away. Likely you’ll never see him again.”
They walked back to the stables, Vaelin tossing the ball into the air for Scratch to catch. “I’d rather believe he spent the money on shoes,” he said glancing back at the gate.
Part II
What is the body?
The body is a shell, the cradle of the soul.
What is the body without the soul?
Corrupted flesh, nothing more. Mark the passing of loved ones by giving their shell to the fire.
What is death?
Death is but a gateway to the Beyond and union with the Departed. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it.
The Catechism of Faith
Verniers' Account
“It was Blood Rose, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The Lord Marshall at the Summertide Fair.”
“Al Hestian? Yes,” the Hope Killer replied. “Though he didn’t earn that name until the war.”
I drew a line under the passage I had just set down, finding myself nearly out of ink. “A moment,” I said, rising to open my chest and extract another bottle and some more parchment. I had filled several pages already and worried that I might exhaust my supply. I hesitated before opening the chest, finding his hateful sword propped against it. Seeing my discomfort he reached for the weapon, resting it on his knees.