He glanced toward the unconscious Thumbs—Jedrick. One of theirs, given the exchange between Rohn and Aarhus—and the fact that Xarius hadn’t killed him. Positioned here to hold Traeger in check, most likely, should the captain have grown too fervent in his beatings or tired of waiting on Governor Tehric’s arrival. Or had the governor’s vengeful coming been merely another layer of plotting?
It caused him to wonder vaguely at how they meant to explain away this affair. Traeger would bear the blame for all, he supposed. A zealot, acting out on a known grudge. Xarius? Coerced to plant evidence, later employed by Aarhus to free a man wrongfully detained. With Rohn perceived as a victim, no witnesses to the contrary, and Aarhus as the magistrate in charge, any who sought to press alternate accusation would be pissing against a gale. Shards, the king himself, while shocked and disappointed at these dire failings of a captain of the city watch, might actually be relieved to hear of Rohn’s innocence.
His father’s innocence. How could he have ever defended it? The only innocence in this chamber lay with Brie’s small, still form.
Xarius scoffed. “We waste our breath. He’ll never be one of us.”
“Don’t be foolish, boy,” urged Aarhus. “Name yourself, and let us bear witness.”
Should he refuse, would they seek to kill him? Would he in turn kill them? It scarcely mattered. The threat, real or imagined, would weigh as wind in his decision.
When all else was stripped away, he could not refute his actions this night. Nor would he shirk responsibility for them. He would accept them because he must, because they had branded him more surely than any moniker ever could. He would not debase himself further by cowering behind a lie.
His father’s bark echoed in the stillness. “Who are you?”
Kylac looked once more at Traeger’s ravaged corpse, then forced his gaze to settle upon Brie. Briallen, whose rare laugh would never again warm his heart. You…You’re…
“Kronus,” he decided abruptly. “Kylac Kronus.”
He buried her the following afternoon, beneath a crude cairn he erected beside her mother’s, on a remote steppe too stony for digging. The others had frowned upon his decision to carry her from the catacombs, but had done nothing to prevent it. Neither had they lent aid, ignoring him and his burden throughout the return journey. Xarius had searched his reaction early on, as they trailed past the corpses of murdered watchmen—those he and Brie had left bound on the way in. Unsurprised, Kylac had said nothing.
His thoughts had been solely with his friend, a maelstrom of emotions fueled by memory, by fantasy—crushing waves of acceptance alternating with riptides of denial. But for the ghastly rent in the flesh beneath her chin, she might have merely been sleeping, her eyelids on the verge of fluttering open. He in turn had refused to rest, holding her close even when his muscles had burned with fatigue and seized with cramp. He had no right to set her aside for personal relief. He’d hoped that if he could bear the pain, these gods he so often heard tell of would reconsider, and give ear to his silent pleas.
Yet deaf they’d remained, not only while he’d borne her hence, but as she had lain still, pale, upon the bare, unforgiving earth selected for her burial ground. She hadn’t appeared to mind. At peace, she had seemed, comfortable in her endless dreams…
He stood vigil for some time over the mound of stones, staring numbly at the hilt of her blade where he’d planted it as a marker. This far out, it was as liable to rust as fall prey to grave robbers. He’d considered keeping it as a reminder of the blood on his hands—both Traeger’s and Brie’s—but had imagined Brie’s scornful reaction toward anything so dramatic. It was her blade. She had died fighting with it in hand. Its final resting place would be the same as hers.
Leaving him without a longsword, since he’d already decided not to return to the gates of Talonar. Throughout the long march from the catacombs, the hard climb to this overlook, and the bloody, blistering hours of scraping together and piling cairn stones, he’d been haunted by Brie’s dying moments. You…You’re… She’d been fighting to tell him something. About himself, perchance. Some defining characteristic, or advice for his future. You…You’re…
His father had fashioned him to be an agent of death. It seemed he had succeeded. But to what end? Like Brie’s final words, it would be for him to decide. Whatever, it would have nothing to do with the Seax Lunara or any more of his father’s secrets. Given the game that had culminated in Brie’s death, he wished to learn no more from Rohn or his ilk.
Henceforth, he would be his own instrument, and not theirs to wield.
He wondered if they might hunt him, but found it difficult to envision. Rohn must have anticipated his possible desertion, yet had done nothing to prevent it. A reaction that suited him. A master smith did not dwell on a flawed piece of steel. He simply tossed it aside and went to work on the next.