Someone’s been in here.
It was hard to explain. The furnishings were simple: a bed, a dry sink with a pitcher, a desk and chair, the table by the door, a bookcase lined with precious books, a battered chest for his clothes. Although the arrangement of objects appeared to be random, there was a design and power in it, a charm of protection that gently redirected an intruder, turning him away without his realizing it. Ash always placed the spell instinctively. It was something he’d done since he was a boy, since his father had taught it to him. Back then it served to keep his younger sister out of his private things. But now the pattern was disturbed. Items had been picked up and shifted in subtle ways.
Doors in the student quarters were rarely kept locked. No one had much worth stealing, though borrowing was common, as long as you left a note. There was no note, but then nothing seemed to be missing. What was most disturbing was that his charm hadn’t worked to keep them out.
He couldn’t help thinking about Taliesin’s warning. I don’t know that the gifted will be safe here for too much longer.
But there were plenty of gifted at Oden’s Ford—prominent teachers and practitioners. There was no reason anyone would target him. As far as students and faculty at the Ford knew, he was Ash Hanson, son of a minor landowner in the borders. The only person at the Ford who knew his real identity was Taliesin.
Still, he went back to the door and locked it. Then crossed to the hearth, lifted a loose stone, and retrieved the leather case, locked with charms, whose padded pockets and compartments were filled with vials, bottles, and pouches of death. Everything was just as he’d left it. He released a sigh of relief.
Maybe it was good he was leaving tomorrow. The Voyageur had made him jumpy.
He replenished his supplies with the herbs Taliesin had given him, working quickly and methodically, like a warrior arming himself for battle.
Ash pulled his drawer out from under his bed and laid out his travel gear. Weapons—his bow, arrows, small sword, the small daggers called shivs that his father had favored. The kit bag with an array of medicinals, surgical tools, dressings, and the like. Another bag containing tools for his work as a traveling farrier and healer of horses. His bedroll, cooking pots, small packets of upland teas, herbs, and seasonings for the road.
The mingled scents brought the usual rush of memory. Another year gone.
Though he’d told Taliesin that he preferred being off the map, he couldn’t help thinking about the family he had left. Lyss would be fifteen, preparing for her name day on her sixteenth birthday. They’d been close—the gulf between eleven and thirteen wasn’t so large, and they were both spares in the royal hierarchy. Did she still miss him the way he missed her? Four years is a long time when you’re eleven years old. Especially when you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Would she have boys buzzing around her by now, the way Hana always did? What kind of queen would she be? From what he remembered, she’d be happier playing the basilka or the harpsichord.
After Hana died, he’d promised Lyss he’d help her. That he’d be there for her when she came to the throne. That she wouldn’t have to manage on her own. That promise still sat heavily on his conscience.
He could still keep his promise, he told himself. There was still time. She wasn’t queen yet. But there was no telling how he would be received. He wouldn’t blame her if she slammed the door in his face.
As far as he knew, his mother had not remarried, though he guessed there would be pressure to do so. An unmarried queen was an opportunity for alliances, something the Fells desperately needed. He preferred not to think about it.
Still, more and more, he longed for home. He wanted to climb out of the cloying sweet southern air into the clean, pine-scented mountains—a place where the northern winds needled the nose and cleared the head for thinking. A place that, even now, would be filling with snow.
If wishes were horses even beggars would ride. It was something his paternal grandmother used to say. The one who burned to death in a stable, long before Ash was born. His father often told stories about life on the streets of Fellsmarch, trying to make that piece of his heritage real to him.
“I never knew my da,” he’d said. “I want you to know yours.”
Ash sorted quickly through his single trunk of clothing. He’d leave behind his heavy winter cloak, woven of upland sheepswool spun in the grease to turn the rain and snow. He’d bring his warm weather rain gear, beaded and stitched with clan charms. Clan goods were treasured throughout the Seven Realms, so that wouldn’t mark him out as a northerner.