“No. I suppose you wouldn’t. I suppose there isn’t much you’d care to remember, about any of us…” Arko dropped the scroll into the dust and picked up the reins of his horse. “It appears the emperor has made a trade. He has returned my heir so I must take your place, but not in the Priory. The emperor demands an audience with me.” He nodded at his son, his boy. Years had been stolen from them, and years would be stolen from them still.
The king addressed his men. “Take the buck, I must leave immediately.”
16
Harwen’s silhouette jutted from the horizon like a sheaf of barley, tall and jagged. Through the day’s first light, Ren saw a line of badgir protruding from the wall, trying to catch any small breeze. The badgir. The flags of Harwen. The wind scoops rose and fell, swaying beneath the spires of the Hornring, Harwen’s fortress. High and spindly and punctuated by stakes, the towers were older and stranger than he had imagined back in the Priory.
I’m home at last, but this wasn’t the homecoming I imagined.
Ren and his father, Arko, had ridden almost without stop from the Shambles. The men were tired, the horses spent. Arko raised a black gauntlet and the procession halted. The horses bent their heads and searched for grass, shook their tails and whinnied. A lone goat bleated from some distant corral. There was a hollow loneliness to the air. Ren had returned to the city of his birth, but this place was not his home, not yet. In Solus they called the lower kingdoms the barbarian lands, and for a guilty moment, he thought they might be right. Still, he could not tear his eyes from the man. This is my father, my blood at last.
The king was on foot now. People were streaming out from the city gates and down the Plague Road, the last of the crowds leaving Harwen after the games the Harkans staged each year to coincide with the Devouring, the king explained. Soldiers in bloodstained coats of black, boiled leather called after young girls, servants held highborn men up on litters, white-robed priests smelling of oil shuffled by, while dregs—beggars and outcasts he could smell before they approached—shifted between the carts, their faces caked with dust and dirt wiped clean at the mouth from too much drink. They emerged in a long, tired stream from the heart of the city, eyeing the soldiers and Ren himself, bowing respectfully to the king. Some stole glances or sideward stares, but no one lingered.
Ren ignored the crowd. His father had been called to an audience with Tolemy. To gaze upon the Soleri was to gaze upon the sun, and no man could survive that light. Once the king stepped before Tolemy, Ren would not see his father again. Only the Ray could pass through the Shroud Wall of the Soleri and live. Like it or not, he had brought his father’s death with him. This was the sacrifice the people required. They want my father, but I want him too. Have I no right?
In the distance, soldiers in ornamental bronze armor, the Alehkar, gathered at the gates of Harwen. A few mounted their steeds and made for the king’s caravan. This would have been Ren’s entourage back to Harkana and now it was his father’s back to Solus.
“Walk with me,” his father said. “We haven’t long. The Alehkar will soon take me to Solus.”
Ren nodded but was paralyzed, too overwhelmed to move. For years I’ve dreamed of this moment. For a decade he had filled his head with questions. Would the king have the same slender nose, the same crooked teeth as his own? Would his father know his face? He peered into the king’s eyes and searched for himself, for something he could recognize or latch onto. This is my father? He saw nothing—no recognizable similarity. The king had a face like one of the city’s soldiers, hard and expressionless.
What had he expected? Affection? Approval?
Yes, that’s what I want. I want my father to see the man I’ve become and approve.
Ren waited, searching for some hint of acceptance. But it was clear Arko did not have time for that. Instead the king rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. “I want you to listen carefully, my son. I won’t be here”—his voice caught—“what I mean is, I have only a little time to teach you what I know about Harkana. About being a king.”
“Father, I—” The words did not come. “Must we start with formalities?” he asked. Ren had no interest. He wanted a father. He wanted to be part of a family. Even if he had to cram an entire childhood into a single moment, he would take that moment.
One memory would be enough.
So let it be a good memory, he thought. Ren wanted the king to speak to him about something other than politics. Tell me about hunting and skinning oryx. Tell me how to get drunk on amber—not how you rule. He’d had enough of that in the Priory.
“Ren,” Arko’s voice was strong, a king’s voice. “My own father, Koren Hark-Wadi, did not send me to the Priory. I spent my childhood in Harwen. Do you know this, do you know our history?”
“They taught us lessons, histories of the lower kingdoms.”
“Lies.”
“Perhaps. But I heard it was true that you were never ransomed to the emperor.”
His father heaved a bitter sigh, his breath raspy. As he walked alongside Ren’s horse, an awkwardness grew between them. Ren knew he should dismount, but he did not act. It seemed more natural to keep his father at a distance. He was a stranger. His scent, his manners, his crudely burnt skin, it all seemed odd, foreign, barbarian. Once more, Ren felt guilty for thinking such a thing, but it was clear that life in the Priory had made him into a boy from Sola, with imperial airs.
The sound of hooves beating on the sand interrupted his thoughts. The Alehkar approached, a yellow banner waving atop a pole. The approaching soldiers rose and fell as they climbed the low hills. His father caught him watching them. “You want revenge, I suppose. That’s what I’d want. I’d want to take revenge on the men that jailed me, the priors that stood at my door and barred the gates each night.”
Ren nodded. Maybe he didn’t want to learn about skinning oryx, or Harkan amber.
“We are not so different, boy.” His father’s face turned an angry color of red. Perhaps pain and resentment were what the two had in common, the only bond that existed between the newly reunited father and son. Pain makes the man, he thought bitterly.
“Take me with you back to Solus. I want to punish them, the priors, the Ray, all of them,” Ren said, finding his voice.
“As do I,” the king said. “But you can’t go back with me. You are needed here. That’s why they returned you to me. As soon as I’m gone you’ll take the Elden Hunt, and when you’ve claimed your horns, you’ll come back to Harwen and take the Horned Throne and the blessings of the kingdom. That’s the way it has to be. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Not for you, he almost said.
“We should be grateful to have this time together.” His father guided Ren’s horse. “It’s more than most kings and sons are granted.”