Ren knew that his father was right; most kings never even met their heirs, except when they were just babes. He wanted to feel something—anger, hatred, love—for the old man next to him, but Arko Hark-Wadi did not yet feel like a father to him, and Harkana, a strange and alien land, did not yet feel like home. They shared the pain of Ren’s imprisonment, but little else.
The imperial riders approached, their shields clanking against their armor. A shout rang out over the desert hills. His father shrank, and then his face lost its stern mask, softening into something sadder. “Ren, when I gave you up, I had no choice. If my father could not triumph against the empire, how could I?” he asked.
Ren blinked. “I … I don’t blame you.” It was not quite the truth, but the words felt good to say. He had blamed his father for abandoning him. If Koren had resisted the empire, why had Arko not done the same? Why hadn’t he fought for his son? Isn’t that what a father and a king ought to do?
His father exhaled. “We should be grateful you arrived safely in Harkana. The same cannot be said for Adin, Barrin’s son.”
“What do you mean? What happened to Adin? Did he not return to Feren?”
“No. No one knows what happened to that boy,” his father said. “I sent soldiers to find him. A tribute can be a powerful ally or a valuable prisoner. My men had no luck, though. I heard Dagrun’s men found him.”
Ren felt as if a hammer blow had struck him. Distant memories flashed in his thoughts: the jests he’d shared with Adin, the days spent learning their lessons. He recalled how his friend had once swiped a bit of bread from the prior’s table, and how Adin had shared it with him. Ren had only two friends in the world, and now one was gone. From Ren’s earliest memory, he had dreamed of their mutual freedom. It was all he wanted, but that dream would not come to pass. “He’s dead then?” Ren asked.
“In prison, more likely.”
Ren exhaled.
“A king’s blood has worth,” Arko continued. “Such a person could be made to serve one’s interest.”
His father’s frankness surprised Ren, but his words rang true. Arko had once traded Ren to keep the peace. The empire treated the kings of the lower kingdoms as a currency. Arko was an unpaid debt, a coin Suten had come to collect.
As the Alehkar approached, as the men dismounted, his father pointed to Harwen’s wall. One section lay blackened and crumbled like a rotted limb. “Look,” he said, “while we still have time. The Ruined Wall. It’s a kind of Harkan monument, burned into the battlements two hundred years ago during the War of the Four, the first revolt, when Nirus Wadi’s army at last fell to the Protector’s men. When the Harkans rebuilt, they created a new wall around the old. They wanted the scar to remain.”
“Why?”
“It’s a place where the Harkans find strength by remembering the harm the emperor has done to them.” When Arko turned to him, Ren glimpsed the naked grief in his father’s eyes. “You are not alone, you know. The entire kingdom, the entire empire, suffers the ransoms together. Some more than others, of course, but we all suffer nevertheless.”
Arko, at last, put his arm around him. His grip was awkward and stiff, almost perfunctory at first, but as he drew Ren close, the tension fell from his limbs and Ren could feel the warmth of his skin, the dull thud of his beating heart. He had never imagined the power an embrace could have, the way it might soften, in an instant, his resolve. This was his kingdom; his family was here. He belonged to Harwen. He had trekked across the dry, sandy basin, his skin was burnt and he had nearly starved to death trying to reach this place, but it was all justified now. He was home. If only my father did not have to leave.
The Alehkar approached, swords drawn, faces looking grim. Ren broke the king’s embrace. He reached instinctively for the shank he always kept with him, until he remembered the Prior Master had taken it away. A soldier advanced, his arm outstretched and he gripped the king’s shoulder. Abruptly, his father’s hand moved to his sword and he drew. Silver streaked through the air, metal scraped metal, and blood splattered on the sand. In a heartbeat his father had turned, drawn his blade, and nearly severed the offending soldier’s arm from his shoulder.
“You boys should know better than to lay hands on a king,” his father said. “Keep away and I will not fight you.” The men nodded sullenly and Arko sheathed his sword, not even bothering to wipe the blood from the blade. Deep lines faded from the soldiers’ faces. Some lowered their weapons, others kept their swords raised. Though the imperial soldiers were superior in number, none were eager to engage the king. “Give me a moment,” his father said. “A moment with the boy and a moment in the Hornring with my daughters. Give me that and I will go in peace.”
Their captain stood in front of the others, his armor dense with ornament. He tipped his helm. “Keep that blade in its sheath and you’ll have your moment.” Behind him, the Alehkar attended to the wounded man, whose cries echoed in the cool morning air as the soldiers tried in vain to stanch the bleeding.
Arko turned to his son, blood on his hands, the imperial soldiers surrounding his convoy, more men approaching in the distance. The Ray had sent an entire legion of Alehkar to retrieve his father. There was no way they could resist. These would be their final moments together—the first and the last coming all at once. “Don’t return to Harwen,” Arko told Ren, “not yet. Travel to the Shambles and find the old hunting grounds. Complete the hunt and prove yourself worthy, as all Harkan kings have done. My soldiers—your soldiers—will escort you there. Find the eld, make your sword, and then you can take your throne.”
“I don’t know how.” It was not one of the lessons he had been taught at the Priory.
“You’ll learn. Remember the wall, the scar. It’s been sitting there, without repair, for two hundred years. The wall tells us to be patient, to build our strength, to never forget. This is what it means to be Harkan. Show the kingdom your strength, return to the Hornring not as a ransom from the emperor’s Priory but as their Horned King. Be my father’s son in the way that I could not be.”
He drew a dagger from his side and handed it to Ren. The blade had ridges on one side. “Take this, you’ll need it to claim the horns.” He pressed the iron into Ren’s palm, the blade still warm from his father’s touch. “The knife was Koren’s and now it is yours.” Arko drew his wineskin, took a long sip, and swallowed. “Now I must bid your sisters farewell. Goodbye, son. Leave Harwen. Go! I would rather you were not present when I am forced to give myself up for dead.”
17