chapter two

  With everything they’d had to prepare, three weeks had flown by. The guild was used to packing up and getting ready to go in the early morning hours, and Tran watched the usual hustle and bustle with a broad smile. He had so much anticipation for returning home that he was fit to burst.

  The cart was laden with wares for trading, people had packed enough clothes to last them for a nearly two-month trip, and they collectively carried enough money for emergency situations. Because they were taking so much with them, it was taking longer than usual to pack, but Tran didn’t mind. For this, they didn’t need a particularly early start.

  Siobhan stepped out of the guild’s doorway and sidled up next to him with a frown. “Tran, poke Alex awake for me.”

  Alex was currently stretched out on the boxes right behind the driver’s seat, fast asleep with a cloak snuggled under his chin to ward off the early morning chill.

  “Why?”

  “Just look at him. You know he’s growing in front of our eyes,” Siobhan growled, half-vexed, half-teasing. “And I just bought him new pants!”

  Tran chuckled. In the year since Alex had joined Deepwoods, the kid had shot up like a weed. He was now nearly tall enough to reach Siobhan’s chin, and at eleven years old, that was quite the feat. “Now, Shi-maee, he’s trying not to lose the competition.”

  She squinted at him suspiciously. “What competition?”

  “To outgrow me.”

  “Heavens preserve us, you’re difficult enough to clothe as it is!” she grumbled. “And how is that a competition, anyway?”

  Without any compunction, Tran threw his friend under the cart. “Rune started it.”

  “Of course he did.” Siobhan threw her hands in the air. “I swear, for such a rocky beginning, those two act more like brothers than anything else.”

  They did. Possibly because they were the closest in age. Alex treated the rest of the men more like uncles, which made sense considering the age differences.

  Markl and Sylvie approached, hands clasped tightly together. Markl looked a little nervous; he kept shrugging his shoulders as if the light coat he wore didn’t quite fit. Sylvie glowed with happiness, practically twirling, the skirt of her long coat flaring out with every step. Their expressions alone indicated something was up, and Tran nudged Siobhan before jerking his chin in their direction.

  Siobhan turned to see what he indicated. Her eyebrows rose when Markl and Sylvie made a beeline straight for her. “What’s this?”

  Markl cleared his throat, eyes going every direction but forward. “Siobhan. Ah. Um. Is it possible to make a quick trip down to Winziane first?”

  Eyebrows climbing steadily into her hairline, Siobhan allowed, “I think we could delay the trip a few hours, perhaps a night, if we had reason to. Why?”

  A blush heated Markl’s fair skin, hot enough it stained the tips of his ears. “I proposed to Sylvie last night and she accepted.”

  The whole guild let out a whoop of joy, which set Sylvie to laughing.

  Siobhan couldn’t contain her happiness and hugged both of them, bouncing up and down on her toes. “I’m so glad! I’d hoped you would.”

  Conli cursed, head dropping forward. “That means Fei won the bet.”

  Sylvie gave him an odd look. “You two bet on if we’d get married?”

  “No, that was a sure thing. We wagered when Markl-ren would propose,” Fei corrected with a beatific smile. “Tran-ren also lost.”

  “I might not have won, but at least I was smart enough to bet sooner rather than later,” Wolf said with an evil grin.

  Tran threw him a rude gesture, which made the Resken laugh.

  Markl put up with the awkward headlock Siobhan had him in as he sought to explain, “I want to properly inform my parents, but also, I want to officially transfer guild rights over to Deepwoods.”

  Their guildmaster stopped hugging them and jerked back. “You’re officially joining Deepwoods?”

  “Of course. I can’t take Sylvie from here and I’m…disinclined to return home.” Markl’s face softened into a bittersweet smile. “I’ll miss my family and Winziane as a whole, but I feel like I belong in Deepwoods.”

  Despite beaming, Siobhan tried to say solemnly, “I will accept your application into the guild,” but it was clear to everyone she just wanted to hug the stuffing out of Markl. “Sylvie. Good job.”

  Sylvie grinned like a cat that had licked up every drop of cream. To a confused Markl, she explained, “Siobhan was banking on me keeping you in the guild.”

  Markl’s mouth dropped and he tried to formulate words. “It wasn’t that obvious, surely,” he finally managed in a croaked voice.

  “It was,” several voices chorused.

  Taking pity, Tran clapped him on the shoulders. “For this, I don’t mind the detour. Let’s pack up and get on the road.”

  Wolf came out with two bags in his good hand, which he slung into the cart. “This should be the last of it. Unless my wife has left something out of her bag that she didn’t tell me about,” he added with a pointed look at Siobhan.

  Siobhan was terrible at packing, always focusing more on making sure everyone else was packed. The whole guild knew it, which left her without a leg to stand on. She tried for a glare, but it looked more like a pout as she glanced up at her husband of four months. “That’s everything. I only have the one bag.”

  From the expression on Wolf’s face, he wasn’t buying that but was willing to pretend. Tran would bet he had double-checked the bag and added a few things.

  To recover her dignity, Siobhan ignored them and quickly counted heads. Satisfied, she made a circling motion in the air with one hand. “All aboard. Let’s go.” She fell into step with Markl as the cart moved forward, speaking to him about their return trip home, and was he sure he wanted to only stay a night in Winziane?

  Tran kept one ear on their conversation as he walked, his eyes peeled for trouble. Markl seemed uncertain what reception his news would bring. Not everyone would agree with him changing guilds, and he wasn’t willing to stay long if people were going to argue with him. Tran didn’t blame him there.

  Grae did the honors of steering them onto the snowflake path. He went and fetched water from the nearby stream as they lined up onto the stepping-stones set into the earth. Tran kept an eye on him, what with the traffic coming in through the nearby gates. For as long as Tran had known him, Grae could find trouble without even looking for it. But the pathmaker didn’t stumble into anything this time. He walked ahead of them, activating the path with a few drops of water and his own power. It lit up as it always did, the air humid and dense against the skin. After so many times, it was second nature to steer the cart directly along the stone path, following Grae’s form.

  It took a little over an hour to reach Winziane by path. Tran hadn’t seen the city in several months and was relieved to see things were more or less back to normal. The last time he’d been here, Winziane had been flooded with refugees. Hundreds had been camped out around the city’s edge. Now, people had returned home, the tents gone. The area outside the walls was once more a stretch of clear grassland except where the river lazily ran through it.

  A good stream of traffic came in and out of the gates—trading caravans, businessmen, travelers, the usual sort. Their guild was right in the middle of it, giving Tran a chance to evaluate what kind of trade had picked back up in Winziane. He saw mostly crops, which made sense, as there were no farms inside Winziane’s stout walls. Most of it smelled fresh, and he bargained for some of the apples from the wagon in front of him, a gift for their hosts. They smelled ripe and full of sunshine. One of them might not make it inside the city.

  The guards were quick to process the line of travelers. Siobhan stopped at the gates like everyone else, one hand reaching for her guild crest. Her mouth opened to introduce herself, but she was never able to get a word out.

  The gate guards lit up in recognition, smiling at her. “Guildmaster Maley,” the portly man in front of her greeted with a differential nod. “A pleasure, a right pleasure, to see your guild.”

  Tran vaguely remembered the man but didn’t think he’d ever been introduced. No name sprang to mind.

  From Siobhan’s expression, she, too, had no idea who this man was, but she returned the smile and rolled with it. “Why, thank you. How is Winziane? Word is that all the refugees are gone and the city’s back to its usual self.”

  “That’s true enough. We still have a few people, some who were more content to stay than to try to go back and rebuild, but we’re mostly back to normal.” A little worried, the guard dropped his tone and asked, “You’re not here on official business?”

  “No, nothing of the sort,” she assured him. Catching the worried expressions of the other guards, she raised her voice enough so they could all hear her. “There’s no trouble, we’re just here so Markl can visit his family.”

  Every guard in the vicinity relaxed and smiled back at her before returning to work. Their guard nodded as if he had expected that answer, but his expression clearly said he had been worried she brought bad news. “Then please go through, Deepwoods. We’ll take it as a kindness if you tell us of any need you have. We’d be happy to repay the favor.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Siobhan returned kindly. She waved a hand forward, getting the guild back into motion. She waited until we were well clear of the gates before turning to ask, “What was that?”

  “I don’t think you realize just how famous we are,” Sylvie answered, leaning forward so she could better see Siobhan from the cart. “I don’t get hassled as often when I go out now. Most people seem to recognize me. If they don’t, they certainly recognize the men. It’s flattering, in a way.”

  Tran had realized the same thing, but mostly in Converse or Goldschmidt, which made perfect sense. People in Goldschmidt already knew him well, and their guild had defended Converse, so of course everyone had met them at some point or another during the battle. But Winziane? Winziane should only know Siobhan, Rune, and Grae for the most part. Well, and Markl, of course.

  “I find it works tremendously in my favor,” Sylvie said with a devilish gleam in her eye.

  Siobhan pinned her with a look. “You’re not cashing in on your fame, are you?”

  “I was referring to the measure of safety it gives me, of course,” Sylvie responded without batting an eye.

  “Of course,” Siobhan drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  No one in the guild believed Sylvie wouldn’t use anything and everything to her advantage while bartering. She would use her fame until that well ran completely dry.

  The gate guards weren’t the only ones who recognized them—most pedestrians did as well. The shyer ones just stared. The bolder ones approached, speaking to any member of the guild who was close enough. Tran tried to take this in stride, but it was a little difficult when they were surrounded on every side.

  It took crossing off the main street and onto a back road to get away from their well-meaning fans. Only then Tran realized Alex wore a very complex look, one of loathing and sadness. A troublesome look on any face, but especially one so young. Right now, he looked more like a lost soul. Alex was only eleven, and while he’d been partially responsible for the fiasco of the war, he still had much naivety. Taking a step back, Tran sidled up next to the cart and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “All right?”

  “Just how far-reaching were my decisions?” he asked, eyes bright with unshed tears. “How many people’s lives were destroyed that they would react like this? To them, Deepwoods are the heroes. That surely makes me the villain.”

  Tran was at a loss on how to respond. Fortunately, Fei came to his rescue. “If anything, I think your manipulative advisors should be blamed for this. You were a child, Alex. You didn’t know what was going on and shouldn’t have been burdened with the responsibility to make those decisions.”

  “That doesn’t absolve me,” Alex whispered, blue eyes staring blindly ahead.

  Helpless, Tran looked to Fei. Even their guild’s source of wisdom wasn’t sure how to ease the burden on Alex’s heart.

  Rune, sitting beside Denney, twisted about in his seat. He caught Alex’s head with both hands, making sure they looked directly into each other’s eyes. “Listen to me, Brother. I speak to you as a person who has also destroyed many lives.”

  That cemented Alex’s attention. He wetted dry lips, not daring to look away from Rune.

  “You can only atone so much for past sins. You can only dwell on your past mistakes for so long, and then you must let go of them. Focusing on darkness, even your own darkness, leads to madness. Do not walk that road any longer than you must.”

  Alex stared at him for several long seconds, hearing the words but not yet able to accept them. “What do you do instead?”

  “Reforge yourself into a man who will not make those mistakes. Become a man who will save instead of destroy. That is all you can do.”

  Tran was impressed. Rune had come a very long way to be able to give advice like that. The way he expressed himself just now was a clear indication Fei had been his teacher.

  “Is it that easy?” Alex finally asked, perhaps a little disbelieving. His eyes searched Rune’s face for some validation, brows still clenched together.

  “Easy?” Rune laughed, shaking his head. “It’s the hardest thing to do. Consider all you’ve gone through, all you’ve experienced, and compare it to what kind of person you were a year ago.”

  Those blue eyes went blind again as Alex’s mind turned inward, considering and evaluating, before his lips twitched in a rueful grin. “Yes, maybe you do have a point. Although I’ve had a lot of help and support to learn as much as I have.”

  “You think I didn’t?” Rune challenged in good humor.

  “Point.” Alex sat back, releasing himself from Rune’s grip, and seemed a little more at ease with the world. “Make myself into a man who saves, eh? I think I can do that.”

  The guild let out a silent breath of relief. Tran silently blessed that Rune had known how to respond to this. Alex was complicated, far more than any eleven-year-old should be. Tran sometimes forgot the boy carried around his own darkness. Parts of Alex were pitch-black pain that he stumbled into at the most random times. They all hoped that with patience and time, he would heal from the worst of it and grow past the rest.

  Sometimes, the hardest person in the world to forgive was yourself. That would be Alex’s greatest struggle.

  Siobhan maneuvered her way around the cart so she could snag Alex behind the neck and plant a swift kiss on his forehead. “You’ll be fine,” she promised. “You have the best teachers in the world supporting you.”

  Alex smiled at her. “And a mother who will scold me if I cross a line.”

  Snorting, Siobhan sassed back, “You think I want to paddle a child almost as big as I am? Think again, squirt.”

  The dark tension passed completely when Alex laughed outright.

  chapter three

  “Markl!”

  That shout of joy from a middle-aged woman with blonde hair and a delighted smile seemed to herald a mini storm of people. Rune watched from the safety of the cart as Markl was ambushed by four women, a little boy, and his father, all appearing from different doors as they poured from Silver Moon’s main residence. He was hugged from every direction and pelted with questions so quickly he couldn’t answer even a third of them. From the wide smile on Markl’s face, this was not an unusual scene, but one he knew well how to respond to.

  Rune was jealous and scared at the same time. Being crowded like that would make him jump out of his skin, relatives or not.

  Sylvie hung back, letting Markl have his moment with his family, and watched with an indulgent smile. Rune leaned out of his seat enough to put his head more level with hers. “It doesn’t scare you?”

  Blinking, she looked up at him. “What doesn’t?”

  “The idea that the next time you visit, they’ll pull you into that giant group hug.”

  For a moment, she didn’t seem to understand why he would be bothered by it, then she laughed. “Rune, you do remember I’m from a large family too?”

  He had forgotten that, actually. “So yours reacts like this too?”

  “They do, in the rare moments when we’re all in the same house. All of my siblings live in different cities now, though.” Kindly, she assured him, “There will be a day when the idea of being squeezed on all sides won’t scare you. Give it time.”

  Denney, who’d been holding Rune’s hand throughout the trip, gave him a squeeze of reassurance.

  Rune still battled with his finely-honed assassin instincts. If someone startled him, his first response was to punch a hole through their throat. He’d be very apologetic about it afterward, but that kind of reaction was not conducive to making friends. His one saving grace was that Sylvie, Denney, and Alex registered as ‘completely harmless,’ so even if they tackled him from behind, it didn’t bother him. Well, that and the fact that they had no sneaking skills to speak of. Alex had been practicing, but he still had a lot to learn.

  How much time would it take before he could stand in a circle of people and their proximity not unnerve him? It had taken nearly a year before he could even sleep properly in a bed. It might take a lifetime before he could be in a similar situation as Markl.

  Markl turned and gestured for Sylvie to come and stand at his side. She did so promptly, fitting neatly under the arm he placed around her shoulder. Beaming, he announced, “We’re engaged.”

  That set off another round of hugs and congratulations, the youngest sister bouncing on her toes in glee.

  Leaning against the back of the driver’s bench, Alex pressed up against Rune’s other side to get a better view. He kept his voice low as he said, “I knew Markl was from a prominent guild, but no one mentioned how big his family is. Markl said he didn’t want the responsibility of taking over their guild, but…”

 

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