“When I heard of Lastrahn’s return I knew that day had come. So, I sent you out because I needed to know if you’d chosen your path. If after all these years you had truly moved on. I think I now have my answer.”
It wasn’t even a question. The Professor would never show something like disappointment, but Ryle heard it all the same.
“Sir–”
“Even if it means abandoning your training? Abandoning your swordmark and what that means? You’d give up all that for a lead and nothing more?”
He would be no better than Egan. A traitor who abandoned his school for a better deal. Ryle ground his teeth and squeezed his fists tight. “Sir, I don’t want to leave the school, but I have to try to find Lastrahn. This could be my only chance to get answers.” To redeem my past. To have a future with Casyne.
The Professor lowered his sword and looked back over his shoulder. “And if I told you that Lastrahn had ridden out just after sundown, heading south.”
Cold fear like Ryle hadn’t felt in years slid along his bones. The helpless feeling that visited him in the deep of night and whispered tragedy in his ear. The feeling of his future stretching out as formless void that would consume him no matter where he turned.
His life was slipping through his fingers as he stood there. Like a deep wound, bleeding out with every heartbeat.
Ryle had to choose.
A future of comfort with the Paundon’s of the world, or a chance to put his past to rest. A life with Casyne, or a life out there, seeking redemption.
He couldn’t make the choice. He felt crushed between the realities before him. He could as easily tear his own heart from his chest.
Unless . . .
“Sir, I request you test me now.”
The Professor scowled. “The trials are in a week.”
“Sir, you have taught me about honor and discipline. A different life than I’d ever known. I don’t ever want to disgrace that, but I can’t pursue my future in here. You know what I must make up for. The stains I need to cleanse. One way or another I must go after Lastrahn. I would rather do it with your blessing and your mark.”
The Professor turned back and his eyes bore iron in their depths.
“Do you think rules are so easily bent?”
Ryle inclined his head. “You taught us to follow the battle, sir. To flow around obstacles when we must.”
The Professor’s cheek twitched. “And you think you’re ready for your trial? Today a simple distraction broke your concentration. And you look no more prepared now.”
In truth, Ryle wanted to fall over, but even if he failed the trial or died trying, he had no choice. “Who can say if they’re ever ready, sir? But I have to try. This is my life.”
A long moment passed while the water fell and Ryle’s heart thundered in his chest.
The Professor expelled a sharp breath. “Then follow me.”
Ryle could barely breathe as he followed the Professor. His legs felt unsteady, his arms disconnected. What the hex had he just asked for?
At the very back of the room was a simple door. The Professor opened it and stepped aside.
With a deep breath, Ryle stepped through.
He found himself in a small courtyard. Torches along the walls cast the space in flickering shadows. Figures knelt in all four corners. Before one a gong, before another cymbals, before the third a drum, and before the last a short trumpet. Between the kneeling figures stood four men in grey clothes. Each held naked blades. Ryle recognized them as The Professor’s top students from the year just passed.
And seated beside the door, so still Ryle had first missed her. A wizened old woman with thin white hair pulled back into a bun. She sat cross legged on a short stool. In one hand she held a hand-long, silver rod, tipped with a series of gleaming needles. In the other a glass bottle full of a dark inky substance. Only this liquid seemed to squirm and dance and crawl along the inside of the bottle in the torchlight.
The back of Ryle’s right hand itched.
As the Professor stepped past Ryle, he said, “And I also taught you to always be prepared and expect the next move.” He walked to the middle of the courtyard. When he turned to face Ryle there was no mercy or compassion in his face. Only the hard look of judgement. “Seventh-year initiate, Ryle. This is your trial. To prove your skill and earn your mark. Close the door. It is time.”
Reeling and stunned, Ryle closed the door as told and then placed his palm against the worn wood. The surface pressed against his scar. Against his past. He didn’t allow himself to ponder how many other students had entered this place and failed. Or if he’d made the right decision. Or how he’d possibly find Lastrahn.
He didn’t think of his father or mother who had nearly ruined his life, or the men he had killed over the course of his short life.
He thought only of Casyne, and how badly he needed a future with her. And how he was certain that the House of Reckoning was his only way to get it.
With that thought in his mind, Ryle took his kenten, placed a hand on his sword, and turned to face his trial
#
Ryle found Casyne in the rafters of the old steeple like he knew he would. She loved this place more than anywhere else. She usually came here to think.
She sat in the big round window frame at the back of the building, legs curled up to her chest, breeze toying with her golden hair, looking out into the night.
“Took you long enough,” Casyne said without looking up. Her voice slid along that hitch between a purr and a growl that made Ryle’s heart beat faster.
For once his heart didn’t need any assistance. The past hours were a blur of pain and shock. The Professor’s final words to him still burned in his skull, matching the burning along the back of his right hand.
He carefully crossed the rafters and sat down across from her in the window frame.
A glittering mist had risen and it drifted across the perfect lines of the garden outside. Beyond the garden wall the lights of Pyhrec glowed warmly.
Where did he begin?
“You’re leaving,” she said. A statement, not a question. Her voice had lost some of its edge from earlier, but was no warmer.
Was it any wonder after the night she’d had? He wasn’t the only one to go through a chaff sucking disaster. She’d seen a man die before her and her friend was dead for blast’s sake.
Shame heated his cheeks for thinking of any words other than, “I was going to start with, I’m sorry.”
She turned a bit, raised one dark eyebrow over an ice blue eye ringed by thick kohl. His heart beat a half beat faster, but he pressed on. “I’m sorry for Korvey. And I’m especially sorry for leaving you in such a mess at Delago’s. I was only thinking of myself.”
“You were.”
“I’m really sorry. When I saw that drawing I lost my head.”
When she didn’t berate him further, he thought maybe he could proceed. “What did you do with Egan and Paundon?”
She shrugged. “Delago said he’d have some men ‘take care of Egan.’ I didn’t ask. We dumped Paundon out on the street.”
“That’s it?”
She clenched her jaw. “What else could we do? The prick’s too well connected. Hell, even if we turned him into the watch, you think they could make anything stick even if they tried?” She sighed but it almost came out like a growl. “Makes me sick.”
She was right, it made him sick as well, but he couldn’t think of a response, so he gave her a moment.
Finally, she shook her head and asked, “What did the Professor say?”
Way too many things that raised cold fingers and hot fire in his bones at the same time. Instead of trying to find the words. He extended his right hand into the light. His skin was raw, but the black bar across his knuckles stood out clear enough.
Casyne’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but then closed it and took his hand in hers. She lightly ran her fingers along the back of his hand, avoiding the mark itself. Her onyx t
ipped nails matched his new swordmark in the dim light.
He’d rarely felt anything so wonderful.
“Congratulations,” she said. “The Professor must’ve taken some convincing to test you a week early. Or there was a very good reason.”
Inwardly he winced, once again she was way ahead of him.
“We could find another way,” she said quietly, still stroking his hand.
He didn’t want this now, not now of all times, but it couldn’t be avoided any longer.
“Cas, you know it’s not just us. If that were all, I would gladly stay here. But too much from my past remains undone. And there are new crimes like the ones Paundon commits. The House of Reckoning exists for a reason. To stop those who no one else can. If I can join them I can do some real good.”
She bowed her head and her blonde hair fell down, obscuring her face. “What if I said I didn’t care? What if I asked you to stay?”
An ache rose in Ryle’s throat but he pushed it downs with the words he knew would do the trick. They might not be fair, but nothing in his life ever was. “Lastrahn’s looking for my father.”
Casyne’s head rose. He made out her eyes through her hair.
“The Professor heard rumors,” Ryle said, trying to keep his voice under control. Fighting against the pain tearing his chest apart. “Lastrahn was seen in town today asking after Kilgren. My father must still be alive. Still free –” His voice broke and the words died. Like everything else his bastard father touched. He cleared his throat. “But he left a few hours ago, riding south. I have to go find him.”
She pushed the hair back over her ear, and said, “Oh, I see.”
A slow moment passed then, while she held his and watched the garden, and he watched the moonlight caressing her profile, and wished it was his fingers.
Then with a heavy sigh like she’d decided Casyne set his hand aside and turned back to him. Her fingers went to her neck. When they came back out a pendent dangled from her fingers, glittering like a bit of starlight in the dark.
“Cas,” Ryle started and she cocked her head to one side.
His heart happily stopped for a moment beneath her gaze. Protests felled, she leaned in close, slipped the pendant’s chain over his head, and settled it around his neck.
Ryle took a deep breath, filling his nose with the wonderful scent of her; not sweet, or floral, or anything he could ever identify as anything besides her.
She stayed close like that, with one hand on the side of his neck, looking him in the eyes.
“You keep that on, maybe a piece of me will bring you some luck out there in the big, bad world.”
Ryle looked down at the bit of silver for a moment, then slipped it inside his shirt. The metal chilled his skin, but he didn’t mind. It felt like a piece of her resting against his heart.
“Thank you,” he said.
As if in reply, she reached up, traced the line of his jaw with her fingernail, then sighed. “You don’t need to do this.”
Ryle said nothing.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
He nodded. She nodded back, and leaned her head in toward his until she blocked out the dark, the night, the garden, and the city beyond. All he saw was her.
Her palm cupped his cheek. He leaned into it, watching streaks of gold, like sunlight even at night, dance through her pale blue eyes. He loved that about them.
“Even if you fix everything,” she said. “It isn’t worth it, you know? You don’t really want me.”
“You’re right,” he said, running his thumb along her cheek. “Want is not a big enough word for it.”
She shook her head, just a little bit, and then she kissed him.
He lost himself in her lips, in her breath, in the shape of her mouth, in the taste of her skin.
He would’ve been happy if it went on forever. It didn’t.
After a moment that didn’t last long enough, she pushed him back, and turned her head away as if with an effort.
“You are getting good at that. Maybe too good, mister.”
Ryle smirked softly, forcing his face into an expression much gentler than the lead weight growing upon his heart demanded. “I wonder who taught me so well.”
Casyne lightly tapped the side of his face and held her finger up. “And don’t you forget it.”
“Like I could,” he said, trying to squeeze out a few more moments.
A gong rang through the garden below. They both winced at the sound.
“I have to go,” Ryle said.
Casyne turned away and, looked out into the night. “I know.” Her voice was a note rougher than normal.
Ryle wanted to kiss her again, he wanted it very badly, but if he didn’t leave now he might not go, and he couldn’t risk staying.
“Be good,” Ryle said.
“Stay alive,” she whispered back.
Before his emotions could break him down any further, he slipped back through the rafters, through the shadows, through the pain welling up inside.
As he reached the ladder leading back down, her voice came to him one last time, and looking back, Ryle saw the moon illuminating the pale gold hair around her head like a halo.
“You damn well better come back,” Casyne said. “You come back to me, Ryle.”
“I will,” Ryle said. “I promise.” And he climbed down into the dark to find his fate.
The Story Continues
This story is only the beginning for Ryle and his journey. If you want more, check out Gearspire: Advent now on sale on Amazon.com.
About the Author
Jeremiah Reinmiller is a lifelong computer geek, martial artist, and native of the Pacific Northwest. When he’s not building clouds (the computing kind, not the rainy ones) he’s probably hunched over a keyboard hammering out words in a semi-organized fashion. His stories have received the 2014 Sledgehammer Writing Award, and been published by Subtopian Press, Abyss & Apex Magazine, and Cantina Publishing. He resides in Vancouver (the one in Washington, not Canada) with his wife and their two cats. Information on what he’s up to, and more of his stories can be found at www.jqpdx.com.
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