His stroll took him to a tavern he’d been frequenting down in Dockside, not far from the spot in South Corner where he’d grown up. The Maiden’s Mugs was like any other tavern in the area—dark, dank, and filled with the kind of riffraff with which the King’s Shield was above dealing. Tired old men drinking until their vision went blurry, grasping at barmaidens, cursing their rotten luck.
It was the kind of place Torsten’s father loved. A godless place smelling of sweat and sorrow. And every time he visited, he couldn’t help but imagine how his life might have turned out had Liam not raised him from the muck.
He was just happy to get out of the snow. Winter had fallen upon the Glass Kingdom in a way not seen in a decade. It was as if Pantego still wept frozen tears for the greatest king Pantego had ever known instead of celebrating the newly crowned Miracle King.
Torsten supposed that’s how Pi would be named: King Pi the Miraculous. It brought a shiver not caused by the cold.
The Maiden’s Mugs was raucous as usual, but as the weeks went on, more and more were driven in at night to escape the weather. Torsten wasn’t concerned. Even without his armor, he outmatched any dozen men in the bar twice over.
The hearth was warm, and beside it sat a cross-eyed bard strumming a lute, keeping the myriad conversations private. A sign hung on the wall and read, Order any drink ye like, so long as it’s ale. But Torsten wasn’t here for that. He’d seen so many soldiers turn to drink to drive out their demons, but Torsten could thank his wretch of a father at least for teaching him the evils of alcohol.
He sat in a corner booth and watched the staircase leading to the apartments upstairs, waiting for Sigrid Langley to come down. When she finally did, he sank further into shadow. Skulking wasn’t like him. In fact, it reminded him too much of that rotten scoundrel, Whitney.
A drunkard grasped at Sigrid’s behind and earned her elbow to his gut. She flashed him a forced grin on her way by, then slid behind the bar to start her shift serving the dregs of Yarrington. Torsten shimmied out from his seat and tried to blend in. Not an easy task for a man his size.
He was mere paces away from the stairs when he heard her voice. “My Lord, Wearer, I can’t imagine what ye could be doing here.”
Torsten stopped. His gaze drooped slightly, but he recovered before he spun to greet her with his best smile. She held a tray of sloshing mugs for eager customers. She was well-kept, fiery-red hair in a bun, face clean. Her beer-stained dress, however, was cut so low Torsten felt he was sinning just by looking. His father had his mother do work like this to earn autlas before she passed from fever. Dressing like that was the best way to get tips in a place like Dockside.
“My lady,” Torsten bowed his head, “the pleasure is—”
“He don’t wanna see ye,” she interrupted. “How many times ye gonna come around?”
“Until you allow me to pass.”
“Ye expecting me to be believing I’m stopping ye?”
“Your brother took an oath. I’m already ignoring the law by not dragging him before the throne, so if you’d please just—”
“Dragging him before the throne to see who? The true king is dead, Wearer, and there ain’t no one fit to rule in that castle. Rand told me all that went on in that Iam-forsaken—”
Torsten placed his palm over her mouth. He must have moved too hastily, or maybe it was just his size, because she flinched in terror, tray nearly toppling.
He was always shocked at how openly Dockside folks would speak ill of the Crown—as if they didn’t realize they were committing treason. Maybe they just didn’t care. Dungeons had food after all, and they were warmer than wooden shacks rattled daily by the bitter, oceanside breeze.
“Ye know what?” she continued. “Be my guest. Go on. See what ye sorry old lot did to my dear brother. Don’t come back down here looking to wash yer regret in a pint though.”
Torsten held his tongue and turned to climb the rickety old flight, the wood groaning. He rounded a corner to a corridor of tightly clustered doors. The housing above the tavern was cheap, and rightly so. Cobwebs lined the planked ceiling and the floor sagged in the corners. To Torsten, it wasn’t worth a single autla to live in such a place. Maybe he had forgotten his roots.
The door to Rand Langley’s apartment was a few planks of wood poorly fit together. If the purpose of a door was to maintain privacy, his failed on every account. Through the large cracks, Torsten could see Rand sitting at the table, staring into a withering flame, hand wrapped around a mug of ale, but Torsten knocked anyway.
When no answer came, he drew a deep breath and pushed the door open. His hand clutched the Eye of Iam pendant hanging from his neck.
It was the sight, not the smell that made his stomach turn.
Torsten’s quarters in the castle were far from opulent, but Rand’s home could fit in one corner of it. A candle flickered on a table cramped against a mattress stuffed with hay. The whole of it was nearly a thick pool of wax, cooling quickly as a cold draft poured in from a frost-coated, cracked, glass window.
“Rand,” Torsten said softly from the entrance. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Torsten?” The young man broke from his daze. “Torsten!” He jumped up from his chair, then toppled backward, knocking it over. He burped as bent to pick it up. “Forgive me,” he said, speech slurred. “I wasn’t expecting such a noble guest.”
“I’m far from noble.”
“Nonsense! You’re the Wearer of White again.” He extended his arms wide and banged his knee on the table, then stumbled a few more paces and placed his hand on Torsten’s shoulder for balance. His breath reeked of ale. The stuff in Dockside was so strong it masked the ocean stench. Torsten remembered stealing a sip when he was a child and nearly vomiting. Even before he took the Shield vow, he never touched it again.
“Come, let’s sit,” Torsten said. “I have an important matter to discuss with you.” Torsten wrapped him and guided him back to his seat. It was only in the candlelight he noticed a few stale shreds of bread, thick with mold, in the basket near the window.
Rand plopped down. His eyes lit up at the sight of his ale as if only just realizing it was there. He pawed at it a few times before gaining purchase and raising it to his lips. He took a long sip, then stopped, peering at Torsten over the rim.
“Will you have a drink with me, sir?” he asked. “I think I have another mug around here some…” His words trailed off as he reached out and rifled through an open cabinet.
“That’s okay, I’m here on behalf of the Crown.” It wasn’t strictly forbidden by the King’s Shield for a man to drink, assuming it didn’t grow into a vice. So long as they remained true to Iam and the Glass, and put duty above all things, even themselves, their oath was upheld.
“Oh.” Rand burped. He clanged his mug down hard on the table, spilling some all over his hand. He slurped it up and reached for his basket of bread with his dry hand.
“Bread?” he asked, tearing a piece off the stale loaf with his teeth. A small puff of mold rose, but Rand didn’t seem to notice.
Torsten shook his head. He considered sitting across from him, but the rickety wooden chair looked like it’d crumble beneath the weight of him.
“I’d like you to consider returning to your post,” Torsten said. “The King’s Shield needs its best men for the days ahead.”
Rand laughed. “Then it doesn’t need me.”
“No, you’re exactly who we need. It was Liam who decided our order needn’t have armigers of noble knights and gentlemen, but the best men the Glass Kingdom had to offer. The most loyal. This is no place for a man of your quality to live.”
“Why not? I like it.” He laughed again and took another swig. “The best part of living above a tavern.” He raised the mug.
Maybe Rand was permitted to drink, but Torsten knew a dangerous vice when he saw one. He only hoped he wasn’t too late. “I haven’t been Wearer long,” he said, “but you were the finest of the few recruits I tr
ained myself.”
“And my sister is the finest barmaiden this side of the gorge.” He snickered and went to take another drink. Torsten ripped the mug out of his hands and flung it against the door.
“Would you listen to me, Rand!” he shouted. “You took an oath. To shield Iam’s chosen king and Country from whatever evils would seek to undo them. Until your dying breath, it cannot be broken.”
“Then hang me!” Rand snapped. His grin faded and his face contorted with anger that instantly rendered Torsten silent. Beyond his training, Torsten didn’t know the young man personally, but he’d always been restrained, disciplined. Always followed orders.
“Do you know what I did when I was Wearer?” Rand whispered, lips trembling. A tear rolled down his flushed cheek. “I hanged them all. Everyone who disagreed with her. Everyone who couldn’t save her precious boy. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Serve the Crown? I wasn’t the Wearer; I was a gods-damned executioner!”
“Rand, I…”
“You’re what? You’re what!” He slammed the table. That was when Torsten realized his hand was quaking as well. “You’re sorry you weren’t there?”
“You weren’t ready.”
“And you are? Ready to hang men simply for doing their jobs? Then you might as well do the same to me because I’m not coming back.”
“The Queen was grieving,” Torsten argued.
“The Queen deserved to be strung up over that wall with the rest of them.”
“By Iam, keep your voice down! That’s treason.”
“Iam turned his back on us, Torsten. Don’t you see that?”
“No, he is still with us. I saw it with my own eyes, Rand. He sent the prince back to us. Offered us all a second chance.”
Rand scoffed. He leaned back in his chair, eying the bit of spilled ale pooling across the floor. “Did you visit their graves?”
“Pi’s? I was there, Rand! I saw the miracle of his rebirth with my very eyes.”
“Not him,” Rand whispered. “All the people she hanged—I hanged. Deturo, and Holgrass, and Tessa…If Iam is with us, why didn’t he bring them back, too? Why only bring back a mad prince who mutters evil in the dark.”
Torsten’s heart leaped into his throat.
“You thought you were the only one who ever heard him?” Rand asked, clearly noticing the change in Torsten’s expression.
“It was the curse of Redstar that made him do such things,” Torsten offered.
“No, that boy is cursed. Everyone who goes near him... they... they end up dead. I’m never going back to that place. I don’t care what you do to me.” He swung his hand as if shoeing Torsten but fell off his chair.
Torsten’s fist clenched, but he bit back his response. Instead, he watched as Rand pawed at the cabinets again, searching for something else to drink on his hands and knees like an animal.
Torsten wasn’t sure why he kept returning to this tavern. Perhaps it was because he too had risen from the shog of Yarrington’s poor to the height of King’s Shieldsman, But the boy he helped train was clearly gone—deader even than King Pi ever was. In some ways, deader than King Liam. Only a sniveling coward remained.
Without royal edict stating that one was no longer fit, either by age, injury, or worse, serving the King’s Shield was a lifelong vocation. Deserting the post, as Rand had, was punishable by death. Had he cursed the Crown so profusely in public, Torsten would’ve had no other choice but to drag him to the dungeons. But they were alone, with only the soft whistling of wind through the cracked window and the sizzle of a candle nearing wick’s end for company.
Torsten couldn’t help but pity him. He knew Rand never should have been left alone to deal with Oleander’s unhinged fury, and if Torsten hadn’t chased Redstar to the Webbed Woods, perhaps he could have kept her from killing so many. It was only that guilt which prevented him from turning Rand in.
“The light of Iam is with you, brother, whether you feel it or not,” Torsten said as he backed away. “Should you ever find the strength to hold it again, there will always be a shield waiting for you in the Glass Castle.”
Rand grunted an unintelligible response without looking back. His tear-filled eyes went wide as he found another jug of ale.
The young man looked much like Pi had when Torsten found him pacing his room, muttering madness, thanks to Redstar’s curse. As Torsten backed out of the tiny apartment in the shog-end of Yarrington, he couldn’t help but trace a circle around his eyes and ask Iam to forgive the boy.
The worst curses come from within.
He could imagine no worse fate than having his faith shattered. He’d rather deal with twisted Arch Warlocks like Redstar any day. Because, try as they might to break him and the faithful masses, he knew they would always fail as Redstar had. The man who tried to unravel the Glass Kingdom now sat chained beneath the castle awaiting execution. And now that the coronation had passed, the time had come to rid the world of him and turn the pages on a new chapter.
II
THE MYSTIC
“This is a stupid idea,” Sora said.
“Just trust me for once?” Whitney groaned. “‘World’s Greatest Thief’ twice over, remember?”
“That’s great, except I feel like I am doing all the real work.”
“You’re right, looking pretty must be really difficult for you.”
Sora punched Whitney in the arm. “No, but acting helpless is. Why are we targeting these men again?”
“Because,” Whitney said, feigning exasperation, “they have a horse and a wagon, and I’d rather not walk the rest of the way to Winde Port. I’m tired from slaying monster-gods.”
She punched him again, harder this time. “And what, we just leave them stranded in a gorge? I told you, we’re only going after people who deserve to lose what they’ve got. Like Darkings.”
“But where’s the fun in that?” Whitney smirked.
Every time Sora saw that look on his face, she wanted to slap it right off, but the next thing she knew she was knee-deep into one of his asinine plans.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Trust me, Sora. I’ve dealt with a million caravans like that.” Sora raised an eyebrow. “They stop in small towns like Troborough and swindle everyone with worthless ‘trinkets.’ They can keep their wagon and trash if it makes you happy. All we need is one horse, they have two. Would you rather steal one from some poor stableman?”
“If you didn’t toss all our gold onto the streets of Yarrington we could have just bought one.”
“Sora!” he playfully shook his head. “I never thought you’d be so against my autlas-giving nature.”
“I... You are the most maddening person I’ve ever met. A single gold autla, that’s all we’d have needed.”
Whitney crossed his arms. “There’s no lesson in that! I promised to help you become the second best thief in Pantego, and that’s what I plan to do.”
“I don’t remember that promise.”
“It was something like that.”
Sora sighed. “Fine, but this better be worth tearing my tunic. I liked this one.”
“There she is!” Whitney clapped his hands, then wrapped his arm around her. “Now, do you remember the plan?”
“Of course. ‘Use my assets,’ as you so eloquently put it.”
It was lesson number who knows how many since she found Whitney in that dwarven ruin, kidnapped by Redstar’s Drav Cra followers posing as cultists. When she decided to go with him to steal the Prince’s lost doll, she didn’t think he’d treat it like a real apprenticeship. But his ‘lessons’ were endless—and endlessly obnoxious—as if thieving were some great art.
Back in Grambling, the last town they passed through, he’d swindled a drunken tailor out of boots. Played him in a game of gems, even though he’d swiped all the good cards before and hid them up his sleeve. Sora asked what the lesson was in that and he might as well have shrugged when he said, “Always check your
stack before you deal.”
It wasn’t that he’d changed terribly since their time together as children in Troborough, but now, he had a one-track mind. In her experience, all young men had one track minds, but Whitney’s was different. All he seemed to care about was stealing and making a name for himself. And none of what he took even mattered, he was happy just to throw it away. It was an obsession.
What’s worse, in the thrill of their few jobs together she’d forgotten herself, but afterward, she always questioned if Wetzel had spent the final years of his life training her so she could become a thief. She’d grit her teeth and look up to the sky, then sigh and follow along behind Whitney. Because she cared about exactly one person in the world, and as incredibly irritating as he could be, he now stood right beside her wearing that goofy smile he always did when he thought he had a bright idea.
She had nowhere else to go. Nobody else to be with. No home.
“Sora.” Whitney snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m going to be just over there.” He pointed to a large boulder dotting the side of the dirt trail where the path fell off down a sharp slope into the Jarein Gorge. The rift in the land was massive and deep, a canvas of red and russet rock where snow didn’t cover it. At the far bottom, a river connected Winde Port with the Walled Lake which was half frozen by winter’s touch, and eventually through tributaries to Yarrington or east into the Panping Region.
“If they try anything—”
“I won’t be far,” Whitney interrupted.
“I was going to say I’m going to roast you alive.” She smiled. She couldn’t help it around him, even when he was being a pest.
“I’d expect nothing less from the great and mighty Sora. We need to get you a name.”
“Can we steal that next?” she joked before realizing he might take her seriously. She had no interest in being ennobled. She had no parents that she knew of, no family connections, and she’d been fine living that way her whole life.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy Page 36
