A Prince Among Killers - By J. B. Redmond Page 0,59

to find Stormbreaker and get his answers about the trial, and what now felt like a completely senseless waste of life.

Galvin might have been a perfect mocker-ass, but he was a man in his own right, and did not deserve being torn apart by vicious monsters and beasts while his entire guild stood by, wishing him well but doing nothing to come to his aid. Soon it would be Aron suffering that fate. Or Zed. And one day, Raaf, if Aron didn’t put a stop to this.

He passed by the mock battlefield, scarcely taking note of the apprentices hard at work in the crisp morning air. The Judgment Arena also passed by in a blur, as did the groups of Stone Brothers and apprentices along the main byway. When he came to the back of the main keep, he turned east toward the fields, and headed toward the footbridge that would take him toward the farming quarters. He expected to find Stormbreaker in one of the towers near the fields, seeing to the needs of Stone’s latest guest.

What he found instead was Dari, standing on the footbridge near the Temple of the Brother, with Blath at her side. Dari’s hands gripped the bridge railing, and it was obvious to Aron that she was weeping as she stared into the newly harvested fields.

A new rush of emotions flooded through Aron, these more focused and much less confusing. All of his other aims evaporated as he hurried toward her, intending to gather her to him and offer whatever comfort she might need. He would determine what had wounded her, and put a stop to that, too. Whatever it was.

As he reached the bridge, Blath stepped forward to block his path, shook her head with an expression that let him know she would prevent any intrusion in this vulnerable moment. Aron glared at the Sabor woman, then looked past her to Dari. He followed her gaze, until he came to what she was staring at, until he absorbed the obvious source of her pain.

It was Stormbreaker, standing beside a tall, ethereal woman with silvery hair and skin even fairer than his. Though he was at some distance, Aron could make out the woman’s bright, silvery eyes as well. She seemed wispy, almost insubstantial, and if he had seen her stepping from some mist or fog, he might have mistaken her for a spirit or apparition.

His first thought was that he might be seeing Tia Snakekiller at last, Stormbreaker’s sister, but this was not the woman Aron remembered from his brief legacy-guided view of her. And Stormbreaker’s manner was not that of a man holding conversation with his sibling. The deferential dip of his head, the gentle fashion in which he gestured, or extended his hand to brush the woman’s arm—no. This was certainly not his sister.

This had to be Lady Vagrat, Rakel Seadaughter, descendant of Eyrie’s most mysterious and reclusive dynast line.

Lady Vagrat and Stormbreaker were standing at the edge of a harvested cornfield, seemingly enveloped in sadness, but watching a little girl of perhaps five or six years of age frolicking through the remnants of broken stalks. The child had her mother’s fair skin, but her hair was white and not silver, and her build seemed more muscled and solid than her mother’s.

This would be Rakel Seadaughter’s heir. A girl who would never marry, but one day would bear heirs of her own, by a male of her own choosing, who would never be named.

Brotherless…

The word floated through Aron’s mind, spoken in his mother’s voice, but he rejected it. It wasn’t for him or anyone else to judge. Vagrat’s ways and beliefs were Vagrat’s ways and beliefs.

As were Stone’s.

Aron narrowed his eyes as he thought about Galvin Herder and the dangerous trial in the Ruined Keep. Should he simply accept such a thing, because he was Stone now, and Stone had rights to their own traditions and beliefs?

And should he simply accept that once more, Stormbreaker was hurting Dari, and there was nothing Aron could do to stop it?

The air felt heavy with sadness and change, and that heaviness seemed to spread from Aron, Iko, and Blath forward to coat Dari, and farther still, to where Stormbreaker stood with a woman Aron had no doubt must be the one who had claimed Stormbreaker’s heart.

He remembered Lord Cobb’s greeting to Stormbreaker when they met on Aron’s journey to Triune. It’s good to see you again, too. What has it been since you last