The King's Bastard - By Rowena Cory Daniells Page 0,53

their excited chatter filled the air. They crowded the houses and warehouses bordering the lake's shores. Many had ridden out to the lake's snowy banks to find a good vantage point. Determined to enjoy the event, they had set themselves up with blankets, steaming honeyed mead and hot food. From where he stood, Fyn could smell roasting cinnamon apples and sweet potatoes sprinkled with cheese and chilli. His stomach rumbled. He'd been too nervous to eat this morning.

'Ho, Fyn! What's keeping you?' Lonepine swung his staff at Fyn's head, just missing. 'Ready to eat ice?'

'You'll be the one eating ice!' Fyn made a mock swing. Lonepine blocked. The two of them strained, strength against strength. Lonepine was the same height as Fyn, but heavier. Fyn was just about to break the stalemate with a trick stumble when the weapons master strode past.

'Save it for the race, lads!' Oakstand gestured to the wharf below. 'The others are already lining up. Don't keep the abbot waiting.'

They broke apart.

'We'll see who eats ice.' Lonepine's warm brown eyes gleamed a challenge. He had a square head and ears that tended to stick out, making him look more like a butcher's apprentice than a monk. 'Come on!'

As Fyn turned towards Sapphire Lake, Lonepine thrust the tip of his staff between Fyn's legs, toppling him into a snowdrift. With a laugh Lonepine took off down the steps, jumping the last four.

Spitting snow from his mouth, Fyn blinked, only to discover he was sprawled in someone's shadow. Piro?

'You all right, Fyn?' Feldspar asked. He looked deadly serious as always but Fyn could hear the nerves his friend was trying to hide.

Rolling to his feet, Fyn brushed crushed snow from his knees and looked up. If he made it across the lake ahead of Lonepine, this tall, skinny youth was his greatest rival. Like Lonepine, Feldspar had already chosen his monk's name and it proclaimed his goal. The stone, feldspar, was a tool of the mystics. Competition for a place in the mystics was tough. Some years none of the acolytes were chosen. It didn't help that Feldspar was one of Fyn's best friends.

'Halcyon's luck be with you,' Feldspar said earnestly.

'And you,' Fyn said, meaning it, no matter what it cost him.

They hurried down the steps to the wharf, then onto the lake's icy surface where the others had already strapped on their skates. The acolytes were quiet and tense as they checked the straps of their protectors, and wiped sweaty palms on their leggings.

Fyn did up his skates then stood balanced on the narrow blades. Across the frozen lake lay his goal, Ruin Isle. Named for its stone statues which dated from before the abbey's written history, the island would be sacrosanct for the duration of the race, forbidden to all but the acolytes, for somewhere in those ruins the mystics master had hidden Halcyon's Fate.

And Fyn had to find it.

He transferred the staff from one hand to the other. Glancing over his shoulder, his gaze was drawn up beyond the town's snow-covered roofs, to his father's castle. Rolenhold stood high on a great pinnacle of rock. Behind it were the mist-shrouded peaks of the Dividing Mountains. In the three hundred years since King Rolence the First built the stronghold's original tower, the castle had been added to and reinforced. It had never been taken.

Fyn's heart swelled. This was his home and he would do his father proud.

He searched for the royal banner, finding the brilliant red foenix on black background draped from the merchant guildhall bell tower. He could just make out his mother seated with a blanket over her knees on the fourth-storey balcony. His father was sharing hot, spiced wine with his brothers, nobles, great merchants and warlords.

He could not see his sister beside his mother. In fact, Fyn could not see his sister anywhere. A kernel of worry formed in his belly.

'They're bringing the horn.' Lonepine nudged Fyn. 'Not long now!'

To win the highest accolade they had to not only find the Fate but make it back across the lake to blow that horn. Other acolytes would form teams to help each other, networks of trust that they would rely on later when they were monks, trying to make their way up in the hierarchy. A rush of energy filled Fyn for he could only trust two of his companions, which put their team at an immediate disadvantage.

Shifting his weight from skate to skate to keep warm, he studied the dais where the