Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,2

tore raggedly through the serene whiteness looking like open claw marks in flesh.

“I ride for Aequi Kentron in two days,” Crow replied.

Soko’s eyes hardened. “You will not ride alone.”

Crow almost smiled at that. “I didn’t think I would.”

“And the eclipse?”

“A golden sun for a golden age,” he replied with a sigh, turning back to stare out the window. “My birthright is finally upon me.”

Soko’s voice was quiet, as though he dreaded to hear what he already knew. “What will you do?”

Crow took a long moment to answer. Was it fear or dread? Acceptance or resignation? “My choice in this was long ago removed,” he murmured, finally meeting Soko’s eyes. “I will attend their festival, and when all the fanfare and nonsense is done, I will return as if nothing has occurred.”

“It’s supposed to be a celebration,” Soko replied. “Yet it hangs over you like a dark cloud.”

Crow sighed. He would have quite happily been left alone for all his days, but this felt different. This felt ominous and he couldn’t explain why. “True metal does not fear the furnace,” he murmured.

It was a favoured Northlands saying, cited by the miners who dug ore from frozen mountains and by the blacksmiths who turned it into steel.

Yet Crow feared . . . something. He feared this festival and ceremony; he feared the change he felt would rise with the golden sun. He feared the unknown.

And he feared the greasy dread in his belly and the burn on his wrist that told him his life was about to change forever.

Chapter Two

The Westlands was a vast network of waterways, puddles of land for harvests, villages on rocky outcrops in the north or on stilts amidst the reeds to the south, and arching stone bridges that laced the land together.

The people were born of water. Living according to the tides, the ebb and flow was their pulse, the very lifeblood in their veins. A peaceful people, grateful to the Brother Sun and the Sister Moons, where days of work and nights of rest were a blessing.

Tancho sat in his white robes, cross-legged on the reed mat, with his long red hair tied back from his face, concentrating on the sounds of the water under the floor. How it swirled around the pylons beneath his palace, how it calmed him. He could close his eyes and centre his mind, bringing harmony to his thoughts, preparing him for things to come.

There were almost-silent footfalls outside the rice-paper walls. He wasn’t alarmed, for it could only be one of two people, and he knew this sound well. Karasu walked ever so slightly on her toes the way a dancer does, or a well-practised assassin, aiming for stealth and grace. Whereas Kohaku trod heavier, the way a hulking foot soldier would expect to walk after losing a game of di.

The door slid open with a whisper. Tancho never opened his eyes, never moved an inch, though he did smile. “Hello, Karasu.”

“We are ready to leave,” she said, coming to sit on the floor beside him.

Tancho inhaled deeply and finally drew his eyes to her. Her white guards uniform was crisp, her long black hair fell about her face like ribbons of silk, her dark eyes were as sharp as her blades. She had been his friend and confidant since he could remember. Kohaku too. The three of them were inseparable, despite Tancho’s title of king.

They were an unlikely trio. Tancho having long red hair, Karasu black, and Kohaku’s long hair was white. Tancho and Karasu were of similar build, tall and lean, both agile and lethal with knives and blades, whereas Kohaku was broad and muscular. His strength was brute force, should anyone be stupid enough to pose a threat.

And both Karasu and Kohaku had been by Tancho’s side forever. They had trained with him, learned with him, prepared with him. Every lesson, every class.

As the leader of the Westlands, it was his duty, and one he took in stride. He was proud of his ancestors, of his people, and it was with great honour that he would attend Aequi Kentron in their name.

“And your birthmark?” Karasu asked.

Tancho turned his wrist over, his sleeve falling away to reveal his mark. Since the last full moons, it had begun to irritate him. He suspected then that his destiny drew near, that the moons and sun were aligning in a way fate could not ignore. Then two days ago, the day the messenger had arrived, bringing with him the invitation, Tancho’s