“At least someone still finds value in me,” he muttered to them, donning his clothes. “Even if it’s just to fill your bellies.”
He got them all moving again. He followed a stream that drained the tarn. It ambled a meandering track through bosky wooded hills. The forests grew slowly greener, going from dark pines to a mix of oaks, mountainash, and maples. The stream became dotted with large willows. The bushes thickened with juniper and peashrubs. The ice in the mists melted to a simple chill in the air. Even with the day nearing an end, it brightened as they climbed the last hill toward home.
The cabin he had built from local timber stood atop the next rise. He had chosen this spot as it balanced between the greener woods that stretched to the sea and the twilight forests thick with freezing fogs to the west. It was also remote enough that few, if any, ever chanced upon his cabin. And no one ever visited.
So, he stopped at the bottom of the hill, studying the sod roof of his cabin. A thin stream of smoke rose from the stone chimney, promising the warmth of home and a hot meal.
Still, a chill of trepidation swept through him.
When he had left this morning, his hearth had been cold.
27
GRAYLIN CROUCHED AT the edge of his homestead, sticking to the shadows of the tree line. He searched the back gardens, already sprouting with a summer’s leafy bounty of lettuce, purple squash, ripe bloodapples, along with a patch of stalky hardcorn. He eyed the smokehouse to the right of his one-room cabin and a small barn where he kept a lone pony and wagon for trading down in the town of Savik near the coast.
He spotted no one skulking about, but the chimney continued to smoke.
Graylin signaled his brothers who guarded to either side. He softly nickered for their attention, then placed his palms together and opened them, spreading his arms wide before bringing his palms together. It was a command they knew well: CIRCLE AND GUARD.
The pair split off, going opposite directions, keeping to the forest’s edge. Their senses were far sharper than his. If there were any strangers hidden, they would soon regret their trespass.
With his back guarded, Graylin ran low to the barn and peeked inside. He saw his Aglerolarpok pony drowsing in his stall, but another horse had been tethered at the gate. It shifted nervously, maybe scenting the circling vargr.
He sidled over to the smokehouse, fingered the door open, and except for the slabs of salted, dried meat, it was empty. By now, he was less nervous and more irritated. He reached the timber-framed cabin and peered through a window. Lit by the hearth, a cloaked figure sat on a chair near the fire. His chin rested on his chest as if asleep, but the puffs of smoke around the glow of a pipe suggested otherwise. The trespasser’s arm lifted, and without glancing up, the man waved at the window, plainly inviting Graylin into his own house.
Spotting no one else in the cabin, he cursed aloud and crossed around to his front door. He kept a dagger in hand as he entered. The scent of woodsmoke and smoldering rakeleaf greeted him back home. The room was simply furnished with a thick oaken table to one side near a rise of shelves stacked with dry goods and other necessities. The bed was a frame with a thick mattress stuffed with goose feathers and blanketed in furs, the only bit of luxury about the place. A few dark oil lamps hung from hooks.
The figure shifted, stretching in the chair, like a lazy cat waking from a half-slumber. He was a firm-bodied man with a slight paunch to his belly from too much ale. He had slate-gray hair braided to the back and a scruff of several days’ growth of the same over cheek and chin. Under his heavy traveler’s cloak, he wore baggy breeches and a stained tunic laced to his throat. He had removed his boots, which he had set by the fire. Both his woolen hosen had large holes at heel and toe.
“I see you made yourself at home, Symon.”
The visitor’s green eyes sparkled with amusement at Graylin’s exasperation. “How could I not? You expect me to freeze my bollocks off while I wait for you all day?”
“Why are you here?”
“How’re the pups?” Symon asked, shifting around to stare out the window.
“I’m more than happy to have them greet you if you don’t answer my question.”
Symon held up a palm and took a long puff on his pipe, ripening the glow in the bowl. “That’s okay. No reason to bother the boys. I’ll trust the pair are doing fine.”
“What’s this all about? Why are you here?”
Symon waved for Graylin to bring the stool from the table, as if he owned the place. Graylin had never bothered with a second fireside chair as he didn’t invite or tolerate visitors. He had company enough with Aamon and Kalder.
Still, he dragged the stool closer to the hearth, curiosity getting the better of him. Symon hy Ralls served as his trading partner in Savik, helping him barter for goods he needed up here in the wilds—which made him as close to a friend as one could muster out here. Symon was also one of the few people who knew Graylin’s true identity, something he kept obscured by using a false name, which he changed regularly.
Such a deception would have never worked with Symon anyway. While Graylin plied his trade in furs and dried meats, Symon dealt in secrets and whispered words. Also, the two knew each other long before Graylin’s arrival, going back two decades. Symon had been an alchymist at Kepenhill, and their paths had crossed periodically, mostly in taverns. But Symon had eventually been stripped of his robe and cast out due to his preference for wine and spirits over books and teaching.
Or so the story went.
When it came to Symon, much of his history was dubious. Graylin suspected there was far more to the man. Even deep in his cups, Symon seldom appeared drunk. Instead, there remained a glint of hard steel buried under his feigned merriment, and a sharper intent hidden behind his idle banter.
Still, the man had kept Graylin’s secret all these years, and for that, he tolerated the former alchymist. But there were limits to his largesse.
Graylin dropped his stool near the fire and sat atop it. “Explain yourself.”
Symon shifted and reached inside his heavy cloak and removed a curl of parchment sealed with wax. He offered it over, but Graylin simply folded his arms. He recognized the missive of a skrycrow and had no interest in reading what might be written there. His world was now this cabin, these woods, and his stalwart brothers. He needed nothing else, wanted nothing else.
Symon studied him for a breath, then rolled the scroll between his fingers until the red wax seal faced Graylin. “This is pressed with the mark of the Cloistery.”
Graylin’s heart clenched in his chest.
“From the M?r,” Symon added.
“I know where the Cloistery is,” Graylin grumbled darkly. “Why does this concern me?”
Symon leaned back, fingering the scroll around and around. “The skrycrow arrived a day ago,” he said. “Sent to me—but meant for you.”
“If so, then you failed to keep your word. For anyone to know I still live, to know you could reach me, then you must have shared what you swore to keep secret.”
Symon shrugged. “Breaking an oath to an oathbreaker. Surely you can’t hold that against me.”
Graylin stood up, tightening a fist.
Symon sighed. “Calm yourself. There were a few who needed the truth and could be trusted with it.”