He kissed her on the forehead, lingering for half a heartbeat, and then he was gone.
Alone, she packed in a daze, replaying her father’s parting words.
Play by the rules.
Follow orders.
Prove yourself worthy.
While Wren had never bothered herself much with the first two, it seemed she’d spent her whole life trying, apparently fruitlessly, to do the third.
Now her father was telling her to continue to try, hundreds of miles from home.
Her hand landed on her belt, on the empty sheath that had once held Ghostbane. At least she’d not had to give it to Inara.
“You owe me an ancestral blade, Graven,” her cousin had said after the trial had officially ended and Wren had received her fate.
“I’ll give you one in your throat,” Wren had snarled in reply, but Inara didn’t hear. She’d already been out of earshot, basking in glory as she headed toward her new life as a valkyr, golden champion’s wreath upon her head.
Wren sighed.
She had known their paths would diverge after tonight, but she’d not expected it to go quite like this.
SIX
The Castaway ferried Wren from Severton, the largest city in the Bonelands and closest port to Marrow Hall, down to Landen Point, a fishing town on the northernmost tip of the Astoria Peninsula, which was officially part of the Crownlands.
From there, it would be a five-day ride in a rickety old wagon, pulled by a pair of stout draft horses and driven by a sour-faced man who didn’t even bother to look at her.
The man in charge of their journey was a soldier-turned-sell-sword called Ralph, and when Wren handed over her travel papers, he did an almost comical double take.
“Vance Graven’s ba—uh, child?” he asked, blinking at her. Nice recovery, Wren thought blandly. “And he’s shipping you off to the Breachfort? What for?”
Wren’s scowl deepened as she climbed wordlessly into the wagon and threw herself onto the bench, pulling her hood down over her face. She would rather ride a saddle than a hard wooden seat that bumped and jostled as they rolled down the cobblestones and made for the road, but at least she could lean back, close her eyes, and ignore Ralph for the rest of the day.
Well, that was the idea, anyway.
“I might be a sell-sword now, but I was in the army before,” Ralph said, not taking Wren’s hint and continuing to chatter on. “I know your father, if you can believe it! Lord-Smith Vance and I were stationed together at the Breachfort during the Uprising. Well, not together together, him being a bonesmith and I, a simple soldier…” He paused, and Wren thought that was the end of it. She was wrong. “Those were the glory days for your house, weren’t they? Back then, getting shipped to the Breachfort was the highest honor. Bonesmiths were cheered in the streets! Now, though? Well, unless there’s a second uprising, I’m afraid your lot is back to funeral rites and village hauntings, aren’t you? Not much renown to be found in that, is there? Of course, work is work. Why, just the other day…”
While Wren let most of his words go in one ear and out the other for the next few hours, she did, at one point, catch the phrase “first passenger,” which meant they would be traveling with others.
Indeed, Ralph journeyed to the Breachfort four times a year—or so he shouted as they made their way down the busy road, which Wren assumed must be for her benefit, though she hadn’t asked—traveling from Landen Point down through several smaller villages and towns before circling Brighton in the Silverlands to the south and then making for the Breachfort to the east, gathering up tributes along the way.
Brighton was where the House of Silver trained their smiths, and besides Marrow Hall, they sent the most tributes to the fort. Silversmiths were primarily healers, and therefore always in demand at military postings. Silver was antibacterial, so besides using it to clean wells or keep casks of wine fresh and free from germs, it had long been used in medicine. They used silver thread in bandages to wrap wounds, silver sutures to close deep cuts, and silver instruments to perform surgeries. Wren had even heard they could use silver to stabilize broken bones while they mended.
The stonesmiths, on the other hand, had helped build the Border Wall, and often did contract work in its maintenance, but they weren’t a formally recognized smith house, so they didn’t send tributes. Decades ago they had allied with the southern kings during the conflicts that eventually saw the northern Valorians gain sole rule over the Dominions and had lost everything in the aftermath. Now there were only a handful of families scattered across the Dominions who maintained the traditions, but they had no central house or lands. Still, the castle at Stonespear—built two centuries ago—was said to be the most magnificent in the Dominions, even grander than the gold-encrusted monstrosity that was Giltmore, seat of the House of Gold.
Wren had long wanted to see Stonespear for herself, after she finished her training and became a valkyr. Now that she was exiled, she realized with a pang that she might never get the chance.
Goldsmiths had little to offer in wartime, so they didn’t bother with tributes and just sent gold instead, while ironsmiths were all but extinct. Thanks to the Breach, their craft had been outlawed and their schools shut down, though they certainly weren’t the only smiths to receive such treatment. The ghostsmiths had been the first smiths to be exiled.
Wren tuned back in to Ralph’s incessant chatter in time to learn he wasn’t the only person to make a business of transporting tributes. Indeed, before long he was disparaging the competition.
“They might have cheap steel and horses and know the roads, but they never saw war. I’m the best protection money can buy,” Ralph said proudly. He had decided, much to Wren’s dismay, to ride beside the wagon rather than in front so he could more easily speak to her. He smiled down at her expectantly—did he want praise?—and there was no pretending she hadn’t heard, as she had done several times before.
“Is the road so very dangerous?” she asked uncertainly. She didn’t really care; she wanted to stew in silence and self-pity. She still couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be tricked and trapped and carted off to the edge of the world by a man named Ralph, who didn’t know when to shut up.
“Any road that cuts through the wilderness is dangerous!” he warned. “Outlaws roam the Riverlands to the south, no matter how hard His Majesty tries to keep them in check, and pickpockets and thieves will lay traps outside the cities, setting upon weary travelers. Not to mention other soldiers who’ve not found honest work after the war… or decided never to bother to try.”
Wren perked up slightly. “Have you often had to fight?” A highway robbery would certainly shake things up.
“Never,” the driver chimed in helpfully, causing Ralph’s puffed-up chest to deflate.
“Not yet,” he clarified, peering around ominously.
Wren sank back into her seat.
Like most in the Dominions, Ralph refused to travel after dark, misunderstanding the undead. They could rise and attack in daylight as well as at night, even though they preferred the darkness. It had to do with the warmth of the sun, which made it difficult for their ghosts—cold in nature—to take shape. Like cool morning mist, their spirits would be steadily burned away by the heat of the day.