Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1)(22)

Maybe it was good he was leaving tomorrow. The Voyageur had made him jumpy.

He replenished his supplies with the herbs Taliesin had given him, working quickly and methodically, like a warrior arming himself for battle.

Ash pulled his drawer out from under his bed and laid out his travel gear. Weapons—his bow, arrows, small sword, the small daggers called shivs that his father had favored. The kit bag with an array of medicinals, surgical tools, dressings, and the like. Another bag containing tools for his work as a traveling farrier and healer of horses. His bedroll, cooking pots, small packets of upland teas, herbs, and seasonings for the road.

The mingled scents brought the usual rush of memory. Another year gone.

Though he’d told Taliesin that he preferred being off the map, he couldn’t help thinking about the family he had left. Lyss would be fifteen, preparing for her name day on her sixteenth birthday. They’d been close—the gulf between eleven and thirteen wasn’t so large, and they were both spares in the royal hierarchy. Did she still miss him the way he missed her? Four years is a long time when you’re eleven years old. Especially when you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Would she have boys buzzing around her by now, the way Hana always did? What kind of queen would she be? From what he remembered, she’d be happier playing the basilka or the harpsichord.

After Hana died, he’d promised Lyss he’d help her. That he’d be there for her when she came to the throne. That she wouldn’t have to manage on her own. That promise still sat heavily on his conscience.

He could still keep his promise, he told himself. There was still time. She wasn’t queen yet. But there was no telling how he would be received. He wouldn’t blame her if she slammed the door in his face.

As far as he knew, his mother had not remarried, though he guessed there would be pressure to do so. An unmarried queen was an opportunity for alliances, something the Fells desperately needed. He preferred not to think about it.

Still, more and more, he longed for home. He wanted to climb out of the cloying sweet southern air into the clean, pine-scented mountains—a place where the northern winds needled the nose and cleared the head for thinking. A place that, even now, would be filling with snow.

If wishes were horses even beggars would ride. It was something his paternal grandmother used to say. The one who burned to death in a stable, long before Ash was born. His father often told stories about life on the streets of Fellsmarch, trying to make that piece of his heritage real to him.

“I never knew my da,” he’d said. “I want you to know yours.”

Ash sorted quickly through his single trunk of clothing. He’d leave behind his heavy winter cloak, woven of upland sheepswool spun in the grease to turn the rain and snow. He’d bring his warm weather rain gear, beaded and stitched with clan charms. Clan goods were treasured throughout the Seven Realms, so that wouldn’t mark him out as a northerner.

Studying his shelves of books, Ash chose two. One was Tisdale’s, the green magic handbook he’d used since his arrival in Oden’s Ford. The other was a small, battered volume bound in leather. A guide to poisons.

Taliesin had given it to him, but not without making her opinions known.

With everything assembled, he quickly stowed his supplies in two panniers, distributing the weight as evenly as he could.

When all was ready, Ash considered taking advantage of the deserted dormitory to carry his panniers to the stables and stow them there. In the end, he returned them to the drawer under the bed. He didn’t want to risk their being discovered in the unlikely event the stable boys mucked out the stalls again before he left.

Just as he got his gear stowed away, there came a knock at the door.

“Ash! It’s Lila.” That would be Lila Barrowhill, a Southern Islander cadet from Wien House, the military school.

“It’s open,” Ash said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh.” Ash unlocked the door and swung it open.

Lila stalked past him and dropped into a chair like she owned the place. In fact, he might not have recognized her without an introduction. She’d replaced her dun-colored Wien House uniform with a long blue skirt and a close-fitting blouse that exposed her shoulders and set off her dark skin. Her tangle of curls was pinned up and she’d rouged her lips.

“How come your door was locked?”

“I didn’t realize it was,” Ash said, sitting down on the bed.

Lila was one of a handful of Southern Islanders at Wien House. Most attended either the Temple School or Isenwerk, the engineering school. She looked to be of mixed blood, actually, and she spoke several languages fluently, including Fellsian.

Up to this year, they’d rarely crossed paths. Wien House was on the opposite side of the river from Mystwerk. Lila also seemed to spend considerable time away from school. He’d heard that she’d been expelled several times, but always talked her way back in.

Lila spent every spare moment in the dining halls, the taverns, the gymnasium—anywhere people gathered, played cards and darts, drank, ate, gossiped, and flirted. Ash had no idea when she got her studying done, but she seemed to do middling well in her classes with very little effort.

Ash had little time for socializing, between his doubled class schedule and the time he spent in the healing halls and studying with Taliesin. Besides, he was a loner at heart.