Bran sheathed the blade again, eyes downcast.
"You've kept it sharp," Aelyn said. Bran could feel his eyes burning into him. "And not a spot of rust on the steel."
"We're in the far reaches of civilization, close to the East. Here, the war never ends. Besides, it's said the blade that rusts is borne by a fool."
"A quotation from one of the famed generals?"
Bran glanced up. "From myself."
Aelyn gave him a smile full of biting knowledge. "How humble you are, Magebutcher."
Bran winced. "I know we're not on the best of terms right now; I'll take the blame for that. And, unfortunately, I've only oath-bound you to not say my true name and not the rest. But if you could not mention those other titles to the boy…"
Aelyn watched him, the smile remaining. "That depends on your good behavior. But what name do you fear the most, I wonder? Bran the Bastard? The boy fathered by a warlock who seduced his mother and left him to a childhood of loneliness and ridicule? The boy who was forgotten even as he returned as a man?"
Old wounds, he told himself. But Bran knew better than anyone that old wounds could always pull open and bleed.
"Or perhaps Red Reaver," the traveler continued. "I think there are many sins attached to that epithet that haunt you still."
Bran looked sharply at Aelyn then. How much does he know? How much could he? His words came too close to the mark to be randomly thrown.
Aelyn only smiled wider. "But that evokes the question — why bring the boy? He can only be a hindrance to us and a danger to himself."
Hoping only he knew the connection between those thoughts, Bran let the sheathed blade fall to his side and kept his voice even. "Better that he's endangered in my care than left here for whatever comes down from the East. The World is a hard place, and these marshlands some of the hardest. The people here have only had five years of peace, and already they forget that."
"Five years. Strange — that's as long as you've been here, isn't it?"
Bran smiled despite the horrid memories that came to mind. "I fear they'll remember soon enough. And hopefully, the boy can help them keep the darkness at bay when we return."
Aelyn held his gaze. "You do not even know why we go."
Bran shook his head. "Not the details. I trust you'll tell me what I need to know along the way. But I know the important thing: when a king gives a command, you do your damndest to comply."
It was Aelyn's turn to smile. "Best you'd remember that. And remember it's not Bran the Chicken Farmer he's commanding."
Bran turned away, wrapping the sword in the oilskin again. "I never let my blade rust, did I?"
Easterly Winds
The day had never dragged on for so long.
Garin set down the bucket of slop and leaned against their boundary fence, staring off toward where the sun was setting behind the trees. Next to him, the pigs squealed and jostled each other to knock over the slop bucket and claim their portion of the windfall.
A chance to travel to Halenhol. To leave Hunt's Hollow, to see the World, to make a name for himself.
Isn't this the chance I've always dreamed of? he thought. Shouldn't I be excited, ecstatic?
A breeze rustled his clothes and blew his hair flat against his head. A man wouldn't feel so torn. A man knows his own mind. And, fifteen summers old, wasn't he a man grown?
He snorted, spat to the side, and watched the squall carry it out of sight behind him.
"That nearly hit me."
As his sister leaned on the fence next to him, Garin tried for a smile and fell short. "Shouldn't sneak up on me then."
Lenora's gaze was calm and placid. Father's calmness, he recognized. In many ways, she was far more like their father than him. He wondered morosely what that said for him as a man.
Yet as he looked back over to the woods, he couldn't help his thoughts wandering back to all that lay beyond them.
"You've let the pigs get at the leftover slop."
"Then they'll fatten quicker."
"Garin. Look at me."
Reluctantly, he complied. Her eyes were an unremarkable, flat brown, and her features were, while pretty, a bit plain. Yet something about the way his sister held herself was compelling all the same. No wonder Hunt's Hollow's young men are scrambling for the chance to court her, he thought, and despite the weight on his shoulders, he felt a flush of pride.
Lenora looked between his eyes for a long moment. "Did something happen?"
"Not yet. But it could."
"Bad?"
"Good. I think."
She frowned. "We've never kept secrets from each other before."
Garin shrugged. "Might not be anything to tell."
"Does this have something to do with that stranger visiting Bran yesterday?"
No secrets in a village — he'd always known that. "Something like that."
Lenora sighed and reached over to put an arm around him, leaning her head on his shoulder, offering in silence what words could never convey.
"I'm trying to decide," he found himself saying.
"Decide between?"
"Staying or going."
She went very still. "Leaving Hunt's Hollow, you mean?"
He tried to say it, but the word caught in his throat, so he nodded instead. "Just for a while," he added quickly. "I don't know how long. But it won't be forever."
When Lenora remained silent, words pressed out of him once again. "I've always told myself I would see the World, sis. That I wouldn't just be content to stay here and split Father's plot in quarters with our brothers. I've lain awake nights, staring at the stars, imagining my stories will be written in them."
He stopped just short of the most embarrassing, boyish admittance of them all. I've imagined myself as Markus Bredley stealing into those dwarven vaults. I've pretended I'm Tal Harrenfel in all his deeds. Stealing the Ring of Thalkuun. Killing the northern marauders and burning their black-sailed ships. Kneeling before the King as he heaps praise on my shoulders.
Lenora lifted her head from his shoulder but kept their arms twined together. "The youngest son often flies the coop," she said quietly. "I guess I always knew you would, too, someday. I just didn't think someday would come so soon."
"You knew I'd leave?"
She nodded. "Honry has put down deep roots and has a family of his own now. Corbun and Naten both have girls from the surrounding countryside. But you've chosen to spend every free moment you had with a man who moved here from the wide World and barely lived here for five years."
Garin brushed absentmindedly at his hair, uncomfortable under his sister's sharp scrutiny. "I suppose that's true."
"But it's not just that. You've a fire in you, Garin. You need to feed it with all the World has to offer. If not, if you stay here without venturing away…" She shrugged. "I'd be afraid of that fire burning you up inside."
He briefly met her gaze, then looked away again. "So you think I should go."
"I think you should do whatever is right for you."