"We are all waiting for something. For rank and privilege; for faith and honor. To grow up. To grow old. To regain lost youth. Something calls. Or someone. Are you listening? On whom do you wait?"

from the journal of Scanlin Ross, First Sword in Tyrian, Believer

Lian was missing.

The first time it happened, the house was in an unprecedented uproar until it was discovered that the boy had ascended an old watchtower to sit before a window in the predawn hours with nothing but a spyglass. Clearly puzzled by the degree of alarm he had raised within Aralt’s ranks, he withdrew with an apology for having disturbed everyone. Aralt noted that he became increasingly more adept at selecting his hiding places after that. Why he had taken to sequestering himself at all remained a mystery. He offered no explanation for this preoccupation, as if some outside force he could not articulate summoned him.

This time, Aralt told everyone else to stand down and took it upon himself to investigate the rambling, old house with practiced ease. It took longer than the last time—when the boy had climbed up to the roof of the esri byre in the middle of the night—but he eventually tracked Lian to a cramped, secluded room—scarcely more than a musty storage closet—on the house’s upper floor. The cat feasting on half of a biscuit outside the tower door had been his first clue. He wondered when the amount of food the boy managed to consume was going to translate to growth—in any direction.

Light footfalls whispered on the steps, and he paused, waiting for the bearer of the lamp now visible above him to come into view. He was as surprised to see Kateeri as the girl was to see him. She was barefoot, a burgundy cardigan sized for a grown man wrapped around her nightgown. Two perfectly plaited braids draped over her shoulders, each tied with a blue ribbon.

“Syr Tremayne, I…” She bit her bottom lip as she held out the lamp. “You’ll want this, sir. It’s dark. I was just…just…thanking kavsa Lian. For the poni. For my brothers.”

A flimsy excuse when the gift had been given days before, but he inclined his head.

“I see. Off with you, then. Your mother will wonder where you are,” he said, guessing that to be the safest route for conversation with a twelve-year-old girl, at night, in the dark.

The back steps were poorly lit under the best of conditions, and without the gas works operational, Aralt accepted the lamp before continuing. It shone a flickering halo over the random contents of the upper room—and Lian, who once more sat before a window. A stubby candle the color of fresh butter burned brightly on the ledge.

Tall, narrow shutters had been folded back on rusty hinges, open mullioned windows allowing in a warm breeze that stirred low-lying mist and twisted the candle flame. A gentle rain had fallen earlier, leaving behind the heady scents of spring. Winter faded into memory. From high in the eaves, night birds sighed their haunting songs. Below, the exchanges of night guards were crisp and clear. One complained about his grammie’s matchmaking while another extolled the virtues of her husband. Two others made note of celestial positions, laying wagers as to how high the waters of the fjord might become when the force of triple new moons drew the spring tide to greater heights.

Whether the boy paid them any heed was anyone’s guess. In his hands, the carved wooden kaio seemed to glow softly, as if fashioned of moonlight and dreams.

“Expecting someone?” Aralt asked.

“Maybe.”

Not at all the answer Aralt had anticipated. Interesting.

“After all, the Feast of Light draws nigh,” the boy said, tucking the kaio into his shirt pocket smoothly. He pushed the candle further toward the edge of the casement. “Travelers will be on the road. They’ll need light to guide them.”

True enough. Aralt placed his lamp on a battered, half-refinished wardrobe and adjusted the flame. The room came into sharper focus, and he glanced around, wondering what special draw a storage closet might have. The library, the chapel, the stables, even the kitchen offered more reward than this jumbled hodgepodge of discarded history. That such a place still existed in a house run by Perryn marr Kenesh was a wonder in itself. He threaded his way past yesteryear’s draperies and furnishings and dozens of crates to the roll-top trunk upon which his kervallys perched. He almost sat down beside the boy, but…didn’t. Across the dinner table was usually proximity enough. Riding out, each astride their own esri, better still. So, he stood, arms crossed, all the while knowing that the boy was not deceived.

Lian was many things, but a fool was not one of them.

Though mist rolled in from the moors, the night sky was clear, the constellations washing patches of plum to silver filigree. Lian was only too right. Syth’s Eve was mere days away. Soon, three silver crescents would fade, leaving them with the true darkness that heralded spring. Was that what kept the boy from sleep? The need to track the approaching season, marking celestial motions to establish the New Year with a kavistra’s precision? Aralt was sure he had someone on staff being paid for similar services.

“Gitom and Susa’s daughter lights the candles this year,” Aralt commented. To do so in Lian’s company would be a rare honor indeed.

“Kateeri,” Lian replied.

“I passed her on the way up. She likes you.”

A beat, then, “I like her, too.”

“She told me that you gave her little brothers your poni.”

Lian squirmed.

“I’m not criticizing you, lad,” Aralt assured the boy, seizing on the moment to make conversation. The Seven Sea Lords knew it was hard enough to do when they sat at the table together, let alone in the middle of the night in a glorified broom closet. Lian had hardly said two words to him since the Tuning accident. “That poni will see more attention in her life than some people. Besides, you look a trifle silly riding her, ken?”

That elicited a stifled laugh; they both knew Lian’s stature rarely rendered him too big for anything.

In the warm stillness, Aralt waited, keenly aware that something was afoot that had nothing to do with the clandestine meeting with Kateeri Shaeneki. Something needed saying, and Lian was on the verge of doing so. Once started, the boy was not easily deterred; but to get him to speak sometimes, especially about the recent past, took monumental effort. And patience. Admittedly not Aralt’s strong suit. Scanlin possessed that gift, and it had become increasingly obvious that Lian found talking to his First Sword easier than to him. He was given to believe it was more about books and music and the Faith than Lian’s abduction from Kyrrimar and mysterious sojourn north, but Aralt had no proof. He had lost count of how many times he had come upon them only to have dialogue abruptly cease. Ever a trusty confidant, Scanlin Ross kept whatever Lian revealed to him locked tight in his heart, leaving Aralt to fend for himself.

Three years, Aralt wanted to yell sometimes. You’ve been gone three flaming years—where were you? What happened to you?

Wanted to but didn’t. Instead, he called on his diplomatic training and tempered his inquisitions in an attempt to circumnavigate Lian’s apparent need for secrecy. After a few abortive attempts to draw the lad out, Aralt concluded he would get better results drilling Ruskyn Munro on higher mathematics.

“We’ll have guests aplenty this year, nearly as many as would have attended the Grand Meeting. Clergy included. They’re not from as far away from as Askierran”—the klesia kaeli had yet to respond— “but they’re eager to speak to you if you are so inclined. Is there something more we can do for the celebration this year? Something…for you?” Aralt asked carefully, moving a figurative piece into position on their imaginary game board.

He was met with a shrug. Not helpful, that. It bothered him not to know what the boy was thinking when so certainly it had meaning beyond compare. He tried again.

“Perhaps you should light Tyrian’s fire.” Burn a few bad memories away. Banish ghosts. The Creator knew they had enough between them to fill a graveyard.

“Oh, I could never do that,” the boy said quickly.

“Whyever not?” Aralt probed carefully, suspicious that he had unlocked a clue to the boy’s curious behavior. If he dropped this piece…

“Nay. It’s Kateeri’s honor. I could never take that from her. It…it meant too much to me when I did it.”

Aralt nodded. He remembered his own Lighting. An antiquated rite of passage, he supposed, but a rite of passage nonetheless.

“Then what, Lian? What can—” …I… “we do to give the celebration some significance this year? You have to admit it will be a historic occasion for everyone in attendance.” Just tell me, lad…

“I’m sure it will be fine.”

Liar.

A muscle in the boy’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing to betray his own thoughts. Thrust. Parry. So soon it ended. Aralt concentrated on the candle the boy had placed on the windowsill, wondering who it was for. Or who it was a remembrance of.

“We could—”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” the boy repeated without looking at him.

“Very well. If anything occurs to you, bring it to Perryn’s attention, you ken? In the meantime, you need to keep better hours. I expect you to be well enough rested to greet spring’s dawn with a ring dance. You do remember how to do one, don’t you?” Aralt knew he sounded more irritated than he meant to.

“I’m sure it will come back to me.”

“You liked to dance. When you were younger.” When music filled the air at Kyrrimar, and laughter filled the halls.

“I still do. I…just haven’t done those dances in a long time.”

“Perhaps Kateeri—”

“Do you think she would?”

Aralt could not imagine that she wouldn’t. He repeated the words he had used with the girl earlier. “Off with you, then.”

“Aye, syr Tremayne,” Lian yawned, reaching for the same stubby candle he had been carrying around for days. “Should I leave the window open?”

It being the wee hours of the night, Aralt began to tell him no, then changed his mind. Perhaps there was something to be learned from occupying Lian’s place there at the open casement, pondering waning moons and the light of distant stars.