“A wise man knows the difference between opinion and knowledge.”

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

Aralt left before dawn to run along the lakeshore, burning away the last vestiges of spoiled dreams that had haunted him through the night. He ran barefoot on the sand, mindful of the waves and what they left behind. The morning sun gleamed like a jewel when it rose, tendrils of fire weaving across the horizon until its full brilliance scattered over the surface of the water. A good omen for descending the Weeping Wall, but the memory of what had happened there four years before was only marginally more palatable in the clean light of morning.

Upon returning, he found his brother’s sword where he had left it on the blanket chest in his room. He had only the vaguest recollection of having taken it down from the mantel the night before and could not then fathom why he had not put it back. Reflected through the crystal blade, green light rippled like a waterfall against the plaster wall and un-dyed bedclothes. In the next room, he could hear Lian singing.

In the Beginning

oh, in the Beginning

in the Beginning,

was Creation.

By the Word,

the Holy Word,

in the Beginning

the Beginning of the world.

He had not heard that song since boyhood, since lazy summer mornings when the smell of trumpet flowers in the garden below his bedroom hugged the warm, salty breeze, and waking each day was the beginning of a new adventure. But instead of his mother’s rich soprano voice floating up through the house as she attended to her morning concerns, Lian sang the treble line, his adolescent voice faltering on the high notes.

Aralt stepped out onto the balcony with his own sword, concentrating on lately neglected exercises, all the while listening to his kervallys singing the morning into existence. The great waters of Heaven divided, the seas swarmed with every good and mighty thing. Three moons were set into place to order time and wash the land with tides. The beasts of the field gathered at the water’s edge to witness the pinnacle of creation, fashioned of wind and wave, polished by the Creator’s tears.

Then nothing.

Aralt lowered his blade, the only sound the rush of blood in his ears and the whisper of Lian’s thoughts.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you…

“Deep peace,” he replied…to no one.

Would that he had had that abiding peace the day he had clawed his way down the edge of the falls along the pass the locals called Wolf’s Folly in search of his brother. It took him three days to get back to Bethulyn. Scanlin Ross, then in command of the garrison, found him by the library fire in a near-catatonic state. Kynlan was gone, his body lost. How was he to deliver such news to his father? his mother? Devailyn Kynsei, who expected Kynlan to take a place in the kavistra’s personal council? A single sword stroke had devastated not one life, but two families.

Whoever said that time heals must have waited a long, long…long time.

He sheathed the sword and set it aside, opening the weathered top of the trunk he had brought with him from Leyth years before. The scent of fragrant wood filled his senses, igniting more memories of traipsing behind his grandfather through workshops and sawmills, where water and wind turbines churned with power, and the rhythmic creaking of enormous crystal blades pierced the air. Esri and agriculture had been his father’s passion, but Valairyn syr Tremayne always had an appreciation for elegant machinery—from the most powerful pistons down to the minute gears of timepieces like the one he had presented to Aralt.

Under the green and black tartan blanket he had packed on many a campaign, he found a coarsely woven green shirt he had always fancied. Wrapped within, its binding hardly creased, rested his copy of the Four Books.

Flipping vellum pages, he remembered how painstakingly he had translated from the oldest volumes he could decipher in the Kynseis’ library. He had battled with his tutors over his choice of manuscripts and his repeated requests for more learned scholars than they to rightly reckon some phrases. Fharyl syr Tremayne already found it difficult to keep any instructors employed at Linishael for very long—at least those willing to work with his eldest son. The situation proved even more contentious when Aralt demonstrated little patience for lecture halls, eventually completing most of his university studies, swiftly, on his own. His final project before leaving home for the final time had been finishing this book. Bound in leather he had tanned himself, and adorned with stylish illuminated script, the book had impressed many—not the least of whom was Endru Kynsei. Countless students had copied countless volumes over the ages, and the kavistra had seen more than his share of books, but Aralt had been made to feel his was among the most notable.

He had found no comfort in it after his brother died.

Stripping out of sweat-soaked shirt and breeks, he stepped into the ceramic shower, savoring the warmth of the water piped up from one of the city’s famous hot springs. He turned his face into the spray, letting its sweetness cascade around him, further erasing painful memories. That was until he stepped out of the steam and caught sight of himself in the mirror. The scar on his chest resembled a coiled serpent lying against his winter-pale skin. He traced the lines of raised tissue with his right hand, remembering the day hate had carved it there. He planned to return the favor when he got his hands on lonn Tirehl. No ink and ash to rub in that one’s wounds. No. For lonn Tirehl, he would tip his blade slowly until it nicked that Shirahnyn snake’s black heart, bleeding off his life drop by drop.

He stepped back into the shower and ran the water as hot as he could stand, waiting for it to burn away the sick feeling lonn Tirehl’s name carried with it. He did not look at himself in the mirror the next time he got out.

He needed a shave. The line of his beard was creeping, his cheeks and chin rough with stubble. All the better, to his thinking. He left the razor where it was and shrugged into the faded green shirt he had left on the bed. Anonymity in their travels would be a blessing, albeit difficult to achieve. He might pass unnoticed, were no one to look him directly in the eye, but little could be done to hide what Lian was. He finished dressing, hefting his baldric into place and buckling his belt before he closed the old chest. A glance at the mantel clock told him that Lian would be at kirke by now and of no mind to discuss the events of the previous evening. The manti. Blood and ashes! Literally. A stunt worthy of Kavistra Marcynn, were he to believe his grandfather’s stories. Such a clan as theirs had a wealth of stories associated with their name, but none had more than Lian’s grandfather, the man credited with nearly destroying the holy order that had birthed him.

Singled out as a chosen, priestly clan made them targets for all sorts of wonder and praise—and condemnation. How was a sprig like Lian to cope with any of it? Generations of his clan had survived harsh criticism and worse but…sea and sand, this one seemed reckless. Secretive. Sensitive. He supposed that a degree of vulnerability might be essential for a kavistra, but for a political leader it spelled disaster. Devailyn Kynsei’s detractors had obsessed about it. Some of them still did. Aralt ran his fingers along the spine of the Four Books, wondering if the answer lay within. On impulse, he shoved the book into his travel bag.

The fire had dwindled to cool ash, and Aralt bent to close the flue. He fastened the window’s wooden shutters in turn. That left his brother’s sword.

The oldtimers called the Tuning of a sword to its owner sacred, a soul bond; there was something to it, no doubt, but he had always hesitated to lend such binding words to a mere object. A marriage was a sacred union of souls, as was an oath, but a warrior united to his weapon? It was like wedding oneself to death.

But the sword was not dead. Indeed, a pulse of life swept up his arm as he wrapped his fingers around the grip. He brought his hands together, the sword before him, blade pointed toward the ceiling. The intricately worked spun-crystal rang with a clear tenor voice, and bittersweet pain rippled through his breast at the sound, making him catch breath softly, standing poised, rapt in the song of a soul for a long moment.

Was that what Kynseis heard when they touched souls? What did the living soul and not the echo, the memory, the lingering voice, as in his brother’s sword, sound like? He felt his throat tighten, thinking at once of Kynlan, his untimely death, and of departed Endru Kynsei, the man who had once touched his soul, and who, Aralt knew, had possessed some guardianship over his father’s soul as well. What did that feel like? To be possessed in that way? Unbearably intimate, to be sure.

At long last he lowered his brother’s sword, breathing deeply as he returned it to the scabbard. His heart, already pounding, cried for a battle, the battle he had never fought. The life of the weapon thrilled through him, and even as he put the fine blade away he knew that this time he would take it when he left. For whatever reason, it had survived the deadly encounter with an enemy Aralt had always known he would meet again. He could deny it no longer.