PROLOGUE
He could hear his son coming, long before he arrived. The heavy, marching step. The thunderous, bellowing voice. He is as loud as my father was, thought Ayrin, son of Varin. Louder, even. That same bold blood runs thick through his veins. That same insatiable spirit.
The king turned his eyes back down to his book, enjoying the last few moments of peace before Amron strode through the door. By the ringing of steel on stone it was obvious he was wearing his armour. He has come from his training, no doubt. Preparing for a war that I have long denied him. His blood will be up, and his tongue will be hot. It was the last thing he needed today.
A sigh slipped through his lips, stirring the greying bristles of his lengthening beard. Ayrin had not worn a beard as a younger man, not like his father and brother - and now his son as well - yet in his dotage the whiskers seemed to suit him. A scholar king, many called him. Ayrin the Peacemaker. Even Ayrin the Wise. True though that last might have been, he had always brushed the sobriquet aside. My wisdom was only a gift, he thought, granted by one greater.
The book before him was a gift as well, given by the same wise ruler. He had always counted it among his favourite tomes, a contemplation on the nobility of silence, and calm thought, and the great merits of taking one’s time, in every endeavour they should undertake. Though the author was officially a Rasalanian philosopher called Telys the Thinker, Ayrin had always wondered if Thala had written it herself. His mentor’s mark was all over the words; in the flow of them, in their nature, in the wisdom wrought into every page. Reading it he could almost hear her voice from beyond the grave. This world is dimmer without her. No light has ever shone so bright.
The footsteps were getting louder, smashing hard against the stone. When Amron of House Varin marched with such intent through the palace, the stonemasons wept, for they would have work to do. Not rarely did the man leave cracks in his wake. One of the masons had, in fact, requested that there be more rugs laid down through the halls and corridors to help soften the prince’s tread. A jest, of course, or at least that’s how Ayrin took it. The forced smile on the poor man’s face had suggested otherwise, however.
The footfall reached its thundering apex, and the doors to his study flew open. Amron stepped inside, armour misting, skin sweating. “Father.” He fell into a bow, sweat spraying off his forehead and the wet strands of hair, black as jet, flowing about his ears. In the side of his breastplate he had stuffed a cloth, which he removed to wipe himself down. “Hot out there today. The hottest of the year, I’m told.”
King Ayrin had heard that as well. “You’ve been training daily during the heat of the day, Amron. For long hours. Do I have to ask you why?”
“I think you know why, Father.” Amron headed for a side table and hooked a jug of water into his steel grasp, drinking straight from the flagon. It looked almost like a regular cup in his hand. At over seven feet in height, he made most things look small. “It’ll be a great deal hotter than this in Agarath.” He finished the jug, put it aside, and took up a flagon of wine instead. This one he did pour into a goblet. “Nothing to say to that, Father? You usually have a ready response.”
“I have no response that I haven’t given you a hundred times before. You know my thoughts on this. I have spoken to you of the risks.”
“The risks of doing nothing are just as severe. I understand your position, I do, and I respect it. But this peace cannot endure forever. We’re a warrior people. It’s in our blood.” He gulped his wine. “Are you having a cup?”
“Later. I prefer not to drink during the daytime, as you know.”
Amron nodded, finished the cup, refilled it and drank again. As with his grandfather, he did everything to excess - eating, drinking, duelling - without feeling the full effects as other men did. As they became drunk, Amron remained sober. As they grew fat, he remained thick with muscle, broad at the shoulder and trim at the waist. In the duelling yard he could fight on for long hours, beating back one opponent after another without fatigue. Not since Varin had a man been so utterly born to fight. Yet so far those talents had been restricted to the sparring yard and tourney grounds, to the woods and mountains where he would hunt for prey, to the nests and dens where brigands lurked. On occasion he had encountered opponents almost worthy of his skill, but those times were few, and he had grown restless. He wants a proper fight, Ayrin knew. He wants to slay dragons.
The silence lingered for several long moments, a silence that Amron did not enjoy. It was anathema to him, this absence of noise, though to Ayrin it had always been where wonders were done. A time to think, to consider, to determine the correct course. He sat for a time, pondering. It did not take long for his son to break.
“Well? Are you going to say anything or not?”
“I am saying something, Amron. Silence is speech.”
“Yes, so you like to say. I prefer words, however. They are rather more clear.” He finished off his cup of wine and refilled it once again. “Vandar gave us his body to make weapons and armour. Tools with which to defeat our enemies. Does that not suggest to you that he wanted us to make war?”
“Weapons are used to protect what one has, as much as they are to win what one hasn’t.”
Amron’s azure eyes descended to the desk. “Another quote from your book? Or one of your own?”
“I’m glad you think it’s quote-worthy. Yes, it’s one of mine.”
A huffing laugh heaved from his son’s chest. “A rearrangement of something Queen Thala said, no doubt. So, we protect our own. Yes, I agree with that. But what about those already fallen? What about your own father? What about vengeance?”
“Vengeance is hollow. A dark hole that can never be filled. In the end it only leads to more killing.” The king felt weary already; they’d had this discussion a hundred times before. “I know you hate to hear this, Amron, but…”
“Don’t say it. Do not try to convince me that the killing of Varin was necessary. He was your father. How can you persist in believing that?”
“It is hard to hear, I know. A terrible thing to even say. But that does not make it untrue, son. Had my father lived, he would have sought to dominate the southern kingdoms. Lori and Dor sensed this ambition. And in their fear…”
“They murdered him,” finished Amron, looking down at his father with distaste. “They killed him during the parley, during the very signing of the peace treaty…and you tell me it was just.”
“No. I did not say just.”
“You might as well have.” He finished his wine, smashed the goblet down, refilled it to the brim once more. All aggressive. All loud. They cloak him like a mantle. “Do you imagine those treacherous bastards would have killed him if Uncle Elin was still alive? No, they only did it because Elin was dead, and you were heir to the throne. They saw you as weak, Father. That’s an opinion others share.”
The king did not let the words of his son wound him. He had heard them all before, in rants and raves and muscular demands, but never did they move him. Through Thala he had learned temperance, another gift of the Far-Seeing Queen. And not a quality my son possesses. Nor my father or brother before him. Oh, Amron might become a great man, and a great king one day, yet if so it would not be as a wise ruler, but a warrior, and a conqueror, revered for his body and not his mind, for strength and not sagacity.
Enough time had passed. Ayrin had not moved his gaze away from his son all the while. “Men are welcome to their opinions,” he said, in a calm, even voice. “They change like the wind, Amron, blowing one away and then the other. In the course of time, our legacies will solidify. Yes, to some I will be known as weak. A weak king who did not avenge his father. But to others, I hope, I will be seen as the king who rebuilt a kingdom, after a hundred years of war. Who strengthened and consolidated his borders and developed deeper bonds and ties with his allies. Who rejuvenated the land, re-sowed the fields and orchards, built new cities and castles, farms and market towns and monuments. How, I ask you, would more war have served us then? More men dying. More money siphoned into the forging of arms and armour. You see the world only from your own vantage, Amron. You see the great light of war, the nobility in it, the triumph. But every light that shines makes a shadow, and in that shadow, people suffer. Those are the people I looked to when this crown was placed on my head. And I hope you remember them, when it comes time for you to wear it.”
Amron’s jaw was tight. “I will,” he said, as though his sense of civic responsibility was being called into question. “I am a man of the people as well. They cheer my name when I ride through the streets. I have Prince Amron ringing in my ears. I remind them of Varin, I’m told.”
Ayrin smiled softly, proud and yet somehow sad at once. “You look like him. And you have his strength and boldness. These are qualities people love. I only wish you could show more balance, Amron. Perhaps when you are king, you will.”
“When I’m king, I will do as you did. I’ll build, and expand, and make this kingdom even greater. I’ll raise a great new city at the mouth of the Steelrun, to watch over the Red Sea. And monuments, those too. I’ll build one for you, Father. A great monument, a whole city of them, to celebrate all your deeds.”
Ayrin studied his son; the shape of his mouth, the playful light in his eyes. “You oughtn’t tease, Amron. Was I a little too boastful there, listing out my achievements as king?”
His son smiled broadly. “It was rather unlike you, I must say. But none of what you said was untrue.” His voice softened. He stepped in. “And I mean it, Father. I will build you a city when you’re gone, and I will have it filled with monuments to you. You are a great king. We might look at the world differently, but I would never diminish what you’ve done. You were the right king for the right time. But times…they’re different now.”
Different, Ayrin thought. Worsening, and growing more bitter. As sad as it made him to think it, he knew that war with Agarath could not be kept at bay forever, something Thala had always known. Though the Far-Seeing Queen was reluctant to speak of such things, he had learned to read her well during his years beneath her wing. Whenever the subject of war came up, he would watch her gaze, listen to the shift in her tone of voice, perceive the truth that she was unwilling to speak out loud. He had spoken to Ilith of it too, during their private councils, when the great blacksmith king came to Varinar, or he journeyed to Ilithor to see him. Often did they speak of Thala, and the future, and the heavy burden she refused to share.
“She cannot,” Ilith had told him once. “Else she break her bonds of trust with Rasalan. Should that happen he will shut his Eye, and deny her from peering through his pupil. Thala has tested those boundaries more than once before, Ayrin. She tells us only what she is able to say, and we mustn’t ask for more.”
Ayrin had heeded the king’s advice, much as he found it difficult to do so. Now he wished Thala was still here, so he could ask her about his son. Will he renew the war with Agarath? Will he seek vengeance for my father’s fall? She would not have answered those questions, he knew, but all the same, he’d have seen the answers in her eyes. As I see them in the eyes of my son…
“Is there anything I can say that would dissuade you from this course, Amron?” he asked. “This way to war. Is your heart set upon it?”
The prince’s eyes were steel. “You are the king, Father. Only you can call our armies to war. As long as you live, I will obey your commands. I can wait, if I must. In respect of your achievements, I’ll stir no war until I wear the crown. That I promise you. But after…”
“You will have your war.” Ayrin nodded. That would be for his son to decide. “You have always been an honest man, Amron. Another might have made false promises.”
