Yes, I can, he thought. Why do you think I avoid it so much? Nothing like an empty house to remind you of your parents’ absence.
“I expect I’ll be back before evening,” he said, and his conscience pricked him again. He doubted he’d return before night. “Sleep now, my swanling. You need to rest.”
She looked at him without blinking for what seemed an inhumanly long time.
“Voran, do you think…maybe if I had done something differently—”
“Lebía, don’t.” He hurried to her and sat by her on the bed. “You were the least problematic child in Vasyllia. Mama’s disappearance wasn’t your fault.”
“I remember there were times when Papa looked at me with those heavy eyes, you know? Like he was trying to remember what it was like to love me. To love Mama. Could he have really—?”
“Lebía, don’t believe the gossip. The bruises on Mama’s arms were part of the disease.”
She nodded, thoughtfully.
“I don’t know why she left when she did, swanling. But the fact that he went to find her proves that he loved her, don’t you think?”
Her look only mirrored his own thoughts. He didn’t love us enough to stay.
“Please, Lebía, you need your sleep.”
She hugged him and turned over. Within a minute, her breathing had deepened into sleep.
May all the Powers damn him for leaving you, Lebía.
The curse did not give him the pleasure he hoped. It gave him no sudden illumination about the nature of Aglaia’s disease. It suggested nothing new about Otchigen’s madness and subsequent disappearance after implication in the mass murder of other Vasylli. Nothing but questions, as always.
At this early hour, he went out the back door of the wine cellar, chary of waking the servants. He managed to close the door with no noise, but the gate at the end of the overgrown back garden moaned like a thing diseased. It always did, but Voran always forgot. Cursing inwardly, Voran looked back at the house. No one seemed to stir within.
The house’s two stories lurched over him, the shadows thrown back by the morning sun, threatening him. As though the house itself were angry that Voran was master instead of his lost father Otchigen. As though it were Voran’s fault that his mother had fallen prey to a strange illness, then disappeared inexplicably.
The song appeared again, hardly more substantial than the red alpenglow on the underside of the clouds. Voran’s heart swelled as he turned away.
Otchigen’s house was nestled among the other estates of the third reach of Vasyllia. Voran loved to walk the flagstoned road through the reach as it crisscrossed the cherry groves of the noble families. Amid the trees, the mansions—each a fancy in carved gables, lintels, and columns—stared at each other as though they, like their masters, were jealous of each other’s status. Some of the most extravagant even sported gilded cockerels on the roof. Voran was grateful that it was generally considered in bad taste.
Every house was built on a small mound, to better overlook the other two reaches that extended downward and outward along the slope of the mountain, like the skirts of a great dress. Voran knew that, if looked at from below, the houses sparkled like jewels every morning: a reminder to the lower reaches that such opulence was as far out of their reach as the Heights themselves.
Voran stopped at a crossroads where stairs carved into the mountain led down to the second reach. Just to his left was the Dar’s palace, its seven onion-domed towers carved out of marble blocks, each larger than a single man. He hesitated, unwilling to brave the nagging of the small council yet. The second reach spread out beneath him in clean lines of austere homes set apart by stone hedges, staircases, and canals, all in keeping with the military calling of most of the inhabitants.
“Make way,” said a voice behind him. Before Voran could turn around, a mail-shod shoulder pushed him off the path. Voran landed knee-first in mud.
“Well, well, it’s the son of Otchigen,” sniggered Rogdai, the chief warden of the gates of Vasyllia. “You seem to have lost your warriors’ edge. No graduate of the seminary should ever allow himself to be surprised by an enemy in the open. I’ll have to speak to the elders about it. Maybe they can find you a post in the Dar’s library.”
The two sub-wardens flanking him laughed, but their knuckles were white on their pommels.
“Ever the paragon of civility, Vohin Rogdai,” said Voran, forcing his tone to remain calm. He would have preferred to knock the idiot’s teeth into the back of his head. “Thank you for pointing out the weakness in my defense. I will gladly accept your further instruction in the sword-ring.” Where I’ll poke more holes into you than a sieve.
“A pleasure. It’s been years since my sword has tasted traitor’s blood. Shall we say… this evening? I’ve always thought swordfights are best done in torchlight.”
Where fewer people can see how bad you are, Voran thought, or how you cheat.
“I’m afraid today I’ll be too busy hunting and catching the white stag.”
“You?” Rogdai spit. “You’ll catch that beast as soon as the sun sets in the middle of the day.”
“I smell a wager,” said Voran. “My father’s entire wine collection if I don’t bring it back by midnight.”
Rogdai’s face twisted in indecision. The superstitious idiot was afraid of drinking the wine of a suspected traitor. On the other hand, it was the best wine in Vasyllia…
“Done,” growled Rogdai. “I wager a public feast hosted in the central square by my family in your honor.”
“No, in my father’s honor.” Voran smiled at the way Rogdai twitched. Voran was sure he would just walk away. The coward.
“Done.” Rogdai’s teeth sounded ready to break from the strain of his jaw. “Not one minute past midnight, mind.”
Voran inclined his head.
Rogdai and his flunkeys walked by, their shoulders not quite as straight as before.
The wind picked up and whipped Voran’s hair into his face. Annoyed, he pulled it back. As he did, the song rose as though it were carried by the wind. He gasped for a moment, it was so intense. And it seemed to whisper a thought to him.
Go now. Forget the small council. Go find the stag now. Leave the blind to lead the blind.
Voran was running even before he realized it, but not toward the palace. He angled away away from it, toward the headwall of Vasyllia Mountain.
Voran avoided the streets, sprinting along dirt paths behind the gardens of the third reach. Here, the trees were wilder—native fir and spruce for the most part. Sometimes avoiding the paths outright, Voran veered toward the largest of many canals that watered the three reaches, all of them fed by Vasyllia’s twin waterfalls. As he reached the canal, all signs of domestication faded, replaced by mossy rocks and tree roots. Even the air smelled differently here. The spicy smells of the nobles’ kitchens gave way to the cool scent of pine. Though he knew the way well enough, it took him a moment to find the ivy-encrusted archway that led to a staircase going up, away from the city.
Dar Antomír would forgive him, Voran was sure. Especially if he found the stag. An honor for his family, a boon to his disgraced name. Seven generations of prosperity to his city. If the legends were to be believed, of course. Did he believe them? Voran wasn’t sure any more.
