The Kinshield Legacy (2 page)

“Hooo, Gavin,” Gray Shirt said. “You ain’t goin’ to pass that up, are you?”

She winked and held out her hand. “Thirteen pielars.”

“Thirteen?!” Gavin asked.

“The boss says you owe eight from time-ago.”

“Oh.” Gavin gave her an embarrassed grin and dug into his coin purse, fishing past the three Rune Stones that shared the pouch with his meager funds. He counted the copper coins into her palm. She blew him a kiss before spinning around and wiggling her way to the kitchen.

“Say, you bucks know Domach Demonshredder, don’t you?” Gray Shirt asked. Gavin and White Shirt both nodded. “He thinks he saw the rune solver.”

Gavin raised his brows. “Is that so?” He sure hoped not.

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement near his hip. He turned to look. Nothing there.

White Shirt chuckled. “I’ll bet five pielars he’s lip-shinin’ the man’s boots right now.”

“He says it’s a woman,” Gray Shirt said, chuckling.

“Well, some people say it’s a battler. Maybe it’s a Viragon Sister,” White Shirt said. The brothers guffawed.

Gavin didn’t share most men’s disdain of the women battlers, nor did he see any reason why a woman couldn’t solve the runes. His wife had been cleverer and more perceptive than he. “Well, whoever it is might surprise you.” And it certainly wasn’t a woman.

He felt a tug on his trouser leg. He shot his hand down and caught a small wrist, his coin purse clutched in the little hand. “No you don’t,” he said, taking the pouch back. He massaged the bag quickly, hunting for the three gemstones. Still there. Thank Arek.

He pulled the hand up and around him, dragging with it a girl with copper-colored hair.

Caevyan!

For an instant, he saw only his daughter, her blue eyes wide with terror and pain, her copper-colored hair and yellow dress drenched in blood. He watched again, as he had in so many nightmares over the last five years, while she stumbled toward him, arms outstretched and reaching for the safety and comfort of his arms. “
Papa!”
Her voice rang in his ears and echoed in the cavernous hole in his heart.

Gavin swallowed hard and looked at the pickpocket’s face. Golden brown eyes, not blue. Two front teeth were missing from her smile. Not Caevyan’s cherubic smile, but the sly smile of a thief.
Not Caevyan,
he told himself.
Caevyan’s dead.

“Get out o’here afore I brand you as a criminal,” he snarled.

“I’m awful hungry,” she said.

“See this?” Gavin pointed to the gap between his teeth. “Broke it while biting off the hands of a thief. Go on now afore I bite yours.”

The twins snickered.

“Please, just one pielar?” She met his eyes without recoiling, holding out a grimy palm.

Gavin found himself annoyingly charmed by her spunk. “Aww, hell,” he muttered. “Where’s your pa?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, but my mama’ll fumble ya for ten pielars.”

“You hear the mouth on that dirty waif?” White Shirt murmured to his brother.

Gavin scowled. “How old are you?”

“Seven.”

Caevyan would’ve been seven now.
“And where’d you learn to talk like that?”

“That’s what Mama tol’ me to say. She’s outside settin’ on the corner if ya want to—”

“You go tell your mama…” Gavin sighed and took a small silver coin from his purse. “Tell her to buy you somethin’ to eat.” He pressed the kion into the girl’s hand and watched as she bolted from the tavern.

His life would have been different now had he been a better father, a better husband, had he thought about the consequences of his actions and broken promises. His wife and his little girl would still be alive. And Dasurien. His son’s name would have been Dasurien, had he lived long enough to be born.

“I’d’ve branded her for certain,” Gray Shirt said. “Teach the guttersnipe a lesson.”

“Someone should’ve helped her. I was there,” Gavin muttered.

White Shirt smirked. “Well, ain’t you the noble one?”

“Let her papa feed her,” Gray Shirt said. “She ain’t your responsibility.”

Not his responsibility. Gavin snorted. Everyone in the entire country was his responsibility, or would be soon. Only two more runes stood between Gavin and the throne. If the people knew what kind of king they were getting, they wouldn’t be so excited about it. Who the hell was he fooling? He couldn’t keep his own family safe, let alone an entire country. But how was he going to avoid it? The question had started wearing a groove in his mind, and he was no closer to an answer now than nine months ago.

“Maybe Gavin’s the rune solver,” White Shirt said. The twins laughed identical laughs.

The barmaid came and set down a pewter tankard, bowl of steaming stew and a fist-sized chunk of bread. “Are you the rune solver, Gavin?” she asked with a grin. He scrunched the scarred side of his face as an admonition for being saucy. “Let me know if there’s somethin’ else you want,” she said, winding a lock of hair around a finger. She set her teeth over her bottom lip and smiled before wagging off to see to her other customers.

“My brother thinks the rune solver’s a noble,” White Shirt said. “I think he’s a scholar. What do you think?”

Couldn’t they find something else to talk about? “If it’s not a nobleman, it should be.”

“Why’d you say that? Someone clever enough to solve the runes is clever enough to be king,” White Shirt said.

Gavin lifted his tankard for a long draw. Arguing with these two was pointless. It wouldn’t change anything. He was a commoner who could barely read. What business did he have becoming king?

“Nobles are learned -- and well-spoken,” Gray Shirt said. “What about land holdin’s and rents and such? A king’s got to know all that crap.”

Gavin belched loudly and said, “And he should have good manners.”

He tongued the gap where his right eyetooth used to be. Gray Shirt was right. Gavin considered simply not solving any more runes. So what if they taunted him, whispering in his head all day and night? Eventually he would learn to ignore them and be done with it. But he was fooling himself if he thought the problem would simply go away. For most of his life, he’d resisted the allure of the cave, ignored the call to duty that haunted his dreams. The runes had troubled him since he was a boy. No longer could a day go by without the damned things ruling his thoughts.

Besides, Thendylath needed a king. Highwaymen and monsters made the lands between the cities unsafe for anyone unescorted by a hired sword. Last week, a beyonder entered the realm of men in plain view -- in the middle of the market.

And the people. In every city he’d visited, townsfolk gathered and gossiped and wondered about the rune solver. They wanted a king. Soon, news that the third rune had been solved would spread like blush across a virgin’s face. Gavin couldn’t take that away from them.

But even if he took the throne, he didn’t have a king’s elegance or air of authority. He knew nothing about taxes or land holdings or negotiating with dignitaries. Hell, he’d never even eaten with a fork. The king needed to be someone like... He took in a sharp breath. “Edan!” He snapped his fingers. Yes! Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

“Who’s Edan?” Gray Shirt asked. Both men watched him curiously.

“Uh, just a friend,” he muttered. Just a friend who happened to be the Lordover Lalorian’s son. Edan had the upbringing and the noble bloodline a king needed. Good, kind person, generous nature, dashing and all that. Edan Dawnpiper would make an excellent king for Thendylath. The people would rejoice. Yes, Edan should be the king.

“’Just a friend’ he says,” White Shirt said with a laugh. “Judgin’ from that smile on your face, I’m thinkin’ she’s more than a friend.”

“Hey, Gavin. Invite the barmaid and have both at the same time,” Gray Shirt suggested.

Gavin relaxed in his chair, feeling the tension ease from his shoulders. Now he just needed to decide how to approach his friend about claiming the King’s Blood-stone. About becoming Thendylath’s new king.

He should leave for Lalorian at first light. Edan would be shocked to learn that Gavin was the rune solver, but by the time Gavin figured out the answers to the fourth and fifth runes, Edan would have had time to chew on the idea. Intelligent and practical, he would see the wisdom of it. Gavin imagined them traveling to the Rune Cave together so that Edan could emerge, King’s Blood-stone in hand, and claim his right to rule. And Gavin would serve the new king as his champion.

Just like Ronor Kinshield served King Arek.

He shook the thought away. He was nothing like Ronor Kinshield.

“Listen, we got to get goin’,” White Shirt said. “Good seein’ you, Gavin.”

Gavin shook hands with the brothers and bid them a distracted good-bye. When they were gone, he drew his dagger and started scratching a vertical line into the tabletop. Edan Dawnpiper as king. Hell yeh. He took another drink, mentally toasting the notion.

Someone approached his table and stopped. “Begging your pardon, but I need your help.”

Chapter 2

Brodas Ravenkind bent down to the scrawny, ill-kept child. “You must be Dwaeth,” he said, forcing a smile.

The boy nodded but did not open the door any farther. 

“My name’s Brodas. I’m a friend of your mother’s. I heard she was ill and came to offer my assistance.”

Dwaeth cast a quick glance into the interior of the manor behind him. “Are you a healer?” he asked. 

“I am at that. May I see her?”

The boy hesitated, biting his lip. “The others couldn’t help her.” His small voice trembled, and his lip quivered.

“I can, Dwaeth,” Brodas said. “I am a very good healer. I can help your mother.” It was no lie, but he preferred to help himself instead.

The young boy opened the door and stepped back.

“Good boy,” Brodas said, running a gentle hand over the soft blond hair as he entered. He closed the door behind him.

The high ceiling of the great hall gave the manor an open, airy feel. Through beveled glass windows set high on the walls, sunlight cast diminutive rainbows on the white marble floors. A thin layer of dust covered nearly everything. He glanced to his right into a room with a harpsichord centered on a small rug. On the left through the anteroom, was a greatroom with a wide, deep fireplace and upholstered furniture atop a vast rug stretching wall to wall. Ahead, a wooden staircase reached up to the second floor. To the left of the staircase dried food and shards of broken porcelain marked a path down the hall. This young boy had been caring for his ailing mother for some time. Brodas could only imagine the mess he’d find in the kitchen and dared not wonder what had been done with the chamber pots.

“Where is she?” he asked. “We’ve no time to waste.” 

Dwaeth led the way up the wooden staircase. A stair halfway up creaked softly when Dwaeth stepped on it and groaned under Brodas’s weight. Brodas followed the boy along a running carpet down the hall past several bedroom doors. He counted six bedrooms upstairs, and imagined there might be one or two servants’ rooms downstairs.

Dwaeth paused in front of a closed door at the end of the corridor. “I better go ask first.”

“That’s fine,” Brodas said. He put on a practiced smile. “Go on, I’ll wait here.”

The boy slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him. 

Brodas listened at the door. He heard two voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

From his research, he knew the boy’s mother had been widowed. Despite her extravagant home, she’d lost most of her wealth and employed no servants. Merchants in the market district recognized her surname, but said they had never met her. Her neighbors didn’t know much about her. Even while her husband had been alive, they said she stayed at home, secluded, while he attended to his business and family matters.

She was perfect.

Dwaeth opened the door and beckoned him in. 

The smell of vomit mixed with urine assaulted him, and he resisted the urge to cup a hand over his nose. She lay in the darkened room sprawled across a bed covered with soiled, rumpled bedclothes. Dirty dishes and glasses littered the table beside the bed, as well as the floor surrounding it. A painting hung crookedly on the wall above the bed. Brodas absently straightened it.

“My dear,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Brodas pushed some of the dishes aside with his foot. “You don’t look well at all.” He put on a deep frown and cocked his head. “I’ve come to ease your suffering. Worry no more.” He said to the boy standing beside him, “Run and fetch me a glass of water, will you?”

Dwaeth glanced at his mother, then nodded and left. 

The dark circles beneath the woman’s blue eyes gave them a sunken look. Her long brown hair was a rat’s nest. “I don’t...” she began. Her voice was hoarse, raspy, her lips dry. She hacked a few times and fell silent.

Brodas withdrew a gemstone from a pocket in his cloak and kept it hidden in his fist. “You do remember me, don’t you?” he asked. He formed the words
Sola memor
with his lips, but did not speak them. The stone cracked, and he let the pieces fall to the floor.

Her brow wrinkled. “I... think I do.”