Of Truth and Beasts

He grew angry as he strode out of the gatehouse tunnel into the inner courtyard beneath the light of the great torches above him. Where was Wynn, left so exposed here—in her room, in the common hall, or perhaps the library or archives? Uncertain, he turned toward the southern barracks, where all upper apprentices and journeyors were housed.

Without breaking stride, he slipped a hand into his pocket and drew out the cold lamp crystal Wynn had left with him. He rubbed it, quickly and briskly, across his thigh.

Entering the barracks, he made his way up to the door of Wynn’s room and opened it. Just as he was about to step inside, movement down the passage’s dead end caught his eye.

“Sir ... ?” a frightened, wavering voice asked.

A small form in a tan robe came out of the shadows. It was a little girl with freckles and pigtails. Chane remembered her as the one who had been arguing with her friends about Shade that night when Wynn first told him the council had approved their journey.

Eyes wide, head craned back to look up at him, she held out a piece of parchment, and her voice wavered.

“Journeyor Hygeorht said to give this to you if you returned this evening.”

Chane took the parchment, unfolded it, and read it.

Chane,

All is well. I’m down in the archives and will return soon. Wait for me in my room.

Wynn

The words brought a mix of annoyance and relief. He had wanted her to stay out of sight, but at least the need to search onward may have pulled her from too much despair. He paused, looking again at the note’s script. He had not even thought about it in his distraction with the messenger.

It was written in the Begaine syllabary, though the symbols were purposefully simplified.

Why had Wynn done this? Why had she sent this child in pigtails to give it to him? Then he remembered the initiate telling her friends she was fluent in Begaine.

So many secrets, so much of importance was often written in the syllabary. Remaining with Wynn, believing in her—in her cause—would be more complicated than he had ever imagined. Until last night, he had never given it this much thought amid his fantasies. If he wanted her, and her world, more changes had to be made.

“Kyne ... is it not?” Chane asked, looking down at the girl.

Puzzlement began to outweigh the nervousness marring her small features. She nodded but did not speak.

“I have heard that ... Wynn says ...” he began, and faltered in the attempt. “She told me you grasp the Begaine syllabary better than most ... for your age.”

She cringed at the sound of his maimed voice. Her lips parted as if to speak, but she could not find her voice.

“You will teach ...” Chane started to demand, and then halted. It took effort to force a softer tone. “I would like ... be grateful, if you could assist—tutor—me ... when you are able.”

She blinked once and then twice more, but did not move.

“Please,” he added too sharply.

Chane’s patience thinned quickly in the waiting silence. Suddenly, she took a step closer. In her slow approach, her gaze kept flicking to the glowing crystal in his hand.

That lure had the effect he expected, as predictable as a dropped pouch of coins at an alley’s mouth when he hunted in the night streets of a city. Or at least it caused enough confusion to make her wonder against her fear of him.

She moved even closer and glanced into Wynn’s empty room.

No doubt she had seen him before with a journeyor who had wandered the world like no other and returned with wild tales, and with a dark majay-hì out of folklore. What the girl did not know—what no one here knew for certain—was of the monster who had followed Wynn across half a world.

Kyne looked up, her voice still lost, and only nodded again.

Chane held out his free hand, and she took it.

Her tiny palm felt overly warm and a bit sweaty. She jumped at his grip, likely too cold in her own. He led her down the stairs to where the parallel passage through the keep wall at the back of these barracks emptied into the initiates’ outer ones.

“Your message is delivered,” he said. “Go to bed.”

Chane watched as she scurried off, though she glanced back at him several times. When she finally vanished from sight, he made his way back to Wynn’s room. Closing his hand over the crystal as he entered, he peered out the window to the inner courtyard below.

No one was out there, and he stood waiting in the dark, watching for Wynn.

The beast inside him strained at its bonds, but he pushed it down, focusing on one truth. He would now viciously guard this place—as well as all who resided here, worthy or not.

And he would do so for as long as Wynn would allow him.

EPILOGUE

Wynn sat in an intersection alcove, deep in the guild’s catacombs, while Shade lay on the floor, watching her. Upon the night of her return, she’d sought out Domin High-Tower to give proper notice that she was back. She preferred to deal with him rather than Premin Sykion, but her effort hadn’t mattered.