“Brought up that way,” Hadrian said as if he were worldly.
Hadrian had known a number of nobles, but they were all Calian, and that was like saying he knew rodents because he’d fed some squirrels. Calian nobles were nothing like those in Avryn. They were more casual, earthy, less pompous, and far more dangerous. Hadrian thought Royce would actually like most Calian nobles, at least until they hugged him. Hadrian had learned early on that Royce Melborn wasn’t a hugger.
“Exactly.” Royce nodded. “And this one is a woman—a Maranon woman at that.”
“What’s so different about Maranon women?”
“Remember that storm on the Uplands near Fallen Mire? The place where the breezes coming across Chadwick slam into the winds coming down off the ridge?”
“Oh yeah.” Hadrian nodded, remembering a night when neither of them had slept.
“They’re like that.” Royce waved his hand dismissively at the lush, beautiful countryside that ran as far as Hadrian could see. “Look at this place. Do people here work hard? Do you think common folk’s mattocks go dull on the rocks in this soil? Or that people go to sleep hungry three nights a week? The serfs on these manor farms live better than Gwen. Now imagine what their nobles are like. I expect this Dulgath woman will be the worst possible sort. Did you know the Province of Dulgath is the oldest fief in Avryn?”
“Exactly how would I know that?” Hadrian smiled at him, entertained by a talkative Royce.
“Well, it is,” Royce said, irritated, as if Hadrian had disputed him. “If Albert can be trusted to know the history of the various noble houses, Dulgath was founded around the same time as the Novronian Empire, and the family that rules here is as old as the First Empire’s origins. Most nobles adopt the name of the region they’re given stewardship of, but here it’s the other way around. The Province of Dulgath was named for the people who founded it. So, given that, how entrenched do you think Lady Dulgath’s sense of privilege is? Her family goes back for hundreds of generations. And I have to save her?”
“Technically, I think they want to know how you would murder her.”
Royce gave Hadrian a wicked smile. “The hard part, I expect, will be not carrying it out. Having you whispering in my ear not to kill may be of benefit for once.” Royce looked up at the perfect sky stretching far and wide. “There’s no way I’ll get out of here without blue bloodstains.”
The road forked; A left turn hooked south while their path continued into the distance where the green hills ended at a wrinkle of green mountains.
Royce paused for a long time, staring down the left branch, which made Hadrian look as well. The road was straight, level, and followed along the skirt of the green ridge toward larger stony mountains tinged blue in the late-morning sun. Minutes passed while Royce continued to stare, and Hadrian became certain his partner had lost his way, something which was more than odd. For three years, Hadrian had never known Royce to lose his inner compass through dense forests, amid fog as thick as a wool blanket, during starless nights, or even in a blinding blizzard. And yet, the thief continued to sit on his horse, staring down that long southern route.
“Is it that way?” Hadrian finally asked.
Royce looked up, as if he’d been asleep. “What?”
“Is that how we get to Dulgath?”
“Down there?” Royce shook his head. “No—no, that’s not the way. That doesn’t lead anywhere.”
Hadrian looked at the broad well-worn track marred by the passage of wagon wheels and the half circles of horses’ hooves. “Pretty well traveled for a dead end.”
Royce smirked, as if Hadrian had made a vulgar joke. “Yes, it most certainly is.”
Urging his horse to stay on their path, Royce continued to look back at the road more traveled, as if he didn’t trust it. Whatever haunted him, he didn’t say, nor did Hadrian ask.
When they’d first begun working together, marrying their unique skills for mutual gain, Hadrian had tried on numerous occasions without any luck to pry open the box of Royce’s history. Only near-death brushes—or, as it would seem, the anticipation of meeting Maranon nobles—managed to loosen that lid. Wherever that southern road led, Hadrian wouldn’t learn about it from Royce. The two things he was certain about were that Royce had been down that road and it went somewhere.
The road they were on went somewhere as well. Up.
After several hours of silent riding, it narrowed through a series of switchbacks until it snaked into a tight pass beyond which a vista opened onto another world. This one even more beautiful than the one they’d left behind. Wildflower meadows and leafy forests sat beside an ocean, a vast expanse of water that cut jagged coves and bays from massive cliffs. Hadrian guessed they had come to the western edge of Maranon and the start of the Sharon Sea. This was his first time seeing it, but at that distance it looked no different from the eastern oceans. On this backside of Maranon, where the roads were narrower and little more than grass-covered greenways, there were more trees, more streams, and many more waterfalls.
Tucked inside a space less than ten miles from mountains to sea was a shadow-valley, cozy and snug, dangling its toes in the vast blue that crashed white against a stony point. Castle Dulgath stood on a singular promontory that hooked south like a crooked finger. Built from cliff stone, it blended with the tortured rock except for the straight edges of its towers and its flags flying blue and white.
“Pretty,” Hadrian said.
Royce huffed. He pointed to the red berries along the trail. “So are those, but I wouldn’t suggest eating any.”
The trip down was quick and silent. Royce drew up his hood as they neared the valley’s floor and farms and travelers started to appear. The homes were built of fieldstone, covered with neat, thatched roofs. Often the buildings were multistoried, and always picturesque. The people were darker than those in Melengar: black-haired, olive-skinned, and brown-eyed. Well fed and healthy, they dressed in colorful clothing of greens, oranges, and yellows, a stark contrast with the people of Melengar. There, the poor wore a natural-wool uniform dyed with dirt to a dingy gray. Mud was the pigment of the north, but the south delighted in color.
Heads turned and friendly faces looked up at them as they passed. Royce never paused, never slowed. Once, he urged his horse to a trot when a man said “Hello,” which sounded like yellow in the Maranon accent. Hadrian, on the other hand, smiled and returned waves, especially from pretty young women.
“We should move down here,” Hadrian said.
“Our contacts are up north. I know my way around better, and we have resources and a reputation. Down here, we’d be starting from scratch and working blind. We don’t even know the laws.”
“But it’s pretty.”
Royce glanced back. “You said that already.”
Hadrian spotted another young woman, this one with painted eyes. She smiled at him. “It’s gotten prettier.”