The Adani Chronicles: Birthright

There was a sliver of moonlight through the window, cutting a path through the inky darkness of the night and spilling across a freshly abandoned bed. Hymns of mourning weaved alongside the early morning’s hush in a haunting, somber harmony. Torchlight bounced and flickered off stone walls, casting shadows as a tall figure moved noiselessly into the cold, dark catacombs under the castle.

It was too soon; much too soon for him to be visiting here—folk would talk, and now more than ever, that mattered—but he found himself unable to muster concern for others’ opinions, not when the nightmare was so fresh, his reality so recently and so irrevocably changed. Not when his earlier meeting with his brother had gone exactly as he had expected it would; exactly as he had feared. He needed someone to talk to, and Gunnar had been his confidante since they were children. Old habits were difficult to abandon, he was learning.

He steadied his breathing forcibly when he reached the arched doorway that led to his destination. It was too soon; much too soon for him to be leaving on such a quest; but Gunnar had left him no choice, Uncle Eirik had left him no choice, and life hadn’t asked him what was appropriate or what he wanted.

A single large stone sepulcher stood to the right of the door; his cousin was the first of their generation to be buried here. His father, uncle, and aunt were in the next room; his grandfather and his generation in the room beyond that, all the way to the end of the impossibly long hall, where were buried the most ancient of Laendorian Kings. The young man moved to the tomb, brushed an errant bit of dust off the hard polished surface with the backs of his fingers.

“He won’t listen to me.”

The words were whispered, but seemed over-loud in the silence of that place. He inhaled slowly, a beaten sound broken by a hitch of grief, and the normally-imposing man curled in on himself; a calloused hand resting on too-new, too-clean white marble.

“He refuses to be dissuaded,” he forged ahead, quietly. “The road is perilous, so many things can happen, and my soul tells me all will be revealed before the end.” The firelight from a nearby torch made a lone tear shine against a ruddy cheek. “Why, cousin? We had an agreement, and this was not part of it.” His furrowed brow met the rounded edge of the Prince’s pyre, and his shoulders shook despondently.

“It was never supposed to be like this.”

“I’ll give ye twenty silvers for the lot, and that’s th’ final offer you’ll git, miss.” The burly tanner sniffed, looking Ryn up and down disapprovingly. She knew what he was staring at. Her darker coloring was unheard of this far north, and the knife scar that ran from her upper lip to her ear was far from subtle. The cut, given years ago, had been vicious and deep, and Ryn hadn’t managed to get it properly sutured before it healed, so it was a thick, raised white mark that contrasted sharply with her bronze skin and even browner freckles. Add to that the fact that she was at least a span taller than the tanner, her travel-worn clothes peppered liberally with various blades and a wicked-looking staff, and Ryn supposed she did look a bit dangerous.

Dangerous, and probably tired. She’d started awake that morning, breathing hard and covered in a cold sweat, to the feeling of Kota purring and mewling in her face. The sun had shone in her eyes, and she blinked at the mid-morning light, cursing quietly under her breath as her companion nosed her again, his whiskers tickling her skin. She’d pushed at him, all seventy stone weight of fur and muscle.

The siblings, she knew they were why she had recently been plagued by nightmares. The little ones she had tracked so far, fought off an entire hunting party of nagrat for, the bruised ribs she still was trying to recover from nearly two weeks later. And all for nothing, for her to lift that heavy flap to find the girl on top of the boy with her arms thrown out as though to protect him; and the ugly splintered spear that impaled them both together. Hastily executed by their captors, the nagrat’s twisted code of honor dictating that they kill the young hostages lest they be stolen back. It had cost her every night of sleep since then, that loss.

And here she was, arguing with a tanner whose most pressing problem was that he didn’t want to pay a fair price to a foreigner. She clenched her jaw at the offer, doing her best to stifle a sigh of frustration. These were buck hides, of good cut and quality, and it had been harder than usual to acquire them this time round.

“They’re worth at least forty,” she protested, careful not to sound too offended.

She was nobody in particular, here—nobody everywhere, really—and many merchants didn’t like buying from a wanderer who looked like she belonged in the mild tropics of Southdale more than the mountainous north of Laendor. Ryn thought that a bit unfair, as many Laendorians who traveled a lot or lived in the southern regions of their country tended to be the same color as she; for all this man knew, it was entirely possible that she had been sired by a citizen of Laendor. She hadn’t, but he didn’t know that. She couldn’t remember why her kingdom and their southern neighbors were so at odds most of the time, and honestly she could not have possibly cared less; but the tanned skin of the Southdalers was her curse, regardless of whether it meant she was foreign or not.

“Shan’t give ye more than twenty,” the tanner was speaking again, accent growing thicker as he became agitated. Ryn shrugged and gathered her hides.

“Very well then, I’ll just take these elsewhere. I heard old Hackett, up the road, is a tanner too.”

Ryn turned to leave, hefting the hides over her shoulder and wincing at her still-sore wrist. She made it five steps before his gruff voice called, “Aye, and as cheap and paltry a tanner as ye could hope fer!”

“But he’ll pay fair price for hide of this quality!” she shouted back, not stopping.

She kept walking, waited a beat.

“Lass!”

Ryn cocked an eyebrow and turned, slowly. The man sighed.

“Fine, I’ll give ye forty for ’em.”

“Hackett will give me forty,” she rejoined coolly.

The tanner’s dark eyes narrowed in his rotund face. “Forty-five then, but no more.” He didn’t look happy about it, but Ryn didn’t need him to be happy. She just needed him to pay her.

A quarter hour later, she left the tanner’s, ten hides lighter and forty-five silvers tucked into her hip pouch. Along with what she’d earned from her dried herbs and salves, it was more than enough to restock her provisions; food, what medicines she couldn’t make herself, new boots, and repair on a bowstring. All were wares readily found in a town this size, and she spent the rest of the morning doing just that. The vendors were slightly more willing to sell to her—coin was coin, after all, regardless of where one was from—than they were to buy, so it was an easy few hours. When her business was concluded, Ryn stopped to eat a midday meal, her first of the day, in the town square.

The fight with the nagrat hunters had left her worn and sore. Ryn had almost been certain her right wrist was broken, though the swelling had gone down so much the first night she suspected it had only been a sprain after all. By now, it was mostly healed. She might be able to draw her bow well enough to hunt for her dinner tonight, she observed. Her ribs still pained her slightly, and she sported several lacerations and quite a few bruises that had already gone yellow. More troublesome than the injuries, though, was the exhaustion. Her head ached almost constantly and her eyes burned; she needed a good night’s sleep. Resting her head on her palm as she awaited the lunch she had requested, Ryn looked about the small town square.

Dreyfen was a smallish village on the eastern fringes of Sannfold, near the banks of the River Rena. Nearer, Ryn thought, to the volatile, rushing body of water than any sane person would set up a homestead; but the townsfolk didn’t seem to mind the river, thriving on the moist, verdant shores. Many of the wood huts that passed for buildings stood on thick wood posts that were driven beneath the sand and soft dirt, into the bedrock below. The posts were treated with tar before being used as elevated foundations, to help prevent the water from softening and destroying them over time. The huts themselves were of light wood and thatched roofs, thin to match the mild seasons and easy to rebuild should one be destroyed by the flooding.

The entire effect was rather ridiculous, in Ryn’s opinion, surrounded by huts on stilts that put her in mind of storks more than man-made structures.

Still, there was a certain hardy stubbornness to the folk of Dreyfen that appealed to her. Certainly they were a grumpy, suspicious lot, and they didn’t much like anything out of the ordinary, but then all of that was to be expected. Usually, in places like this, ‘out of the ordinary’ meant dangerous, or at least troublesome. This wasn’t a large city, with nobles and armies and games and shows, always something new and exciting. Folk led simple lives in these little huts, and simple lives meant simple habits, with simple pleasures enjoyed sparingly. Probably the most exciting thing to happen in Dreyfen’s living memory was the bi-annual flooding of the Rena, which meant a bi-annual migration out of the river valley and into the townsfolk’s temporary dwelling further west. And yet, they refused to take the easier path and simply relocate, instead forcing the land to work for them as much as it worked against them, accepting their hardships and transforming them into boons.

This, Ryn could appreciate.

In addition, they knew how to season their crayfish. Ryn thanked the serving girl who brought her platter and allowed herself a moment to savor the dance of flavors on her tongue, buttery and boldly spiced. A lifestyle as economical as hers—even less indulgent than the citizens of Dreyfen’s—left little room for luxuries like spices, so she enjoyed them every opportunity she got.

As delicious as the local fare was, however, Ryn did not linger over it. She suppressed the now-natural urge to reach down and bury her fingers in Kota’s thick pelt, missing her friend. They had discovered quickly after she found the cub four years prior—or he’d found her, as it were—that people did not generally take kindly to a wild cat in their inns and stables. After the second time she’d had to save the rowdy, snarling bundle of fur from an angry proprietor, she’d started leaving him outside the towns she visited. They hated the arrangement, both of them; but much of her life had consisted of making the most of arrangements she hated, so she was used to it. Kota was undoubtedly hunkered down in the woods outside Dreyfen, awaiting her return patiently, or perhaps hunting down a hare to eat.

She placed her mug and her money on the table and slipped out. If she hurried, she and Kota could still make Woodhall by dark. She’d not leave him again so soon, but there was a certain copse of trees just outside the town that would house them nicely for the night.