Page 140 of The Duke and the Disciple

“Aye, but the girl slipped out an hour or so back. Alone.”

“Slipped out? Where?” Rahn asked, leaning in.

“Cannae say. Didnae ask.” He chuckled, nervously glancing at Drazhan. “People pay for discretion.”

“Yeah, you’re real discreet, taverner,” Rahn muttered, shaking his head.

Drazhan checked the door, then his sword. “You follow the taverner to the room and see what you can get out of Val or Nik or whoever is up there. If it’s Val, we need to know whether he’s on our side or Marek’s. If ours, get him to the caravan safely. If Marek’s, find some chains. There’s a flare in your bag that will signal Baron Augher if you need aid.”

Rahn hesitated. The past hours, wondering and waiting, had already been unspeakable, but now they were close and Drazhan wanted to pull him away?

“There a problem?”

Rahn tapped the bar. The truth would not help the situation, and if Aesylt had run into danger, Drazhan was the best person in their entire contingent to be there. “None. No.”

“I’ll let my men know the search has shifted. Find us when you can. I’ll leave a trail.”

Rahn watched him leave and followed the taverner upstairs. The man dug into his pocket and withdrew a massive key ring, unlocked the door, and was already halfway back down the steps before Rahn could thank him.

Valerian sat on the bed, still half-asleep. He stared at Rahn like he were a ghost.

“Where is she, Val?” Rahn closed the door and stood in front of it.

“Scholar Tindahl?” Valerian squinted and wiped his eyes. “Some fucking dream. The infant king here somewhere too?”

“Whereisshe, Valerian?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Rahn flipped the bolts on the door and marched toward the bed. Valerian cowered, his eyes widening in a slow return to reality. “Tell me where the fuck Aesylt is or I’ll?—”

He whipped around, searching for a friendly face, but there were only others like him. Orphaned, abandoned, screaming for all they’d lost. Teleria Farrestell was the closest, rocking and sobbing with her knees drawn to her chest.

Time became as fluid as the sea. He replayed the terrible events in reverse and tried to imagine them ending another way. He did so until shrill shouts drew his eyes back toward the sea, where the Rhiagain brothers were trying to anchor themselves to the rocks. They each grasped in desperation, but they’d landed not where Rahn had, at an outcropping of rocky beachland, but farther down the island, where the rocks were cliffs.

He blinked, watching them struggle and fail. Calder must have seen him, for he waved both hands over his head, screaming for Rahn to come to their aid.

“And she wasfineandherewhen I fell asleep, which couldn’t have been... Scholar?”

Gods deliver me.Rahn shoved his hands under his cloak and pumped them in and out of fists to ground himself.Here. Now. Not then. Never then.“Just...”

Rahn slowly picked himself back up off the rocks and stared at the boys who had killed his family. Calder had been his friend. They’d played every manner of game a thousand times together. Laughed, cried, fought. Calder had loved Rahn’s mother’s winter soup, enough that she made it even in the summertime. He’d even called her Mother when his own had neglected him.

Both boys brightened when they saw Rahn coming their way. He had nothing to help them. He searched his pockets, but there was only the broken quill he’d had just enough time to stuff into his pockets when the ship had collided with something and?—

His father’s dagger.

He didn’t remember sitting on the bed. Falling either. Valerian’s stricken face stared down at his.

Why is this happening to me? Why now?

You know why, Adrahn. My beautiful boy.

I can’t do this right now, Mama. I have to find her.

Right now is when you must do this. For her.

Rahn gripped the sheets and bolted upright. “Where’s Marek?”

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