Page 95 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Erran’s first question weighed on his tongue—why have the roads not been tended with tax funds?—but he already had the answer. The first of many there’d be no point in asking.

“There used to be training guilds along this row.” Mariel’s first words in over an hour. “Whitechurch will never let the guildhalls go elsewhere, but many apprenticeships start here.Startedhere.”

Erran followed where she pointed and saw a line of attached, pitched buildings. All of them were missing windows. Most had also been mined for boards and other parts. They seemed to belong to a time before. He remembered the fact about the training guilds, and his last visit to Everspring returned in startling relief—the vivacious town center, as full of people as Whitecliffe. A mordant stench of decay had replaced the absolute assault of so many great foods cooking at once. Citizens had eaten right there in the town, around a fountain, which he could now see was not only overgrown with weeds like everything else but had crumbled away in parts. The basin was missing an entire side, and rainwater ran down it like a sieve.

“Where do people...” He shook his head at his folly.

“Live?” Mariel veered south, down another inconspicuous path. “Not here. Not anymore. A few families stayed because they had nowhere else to go. I don’t know how they’ve fared. I don’t have the heart to find out. We’ll go to Mistgrave now. There’s more to see here, but... I don’t have the heart for that either.”

Erran hadn’t realized how pitched his pulse had become until they were clear of the main village and back in the woods. He adjusted in his saddle, working up his courage for whatever was next.

“You can ask questions if you want, Erran. I know you’re being respectful, but it’s better you know.”

He cleared his throat, wondering where to begin. “You said this resulted from land seizures and taxes?”

“The land seizures came last. It all started with taxes on the food we grow. We’d always paid fifteen percent, but it was after... Well, it was after a visit your father made here years ago when we received the news taxes had been doubled to thirty percent. The number increased exponentially with profits. Wealthy farmers either moved away or were thrust into poverty almost overnight. I ken he saw all the plenty and couldn’t allow an opportunity to pass. Mind, this was inadditionto the sixty percent land tax, which is the highest in the entire Reach. Then and now.”

Erran invited the acerbity of her sting. He would neither look away nor shy away from the truth she was offering, which was a gift, no matter how deep the ache in his chest.

“And then,” she said, the gentle forest passing them by. “It was raised once more, to forty percent. The wealthy, as I said, most just moved to another region, under another steward. They could do that. But the rest, the everyday families, were already living harvest to harvest. They had to ration. Children were prioritized, getting most of the greens and fruits because they needed them to grow. Gradually, the lack of nutrients started affecting the men, who could no longer tend their lands like they once had and couldn’t afford to hire help. And when they could not pay their taxes, because there were no longer any profits, they were given no clemency. No time to make it right. If taxes were due and unpaid on a Tuesday, the repossession agents would arrive on Thursday.”

“That’s so unjust,” Erran whispered. “Mariel, I swear to you, I’m not defending him, but it’s so hard to imagine my father doing this. I feel like I hardly know him anymore.”

“Honestly, Erran, I ken your father didn’t know the extent of it. Most men like him prefer not to, so they can sleep at nights. They delegate the tasks to barons and guards and give them full discretion over the management of things. The last time we saw him around these parts was right before the famine started.”

“Nay, he knew. Some part of him did. It’s why we never came back,” Erran mused aloud. He constructed a clearer image in his mind. “He couldn’t face it.” He swallowed. “Because he’s a coward.”

“Most men are, when they have the privilege to be.” Mariel rewrapped the reins in her hands. “Few men have that luxury though.”

Erran didn’t ask what had happened to the displaced working-class families. Mariel had already given him a grim view when she’d told him about her parents. Her sister. How many other thousands of mothers and fathers and siblings and bairns had their own stories? How many generations had ended so rich men could grow richer, beyond anything they could ever truly need?

I love you,he wanted to say.So much so that I want nothing more than to reverse time and fix all of it, even if it means we never would have met.

She went silent again until Mistgrave. They entered from a different road than the one he remembered from their idyllmoon, which was, as Mariel had shared earlier, the point. Like Everspring, there were remnants of an old sign, but none of the lettering remained. It was merely an arch.

“Remy and Augustine lived just north of the border, in the Easterlands, but they didn’t escape any of this. When the blight came, after the land wasn’t turned over properly each season, it spread to their family’s land as well.” Mariel sighed. “And the steward of their land, I ken, saw how well the efforts had gone for your father and instituted the same ones there. It happened to them in the same order. Crops died. Adults were next. Then the land was taken. Almost seems like there’s a formula to it, doesn’t it?”

Erran nodded through his overwhelm. It was a grief weighted heavier by guilt, compounded by the shame of daring to feel sadness for something he was indirectly complicit in. Had directly benefited from.

“Our homestead on Loch Ethereal was transformed into a retreat for the rich, like many other lake properties, but most of the land...” She turned down another path, which winded downhill, and they emerged onto a cliff overlooking a massive valley. Within it were various shades of death brown and, between those sparse patches, what remained of homes. Some had been burned out, others stripped for parts like the main row of Everspring.

“This is all I have in me today, Erran.” Tears raced down her face, spilling off her chin. “I just cannot... cannot relive it all.”

He stretched a hand between their horses. When she took it, her fingers almost limp in his, his composure crumpled with all he wished he could say. But none of it would have made a bit of difference. Words were as useless as the hollowed-out hovels that had once housed vibrant, loving families.

“I will...” Erran forced back the despair that was not his to claim. “I will...”

“I ken you’ll try.” She squeezed his hand and released it. “I don’t want to lie to you anymore, so you should know I’ll be visiting my friends tonight. I’m going to tell them it’s over. Obsidian Sky is done. Don’t follow me. Don’t... ask me where I’ll be. Just trust me to know what I’m doing and let me do it.”

He nodded. The valley blurred through his tears. “Aye, Mariel. Whatever you need.”

Destin might have beenmany things, but a liar was not among them. He’d humiliated himself and others, had failed to live up to his responsibilities, and had been a liability, but he did not lie to the people he loved.

He truly struggled with his decision not to tell Mariel the Obsidian Sky meeting had been moved an hour earlier, so he could have some time with the others himself before she arrived. There were things he needed to say—and they need to hear—and she was already burdened with enough pressure. He could take this one from her.

Alessia nestled near Magnur on the far log. From the haze in her eyes, she’d already been drinking before she’d arrived, but Magnur was stone sober. Even when he drank, it had little effect on him.

Remy and Augustine hovered on different sides of the second log, each staring in opposite directions.

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