Page 89 of Of Empires and Dust

I love you,brother. I’m just sorry it took me so long to say it.

Baren

Dayne swallowed hard,placing the letter on the tabletop. He traced his fingers over the last line. “Please come home safe.”

“He’ll be all right.” Mera pressed her fingers into the back of Dayne’s neck. “He knows how to look after himself.”

Dayne nodded. “But he’s desperate, and desperate men make stupid decisions.”

“Men make stupid decisions in general.”

Dayne placed a kiss on her forehead. “So many years lost. So many years…”

“Look forward, Dayne, not back.”

A rustling sounded at the tent’s entrance and one of Dayne’s Andurii stepped inside, a man by the name of Lycas of House Vohar.

Dayne raised an eyebrow.

“There’s a man here, Andurios. Said you’d know him. Said you’d want to see him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Savrin Vander, my lord.”

Dayne took a step closer to Lycas, his pulse quickening. He must have heard the man wrong. “Savrin Vander? That’s the name he spoke? You’re sure?”

“Yes, Andurios. Quite sure.”

Dayne pressed the fingers of his right hand into his cheeks. “That cannot be. You areabsolutely certainthat was the name he gave you?”

Lycas nodded.

“Send him in.” The hairs on Dayne’s arms pricked, his pulse quickening.

The Andurii bowed at the waist and left.

Dayne looked to Mera, who stared back without a word. Her eyes said what Dayne was thinking: surely it couldn’t be. Marlin had said none of his father’s Andurii had survived. Or had he? Dayne couldn’t quite remember the words Marlin had used. Alina had said Savrin had helped Marlin cut down Ilya and Arkin’s bodies. So the man had at least survived until that point. But Dayne had heard nothing of him since retuning.

More shuffling sounded outside the tent, followed by footsteps.

A lump formed in Dayne’s throat, each second seeming to stretch until Lycas returned with Ileeri at his side and another man between them. Dayne’s breath caught in his lungs.

Dayne’s captain stepped forwards. “Savrin Vander, Andurios.”

The man stared down at the dirt, walking as though he were a child awaiting punishment. Full markings of spearmaster and blademaster adorned his forearms, various other inkings swirling about his body.

He was lean and all muscle, his face freshly shaved. His hair had greyed since last Dayne had set eyes upon him, but then the man had seen thirty summers, now more than forty. The skin on his face was leathered beyond what the years should have done, his fingertips cracked and bleeding, his lips dry. But despite the marks of time’s passage, when the man lifted his head and Dayne looked into his dark, sunken eyes, Dayne knew him.

Savrin Vander. The Champion of House Ateres. The greatest blademaster to have graced Valtara in five centuries. The Golden Spear of the Andurii. He looked tired, worn, and weary, but very much alive.

A long moment passed where the two men stared at each other in silence, until Dayne finally spoke. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was.” Savrin’s voice was harsh and gravelly, more so than Dayne remembered. “The day your father died, I died with him. Or at least, I should have.”

The man drew in slow breaths, letting them out with a rasp, his gaze constantly flitting between Dayne and the dirt. Dayne knew guilt when he saw it, knew its venomous touch.

“Where have you been? Why did you not come sooner?”

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