The tree was screaming again, and I was the only one who bothered to listen.
Not screaming, exactly. More like weeping, a low, keening sound that vibrated through the bark when you pressed your palm against it. Most people in Arazon couldn't hear it anymore.
They'd learned to tune it out, the way you learn to ignore a beggar's outstretched hand or a neighbor's muffled crying through thin walls.
But I heard it. Always had.
Maybe that made me special. Or maybe it just made me the kind of fool who pays attention to things that can't pay him back.
I pressed my forehead against the trunk, feeling the rough bark bite into my skin. The tree shuddered beneath my touch, and for a moment, just a flash, I could have sworn I felt it press back. Like it knew me. Like it remembered every secret I'd whispered into its roots, every promise I'd carved into its flesh with the tip of my practice sword.
What did you expect? I muttered to it, pulling back. You're a tree. I'm a bastard. Neither of us gets to complain about our lot.
The sun was setting over Arazon, painting the sky in shades of burnt orange and bruised purple. Pretty, if you liked that sort of thing. I didn't. Sunsets reminded me of endings, and I'd had enough of those to last a lifetime. Enough funerals attended, enough doors closed in my face, enough people who looked at me and saw only what I wasn't.
Not noble born. Not legitimate. Not enough.
I pulled my sword from where I'd wedged it between two roots and hefted it, feeling the familiar weight settle into my palm. It wasn't much, a practice blade, dull edged and scarred from years of use, but it was mine. One of the few things in this world that was.
The clearing was empty except for me and the tree. I preferred it that way. Training alone meant no one could see you fail, and failure was something I'd gotten intimately acquainted with over my seventeen years. I moved through the forms Sebtenius's father had taught me, the ones he'd learned during his years as a soldier before, well, before whatever had made him stop being a soldier and start being a farmer who flinched at loud noises.
Thrust. Parry. Pivot. Strike.
The movements were familiar enough that my mind could wander, which was dangerous. A wandering mind was how you got hurt. How you missed the opening that could save your life or the tell that meant your opponent was about to gut you.
But there was no opponent here except the tree, and it had never fought back.
Can everybody be a king?
Sebtenius's words from earlier that afternoon still echoed in my head, along with the carefully neutral tone he'd used. That tone that meant he was trying to be kind while delivering a blow.
I don't think so. Even if your father is a noble, your parents weren't married, right?
Right. Not married. Just a noble and a woman who'd been "chosen by the sun," whatever the fuck that meant, who'd decided to run away together and make a bastard in the process. A bastard who'd grow up with his grandmother in a house that always smelled faintly of medicinal herbs and disappointment, in a kingdom that had very specific ideas about what bastards were good for.
Hint: it wasn't wearing crowns.
I struck at the tree harder than I meant to, and the impact jarred up my arm. The tree's weeping intensified for a moment, a sound like wind through a graveyard, and I felt a stab of something that might have been guilt.
Sorry, I thought at it. Not your fault I'm angry at everything that can't hit back.
"I heard your father is going to marry someone."
That had been Sebtenius's parting shot, delivered with the kind of careful concern that made it worse than outright mockery. Because Sebtenius was my friend, my only real friend, and he genuinely thought he was helping by preparing me for the news.
My father. Lord Somebody Important with a estate somewhere I'd never been invited to and a name I'd been told never to speak in public. My father, who'd sent money exactly three times in my life and visited exactly never. My father, who was apparently ready to legitimize some other woman's children while mine stayed carefully buried.
I should care. I knew I should care.
But all I felt was a hollow sort of relief that at least now there was a reason I could point to. See? He has a real family now. That's why he never came for you. Nothing personal.
Everything was personal when you were a bastard. Every slight. Every closed door. Every conversation that stopped when you entered a room.
I'd learned to smile through it. Learned to make jokes that cut close enough to the bone that people laughed nervously instead of comfortably. Learned to make them uncomfortable before they could make me feel small.
But here, alone with the tree and the dying light, I didn't have to smile.
I looked at the dark blue sky and let Sebtenius's words about my father wash over me like water off oiled leather. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. I wasn't going to be a King, thank the fucking sun for that... And I wasn't going to spend my life waiting for a father who'd made it clear I was the embarrassing consequence of a youthful indiscretion.
"I think a warrior or a knight is suitable for my talents," I'd told Sebtenius, and I'd meant it. Warriors didn't need legitimate births. They needed strong arms and sharp instincts and the willingness to bleed.
I had all three.
"I have to leave, it's getting late," I'd shouted to Sebtenius when the conversation had gotten too heavy, too real. Ran down the street like a child escaping a scolding, which was probably what I'd looked like. Seventeen and still running from conversations that hurt.
Sebtenius would regret his words. He always did. He'd seek me out tomorrow with that hangdog expression and apologize for bringing up my father, and I'd wave it off and make some joke about bastards and breeding, and we'd pretend the wound hadn't been reopened.
That was how we survived. Pretending the cuts didn't go that deep.
I ran through the forms one more time, faster now, angry. The sword whistled through the air, and I imagined it was my father's neck under the blade. Then I imagined it was Sebtenius's father, Tet, who'd taught me to fight but never quite looked me in the eye. Then I imagined it was the High Priest Awsar, who'd taken one look at me as a child and said, "The sins of the parents," before turning away.
Then I imagined it was my own neck, and the thought was so satisfying that it scared me.
I stopped. Stood there breathing hard, sweat cooling on my skin despite the evening chill.
The tree wept.
I needed to go home. My grandmother would be furious that I was late again, and her fury manifested in creative ways. Last time I'd come home past dark, she'd hit me with a cooking pot hard enough that I'd seen stars. The time before that, she'd locked me out and I'd spent the night sleeping against the Weeping Tree, waking with bark imprinted on my cheek like some kind of stigmata.
She said it was because she'd promised my mother she'd keep me safe. Teach me discipline. Make me into someone worthy of... something. She'd never been clear on what.
But I knew the truth. She hit me because I looked like my mother, and my mother had abandoned her to run off with a man who'd never been worth the scandal. She hit me because every time she saw my face, she saw the woman she'd failed to save.
I understood that. In a twisted way, I even appreciated it. At least her violence was honest.
I hid my sword in the hollow of the tree, wedging it carefully into the space where the bark had split years ago. The tree had grown around weapons before. I could see the rust stained wood where other boys had hidden their contraband. And it would grow around mine.
The tree remembered. That's what made it weep.
It had seen more than anyone in Arazon. Heard more secrets than the priests in their confessionals. Been stained with more blood than the executioner's block in the city square.
And yet it stood here, silent and suffering, bearing witness to a kingdom that had forgotten how to listen.
Stained with the blood of Arazon people. Was it all in vain if it stood idly without saying anything?
"What did you expect?" I said to it again, patting the trunk. "You're a tree. I'm a bastard. We are what we are."
The tree didn't answer. But the weeping grew softer, and I chose to interpret that as understanding.
I took the long way home, past the dark blue lake that would shine at night when the stars came out. The Lake of Mirrors, people called it, though I'd never understood why. It didn't show you anything except what was already there.
But tonight I stopped at its edge anyway, drawn by some impulse I couldn't name.
The water was still as glass, and in its surface I saw myself clearly for the first time in days.
Blue black eyes that held too much anger for someone my age. Dark curly hair that moved freely because I'd never learned to oil it properly, never cared to. Skin the color of dark brown soil, my father's heritage, my mother's gift, depending on who you asked. A face that was handsome enough, I supposed, if you liked the look of someone who'd been carved from stone and left out in the rain to weather.
I was wearing a simple white cloth tunic and shoes made of wool that were developing holes. I'd need new ones before winter, which meant I'd need money, which meant I'd need to find work that didn't require a family name or references.
The cycle never ended.
Sometimes I found myself here, at this lake, lost in thoughts that went nowhere. Maybe it was early memories of my mother that made it feel safe. She'd brought me here once, supposedly, when I was too young to remember properly. My grandmother had told me the story only once, in a rare moment of softness brought on by too much wine.
"She held you at the water's edge and sang to you. Said you were going to be beautiful, like the lake at midnight. Said you were going to be strong, like the sun at noon. Said you were going to be free."
Then my grandmother had stopped talking, poured herself another cup, and never mentioned my mother again.
Free. What a fucking joke.
I cupped my hands in the cold water and began to wash my face and hair, the ritual cleansing that might help me come to my thoughts. Might help me walk through the door and face my grandmother's disappointment without the anger that lived in my chest like a caged animal.
The water was shockingly cold, and it helped. Cleared my head. Reminded me that I was alive, at least, which was more than my mother could say.
I stood, water dripping from my curls, and started walking home.
The house came into view as I rounded the bend, small, squat, built from the same grey stone as everything else in this part of Arazon. Smoke curled from the chimney, which meant my grandmother was cooking. Which meant I was late enough that she'd be furious but not so late that she'd stopped expecting me.
I could smell the stew from here. Root vegetables and something that might have been rabbit, though with my grandmother you could never be sure. She had a way of making everything taste the same: vaguely herbal, vaguely medicinal, vaguely like punishment.
I braced myself and pushed open the door.
I didn't even see her move.
One moment I was stepping over the threshold, and the next I was on the ground, a rushing pain blossoming from my forehead. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and I tasted copper.
The cooking pot clattered to the floor beside me.
"Why are you late again?" My grandmother's voice came from somewhere above me, sharp as broken glass. "Did you find trouble today in the market?"
I blinked up at her, vision swimming. She stood over me with her arms crossed, pot still in one hand. She was small, barely came up to my shoulder when we were both standing, but she had the kind of wiry strength that came from a lifetime of hard work and harder choices.
Her face was a map of lines, each one telling a story she'd never share. Grey hair pulled back so tight it looked painful. Eyes that might have been kind once, before life had burned the kindness out.
I grinned up at her, even though it made my head pound worse. "Would you believe me if I denied it?"
The grin usually worked. It made people uncomfortable, made them not quite sure if I was laughing with them or at them. Made them back down because they couldn't read me.
My grandmother just stared at me with those hard, flat eyes.
"I promised your mother I would take care of you. Protect you from them." Her voice dropped lower, and something in it made my stomach clench. Not anger, that I could handle. This was something else. Something that sounded almost like fear. "Can you not even honor your mother's wish, Rhohar?"
The grin disappeared from my face.
She never invoked my mother. Never spoke about her except in those rare, wine soaked moments when her guard was down. For her to bring up my mother now, in the middle of what should have been routine discipline, meant something was wrong.
I stood slowly, my head throbbing. "What's going on?"
"You think this is a game." She set the pot down carefully, and her hands were shaking. "You think you can walk around with that hanging from your neck like it means nothing. That no one will see it, that no one will recognize it—"
My hand went instinctively to my chest, to the amulet hidden beneath my shirt. The one I wore every day. The one my mother had given me.
"You wore it openly in the city today," she said, and her voice cracked. "You let it show. Someone saw it, Rhohar. Someone came to ask about the boy with the pendant. The boy who everyone knows lives with his grandmother by the lake."
Ice flooded my veins. "Who?"
"Does it matter? They saw it. They recognized it." She grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "That amulet is not just a trinket from your mother. It is a marker. A claim. A target on your back. And if more people realize you have it—"
"It's just something she left me. A keepsake."
"It is not." Her grip tightened. "Listen to me. For once in your life, listen.
Your mother didn't just leave you some worthless piece of jewelry. That amulet belonged to the first sun holder. It's been passed down for a thousand years, and she took it when she ran. And now you wear it like it's nothing, like you're not walking around with a price on your head—"
"That's insane. Why would my mother have something like that?"
"Because she was chosen, you fool! Chosen by the sun to be a holder, and she rejected it.
Rejected everything for that man, for your father, and she took the amulet with her." My grandmother's voice broke.
"And now you have it, and people are starting to notice, and I can't—I can't protect you from this."
The amulet felt suddenly heavy against my chest. Hot. Like it was burning through my shirt.
"Go," she said quietly, releasing me. "Go to your room. Stay there. Don't go out tonight, no matter what you hear. And tomorrow, we hide that cursed thing. We bury it where no one will find it."
"Grandmother—"
"Go."
I went.
But I didn't stay.
My room was barely a room, more like a closet with a mat on the floor and a single narrow window that looked out toward the forest. I sat on the mat and pulled out the amulet, studying it in the fading light.
It looked the same as it always had. Dull. Worn. A dark metal worked into a shape I'd never quite been able to make out, sometimes it looked like a sun, sometimes like a coiled serpent, sometimes like nothing at all.
But if my grandmother was telling the truth, if this really was the amulet of the first sun holder, the artifact that had been passed down through every chosen leader of Arazon for a thousand years, then it was the most valuable thing in the kingdom.
And I'd been wearing it openly like an idiot.
I should stay here. I should listen to her for once. She'd protected me this long, kept me fed and clothed and alive despite having every reason to abandon me the way my parents had.
I should stay.
But someone had seen the amulet. Someone had come asking about me. Someone knew.
And if I stayed here, if I did nothing, whoever that someone was would come back. And my grandmother would be in the way.
I needed to know who had seen it. Needed to know what they wanted. Needed to get ahead of this before it got her killed.
I waited until I heard my grandmother moving around in the main room, the familiar sounds of her cleaning the dinner things. Then I tucked the amulet carefully back under my shirt, slipped out the window, and ran.
My feet hit the ground silently, years of sneaking out had taught me where to step to avoid the loose stones, and I headed for the city.
Barefoot this time, because boots would make too much noise and I'd left them by the door.
The ground was cold beneath my feet, but I barely felt it. Adrenaline and anger were keeping me warm.
Anger at my grandmother for never telling me what the amulet really was. Anger at my mother for leaving it with me like a bomb waiting to explode. Anger at myself for being careless enough to let it show.
But alive for what?
To hide in that house by the lake forever, pretending I was nothing, waiting for a father who would never claim me and mourning a mother I'd never known?
Fuck that.
I wanted answers. I wanted to know who had seen the amulet. I wanted to know what they planned to do about it.
I wanted to survive.
My grandmother would say I was my mother's son. That I had her recklessness, her pride, her inability to leave well enough alone.
She'd be right.