A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) by Arenson Daniel

Author:Arenson, Daniel [Arenson, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Moonclipse
Published: 2013-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

VALIEN

He stood upon the breakwater, staring out into the sea, and remembered the day he met his wife.

Boulders formed the breakwater, their lower halves green with moss, their upper halves white with gull droppings. The waves slammed against the stones, turning from gray to blue and showering foam. The breakwater ended with a cairn, and there rose Lynport's lighthouse, a tower of empty windows, craggy bricks, and memories of better days.

Valien grumbled as he walked across the slick boulders—this was easier when he was younger—and placed his hand against the lighthouse. The old bricks were clammy and mossy, but he remembered years ago when this tower was new, when he had climbed its steps to view the sea and found her above.

The lighthouse doors had rotted or burned years ago. Valien stepped through the archway and climbed the stairs again, the first time he'd climbed them in twenty years. Shattered clay jugs, an abandoned glass bottle, and an old shoe littered the steps now. A feral cat hissed at him, bristled its fur, then fled. But as Valien kept climbing, he barely saw the stairway's current state. He saw himself a young man, twenty-one years old and only knighted that summer, visiting fair Lynport to protect the sea.

He reached the lighthouse top. He stepped into a round chamber where no more fire burned. Today this chamber was empty but for a discarded mattress, a cracked pipe on a windowsill, and three kittens nestled in the corner. Outside the windows, the sea stretched into the horizon, a gray sheet splotched with patches of green and blue where the water was shallow. But when Valien closed his eyes, he saw this chamber twenty years ago. A great beacon had burned here then, the fire shimmering behind glass panes, and upon the sea a dozen southern ships had sailed, bringing their treasures into Requiem.

"And you were here, Marilion," he whispered. "You shone brighter than all the beacons in the world. You guided me home."

He could almost see her again at the window, watching the sea. She had worn a white dress that day, its hem stained with salt and sand, and her feet were bare, but Valien had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her hair cascaded down her back, the color of honey, and when she turned toward him she smiled.

"Good morning, my lord," she said. "I'm sorry. I've come to watch the sea."

She was a commoner, born and raised in the south, her only jewelry a string of seashells. She was wild and beautiful, a creature of sea and sand. Standing beside her, Valien felt stiff and awkward in his armor, a relic of ancient tradition, out of place here like some dusty grandfather clock in a fairy fort.

She laughed. "Can you speak, sir knight?"

He cleared his throat. "You have nothing to apologize for. This is your town. I've only just arrived here from the capital. I serve in Castellum Acta. I—"

"You talk too much," she said and laughed again. "Listen! Do you hear it?"

Valien listened.

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