Fire of the Forebears by L. A. Buck

Author:L. A. Buck [Buck, L. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798985326512
Google: sUHezgEACAAJ
Amazon: B09SL5LVGN
Publisher: Redhearth
Published: 2022-02-21T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter thirty-three

Backtracking

Triston ducked into the shadow of the alleyway, pulling his hood closer to his face as he peered up at Shalford Tower. He’d slipped out unharmed among the prison-break, but the tower itself had not fared well. Guilt ate at him as he watched his father’s soldiers picking through the rubble, most of them half-heartedly carrying away stones as the few others stopped, intermittently, to stare and scratch their heads.

But were these his father’s soldiers? The few who hadn’t given chase looked as true and honest as any, but Triston had seen the other soldier for himself. That had not been a sanctioned officer, to say the least.

He lingered in the alley, concerned one of those soldiers might recognize him. He was a traitor now. There wasn’t anything else he reasonably could have done, but that didn’t change the truth. He’d raised his blade against his own men.

“You are a strange one, aren’t you?”

Triston spun around, then suppressed a sigh of relief. It was an older woman, with a hunched frame that barely reached his chest. She was dressed in a long blue cloak with colorfully embroidered edges, and her deep hood hid all of her face except for the strands of wiry grey hair which hung across her chest.

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

The woman gave a cackling laugh. “Oh, so polite for so young a man.” She tottered to his side and lifted a crooked finger to point at the tower. “A harrowing sight, is it?”

Triston glanced where the woman was pointing—the farther side of the tower—and pulled back in surprise. A symbol in flowing script, adhered to the stone wall like age-old ivy, wound the full height of the tower. He recognized that sigil: it was the very same one on the sword hanging in his father’s council chambers, and on that ancient sword Kura had claimed in Nansûr.

“The forebears’ mark,” the old woman mused. “It has been a long time since I have seen it.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “…A long time.”

Triston ran his eyes over the symbol again. His father had always laughed at the idea of a fonfyr, calling it one of Seren’s old stories, and silenced any rumors that he himself had any claim to the title. But his mother…

“The fonfyr is real.” It’d been over a decade but he could almost still hear her, speaking in excited, hushed tones as she pulled him aside to counter his father’s jokes and Seren’s trivia. “Your father fought in the memory of such things, and someday so will you.”

Triston flinched as the old woman rested a hand on his arm and motioned to the crowd gathering a stone’s throw from the base of the tower. “It has been longer for them.”

He’d already seen the crowd—they were half the reason he’d taken refuge in this alleyway in the first place—but as the woman drew his attention to them again, he noticed their faces: they were staring up at the forebears’ mark in awe. The people here had

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