Winterfinding by Daniel Casey

Author:Daniel Casey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, fantasy, epic fantasy, strong female characters, grimdark, epic adventure fantasy, nonmagical fantasy, grimdark fantasy, nonmagic fantasy, epic adventure fantasy series

The Blockade

It wasn’t his ship. It didn’t feel right. Not just because it was a foreign ship, but it was a strange creation. Everything was just slightly off—the misplacement of ordinary or normally forgettable things, the colors of the wood and sail and rope, and the faint hints of Lappala itself. It was what the Lappalans thought a sovi ship was.

‘Sovi’ was a queer word as well. He could still remember the first time he had heard it. Flung out casually and with disdain from the woman’s mouth as she stood in the shadows of the brig giving impatient orders. Then each time the torturer came and worked his art on them, he heard it said to him, said about them. They knew the session was over when the torturer said in his even, incurious tone “Until tomorrow, sovi, when we will learn some more.”

Riv had always considered people just to be people. No, he thought, that was a lie. He had always seen the difference that coin made. How earning riches still set you apart from those born rich, those who had never to think about coin in their lives. He remembered the inarticulate rage he once felt hearing a noble express shock at actually seeing an aureus.

Riv had been a boy, barely in his teens, living in the northern Rautian valley and working at tavern on the high road. Clean and well run, the tavern courted the posh travelers. One night as he was clearing tables, the noble and his valet had entered. Immediately, Riv had been peppered with demands for a room, for food, for drink, to go get their baggage, and to see to their horses. The noble had never looked at him, just talked in that icy, proper Silvincian accent.

“See that he’s compensated, Aleric.” He had said. When the valet fished out a gold coin for Riv and handed it to him, the noble seemed casually amused. “I never knew the aurei were so shiny.” He shrugged off his cloak and held it out to the valet, “No wonder they covet them so.”

Riv had gripped the coin so tightly its embossed image of the Seven Spires pressed a red indentation into his palm that didn’t disappear for hours. That had been the day he had decided to head for the Novostos Sea and become a free trader. He was never going to feel that kind of shame again and never at the hands of such a trivial person.

It wasn’t until he first heard that word, then heard it from the mouth of the torturer that he realized just how much contempt all peoples must have for each other. They were different, the woman and the torturer. They looked different but not dissimilar than he and Cochrane. They were taller, for one. All these Lappalans were tall and slender. Their faces were soft, rounded giving each a haunting beauty. Even the soldiers looked pristine and elegant.

Riv felt like a twisted sore among them, this was what being a sovi was to these people.

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