In a mostly deserted village outside Jidia, Froi broke into a stable. He needed a horse, and this dusty village of sunken empty wheel ruts and a wind that cried out its grief seemed his only option. Despite what these people had possibly endured, Froi’s necessity was greater, and he felt little remorse at what he was about to take from them. That, in itself, brought him relief. He had become too soft in the palace and needed to find the ruthless warrior inside that Trevanion and Perri marveled at.

“You’re probably best not doing that,” he heard a voice behind him say. Froi hoped that the man wasn’t holding a weapon. He was desperate to get home, and a man with a gentle voice was going to get in his way.

He turned to see a couple standing at the entrance of the barn. They were perhaps in their middle years, but it was hard to tell. Reed thin from the sorrow of life, they leaned against each other as though nothing else could hold them up but the other.

“It will get you no farther than half a day’s ride away,” the man continued. “He’s an old thing, Acacia is. Belonged to our boy and refuses to die.”

Froi sighed. Why did everyone in Charyn seem to have a story in their eyes? And when had he started caring?

“Have you come from the Citavita?” the man asked.

“No,” Froi lied. “From Alonso.”

Both the man and woman studied him cautiously. “We watched you arrive, lad. You came from the south, not the north.”

Don’t let me hurt you, old man. Don’t let me hurt you both.

He knew he could easily fight these people and win. If he wanted the horse, he could take the horse. He had the power, regardless of who owned the stable. Power was everything. Until he realized that law belonged to the street thugs who had brought him up on the streets of Sarnak’s capital. Not Trevanion. Power, the captain had told him, meant nothing whether in someone’s home or their village or their kingdom or their palace. Respect and honor meant everything.

“Can I beg of you a place to sleep in your stable, then?” Froi asked. “And a plate of food? I’m good for a day’s work, and if your second field isn’t weeded soon, you’ll have planted for nothing.”

So Froi worked alongside the man and woman all day. They were a quiet couple, and like many of those Froi had met in Charyn, there was a sadness in their whole beings that was years in the making. It was in the way they walked and toiled. It was in their silence, and it was in their words. They grew barley and broad beans and cabbage. Not to trade, but to survive. The soil was poor from little rain, much the same as the rest of the kingdom outside the walls of the provinces. There was no future for them out here. Froi wondered what had happened to the rest of the villagers. He counted eight cottages in total but could see that it had been quite some time since they were lived in.

The man, named Hamlyn, asked him about his family, but Froi didn’t respond.

He could have lied to himself and said that he had thought little of Quintana, Lirah, Arjuro, and Gargarin these past few days, but he didn’t. He had thought of the four of them every moment. But he was too close to home for regrets, and he owed them nothing.

That night, he waited on the porch for his food but none came until Hamlyn stepped outside with an expression of irritation on his face.

“We are hungry, lad. We can’t wait much longer for you,” Hamlyn said before disappearing inside.

Froi entered the small cottage and looked around. It was plain and as clean as could be found in a place so dry and dusty. There was one bed at the end of the room. Outside he had noticed the woodfire oven, but inside was a large pot, from which Hamlyn’s wife dished out a bowl of barley soup. When Froi saw the plate set for him at their table, he felt shame. Who was he to deserve their hospitality after what he had planned to do? Hamlyn’s wife placed a large chunk of bread at the side of his plate, but none beside hers or Hamlyn’s.

“Life on a farm is hard enough,” Froi said after a slurp, dividing his bread into three and placing a piece by both their plates. “Why stay here and not inside the walls of Jidia?”

Hamlyn’s wife looked up for a moment, and then she went back to her soup.

When neither responded, Froi asked about news from the capital.

“There’s confusion,” Hamlyn said. “We had visitors ride through here seven days past. Their stories differed. Some claimed that one of the provincari planned the murder of the king and that Bestiano is our only hope. Another believed it was the hidden priests who managed to get an assassin inside. One or two of them whispered that Bestiano had killed the king and that his riders are occupying the base of the gravina and raising an army from Nebia.”

“And what are your thoughts?” Froi asked.

Hamlyn shrugged. “We have nothing left of worth for a king’s army,” he said bitterly.

Later, Hamlyn’s wife gave Froi a blanket, and Hamlyn accompanied him to the stable.

“I found it easy to break inside here,” Froi said quietly when Hamlyn handed him the lantern. “Tomorrow I’ll secure some of these old planks.”

Hamlyn nodded. Froi couldn’t help but notice how large the stable was. How empty it was except for Acacia. Hamlyn caught the question in his eye.

“I worked with horses,” he said. He smiled at the memory. “Some would say that once I was the best in the outer reaches of the province. In the days before they put the walls around Jidia, men would travel for days to purchase a good horse from me.”

Hamlyn held out a handful of oats to Acacia, and Froi watched the old horse nuzzle against its owner.

“Thirteen years ago, the king’s riders came through this land, and they took our horses,” he said quietly. “And they took our sons. They took all the lads. Mine was of your age.”

“Took him to the palace?” Froi asked.

“No,” Hamlyn said. “They needed an army to support the new king of Lumatere.”

Froi fought hard to hide his shock.

“For ten years we wondered what happened to him inside those walls,” Hamlyn continued, as though he had waited a lifetime to speak. “When the Lumateran curse lifted, we waited for him. One or two of our neighbors’ sons returned. The Lumaterans had released them, but the lads came back broken. They had shame in their eyes.”

Froi couldn’t speak. How much despair had this man’s son created in Lumatere? Worse still, had he died at Froi’s hands?

“And then we began to hear the stories. Of what the Lumaterans claimed our sons did during those ten years.”

Not claims, Froi wanted to shout. What the impostor king’s army did to the Lumaterans was more than claims.

“It keeps us awake at night,” Hamlyn said. “What did a boy who was brought up with such kindness and love do to those people?”

Froi finally looked at Hamlyn.

“You thought I was your son returning?”

Hamlyn gave a painful smile. “Foolish thoughts. He’d have reached his thirtieth year by now.” He closed his eyes a moment, as though to recover himself. “But I dreamed of him two nights past. And in my dreams he told me a lad would arrive with the words of our gods written all over him.”

Froi flinched to hear Quintana’s words spoken by another.

“The only thing written over me are my wrongdoings, Hamlyn,” he said.

Froi tossed and turned half the night, but then he slept and dreamed, and when he woke, he couldn’t remember the dream. He could only remember its force. He convinced himself that he only dreamed because of Hamlyn’s words the night before. But the dream teased him all day, as though it were going to reveal itself any moment. All day he hacked at the earth with frustration alongside Hamlyn and his silent wife, trying to recall even a sliver of what had gone through his mind while he slept.

When Hamlyn’s wife walked toward the well, Hamlyn watched her, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“It’s her way to be quiet and gentle,” he said, and Froi heard love in the man’s voice. “Long ago, she claimed to have lost her purpose.”

“Because your son was gone?”

Hamlyn shook his head. “No. Long before that.” They both watched her lower a pail into the well.

“Arna was the midwife for all of Jidia, as well as our village.”

A horse handler with no horses and a midwife in a barren kingdom.

“She can be spirited at times. When she carried our son in her belly, she slept with a dagger, I tell you. A she-wolf, she was. She would have sliced open any man who was a threat to her boy.”

And here in this infertile field with two broken people, Froi remembered his dream.

Hamlyn’s wife, Arna, returned and gave a bowl of water to each of them, and Froi drank thirstily.

“I need to travel to the Citavita,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Not a good idea,” Hamlyn said.

“I need to be with my family,” he said quietly. “They are hiding in the caves at the base of the gravina.”

“Why would they be hiding in the same place as the king’s riders?” Hamlyn asked.

“For reasons that could get you killed if you knew the truth.”

The next morning, Froi woke to find Hamlyn and his wife standing before him. He had dreamed again. This time it was of Arna, a she-wolf guarding her young. Except the teeth and snarl were those of Quintana. Arna crouched and handed him a pack, and he smelled fresh bread and cheese and smoked meats. Hamlyn gave him a map.

“Have you heard of the stairs to Jidia?” Hamlyn asked.

“They say there’s no such thing,” Froi said.

“Who says?” Hamlyn said with a smile.

Froi dressed quickly and placed the food and map in his pack. He looked at Arna, then placed his arms around her, and she held on tight as though she held the son who would never return and he held the mother Lirah would never be to him.

“You’re hiding something, Froi,” Hamlyn said, handing him a crossbow with the letter J etched into the wood.

“Everyone is hiding something, Hamlyn,” Froi said. He shook the man’s hand. It was a Charynite’s gesture. “But it’s best you do not know what it is.”

He walked away but turned back once.

“What was the name of your son?” he asked, his finger tracing the groove in the weapon they had given him.

“John,” the man said. “John, son of Hamlyn and Arna of Charyn.”