SELIUM

The Smiling Sow was one of Selium’s finer dining establishments, and Melry had been very impressed when Stevic brought her there.

“It’s awfully nice of you to bring me to The Sow,” she said. “My friends were quite jealous when they heard where we were going.”

He watched her dig into each course with enthusiasm. For dessert, she enjoyed a mug of warm drinking chocolate, while he sipped a nicely aged cognac. He’d treated her to dinner the night he arrived in the city, but that had been at an ordinary pub. Here the servers bowed to their guests, cleaned their hands with steaming towels, and made the food look like works of art on their platters.

“It would please Karigan that I took her friend out for a meal,” he replied, “and it seemed a good place for a farewell dinner.” Taking Melry to dinner reminded him very much of bringing Karigan to The Sow while she was still in school. “This was Karigan’s favorite place to eat out.”

In truth, he probably would not have treated Melry out a second time had he not been in a relationship with her mother. It seemed a good opportunity to get to know the girl better other than just as Karigan’s chatty friend. He noted Melry had matured a good deal since last he’d seen her, and the chattiness had more or less abated. She was still, however, a lively young lady who was easy to talk with, and who, unsurprisingly, surrounded herself with a wide range of friends.

During the main course, she had revealed her plans for after school to train as a Weapon. He could not imagine her as one of those solemn statue-like sentinels silently guarding the king, or worse, the royal tombs, nor could he imagine Laren being happy about it when she found out.

“So, what inspired you to want to become a Weapon?” he asked, returning to the topic of her future.

“I’ve done well with arms training here with Master Rendle.”

“But you’ve done well with your other subjects, as well. Surely there are many directions you might choose.”

Melry held her mug in both hands as if to warm them as he’d so often seen Laren do. They were not mother and daughter by blood, but they still shared certain mannerisms.

“I always planned to serve the king,” she replied. “I mean, as a Green Rider. But I’ve never heard the call, and the colonel won’t let me join like she let that Anna girl. So, I am going to be a Weapon instead.” A cloud settled over her usually sunny features. “I am of age to make my own decision, but the colonel has final say when it comes to the Green Riders.”

Stevic had known from Laren that there was some conflict in that regard. Melry used “the colonel” interchangeably with “mother,” but he picked up a hardness to it now. He wondered how much of her desire to be a Weapon was retaliation against her mother for not letting her be a Green Rider. As the father of a Green Rider, he understood Laren’s stance on the issue better than most. He knew too well it was not a safe occupation, and never more so than when he heard his daughter had been tortured. How was a parent supposed to live with that? He’d been ready to storm north to avenge her, but Laren calmed him, told him King Zachary had killed the torturer and led troops in victory against Second Empire. Karigan would heal, she reassured him. Afterward, he’d gone to the chapel of the moon, something he hadn’t done in a long time, to light a candle of prayer for his daughter’s healing, and a second one in thanks that Sacoridia had such an exemplary king.

It still ate at him, though, the torture of his daughter, and it always would. But how to explain the anxiety of a parent to Melry so that she would understand and not cause her to become more entrenched in her decision? He was not certain he could find the words.

“At least Master Rendle and General Whitestall support me,” Melry said.

“Who is General Whitestall?”

“The commandant of the academy on Breaker Island.”

The Forge, Stevic thought, where Weapons were made.

“He came here in the fall,” Melry said, “looking for talent. He watched us advanced arms students train. He says he’d very much like me to attend the academy.”

Stevic hid his misgiving by taking a sip of his cognac. He let the liquid tingle on his tongue for a few seconds before swallowing. There was nothing wrong with becoming a Weapon. It was, in fact, a very honorable profession, but he always sensed something of a fanatical nature about them, a cultish aspect brimming with secrets that stretched all the way back to their founding during the Long War.

“It seems,” he began carefully, “an austere choice with your whole life ahead of you. Weapons do not have families, for instance.”

Melry waved it off as inconsequential. “The Weapons have one another. General Whitestall explained it to me.”

Not the same thing, Stevic thought. As much as he wished to voice it, he did not. This was a matter for parent and child, and Melry was not his daughter, at least not yet. Or, maybe he was just being a coward, not wishing to turn her against him even before his relationship with Laren had been announced to her. He had to admit he’d left most of the difficult parental discussions with Karigan to his sisters.

He took a deeper sip of the cognac this time and dabbed his lips. “I hope that life as a Weapon is all that you wish.”

She smiled. “That’s if I pass all the tests and am good enough. General Whitestall thinks I am. But if not, I can be an arms master somewhere.”

They discussed his leave taking with Lady Fiori set for the morning, and how composed Estral had been during all the various ceremonies of mourning for her father. The people who served Selium, the dean and all the school’s staff, rallied around her and seemed to have all in hand. It would make her transition to being the Golden Guardian easier to bear. He thought Karigan would be pleased to hear how well Estral was being cared for.

Finally he took his last sip of the cognac and rose. “Let us find you a cab to take you back up to campus.”

When they stepped out of The Smiling Sow, the evening was misty, but it did not deter crowds milling about the streets in search of entertainment. There were more people filling the city than ever with both the funeral ceremonies attracting mourners from all over the realm and refugees fleeing the attacks in the countryside. To Stevic’s displeasure, the theater across from The Sow had just let out and there was no cab to be had.

“I will walk you to campus,” he told Melry.

“Oh, there’s no need. I—”

He forestalled her with a raised hand. “Humor me, please. I would do the same for Karigan were she here. Besides, my legs could use a good stretch after all that food.”

Melry did not argue further. As they walked on among the throngs, the theater-goers chattered and laughed all around them, and he thought Lord Fiori would be pleased to see so many continuing to enjoy the arts in his city even in his absence. The night deepened as they continued on. Lamplight rippled across puddles on the cobble street.

Stevic kept an eye out for trouble. This was a prime hunting ground for thieves—so many people in good spirits and paying little attention to their surroundings or purses. Though he spied nothing suspicious, he had an itch, which was a sort of intuition he had for pickpockets and the like. Not surprising, he supposed, there’d be a few working this crowd.

Soon they arrived at a brightly lit square where minstrel students were playing lively music. A crowd had gathered to listen. Some clapped to the beat and others twirled and danced. It would be difficult for him and Melry to work their way through the press. They were already hemmed in and getting bumped into by onlookers.

Melry paused to watch the dancing and he followed her gaze. Three men engaged in a step dance battle. Onlookers hooted and hollered and clapped their encouragement. Two looked to be students, but one was older.

Melry laughed. “That’s Master Franks and a couple friends of mine.” She had to shout to be heard above the music and boisterous crowd.

The young men were hard pressed to keep up with the tempo of the music and it was only speeding up, but Master Franks seemed to have no trouble. A frenetic quality enveloped the square with the musicians playing hard and the crowd laughing and shouting. The dancing, the excited atmosphere. The mist spread lamplight like an otherworldly vapor over the scene. Stevic felt unmoored as if the world slipped out of kilter.

Then he realized that he’d gotten separated from Melry by a surge of onlookers. The “itch” intensified. He tried to reach Melry, pushing through the revelers, but could seem to make no headway. A group of drunken young men knocked him back even farther. He shoved and jostled his way through with a renewed sense of urgency. He looked up and glimpsed Melry some distance away. A hooded figure seemed to loom up from nowhere behind her.

“Melry!” he cried, but his voice was lost in the clamor. He pushed and shoved some more, but it was taking too long. He cried out again just as the hooded figure grabbed her. She screamed. The crowd shifted around Stevic like a riptide carrying him away.

The world reeled, all the light and shadows streaming around him, and he was stricken by a momentary miasma. People nearby were also affected and cried out. When Stevic’s equilibrium returned, he saw only an empty space where Melry had been standing.

“Melry!” But his shout was met only by the blank looks of strangers who chattered anxiously near him. In the square, the music played on unabated as if nothing unusual had happened.

He rushed forward in search of Melry, and asked the people around him if they’d seen her. They’d been momentarily overcome by a sick feeling, they said, and they hadn’t noticed her. Then a student rubbing his temple nodded.

“I saw her, aye. We have a languages class together. I saw a man grab her and then—and then—” The young man looked like he could not believe his own words. “And then the magic or whatever hit, and he and Mel vanished just like that. I was just gonna go look for a constable.”

“Aeryc and Aeryon,” Stevic murmured. He was not going to look for a constable. He was going to go straight to the city’s power, and he knew she would see him without question.

He pushed himself clear of the crowd and headed up the street toward campus. How would he explain to Laren that her daughter had been snatched right in front of him?