Chapter 1

Raneld’s eyes were blue.

I should have had other things on my mind, but in close combat, our swords locked as we struggled back and forth, I couldn’t help but notice them. They were intensely blue, as bright as the sky itself, their coolness warmed by the same golden sun that lit the cloudless expanse above.

It was so strange. Blue eyes were rare among our people, but it was more than that. Those eyes should have been icy with hate or hot with rage. Only seconds before I had attempted to stab Raneld in the back. I was not above such acts in the pursuit of my duty. He had obviously heard some sign, some scrape of my boot as I approached, so even as I’d lunged for him, he had spun and drawn his sword in one single motion, meeting my blade with his.

I had expected a cold glitter of hate in brown eyes, or rage glowing hot in dark amber eyes like my own. Instead I found myself staring into two calm pools of blue.

He threw me back suddenly, and it was all I could do to keep my feet. We had been locked in combat for mere moments, but I already suspected he was the better swordsman.

Our styles were certainly different. I simply bulled forward, putting all my energy into the attack. I had trained, and the sword moved easily in my hand, but I was not concerned with fussy technique. My sword was light, and I counted on my speed and aggression to dazzle and overpower.

Raneld moved like a dancer, despite bearing a heavier blade. His strokes were economical, swirling fluidly from one position to the next, never wasting energy. I would have scorned him for bothering with such fripperies, yet the way his sword was always exactly where it needed to be to block my strokes made any such scorn absurd. His body, too, moved with fluid grace, never off balance.

I was hardly clumsy, but only a few minutes into our fight he suddenly shot one foot forward, hooking my ankle. At the same time his sword flicked out, twisting around mine and knocking it from my hand. I was out of balance, too exposed by my aggression, and as I fell, I knew I would pay for it with my life.

His sword was at my throat as soon as I hit the ground. I closed my eyes and waited for the killing blow, but it never came. I heard a soft sigh, and opened my eyes to see him looking down at me, shaking his head. His eyes were still just as quiet, just as calm as they gazed into mine.

“Lord Royan is dead, Valde. The succession is settled.”

Then he lifted his sword from my throat, turned, and walked away.

* * * *

It took less than an hour to confirm that Raneld had told the truth. The news had reached the forested mountains of the elven lands ahead of me. But then I had crossed the miles between these mountains and the plains of home on foot. The news had come by elven magic, flying past me in the ether in an instant. I hadn’t heard when I arrived, because I’d been too focused on chasing Raneld. Now, though, that was obviously futile.

Everything seemed futile. I wandered through the elven settlement, among the soaring towers that blended so gracefully with the trees around them, but saw none of the beauty. All I could see was the patrician face, the golden hair, the amber eyes, so like my own, of my lord. I would never see them again. I would never have a chance to impress him. I would never know…

I tried to shake off those thoughts. None of that mattered now. Instead, what mattered was deciding where I should go next. Yet that decision seemed impossible. I had no purpose, no drive, no sense of direction.

Direction. I blinked, the world coming back into focus again. I did actually have a sense of direction, somewhat literally so. Indeed, I’d been walking in a nearly straight line for some time, headed directly out of the little forest town and into the wild woods beyond.

I sat down on the dusty path and laughed. It was a bitter kind of irony. My lord’s spell outlived my lord himself, it seemed.

It wasn’t common knowledge that Lord Royan was a sorcerer, but his trusted inner circle knew. I was not counted among those, but as his assassin, his left-hand man, so to speak, I’d known as well, for his magic aided me in fulfilling the tasks he set me. When he’d asked me to kill Raneld, the youngest son of his rival claimant to the throne, he’d given me a magical bond to my quarry. I had not understood most of the ritual, but the part where he’d tied a strand of Raneld’s hair around my wrist had been clear enough; he’d tied us together, and from that instant forward I’d always known where Raneld was in relationship to me. It made tracking him trivially easy, even over the golden hills of our homeland, where the ground did not show tracks.