The Raven and the Rush

1. True Friends Speak True

Chapter 1

True Friends Speak True

Evrathedyn stole his first kiss, but Seven commanded the pause that followed. She rolled back on her heels with a pensive frown. Evra’s heart pounded while he awaited her appraisal. His anxiety wasn’t born of any great affection for her, beyond the friendship they’d enjoyed over the years in Oldcastle. He was after her honest assessment, and if Seven was anything, she was honest.

She was torturing him now, intentionally drawing out the moment of truth he’d been chasing with this bizarre experiment. Seven took this responsibility with the seriousness it deserved, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t enjoying prolonging his agony.

“You’re perfectly fine at it,” she said at last, as if they were discussing dessert. “That is why you asked me, no? You wanted me to evaluate your skills or lack thereof?”

Evra leaned forward, breathless. “Perfectly fine? What does that mean?”

“I wasn’t bored. Nor am I crying out for more.”

“Did I rush it? Should I have told you it was coming, right then?”

“No,” Seven said, eyes cast to the ceiling. “No, I rather liked that I didn’t know when it was coming. But I’m not a lady, am I? Nothing like the girls you’d court. That’s why you chose me.”

“I chose you because you’re my best mate.”

“You chose me because there’s no chance you’d ever have feelings for someone like me.”

Evra frowned in place of a fair response to that. Seven Thorsen wasn’t highborn. She wasn’t even from that class in between where most of the kingdom made their place. The gold that paid for her education came from a wealthy patron who maintained Seven’s mother, in ways Seven didn’t like to speak about. The benefactor had sent all eight of the Widow Thorsen’s children to Oldcastle to get them out of the way.

Seven’s place in society had nothing to do with his platonic feelings for her, though. There were few things he had less interest in than arbitrary hierarchies decided by the random fortune of a man’s birth.

“I’m not courting any ladies,” Evra countered. He rolled forward onto his hands and pushed to his feet. The stone was cold against his palms as he pressed them to either side of the fogged window. Beyond, the thatched town of Oldcastle lay blanketed in fresh snow. It was a hundred-year storm, they said, but “they” said the same last midwinter, and the midwinter before. Far as he could tell, midwinter always brought snow to Oldcastle. “And that’s not why I did it.”

“Why, then?”

“I knew you’d tell me the truth if I was terrible at it.”

“Does that sound stupid to your ears or just mine?”

He half-turned, regarding her over one shoulder. “Would you believe you’re the only girl I’ve kissed?”

Seven burst into laughter. She pressed her matted hair off her forehead with the heels of her palms. “You’re nineteen, Evra. A lord’s son. You expect me to believe that? And if I did believe such a thing, I would’ve tried to give you a more memorable experience. I thought we were messing about. I didn’t know this was serious.”

“Well, you are. And you’ll be the last.” He returned his gaze to the window and the town below. From his room, the dots of homes and pubs looked like toys. “I suppose I’m relieved it didn’t leave you bursting for more, or me, for that matter. This might be harder for me if I’d liked it.”

“Harder for you? What would be harder?”

“Giving it up.”

“Why would you give up kissing girls when you’ve only just begun? You make no sense.” He felt her head shake behind him. “You never have.”

“I thought you liked that about me?” He grinned, but kept it to himself.

“I don’t hate it about you. If you’re not fussed about your disappointing showing, then what was the point?”

Evra turned and leaned into the icy pane. “I’m taking the Scholar’s Path, Seven.”

Her gasp was soundless. “But you... can you do that? You’re a Blackrook. Your father—”

“My father has an heir already. Astarian will be everything he wanted and more when the time comes. Thank the Guardians for it, too. The only thing my brother ever did to help me was to be born first.”

“That doesn’t mean Lord Blackrook will let you live the life of a monk. And why would you ever want to? You could have anything. Be anything.” Seven dropped her eyes. This same fate ascribed to him by the fortune of his birth wasn’t available to her. He wanted to help her; to do something about this. But though she liked to frequently point out his ancestry, it meant little here and would mean even less once he became a Scholar.

Evra turned the emotion brewing in his chest inward, burying it. “I can. And I’ve made my choice. I’ve already had my first meeting with the Grand Master, and once I have my second recommendation, it will be all but decided. When I finish my courses in springtide, I’ll trade this robe for another and begin my training in Riverchapel.”

Seven sighed into her head shake. “Your father will never let you do it. He’s been trying to pull you back to Longwood Rush for years. But this? He’ll send every last Rush Rider in the Westerlands to stop you.”

“He has no choice but to accept it,” Evra said. “The law forbids even a lord from swaying a man from the Scholar’s Path, unless that man is his heir. My father has an heir, and soon, Astarian will have one, too. He has to let me go.” He pressed his tongue into his cheek. “He’ll rant about it, I’m sure. I already know what his letters will say. But once he’s put up a fair enough show about it, he’ll let it go. He doesn’t want me around any more than I want to be there.”

“Laws like that don’t apply to lords.” Her cheeks flushed dark. Anger burned in her amber irises.

Evra sagged in defeat as he approached her. “I thought you were the one who’d be happy for me. That if no one else would understand, you would.”

“I understand perfectly,” Seven said. Her eyes were splotched with red. “I understand you think so little of yourself that even the idea of having a wife and children feels like a promise you don’t deserve. But you do, Evra. You’re more than what he’s caused you to believe about yourself. You’re so much more.” She sniffed. “And if you take that for a sign I want you to kiss me again, you’ll find my fist is more agreeable to the endeavor.”

Evra softly sighed and wrapped his hands around the ends of her shoulders. He smiled. “You have it all wrong. I’ve never wanted that for myself, Seven. It’s never been my path. And now, no one can force me to take it. This is the first real choice I’ve made for myself. Once I switch my robes, I’ll be free. I’ll no longer be Evrathedyn Blackrook of Longwood Rush. I’ll be Scholar Blackrook, son of no one, one of many.”

“You’ll never be one of many,” Seven responded, voice low. “You could sail to Beyond, and you’d still never be able to run from who you are.”

He dropped his arms. “Who am I, then?”

“A man who would rather hide away than face his own greatness,” she whispered. She wiped her eyes and pivoted away, feigning a laugh. “But you really are a terrible kisser, so I suppose you’re sparing some poor girl a terrible fate.”

Evra followed Master Quinwhill inside The Golden Castle. At this early hour, only the most committed tavern-goers held court in the dark corners, nursing either their first ales of the day, or their last of the night before.

He shivered as he shrugged off the cold. A hard, relentless wind carried down off the Eastern Range, pushing the snow high against the thatched businesses lining the main road. He rushed toward the roaring fire in the corner, eager to be free of the chill that ran straight to his bones.

“You pick the table, Pupil Blackrook. I’ll pay for the ale.”

“Sir,” Evra replied. He sent one last longing glance at the hearth and then picked a small spot in the corner.

Quinwhill returned with the ale before Evra had time to think of what he might say to persuade his mentor to write his second and last recommendation.

The master slid one mug across the uneven wood to Evra. He pushed his own to the side. “There’s been news from the Westerlands.”

Evra turned his head to the side with a scowl. “I have no use of news from there, Master. My home is here. Has been for years. You know this.”

“So you say,” Quinwhill replied. “And what a privilege it is to have the choice not to care.”

“I thought you asked me here to discuss my recommendation for the Scholar’s Path?”

“Do you know, Pupil, how many have arrived upon the steps of the Sepulchre and the Reliquary, fleeing your father’s men? Men near to death and reduced to ruin. The numbers are doubling daily. Soon, they will triple.”

Evra crinkled his lips together to keep from saying what he wanted to say. “And what...” He swallowed. “What has this to do with me, Master?”

Quinwhill pressed both palms to the table. “You are the son of Lord Blackrook, lad! Son of the man responsible for hundreds of burnings. Good men and women ripped from home and hearth to be sent to the pyre. Children. Those with high enough birth have their heads taken to be lined upon the pikes announcing the entrance to Longwood Rush, reminding others that the only way to live is to shutter your truths. It’s madness, is what it is. Someone must stop it.”

Evra dropped back in his chair, arms crossed. He wore the face his master expected; one of apathy. But his stomach churned at Quinwhill’s words. The horrors he described were the very ones Evra had fled, no longer able to feign alliance with his own blood. Lord Aeldred wouldn’t hear a word against his crazed campaign, and Astarian was weak, cowing. Master Quinwhill was right to be angry, to be appalled, but Evra had no power in the Rush and never had. Here, he’d found something resembling purpose.

“Lords Dereham and Quinlanden have been trying to stop him for years,” he said finally. “If men of their authority have no sway over my father, why do you think a discarded second son should fare any better?” Evra squinted to hold back the tears. “Worse, why do you assume I’ve never tried?”

“What about your brother?”

“Sewn from the same golden cloth.”

“Your sister?”

Evra snorted. “Women have no power in the Rush. It isn’t the Northerlands.”

“Evra.” Master Quinwhill never dropped formalities. “Someone must intervene, or there won’t be a Rush.”

“Perhaps if the men and women of the Westerlands would take heed and keep their magic to themselves, this could end!”

“You don’t mean that,” Quinwhill said. “That cannot be your answer for this terrible problem.”

Evra tilted his chair back, rocking it on two legs. He shouldn’t have come. Master Quinwhill was his favorite. A surrogate father who issued his greatest challenges, offering kinship as a reward for meeting them. But his subtle nudges for Evra to return home and somehow influence the madman leading the Westerlands were misguided. Evra should have known the pleas would escalate as he approached the end of his studies at Onyxcastle.

His chair slammed back into the floor as he rolled forward. “I have no answer, Master. That’s what I’ve tried to tell you for years. You look at me, sir, as if I forsake my purpose, when I’ve spent the past decade searching for one that couldn’t be taken from me. Taking the Scholar’s Path, I see the good I could do. If I cannot aid my Reach, then I can aid this kingdom. I can leave my mark another way.”

Master Quinwhill shook his head. He gazed into his untouched ale. “The lies we tell ourselves, Pupil Blackrook.”

“You could never understand,” Evra retorted. “Just as Seven could never.”

“Seven Thorsen is a true friend to you,” Quinwhill said. “True friends speak true.”

“It’s done,” Evra said, holding his chin high. “It’s decided. I leave for Riverchapel in springtide, and if you cannot offer me your support, I’ll find it elsewhere.”

Quinwhill pushed to his feet. “There’s still time to do what’s right.” He reached inside his robe and pulled out a roll of vellum. “A letter arrived for you today, from your brother. It’s not for me to read the contents, but I can guess at them. The news has already reached our towers. Better for you to hear this from him than from the fishwife gossip in the commons.”

Evra let the scroll fall into this hand. If Quinwhill hadn’t forewarned him, it would’ve joined the stack of unread scrolls under his bed.

“What news?” Evra asked.

“I will craft your recommendation for the Scholar’s Path,” Quinwhill answered. He pushed his chair in. It skipped across the warped boards. “No matter my misgivings, you have earned this placement. I won’t be the one who denies you.”

“You’ll write it?”

“Yes.”

Evra followed him out. “You’re not going to keep trying to persuade me to go home?”

Quinwhill turned at the door. He pulled his coat high around his ears. “What would be the point, Pupil Blackrook?”

His master disappeared into the snowy morning, leaving Evra hollowed by his victory.