The Raven and the Rush

3. A Second Vellum

Chapter 3

A Second Vellum

Seven awaited Evra’s news in the commons, but he didn’t stop. He quickened his pace as he raced the endless spiral staircase, towering into the upper levels of the Onyxcastle dormitories. The faster he ran, the less he thought, and that was the irony of why he’d come to the university to begin with, wasn’t it? He’d sought a place of thought to avoid thinking.

When he reached his room, he doubled over, panting through the remains of a burst of energy he’d regret later. The vellum nearly melted away in his sweaty palm, crushed under the weight of his competing fear and curiosity.

It wasn’t the first time Master Quinwhill, or even the other masters, had tried to spur him toward involvement in his father’s b****y crusade. None of them had a kind word for Lord Aeldred, and they made no secret of it. It went against all they stood for to suppress any knowledge, even something as ephemeral and misunderstood as magic. That they came to Evra at all, the throwaway son, showed how little they knew about the terror brewing in the Westerlands, and even less about Evra’s relationship with his family. It was also a depressing reminder of what little power even the revered leaders of the university had against a lord of the realm.

Aeldred Blackrook had been a second son as well. Few had the audacity to remind him of this, though.

Evra placed the letter on his desk and pretended not to be interested in the contents. Were there words that would change anything for him? He’d toughened himself to the empty platitudes, had worked hard for the confidence he now had to say they didn’t affect him at all. News, as Quinwhill had said, could be anything, but what was news to him, when his only power was to agonize and lose sleep over it? When he could do nothing?

Though it was still early, he slipped into bed and turned his thoughts toward his dreams.

Evra woke to fists pounding against his door. He stumbled onto the cool stone, still tethered to the remains of his fractured sleep as he reached for his Pupil’s robe. He’d just shrugged the fabric down when he opened the door.

Evra adjusted his eyes downward. It was a page. He didn’t recognize this one, but they were all boys too young for studies, sent by their fathers to gain valuable training prior to the commencement of their studies. Second and third sons, Evra thought, because they’d never be sent so far from the hearth if they were heirs.

This one was fresh. He stared up at Evra, wan-faced, hands trembling as he handed him a roll of vellum matching the one still sitting on his desk unread.

“Thank you,” he said and moved to close the door.

The page didn’t move. He nodded at the vellum. “I... I’ve been ordered to stay till you’ve read it. Cannae leave until I’ve confirmed it myself. Ye know, that ye did.” A Southerland lad, then. Whitecliffe, maybe, from the softness in his accent.

Evra laughed. “Ordered? Who ordered this?” He ducked into the hall and looked left and right, expecting Seven to leap out. “Where is she?”

“And...” the boy went on, gazing now at his feet, “I ken I’m also to ask if you’ve read the vellum that arrived two days ago. From Lord Astarian.”

“Lord Astarian? He flatters himself.” He wasn’t surprised to hear his brother styling himself this way. Only that he hadn’t started sooner.

Spent of words, the page locked his arms in front of him, waiting.

Evra glanced back toward the desk and the letter Master Quinwhill had passed him in the tavern. He realized that he’d never planned to read it. That the conflict he’d set to stir within himself was only to ease his conscience when he confessed later that the scroll had joined all the others under his bed, unread and forgotten.

“Who sent you?” Evra asked, but the boy had nothing more to say. There could be only one answer, anyway.

Evra moved to the desk. The vellum hadn’t recovered from traveling tight in his fist, bunched at the middle and frayed at the ends. The young page’s heavy, anxious breathing was the only recognizable sound as Evra slipped the thread holding the scroll off one end. The letter half-unrolled in immediate response to the loss of binding.

Evra flattened the vellum against the desk and read.

Thedyn- I will keep this brief, as you are unlikely to read it, and any extraneous words would be wasted upon you.

The worst has, at last, reached our own doors. Father has been stricken with the sickness. We both know the outcome of such a terrible affliction, and I will need you in the coming days. While fully aware of your unnatural predilection for books and learning, duty must come first. I look forward to your urgent return to Longwood Rush.

Your Brother, Lord Astarian, First Son of the Rush.

Evra dropped the vellum on the desk. His rebuttal lived trapped in his chest, wedged next to the shock at Astarian’s news. But why should he be shocked? The man who would let his own people succumb to the terrible but preventable illness sweeping the Reach wasn’t immune from the same. Aeldred had no secret antidote he hoarded for his own brood. Some outcomes were inevitable.

“Pupil Blackrook? Are ye quite finished?”

Evra nodded without turning.

“Can I bring you this one to r******w?”

“Sure.” Sweat slid down his cheeks. A new letter, two days on the heels of the last. It could mean only one thing. There could be only one reason.

The page tentatively approached. He reached forward from behind Evra, only his small arm visible.

Evra took the vellum. “You can go now.”

“I was ordered to make sure ye read this one, too.”

“I will. When you’re gone.”

The page didn’t leave.

Evra’s groan faded to a sigh. Would it be easier or harder to read the words, knowing them already in his heart? Would the complicated relationship he’d always had with his father be resolved with the finality of Astarian’s message, or would it live on, haunting him?

He opened the second scroll.

Dearest brother Thedyn, it is with unending regret and a shaking hand that I write to you this news, so agonizingly swift upon the news I’d only just sent you. This terrible disease moves fast, with impunity. It spares not even the great ones, and it is with unspeakable sorrow I tell you now that it did not spare our father. Lord Aeldred Blackrook of Longwood Rush has gone to the Guardians, his glorious promise spent.

I am left now to carry this burden, but I will not carry it alone.

Evra held fast to the vellum as his hands quavered.

For you, now, are my heir. The heir to the Westerlands. Your place is here until I can find the resolve to take a bride who will deliver me my own heir.

I will expect your return with the swiftness this request deserves.

Yours, Lord Astarian Blackrook, Lord of the Westerlands, Champion of the Rush, Father of the Western Reach.

Evra stepped back, dropping onto his bed.

You, now, are my heir. The heir to the Westerlands.

“No,” he whispered. “I’m not.”

“Pupil?”

“You can go now. Your orders have been fulfilled.”

“There’s... aye, there’s one more thing.”

Evra tensed his jaw tight to stem the emotion welling up.

His father was gone.

Memories flashed out of order. Aeldred showing him how to draw a bow, offering a small but powerful nod when Evra’s aim was true. Aeldred taking him before the Council to shame him when he asked for more books for their library. Aeldred crying over his wife’s dead body after she’d spent her promise bringing their third and final child into the world.

“How? How can there be one more thing?”

“Pupil... that is, Lord Blackrook. What should I call ye?”

“Just tell me and go.”

“They say... that is, that ye should look out your window.”

“What?”

He turned to look at the page, but the boy shrugged. He was a messenger. He’d delivered upon that promise and had nothing more to offer.

Evra pushed himself off the bed’s edge. When he made it to the window, he heard the small steps of the page running off, his duty finished.

Evra exhaled as he laid eyes on the sea of crimson and silver. Of magnificent steeds and the greatest bowmen in all the realm. The jewel of the Westerlands.

The fight left him.

There was nothing left to fight.

Astarian had sent the might of the Riders of the Rush to bring him home.