There's ice on the wind and Seth's arm aches. The ache reminds him of the Blood Rite that didn't happen. And of Nat. It's been four years since Nat left the Far West Highlands, and now he's back. The old dream's back too, in the scar, in the ache, in Seth's wariness of Nat. The dream still shows the boy in the fire and the Blood Rite with Nat. Nat's changed, or Seth's changed, and the boy in the fire has grown up. Seth doesn't know the dream-boy-wealthy-swordsman. Not yet. But things have changed now, and Seth can't keep pretending that the dreams don't matter.

Boys can make foolish pacts. Back in the day, I underestimated the extent of such foolishness. It brought me to the Northern lord, carrying his son in my arms as blood oozed from one cowardly shallow gash. The cut wasn't scar-worthy, yet the lord censured me for it. Later he sent his guards to sweep burning brands across my croft in the middle of a freezing night. They rode through on horseback, careless of the ice which cut the beasts' legs, and drove me off with long swords: me alone against a dozen of them. And the Northerner waited before warm home-fire for the report. No doubt he resented his son's trivial injury yet found the farm boy's partnering wound of little note. That was a wound which would have scarred well.

Pity the choice was wrong. Pity all the more because I am certain, as certain as Grenwold Strongarm is my Greatdada, that the farm lad sat in my house, looked beyond the fire, and saw his true bondsman's face in his mind's eye.

A portentous bond. I told the warrior lord of it the very day I returned to my kin-hearth, long before the live tale of its making crossed the crumbling Sun Wall.

Portentous, Anwend Thursten agreed, Portentous and powerful.

We drank spirits by the fire without voicing the, And yet?

Such a portentous bond shaped our nation years ago. Why is it that we Grenlaenden only remember the grief?

Portents and power, and I worry for the man who was once a farm lad. For many years, long winter nights came and went, and I knew not why I stayed inside. Now when bereaved warriors walk out into the snow, I swallow my grief and choose not to follow Ivo into Death. Curiosity, perhaps, or wonder. Or maybe I hope to live long enough to learn that a great bond does not necessarily forge a tragic outcome.

Thrilling and soothing, harrowing and humorous, romantic and tragic: This Far West of Nowhere is the opening act in Memories of the Well, E.H. D'Urbin's epic dark fantasy series.

Spécifications