The storm passed quickly, the stars and moon lighting the evening. Sir Edward Bladestorm conversed with Sir Thanalon Bearbreaker outside of his tent near the center intersection of the encampment, their voices stalling as Zander approached.

  Zander swore that Sir Edward’s squirrely hair, gray with patches of brown, had even less brown than when they last parted. Still, those astute gray eyes stared out from a scarred face, studying him as they always had. Yet, it was the man Zander had not been focused on that spoke.

  “Either you’re a divinedamned good blademaster or you have every sword in this camp too afraid of you to say otherwise,” Thanalon Bearbreaker said. “Well, maybe not every sword.” The lordling’s grin was barely visible beneath his bushy beard. “I ought to let you know that one of them did call you a ‘ham-witted egghead.’”

  Zander chuckled. “That would be Theo. Skill of a knight. Heart of a hero. Maturity of a newborn donkey.”

  Thanalon’s laugh told Zander all he needed to know about him. The youngest brother of Wayn Bearbreaker was a balance between the archlord that hated being called archlord’s informality and his other brother’s cold severity. Zander would follow a man like this, as long as he remembered his vows to watch for peace. The stocky man with more visible hair than skin let out a deep breath. “This Theo, is he a lanky fellow with a grin like he picked Zamael’s pocket?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Morale here is very good,” Thanalon assured Zander. “The affection and loyalty your squires have for you is a rare thing. After watching your training session this afternoon,” he gave Edward a nudge in the chest with his elbow, “I think there are none in the Peacewatch who can match either your ability to reach your charges or instruct them in their forms.”

  “I was very fortunate to have a blademaster who was able to reach me and teach me the forms,” Zander said, tipping his head to Sir Edward Bladestorm.

  “Of course!” Thanalon said, nodding at Sir Edward. “The old man and I were just talking about how the squire hath surpassed the blademaster. I’ll be very clear, Sir Zander. It is rare that a blademaster commands both respect and affection. Your squires work hard and laugh hard. They help each other up and they don’t hold back. As long as you remain their blademaster, they will grow stronger and more cohesive. I shall speak on your behalf when my brother arrives so that you remain Blademaster for this encampment.”

  “As will I,” Sir Edward said, the somber man meeting his eyes with water on his rims. “I’m proud of you, boy.”

  Zander met his blademaster’s gaze, not afraid to show the wetness on his rims. This validation, from the man who trained him, from the man who served the role his own father hadn’t, felt more meaningful than being knighted. He felt the pride resonate within him, stirring the part of his soul that was nourished by his work as a blademaster. It had been easy to take everything he had for granted with Alfread leaving, with the rumors, with feeling like he belonged with Alexia instead of here in a warzone. But Zander was a man with purpose. Like a master sculptor chiseling stone, when he was training his squires, he was doing what he was born to do.

  He swallowed, letting some of the emotion pass until he could muster up words. “You both honor me, as do my squires. I will train them to watch for peace, to finish strong, to follow the righteous path.”

  Thanalon shrugged. “With that, I’ve met my gratitude quota for the evening. Excuse me, I have to go yell at someone.”

  “Might I suggest Theo of Mirrevar?” Zander said.

  Thanalon spread his arms wide as he backstepped away from them with a giant, bearded grin. “You may!”

  With Thanalon gone, Zander had to face his blademaster, and the questions he’d long withheld. Despite his usual easiness with speech, despite having had these questions coursing through him for all his life like a poison in his veins, he found his tongue paralyzed. He looked down, trying to find the words like he was trekking through an endless landscape of mud.

  “Your mother would be proud of the knight you’ve become, Zander.”

  “And my father?”

  Edward’s smile faded. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding. The old man’s grim expression reminded Zander of the countless times when people lined up across him in a sparring match, knowing they were outmatched.

  “Would my father be proud?”

  The words came out grudgingly. “I believe that he would also be proud of you.”

  “Are you…” Zander inhaled, wrestling with the question withheld for what felt like an eternity, “my father?”

  Am I why your wife left you?

  Edward gestured for Zander to follow him. They walked, as ever, toward the training grounds. The fenced area of dirt and mud, where flowers and grass were too trodden upon to endure, was abandoned this late in the evening. One of the few places in the encampment where privacy could be assured now that it swelled with Edward’s and Thanalon’s reinforcements as well as messengers from the LaGrett fleet. They passed familiar faces as they ventured down the main road, Zander’s pulse quickening as he had to wait yet again for an answer.

  Zander ran through memories of what his mother had told him about his father. He looked much like Zander, particularly in the eyes and face. His father was a great warrior. While Edward could be considered a great warrior, he was short with dark eyes. It seemed unlikely, but Zander had always wondered why Edward was so indebted to Melody of Mirrevar that he’d help her flee the war and then agree to watch over her son.

  Edward gripped the fence of the training grounds, gazing up at the nearly full moon. “I’ve taught you like you were my own son. I’m as proud of you as any parent would be after seeing their child surpass them. But I didn’t provide the seed that made you, Zander.”

  “You didn’t provide the seed, but you gave me nourishment that allowed me to be who I am.”

  “I have many regrets about my life,” Edward said, stargazing still. “Training you isn’t one of them. You didn’t always make it easy, but you always made it meaningful.”

  Zander grinned, a flicker of joy sparked by memories of times he’d been difficult, before it passed, leaving him with the same unanswered question that always fluttered on the edge of his consciousness until it became an obsession that he couldn’t stop dwelling on. For years he’d restrained himself because he feared the answer. While he was still afraid, he was done with hiding from the truth.

  Zander trembled now as he did at his mother’s guiding, as if he was still that same ten-year-old boy. No matter how tall he grew, there was smallness lurking beneath the towering fa?ade. Zander tried to prod that boy forward, encouraging him to become the man he needed to be. He needed to stop running from the specter of his father’s absence. He needed to ask the question that consumed him since he first understood he was a bastard. He needed to finish strong.

  “Do you know who he is?”

  Sir Edward turned with a sigh, gazing high into the eastern sky toward where the edges of Covademara’s sprawling canopy ruled over the Mirrevar sky. “I wondered if you’d ever ask.”

  “Do you know my father?” Zander challenged, surprised with his own intensity.

  Edward hesitated, refusing to face Zander. At last, he nodded. “I do. I may be the only one alive besides the man himself.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “As far as I know.”

  Zander gripped the fence, the wood creaking as he squeezed. Finish strong. “Who is he?” The words weren’t strong, more of a croak from a ten-year-old boy on the edge of tears. When Edward didn’t answer, Zander twisted to face him, roaring, “Tell me!”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Edward bowed his head. The silence lingered, Zander holding in his fear, his anger, a levy damming the floods these emotions could, and likely would, cause.

  “What do you hope to gain from this? What does this answer mean to you, Zander?”

  “Everything,” he said. “All my life I have wondered who I am? Why people always leave me?” Zander could hold back the flood, but it wasn’t fear or anger that rushed out. His blue eyes gave up his tears. “He was the first to leave, and, I’m afraid that I will become the one who leaves.”

  Zander plopped to the ground, hiding the tears as he put his head in his hands.

  Sir Edward sat beside him. For many turns, the only sounds were the faint running of the Bear River and faraway voices. Zander thought of all the times he had been left behind, and of the times he’d have thrown everything away to leave, of how he’d taken his squires for granted, or of how he didn’t pursue Alexia or Alfread. He looked like his father, the man that made up half of who he was. They were both great warriors, but his father hadn’t finished strong. Would he not abandon those he loved too? Would he abandon himself? He remembered rushing across Goddess Hill, staring down those fatal cliffs where the two rivers collided. He’d already come close. What would stop him from being just like his father?

  “Nobody is destined to become their parents,” Edward said. “You are your own person. And a good one at that. If you don’t want to leave people, choose to stay with them instead.”

  Zander shook his head. Good people didn’t strangle their best friends until they stopped breathing. They didn’t kill as many people as he had. They didn’t get abandoned as often as he did. “I’m not good.” The words came out sullen like a child who needed to argue with their parent for the sake of rebellion rather than reason.

  “I’m botching this.” Edward cursed. “If only your mother were here. She would know what to say to you. Who am I to take her place in answering this question? Who am I to know what words might help you heal this pain?”

  Zander’s response was reflexive, feral. “She’s gone! You’re all I have left!”

  He met Edward’s eyes, basked in the silence for a few turns, before anger burst through, making it impossible to stay there without hitting the man. Zander sprung to his feet, stomping away, regretting that he’d torn this divinedamned wound open. Again. Without any answers.

  “Your mother knew pain more intimately than anyone I ever met, than anyone ever should, and nothing hurt her more than leaving you behind.”

  “Her pain ended in a moment,” Zander hissed. “Mine will last all my life.”

  Edward rose to his feet, his stance making clear to anyone with trained eyes that he was a true blademaster. “It will only last as long as you tell yourself that.” He pointed toward the locket. “She’s with you. Even now.” He clenched his jaw, looking more pissed than Zander ever saw him on the Bear’s Crossing training grounds. “And your mother was the best person I ever knew. You’d do better to remember that you are her son more than you are your father’s.”

  Zander clenched the locket, biting back his rebuke. The silver was warm—hot even–as if his mother’s warmth lingered. When he touched it, he could feel her, drawing away his anger. He just wanted to know who he was. He wanted to stare in the mirror and recognize who he looked at. He wished she could say something to him now, but all that was left of her was this locket. One he’d failed to give to the Sunrise.

  “You are a child of love, Zander. Your father gave that locket to your mother. Sometimes life is bigger than what one man desires.”

  Zander waited for more. He waited until it became clear Edward had caught himself before crossing further over some imaginary line of what he would say. What he said didn’t change anything though. Except perhaps making the locket tainted by his father’s disgrace. Whatever explanation the man had wasn’t a worthy excuse. After all, hate was easier than understanding when someone had hurt you as deeply as Zander’s father had hurt him.

  “Before, I could imagine that he never tried because he was dead. I’d wished for that to be true many times. Then, it would make sense why he never looked for us. But if he lives, where has he been for seventeen divinedamned years? Seventeen! If his love was true, he would’ve come back for me.” Zander encroached closer with each utterance until he finished, his words shot into Edward’s unblinking face. “You say he’s alive, but he is dead to me. Dead!”

  “Then you have made up your mind about him before giving him a chance to show you how wrong you may be.” Edward turned his back to Zander, finished with the conversation.

  Zander refused to let this be the end. “Tell me who he is!”

  Edward was still as a statue. Making as little effort to help him as the locket and seed donor himself.

  “Tell me!” Zander bellowed.

  He didn’t care that the watchers on the wall would overhear or the gossip this would spread about his feud with Edward Bladestorm. How people still liked him was a mystery if camp rumor said he was pounding the witch, drove away his best friend, and now yelling at his blademaster. Well, anger and hatred made a person immune to caring about things other than what made them angry and hateful.

  Edward’s answer only wounded him further. “I cannot do that.”

  Zander managed to turn his anger cold, keeping his voice quiet though sharp as a meladonite edge. “Why not?”

  “For many reasons that you make clear this night but most of all because your mother made me promise to never tell you.”

  “She’s gone,” Zander said. “I’m the one suffering in the dark here. Doesn’t that matter to you more than your promise to a person who cannot be hurt by the truth?”

  “It matters, Zander,” Edward said, emotion cracking his voice. “I hate how much this hurts you. I hate that you’re in pain and that I have the answer that you need. I want to tell you. I really do.” Again, he gazed up at the sky. “But your mother could see things nobody else could. She told me there would come a day when stars shone above us and you would finally come asking me for the truth. She made me promise that I would break both of our hearts. I needed to keep my silence. I trust it’s the same reason she never told you, though she wanted to tell you all about him, about their love, to stop you from hurting.”

  Edward shook with a sob. He met Zander’s gaze, tears in his eyes. “I’ve wanted to tell you every time that I look into your eyes and see your father staring back at me. But I dare not defy her lest I divert the fate of this world for but a few moments of peace.”

  Zander shook his head, his fingers closing into fists. His anger found a new target, a purple-eyed woman seven years dead that knew how much he needed the truth and yet withheld it even after she was gone. He tried to restrain his anger, tried to understand her. He gripped the locket, feeling her warmth, but it didn’t calm him this time. “Why?”

  Edward blinked away tears. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “At least tell me why!” Zander said, seizing Edward by the shoulders. As he did, it felt like he was fighting through a wind tunnel, the locket slamming into his chest with tremendous force.

  Zander was repelled, thrown to his arse beneath a perfect moonlit sky. He stumbled to his feet, dazed like a drunkard climbing out a ditch in the morning.

  “I asked the same question,” Edward said. “I remember her, those farseeing eyes brimmed with tears, and I’ll never forget what she said.” Edward turned his back on Zander, eyes on the sky.

  Zander waited, impatiently, clinging to the locket to keep from charging in again.

  “She promised me that you would learn the truth,” Edward said. “But you would learn it when you needed it most. She said it was the only way to make you ‘one again.’”

  One again.

  He looked forward. A regal man with eyes of bluest sapphire placed the amethyst in Zander’s hands. For one heartbeat, Zander saw the man’s proud smile before he dissipated into dust. After the dust settled, countless sapphires and rubies glistened where the man had stood.

  As soon as it had come, the image fled, leaving Zander with naught but questions unanswered. He’d been abandoned by his father again.

  Zander felt at the chain around his neck, a gift from the man himself. He lifted it, freeing himself of its tainted touch, then hurled it at Edward’s feet. “If you’re not going to give me answers, I’ll be sure to find this man and rip them from him. He didn’t love my mother enough to stay with her. Didn’t love me enough to come back. He abandoned me and every divinedamned day he doesn’t try to find me he abandons me all over again.”

  Edward marched toward Zander, no less intense than his prodigy. “And what do you know of love? You who has repeatedly tussled with my wards and left them in the barn with the animals to pick up the pieces of their hearts after you abandoned them?”

  Zander felt a sudden compulsion to vomit. He remembered Alfread coming at him, telling him the same things. It was easier to dismiss then as what he’d needed to do for Leverith, to find the Sunrise. Yet, was this same feeling he felt now what he’d given to Joyce? To Jayne? Lorelei? Melissa?

  Zander repelled the feeling, finding resolve in how it had all led to him meeting Alexia. Leverith had answered his prayers. He knew what love was. “I have a life’s mate,” he said.

  “Then Master Asa is this sunrise your mother spoke of? I had thought it was almost too obvious.”

  Zander shook his head. Edward, worthy of the title Bladestorm, impaled Zander on his own sword. His wolfish growl delivered the blow with maximum impact, tearing through his gut and ripping out of his arse. “Then where is she?”

  Had this been a sparring match, Zander would’ve been slammed to the ground and pinned. Zander clenched at his chest, realizing the locket he discarded wasn’t where it needed to be.

  “She left me at the foot of Goddess Hill so that she could convince Gideon Sapphire to make peace with King Adameon. I wanted to abandon everything and go with her. She left me to keep me safe from her king.”

  Edward, ever a mirthless man, laughed. A deep rumbling belly laugh that came from the depths of his soul.

  “Her being apart from me is funny to you!”

  “You have no idea,” Edward responded.

  “Piss on you!” Zander spat. He stomped from the training grounds.

  “Zander,” Edward called, “give your mother’s regards to the Bluerose girl.”

  The locket thumped against his arse. Zander snatched it from the ground without looking back. He’d gotten all the answers he was going to get from Edward Bladestorm.