Only the Bold. Морган Райс

dared to hope as he stepped from the trees out into the broad, grassy clearing. The grass was short, obviously kept that way by the efforts of the deer, while there were spots where there was none at all, because great slabs of rock sat there, marked with symbols and signs cut into their surface. Most of the deer there scattered, heading back into their woodland cover. Only one stood there: a stag larger than the others, its antlers magnificent, its white fur shining in the sun. It reared up, giving a snorting bellow, then headed back in the direction of the trees with the others. If Royce hadn’t known that he was in the right place before, he would have known it then.

      Now that he was out in the large clearing at the heart of the island, Royce could see the hut that had been built, sheltered in among the trees at one edge. It was simply built, but looked sturdy, constructed from fallen and cut tree trunks by hands that clearly knew what they were doing.

      Royce headed for that hut, reasoning that what he had come there to find could only be there. He stepped out over the ground of the clearing, past the stone slabs, and he found himself pausing, tracing the letters there. He found the words of the people who had gone before, and something about those words seemed to resonate deep inside him. Some remnant of the clarity he’d had from the mirror told him that these were stories in the old tongue about his ancestors, kings and queens for whom the stones had sung and whose kingdoms were filled with magic.

      Royce walked over to the hut. It was simple, but he could see that someone had started to whittle carvings into the wood, working with a long life or perhaps a carefully held axe. Royce stared at those carvings, which seemed to tell the story of a man who had crossed the sea, and stared into a mirror, and…

      Royce heard Gwylim growl behind him, and he spun just in time to see an axe heading toward his face. Royce threw himself aside, and the weapon embedded itself in the wood, tearing free as a large man with wild hair and a wilder beard pulled it clear.

      “Has Carris finally found me and sent an assassin?” the man demanded, aiming another swing of the axe.

      Royce leapt back, dodging it only with an effort. He drew the obsidian sword, parrying the next blow, finding the strength to keep it from his head only barely. To his side, Gwylim was growling, looking as though he might leap at any moment.

      “No, Gwylim, don’t do it,” Royce said. That distraction almost cost him as his foe struck him in the stomach with the haft of the axe, then brought it up for a killing blow. Royce rolled away, the axe striking the dirt where he had been.

      “Father, please,” Royce called out. He tossed the obsidian blade away from him, wanting to make it clear that he wasn’t there to fight.

      “You think I’m going to fall for a trick like that?” his father demanded. “You think that assassins haven’t pretended to be everyone I care about by now? Do you plan to get me to embrace you and then stab me? I gave my son a necklace with my seal so that I would recognize him. Do you have that? No? I thought not!”

      He stepped forward, his axe raised, and for a moment, Royce feared that the magic of the mirror had made him as mad as Barihash had been, only able to see enemies everywhere. Royce raised his hands in surrender, in the hope that his father was still a good enough man to recognize that, at least.

      His father stood staring at Royce’s palms, and it took a second for Royce to realize what he was looking at: the symbol burned there; the scars from when he had been a child, grabbing for the necklace amid the flames.

      His father stopped and let the axe fall. “You… that’s my symbol. That’s the necklace I gave you. You are my son.”

      Royce smiled. “Hello, Father.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Royce stood there with his palm outstretched, and the wild-looking man stepped back.

      “Royce? It is you?”

      “Yes, Father,” Royce said, and even he could barely believe it. After all he’d been through to find him, his father was standing there. This wild man, with a beard so long it brushed his naval, was his father, was the king.

      It was hard to believe, but Royce knew it was true. Royce could see it now in the similarity of their features, but it was more than that. His father wore a signet ring with the royal crest, and while his clothes were worn and sun-bleached, Royce could still see the richness of them.

      “It’s you. It’s…”

      His father rushed forward, embracing him, the grip tight. “I’ve waited… so long for this day.” His voice sounded dry and cracked, as if he hadn’t spoken for a long time. He seemed to be remembering the words only with difficulty. “Are you sure… are you sure you’re you? That you’re not a dream?”

      It was the kind of question that could only come from being alone for so long.

      “No, it doesn’t matter. You’re you. I saw this! Saw it all! From the moment I found your mother so long ago, I hoped so much that I would see you when you were grown.”

      Royce hugged his father back. There were so many questions he wanted to ask him, so many things he wanted to say.

      “Do you see the stones?” his father asked, with the pride of a man wanting to show off the little that he had. “The stories of your ancestors, Royce.”

      He led the way around the side of the hut, to a spot where another section of stone sat, cracked and made up of separate pieces. It had the beginnings of another story on it.

      “I’ve tried to add my own life to all of theirs,” King Philip said. “On an island like this, it’s easy to find the time to do it. I talked to them, though they didn’t answer. I didn’t want to forget how to speak.”

      “Why come here, though?” Royce asked.

      His father shrugged. “I looked into the mirror.”

      It was an answer and not an answer, all at the same time. To anyone else, it wouldn’t have made sense, but Royce had looked too. He could understand having to do things without explaining them.

      “There are things that you can’t say,” Royce guessed.

      His father nodded. Pulling back from him, he moved to Gwylim, bending down to him, not the way a man would with a dog, but the way he might have with a man sitting on the ground. He held out his arm, and Ember landed on it.

      “These are strange companions you have found, my son,” he said. “The tool of a witch and a thing that wasn’t always a wolf.”

      “They’re not the only ones,” Royce said. “My friends are still in the boat.”

      “And if they’d come onto the island, I wouldn’t have shown myself,” his father said. “I would have slipped around behind you and stolen your boat to escape.”

      Royce nodded, because he knew that part. He’d seen it in the mirror.

      “Why did you leave?” he asked. “Why did you come here?”

      “I had to leave, or they would have killed me,” his father said. “And they would have killed you too. I came here because this place used to be ours, our family’s.”

      “And you left a trail for me because you knew I would come after you,” Royce said.

      “I’m not sure,” his father explained. “Holding onto the things in the mirror is hard. I can remember doing it, but all the reasons, and all the things that it might lead to… you looked into the mirror, even though I warned you not to.”

      “I did,” Royce said. “You must have seen that I would.”

      His father smiled, as if Royce hadn’t quite gotten it right. “It doesn’t work like that.”

      “I saw things,” Royce said. “I saw the way this has to go. You need to come back. The king has to return for all of this to end.”

      Now his father’s smile became a laugh that echoed around the open space of the clearing, scattering the few deer that had started to return