Chapter 4
Two more days on the mountain trail, and Evran begins to understand why he usually spends his time with turnips.
The soreness does not leave, exactly, but it shifts, settling into his muscles and making itself at home, finding a tolerable arrangement with his body that allows both of them to get through the day.
By the second morning he can mount without wincing.
By the afternoon, he has stopped bracing against the mare's gait and started moving with it, his hips finding the rhythm through repetition and stubbornness and the quiet insistence of a body that refuses to be bad at things for long.
The body learns, the body adapts, and Evran has always been good at adapting.
The days blur together in the best way. They ride through landscapes that change with the altitude, dense pine forests giving way to rocky passes, then opening suddenly into wide alpine meadows where the grass is new and bright and the sky is so close Evran feels he could reach up and press his palm flat against it.
The air thins as they climb and thickens as they descend, and the temperature swings wildly between passes, golden on the south-facing slopes and sharp with lingering winter on the north.
Evran bonds with Bran on the ride, and it is difficult not to.
The man is a natural companion, someone who draws conversation out of you without seeming to try, who asks about your life and actually listens to the answers because he genuinely enjoys the sound of other people's voices and opinions.
He tells Evran about previous Gatherings, the feuds that were settled, the alliances that were forged, the one memorable occasion when a Warlord challenged another to a drinking contest and both ended up unconscious under the same table.
Leona rides beside them sometimes, quiet and watchful, her eyes scanning the trail ahead with a vigilance that would seem iron if not for the way her mouth keeps quirking as she listens to them.
She does not tell stories of her own, but it is clear she takes enjoyment out of hearing their banter.
When Evran asks her a direct question, about the route, about the clans, about what to expect, she answers with the sort of directness that Evran has come to value above almost anything else.
"The Rendari Warlord is a fair man," she tells him on the second day, when they have stopped to rest the horses in a high pass. "His name is Harath. He's been ruling for twenty years and hosting the Gathering for fifteen. He takes the neutrality of the council seriously."
"Is he a good man?" Evran asks.
Leona considers this. "He is an honorable one. In the clans, that matters more." She pauses. "But yes. He is good. His wife is better."
On the morning of the third day, Bran pulls his horse alongside Evran's and points to the horizon.
"There," he says. "Just past the ridgeline. You'll see it when we come through the trees."
Evran follows the line of his finger and sees nothing but mountains and sky and the dark smudge of pine forest draping the valley below.
They ride forward, the trail descending in long switchbacks through the tree line, and the forest closes in around them, blocking the view.
The air warms. The sound of running water grows louder, and then they are crossing a stone bridge over a rushing river, the spray cold on Evran's face, and the trees thin, and the trail opens, and Heldrin's End fills the world below them.
The valley stretches out before them, green and wide and impossible, cupped between the mountains on all sides.
Farmland quilts the lowlands in patches of turned earth and new growth, sectioned by stone walls and hedgerows and the silver threads of irrigation channels catching the midday sun.
Orchards line the lower slopes, their branches heavy with blossom, white and pale pink, caught in drifts that seem to hover between the earth and the sky.
Roads wind between homesteads and outbuildings, and there are people moving along them, small at this distance but alive, going about the work of a valley that has been cultivated and cared for across generations.
And at the center of it all, the stronghold.
It rises from the valley floor as though it grew there, as though the stone of the mountain simply decided to rearrange itself into walls and towers and gatehouse.
Where Vaike's stronghold is perched and angular and built to withstand siege, Heldrin's End is a settled kingdom all on its own, broad and low and sprawling, with wings that extend in multiple directions and outbuildings that cluster around its base in a tight, familiar press.
The stone is grey-gold in the sunlight, and the banners hanging from the walls, deep green and silver, the Rendari colors, shift lazily in the valley breeze.
It has the permanence of something that has been there forever and intends to remain forever more, unmoved and unmoving, rooted in the earth the way the mountains themselves are rooted.
"It's beautiful," Evran breathes.
Vaike pulls his horse alongside. He does not say anything, but Evran can feel him watching, and when Evran tears his gaze away from the valley long enough to look, there is something quiet and satisfied in Vaike's expression, the look he gets when a gift has landed well.
"Leona was right," Evran says. "About spring."
"Leona is usually right," Vaike says. "Don't tell her I said that."
From up ahead, without turning around, Leona says, "I heard you."
Bran's laughter carries all the way down the trail.
They descend into the valley and arrive at the stronghold gates by early afternoon. The gates are open, wide oak-and-iron doors set into walls three times the height of a man, and through them Evran can see a bustling courtyard and the organized chaos of an event already in motion.
They are expected. A delegation of Rendari retainers meets them inside the gate, quick and efficient, taking horses and directing baggage and offering water and bread for the road-weary.
The man leading them is broad-shouldered and grey at the temples, his manner carrying the careful courtesy of a lifetime spent making powerful people comfortable.
He greets Vaike by name and with genuine delight, and when his eyes move to Evran, they do so without surprise or judgment.
The ease of it catches Evran off guard. He has spent months preparing himself for the scrutiny he assumed would come, the whispered questions, the sideways glances, the subtle and not-so-subtle calculations of people trying to determine what a southern lord's son is doing at the Warlord's side.
He braced for it the way he braces for most things, with quiet dread and the armor of composure, and instead he finds only welcome and the matter-of-fact acceptance of people who have been told he is coming and are genuinely pleased to receive him.
"The eastern wing has been prepared for the Drakkari delegation," the man says. "If you'll follow me."
They follow through the courtyard, past a training ground where warriors are sparring, through an arched passage that opens onto an inner garden, smaller than the outer grounds but lush, with climbing roses and a central fountain that catches and throws sunlight in bright fragments.
Then through a heavy oak door and into the eastern wing, which is all warm stone and tapestried walls and the clean smell of rush-strewn floors.
Their rooms are generous. High ceilings, tall windows that overlook the valley, a fireplace already laid with kindling.
The bed is larger than the one at home and draped in furs and quilts of Rendari green, and Evran sets his pack down and runs his hand along the carved wooden bedframe, feeling the patterns beneath his fingertips, vines and leaves and the suggestion of mountains.
He does not have long to admire it. There is unpacking to do, and after that there is the business of being seen.
The first day at Heldrin's End is spent at Vaike's side, and Evran is glad of it.
There are people to meet, many people. The Rendari delegation alone seems to number in the dozens, and they come in a steady stream throughout the afternoon, council members and advisors, warriors and trade masters, each one greeting Vaike with the blend of respect and wariness that powerful men inspire.
Evran stands beside his husband and is introduced, again and again, and each time he offers his hand and his name and a smile that he hopes conveys I am pleased to meet you and not I am overwhelmed and my thighs are still sore from three days on horseback.
He learns names and forgets them almost instantly, then learns them again.
The Rendari trade master is a heavyset woman with ink-stained fingers and an encyclopedic knowledge of grain prices.
The head of the Rendari guard is a scarred man with kind eyes who asks Evran about the mountain crossing with genuine interest, an abiding love for the mountains that never tires of hearing about them.
A succession of advisors and minor officials blur together in a procession of handshakes and titles, and Evran does his best to keep track and accepts gracefully that he will not remember half of them by morning.
The other clans are still arriving. Evran catches glimpses of unfamiliar banners and unfamiliar faces in the corridors, but as everyone is still getting settled, the first day belongs to the Rendari, the host clan, the keepers of the peace.