5. Reputation
Reputation
Faren
Autumn was upon Fenrir City like a wolf on a lamb, quietly stalking the streets with icy teeth and a coat made of gray fog.
Conversely, the air was hot inside Fenrir’s Ire.
Faren had already cast his cloak aside, the heat of so many bodies chafing his skin.
The hearth was blazing, the flames casting strange shadows on walls hung with old portraits and the silver flashes of mounted swords and axes.
He and his fellows sat at a table in the center of the room, too many chairs crowded round.
Empty pints littered the table’s surface, along with the remaining scraps of a loaf of bread and a plate with the last scrapings of herb butter.
Lee and Shae were at it again, debating the rumors that Maronan spies had infiltrated the Collegium.
Faren was only half listening, distracted by the events of the day, as well as a gaggle of drunk Lawful Knights at the other end of the pub, arm in arm, singing along with a bard’s jaunty tune.
It was just beginning to set in that with tomorrow’s departure, Faren would be leaving the luxuries of the castle: camping under the stars, riding through poor weather, hunting for his own food, and sharing the company of a woman he loathed.
She was the fly in his salve, the raincloud on his sunny day, the mold in his bread. She made a highly honorable opportunity feel like an inconvenience—and they weren’t even on the road yet.
“Enough debates,” Warner complained, his voice a little too loud, words slightly slurred. He raised his tankard in Faren’s direction, foam sloshing down the side. “We’re here to celebrate our fellow, after all.”
Shae briefly scowled in the direction of the singing—the rowdy voices must’ve been an affront to her sound magic—then raised her mug, too. “Yes. Congratulations on spending the next few weeks sleeping on the ground in the rain. I couldn’t be happier for you.”
“You’ll be a captain in no time,” Lee added.
Faren threw back the last of his ale. “Captain Hayward,” he said. “Has a nice ring to it, no?”
“No,” Shae said, laughing into her cider.
“You’ll miss me,” Faren insisted, shoving her upper arm.
She shoved him back. “If you get eaten by an abomination and never return, yes, I suppose I’d grow to miss you,” she replied. “However, I look forward to a temporary respite from your self-important do-gooding.”
“You do make us look bad,” Warner added, but his eyes were creased with cheer.
“Think not of abominations,” Lee said. “When you return, the Major will no doubt reward your triumph.”
“Hear, hear!” Warner hooted, hefting his tankard and drinking deep.
A knight with strawberry-blonde hair—fresh off a shift, still wearing her golden armor—paused beside their table. Mara was a new recruit, a graduate of the group Faren had helped train this past spring.
She placed a pint on the table in front of him. “I heard you’re drinking for free tonight. Condolences, perhaps?”
“The journey will be perilous, but nothing I can’t handle,” Faren assured her.
She took a sip of her own pint, her pert nose scrunching in a grimace. “I heard about your travel companion.”
Shae leaned forward. “Who is it?”
Mara looked at Faren. His orders had not specified a need to keep Mariana’s involvement undisclosed; as a rule, there were few secrets among the Mighty. With a smile, he extended a hand at Mara, bidding she continue.
Mara dropped her voice. “Mariana Bellkeep, right?”
Shae swore. “That explains why I saw her storming through the courtyard earlier.”
“Who’s that?” Warner asked, reaching for Lee’s unfinished tankard and claiming it for his own.
The sight magician’s forehead creased, but not—it seemed—because of his pilfered ale. “She’s a Valiant Knight.”
Shae rested her arm along the back of Lee’s chair, swiveling her attention toward Faren. “Why didn’t you mention that she was the one escorting you?”
Faren spread his hands in an easy, shrug-like gesture. He supposed that talking about Mariana made the situation seem like more of an ordeal than it was; it gave her too much credit. He didn’t want the topic to sour his excitement.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mara cut in. “I didn’t mean to gossip…”
“It’s fine, Mara,” Faren said. “I’ve been told Mariana will serve as a skilled guide.”
Her attention briefly darted to a dark corner, then her unsettled expression cleared. “Well, they couldn’t’ve picked a more worthy Mighty Knight.” With a sheepish smile, Mara lifted her pint, miming cheers. “May the Fates bless your travels.”
He lifted his tankard and tipped his head in thanks.
The moment Mara had left, Shae rested her elbows on their table and pinned Faren with a hard stare. “Mariana Bellkeep, truly?”
“It’s nothing,” Faren said, but the line that had formed between Shae’s eyebrows worried him.
“It’s not nothing,” Shae said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “They could’ve assigned any Valiant knight to guide you to Yar-on-Gray, but Mariana was a choice.”
“Maiden Morta Killer,” Lee added, low.
“There’s a reason the Valiant call her that,” Shae went on. “Few can defeat a Morta on their own, but she is notorious for solo kills.”
Faren thought back to the report Oderin had shared of Valiant names, kills, and locations.
He recalled seeing Mariana’s name, but not particularly high on the list. Then again, if the Valiant were strategically awarding kills to the highest members of their various factions, the ledger’s numbers would be skewed.
“Her skill is a good thing, is it not?” Faren asked. “We won’t be waylaid by monsters in the same way we might with a less talented Valiant Knight guiding me.”
“The chances of you dying by abomination are lower,” Shae conceded, “but dying at the hands of a Valiant Knight…” She spread her palms.
“There will be no dying,” Faren stated with a scoff. “My orders are simple. It’s a fact-finding endeavor.” Besides, his Mirror of Death had shown him that he’d meet his end right here in Fenrir City—not the Western Wood. Mariana didn’t rouse fear in him, only contempt.
“Mariana isn’t your average criminal-turned-knight,” Lee warned.
“What’s so scary about her?” Warner asked, slurping from the tankard he’d stolen from Lee.
Lee reached over and took it before Warner could finish it off. “Enough ale for you.”
“She has a reputation,” Shae said.
“She’s a troublemaker,” Faren told Warner. “I’ve encountered her plenty. She is sarcastic, temperamental, and a bit stabby, but she’s still Oath-bound.”
“How much do you know about her Oath, Faren?” Shae’s blue eyes were wide. It wasn’t like her to indulge in conspiracy or fear mongering; generally speaking, she was cocky but pragmatic.
Faren shrugged, but a sense of dread was congealing in his stomach like coagulating blood. “She was a thief, right? That’s how she got her sentence?”
“A notorious thief,” Shae said.
“Can’t be that good, if she got caught,” Warner slurred.
Lee handed him a piece of bread, presumably to soak up some of the ale. Warner gave it an appreciative sniff with his heightened sense of smell, then chewed quietly as Shae continued.
“Mariana stole something valuable from Lord Haron himself. She was only eleven years old.” Faren could barely hear Shae over the din in the pub.
“The only reason she was caught was because, days later, a castle guard overheard her telling her father about the object’s disappearance.
She was immediately captured and put in the dungeon.
Lord Haron was so incensed that he sentenced her for life in the Valiant, thinking she’d…
” Shae swiped a finger across her throat, leaving it unsaid.
“Eleven years old?” Faren asked dubiously.
Lee nodded. “That’s what I heard, too.”
Faren frowned. “How did she survive?”
“Rumor has it that she joined one of the Valiant factions,” Shae said. “The leader took her under his wing.”
Heris Morvain.
“A woman who grows up among highly skilled criminals, hunting horrifying monsters in the woods, exposed that much violence and terror and who knows what else…” Shae paused, letting the silence stretch. “That’s a hardened woman, indeed.”
As Lee and Shae began swapping rumors about Mariana—“I heard the Lord sent her into the woods with no training or weapons,” “I heard he imprisoned her family, as further punishment,” “I heard the item she stole is still missing”—Faren shoved his hand in his pocket and dragged his thumb across the small carved fox figurine he kept on his person at all times.
The wood was worn smooth. His sister Eva had whittled it out of birch and given it to him before he left home to join Fenrir’s Mighty.
It was a common practice among touch magicians to carry an object of comfort—a stone, a scrap of fabric, a piece of leather—and over the years, the little fox had become his constant companion.
A connection to home. He wasn’t proud of the habit, but it soothed him. Grounded him.
“What did she steal?” Warner asked, cutting through Lee and Shae’s rapid conversation.
“No one knows,” Lee replied. “But I’m sure there would be a handsome reward for finding it.”
Faren’s mind began to stir. Gaining Mariana’s trust was unlikely, but as Oderin had pointed out, perhaps she’d let something slip during their travels.
If he uncovered what she’d stolen—if he located it—he’d be sure to seize the promotion he sought.
“Why have I never heard of this incident?” Faren asked.
“Publicly admitting that an eleven-year-old farm girl stole something of value from Castle Might would’ve been too humiliating,” Shae said. “Only a few Mighty Knights were entrusted with the investigation.”
Warner bit off another hunk of bread. “A farm girl got into Castle Might, slipped past countless guards, and stole something from the Lord for…what? For fun? Sounds like a story a criminal would invent for clout.”
Faren frowned thoughtfully. Warner had a point.
But Shae shook her head. “My aunt was a Mighty Knight at the time and was on duty the day Mariana was caught and tried. Apparently, Mariana’s father had taken her along for a public visitation with the Lord.
No one knows her motive, but it happened.
They cornered her with questioning, managed to prove that she knew more than what she ought about the castle’s hidden passageways, and then they forced her to take the Oath. ”
Faren pictured a young Mariana kneeling before the Lord, reciting the binding words of her Order.
Squires handing her an adult-sized breastplate, a sword.
Even for such a bold theft, the sentence seemed cruel.
Barbaric. Faren shuddered to think of the things Mariana must’ve experienced after that.
The danger and brutality. A vulnerable young girl among monsters.
When it came to Mariana, pity was a new emotion for Faren. One he didn’t want to examine.
He thought of all the ways she’d irritated him and disrespected the realm he loved and served, and his irritation flared like a fire once more. “You say all this as if to warn me, but I’m not afraid of her,” Faren stated. “The most I’ve felt toward her is annoyance.”
“You sure you haven’t felt anything else?” Warner asked, bouncing his eyebrows.
Lee threw another chunk of bread at him.
Faren balked. “What do you mean by that?”
“She is your type.” When Warner saw the confused glower on Faren’s face, he added, “Complicated.”
Warner must’ve been referring to the adept Faren had courted for a while, a brilliant expert in arcane language who was, admittedly, a poor communicator in relationships; or perhaps the Knight of the Order of the Invisible—a literal spy—that Faren had been seeing up until she broke things off last winter.
Much as Faren hated to admit it, complicated was not an inaccurate descriptor for the women he was attracted to.
A more generous word would be compelling.
Still, Faren waved him off. “You’re too deep in your cups.”
Warner laughed like he’d been kidding, but the suggestion of any attraction toward Mariana troubled Faren. Strong, intelligent women had an allure, sure, but Faren required his paramours to have a moral compass.
Shae snapped her fingers, bringing the men’s attention back to the matter at hand. Her glare at Warner had him sinking lower in his chair. “My point,” she said at length, turning to Faren, “is that you should watch your back.”
Faren spread his arms wide, giving his friends a confident grin. “Already part of my plan.”
After sharing a worried glance with Lee, Shae lowered her voice again. “Trauma shapes a person,” she said. “What sort of shape do you think Mariana’s experiences carved her into?”
A weapon, he thought grimly.