TARTH

  “In the oldest days, animals measured worth by strength and splendor.

  The lion—mane blazing like a fallen sun—ruled the jungles.

  The eagle—a living spear of sharp talons and feathers—owned the sky.

  Each animal boasted of their majestic gifts and introduced their beautiful lair with pride.

  Last came the rat, small and dust-covered, burrowing through roots and storing others’ wastes in its dark chambers.

  Everyone laughed. Everyone despised it.

  Then one year—”

  OOWAA!

  The blare of horns and the tolling of the Tower bell tore Tarth from his strange dream in the middle of the night.

  For a fleeting instant, he lay still, suspended between sleep and waking.

  Then he started.

  Those were no ordinary signals of the hour.

  “Captain?”

  The word left him by reflex.

  Yet the sight that met his eyes dispelled the last haze of drowsiness. Elios’s bed stayed empty. The sheets were smoothly laid out, undisturbed by any weight.

  Tarth sprang upright and struck flint to wick, coaxing a frail flame into being. The chamber leapt into wavering light as shadows retreated. As he turned, his hand swept across the opposite bed, searching.

  Dead cold.

  The captain had not lain there at all.

  Tarth’s eyes scanned the room and caught a small folded note at the corner of the table. He picked it up for a brief scrutiny, but the content inside glued his eyes to it.

  Damnation.

  He tossed the paper into the flame and thrust his feet into his flat-soled shoes, without care for proper fastening.

  The distant uproar, the horn’s harsh cry—suddenly they seemed to press in upon Tarth’s ribs like unseen fingers.

  Already? Too late, maybe?

  The thought struck him hard, yet Tarth was not a man to lie still and surrender himself to whatever fate chose to unfold.

  He drew on his Seeker’s attire with unusual speed. Papers were gathered and tucked away; a small pouch of coins was fastened securely at his belt. His eyes paused upon the black sword resting in the dim corner. For a heartbeat, he considered it—then turned aside as he walked through the door.

  Beyond the structure, the night had not yet yielded to dawn. The air laid heavy and chilly. From afar came angry shouts—broken at intervals by sharp blasts of signal tusks.

  None were familiar to him.

  He had followed Elios for a while and lodged at the White Nest more than once, yet never had he heard the Tower sound so restless.

  As he neared the gate, the watchman lifted a hand.

  “Back inside. There's an alarm. Not the sort of thing to jest about.”

  Tarth drew two silver coins from his purse and set them quietly beside the lantern’s glow.

  “For something warm when your watch is done,” he said mildly. “Only tell me—what stirs out there?”

  The guard gave him a long, skeptical look, but his hand drifted toward the coins all the same.

  “No concern of yours,” he muttered. “It’s within the inner Tower.”

  This is bad.

  If Tarth trusted his instincts, nine parts of this turmoil bore the scent of his captain.

  A chill crept along Tarth’s spine at the thought.

  Yet beneath the fear and the bewilderment, another realization took hold—sharp, unavoidable.

  Elios had not woken him up.

  His throat slowly turned dry. Each draught of air burned over his heart as though he swallowed raw alcohol.

  Was it anger?

  Or disappointment?

  Perhaps both.

  Yet neither would have left that bitter taste upon his tongue without a measure of something else mixed beneath them. Tarth ground his teeth.

  Six winters.

  Nineteen high commissions.

  Three wounds of consequence. The broken ribs beside his liver were still throbbing like a reminder of dangers beyond his league right now.

  And yet… it still seemed not enough for them to trust him.

  And why should they?

  Who was he, in truth?

  A gutter-thief once clad in spits and dirt, spared the gaol only because Azen had seen fit to grant him a chance at service in place of chains. Everyone looked at him and saw a rat—a trained rat, but a rat all the same.

  No.

  Not everyone.

  Tarth lifted his left hand and brushed his thumb across the new silver ring he had just donned yesterday.

  There is, at least, one man.

  He closed his fingers over it, holding it fast, as though it were some sacred talisman against the unease gathering in his chest.

  He will understand.

  Having made up his mind, Tarth thanked the watchman and turned away.

  He moved along the length of White Nest’s ancient wall, eyes tracing brick, mortar and timber joints. The place was solidly built, but to one who had once lived a thief's life, no fence was seamless.

  Wood warped. Mortar cracked. Even stone shifted under the test of time. Age could do what siege engines could not.

  Tarth slowed his steps, letting the noise of the distant alarm fade behind. Here, along the forgotten stretch of wall where moss clung thick, a narrow drainage slit caught his eye. It was half-choked with fallen leaves, and mud there had already compromised the earth.

  Too small and dirty for most men.

  Most.

  He crouched, listening first.

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  No bootstep. No voice. No horns. Good.

  He worked the leaves free in silence, fingers moving without pause. The past was a stubborn tutor; it never truly released its pupils. The slit widened just enough where stone had crumbled at the base. A squeeze, a twist of the shoulders, an exhale to narrow the ribs—

  Pain flared faintly at his old fracture.

  He ignored it.

  Within moments, he slipped through, landing soundlessly in a narrow service passage that ran between the outer quarters and the lesser storehouses.

  Tarth pressed his back to the cold stone and closed his eyes for a single breath, counting time in his head.

  Life had taught him patience. Just like faith, it lent him the strength to endure—something had saved his life more times than any god.

  He waited for the narrow silence between two horn blasts.

  On the dying echo of the first and before the second could rise, he drew a deep breath and slipped into the night.

  Tarth did not search for Elios.

  Being kept aside as an outsider, he owed him no such duty. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have known where to begin or how to help.

  Tarth kept to the lesser paths, avoiding torchlight. Sometimes, night-patrol groups passed by, and he wove between them like a weasel.

  He would find the one man who might solve the problem.

  Or at least—who understood it.

  It was no great trial to find again the timber house by the river where they had come the day before. Tarth reached it after slipping beneath the shadowed sides of two bridges.

  That was the simple part.

  How to request an audience with Lord Viltar without committing some grave impropriety—that was the true difficulty.

  He lingered beneath a tree, weighing his approach, when a voice suddenly drifted down from above.

  “Enter. The Archon awaits.”

  Tarth looked up, his face pale.

  Perched upon a branch sat the same guardian he had glimpsed the previous afternoon, hands folded behind his back, composure unchanged—as though this bough were just his doorstep.

  What was his name again? Seraph, isn’t it?

  Tarth bowed hastily, words catching in his throat, and stepped through the gate. Within, the garden breathed its subtle fragrance, though no blossoms were in sight.

  No servant came forth to receive him. No attendant. The great house lay dark and hushed, as though abandoned to dust.

  Yet Tarth knew better.

  He followed the same passage as before and climbed to the upper study. The door stood unlatched. After a brief hesitation, he pushed it open and entered.

  A familiar figure sat at the center table, calmly grinding ink.

  Viltar looked up and smiled.

  “Do not sit just yet. Since you are already standing, brew a pot of hot tea first. The night bites, does it not?”

  Tarth nodded, somewhat flustered. Each time he stood before this man, his prepared words dissolved like mist. After a strained pause, he managed,

  “You haven’t slept, my lord?”

  Viltar cast him a sidelong glance, the curve of his smile deepening.

  “Nor have you. To speak plainly, you arrived even sooner than I anticipated. Your skills keep surprising me.”

  Tarth nodded, then shook his head, then stilled when the import of those words hit him.

  “You knew that I would come?”

  Viltar did not answer at once. Instead, he opened a drawer beside the desk and withdrew a folded night-patrol uniform, extending it toward Tarth.

  “I had prepared three sets,” he said mildly. “Yet I was informed only one remained. Now the whole Tower is roused by alarm. It required little imagination to conclude what it meant.”

  Prepared sets? What did that mean?

  Had this been arranged from the beginning? Was he meant to stand apart?

  The more he pondered, the less he understood. At last, Tarth bowed his head and spoke with candor.

  “My lord… I cannot discern the beginning from the end of this affair. Please, enlighten me.”

  Viltar tapped a finger lightly against the edge of the desk, his expression turning thoughtful.

  “It may sound absurd, but—,” he said at length, “I am as perplexed as you. Our plan was meant to unfold at dawn. What has happened tonight was not of my design at all.”

  Tarth stared, words stumbling from him.

  “Then the uniform…?”

  “A precaution,” Viltar replied. “Prepared in case the current shifted us toward a dangerous fall. No one anticipated that Elios would employ it to move of his own accord so soon.” His gaze lowered briefly to the inkstone. “He was hastening way too much. Even I couldn't see the track of his shadow.”

  The horn outside wailed again, long and uncanny. Tarth forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  “Captain appears to be in grave trouble, my lord,” he said. “Is there any means by which we might assist him? I am certain whatever he has done, he did it for your sake.”

  Viltar’s gaze lowered slightly.

  “I never doubted Elios’s loyalty. And if it were him alone, I might yet contrive a justification,” he said. “But the Frothena girl complicates the matter.”

  Wait. What?

  “Frothena girl?” Tarth blurted out.

  Even Viltar seemed to be taken aback by his confusion. He spread out three fingers, then retracted one.

  “Three uniforms,” he repeated. “Two taken.”

  Understanding struck like a hammer.

  “Even that woman took part,” Tarth swallowed hard, “and I was left behind?”

  For a fleeting instant, something stirred behind Viltar’s eyes, though his voice remained even.

  “Don’t rush to judgment,” he said, pouring a cup of tea and gesturing for Tarth to take it. “Maybe Elios merely wanted to protect you.”

  “From what, my lord?” Tarth looked up sharply. “Had I been afraid of danger, I wouldn’t have stayed.”

  “Burden of knowledge.” Viltar rose and stepped away from the desk, pacing once toward the window. “Some truths are buried for a reason, and you could go back no longer once you learn about them.”

  Did Captain deem me unfit for such a challenge?

  Tarth exhaled deeply, protesting.

  “That was not how we Seekers work.”

  Viltar shook his head.

  “Whether it was so or not,” he said calmly, “that was Elios’s decision. He is the captain. Your captain. He has the right to select which pieces suit which task, and he alone must answer for those choices. I will not fault him for that.”

  Tarth murmured, forgetting even to drink,

  “Does being a captain… mean so much difference?”

  Viltar stepped closer, laying a hand upon his shoulder.

  “Of course. You must learn to see from that height. Whatever you may wish, a good leader cannot truly remain a good friend—not even if he desires it. A ship’s captain has only one faithful companion—the ship. When you command a crew of your own, you will understand.”

  Tarth looked up, uncertain.

  “I could… become a captain too?”

  “Why not?” Viltar replied with a laugh. “I have told you before—you lack a bit of ambition. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, but the Tower is built for those who climb.”

  His gaze sharpened slightly.

  “Look at the Frothena. She is a northern wolf coming south with such burning hunger. Her resolve is what takes her there.”

  Tarth watched the fine porcelain cup in his hands, its rising warmth seeping into fingers still crusted with mud. The contrast was almost absurd.

  “You are right, my lord,” Tarth said at last. “She's an outstanding warrior. Captain has long treated her as an equal. I remain… a subordinate.”

  Viltar did not immediately reply. He regarded Tarth for a long moment, as though weighing something.

  “Elios has his arrangements,” he said at last, voice low. “But I also had mine when I placed you within the team. I need three capable souls who might support and temper one another—three pillars in balance. Not a pair and a spare.”

  Tarth tightened his fingers around the porcelain cup.

  “But why does it feel,” he asked quietly, “like one pillar stands lower than the rest?”

  A faint breath of amusement touched Viltar’s lips.

  “You tell me.”

  The words landed deeper than a request. Tarth felt it.

  “I—I don’t know if I would ever catch up to them.”

  “You won’t,” Viltar claimed with a firm tone. “Elios’s talent is unique, and that Frothena girl hasn’t even finished her martial growth.”

  Tarth’s throat tightened.

  Viltar’s expression turned soft as he smiled.

  “But what for? Don’t try to be another Elios. Don’t try to beat that girl. You are you, with your own talent.”

  He gestured faintly toward Tarth’s hands, still marked by mud and stone.

  “You move where no one can. You do what others are afraid of and can endure what breaks them instead. Where someone falls, you can keep thriving.”

  A short pause. Viltar looked through the open window, mumbling.

  “And up there, on the heights of the Tower, the winds grow fierce at night.”

  The words were calm, yet Tarth felt them cut deeper than swords. He adjusted the silver ring upon his finger and stepped forward.

  “Something’s falling apart tonight, my lord?” he asked.

  Viltar folded his hands behind his back.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Tonight, we wait. I’ve nudged the board a little—loosened a few seams, so Elios and that girl may find room to breathe. Whether they could escape or not, however, depends on them alone.”

  He turned toward the dim window, listening to the distant horns.

  “If Elios remains as sharp as I expect, then come morning, we shall be able to question him face to face.”

  “I meant, what about me?” Tarth lowered his gaze lightly. “What am I meant to do now?”

  Viltar glanced at him, brows widened.

  “For you alone, tonight is a reckoning. Don’t waste it. Go back, look deep within yourself and make the decision about your path.”

  The room fell still.

  Tarth swallowed. “And if I choose it wrong, my lord?”

  Viltar turned fully toward him now.

  “Remember, you could always come here.”

  A long pause. The horn wailed again in the distance. Viltar gave him a small nod.

  “Now go.”

  Tarth bowed by instinct, still clutching the ring in his palm, his thoughts tangled in Viltar’s final words.

  When he came back to himself, he found he had already stepped into the garden. At his side walked Seraph, silent as ever. Tarth could not tell when the man had appeared—only that his stride matched his own with uncanny precision, like a shadow given flesh.

  “Return straight to the White Nest,” Seraph said. “Remain there. Do nothing foolish. I shall come if the need arises.”

  With that, he sprang upward in a fluid motion and vanished into the dark canopy, as though swallowed by the night itself.

  Tarth shook his head faintly.

  “Demons, the lot of them.”

  Yet he did not dwell upon it.

  Something within him had shifted. The ground beneath his life felt less certain than before, yet strangely nearer to change.

  And from some forgotten corner of his childhood, an old folktale stirred in his memory, slowly emerging unbidden through the noise of the horns.

  “—Seasons turned. And one year, came the Great Drought.

  Rain ceased. Rivers shrank. The grass turned to ash. Herbs vanished.

  The lion’s strength could not feed his vast hunger, and the king of beasts lay down beside dry bones.

  The eagle found nothing in the empty heavens. It fell where even the wind had abandoned the earth.

  One by one, the mighty vanished.

  But underground, the rat endured.

  Its ugly teeth gnawed roots. Its hidden stores fed its small body. Its tunnels held life where the sun couldn’t steal it.

  When the rains returned, and green shoots rose again, the first creature to greet them was a whiskered nose pushing through the soil.

  And so it is said:

  When the lion starves, and the eagle fails to soar, the rat is the ultimate winner.”