Bane of All Things

Chapter Three: Dragon's Claw

Dragon's Claw Abbey.

Ryn watched that crouching pile of dark stone rise out of the fog from the ship's forecastle.

The tall curtain wall enclosed four acres or more, crowned by a keep that rose twice as high, girded by spruce and pine on a headland that jutted into the Iceberg Sea. A fortress on the edge of nowhere that might have been older than the Kingdoms themselves. A massive grave marker for all consigned to it—the living, the dead, and those whom despair had trapped in between. Weather had blunted the profile of the merlons that cut the top of the wall and ringed the roof of the keep. The moss-eaten teeth of some decrepit grin that mocked any thought of hope or reprieve.

To the Hells with that—Ryn meant to live long enough to atone in some meager way for his sins, even if it meant doing his eight-year posting twice.

"This place won't make a difference," Josalind said from behind.

Ryn glanced back at her, surprised by the sudden comfort he felt to have her near. He wondered if she felt the same, as that hellhole drew closer to swallow them. They hadn't talked much about what came next, once Ryn assumed his duties there and she became a ward of the cloister. They didn't have to—they both knew the Claw was a segregated community ruled by discipline and propriety. It had been easier to avoid the topic, to simply exist in the moment and enjoy, while they could, whatever it was that had blossomed between them aboard ship.

And now that time had ended. The realization swamped Ryn with glum discontent. He swallowed against it and forced a light tone. "So, Havlock let you out, did he?"

She shrugged. "Might as well—we're here, aren't we?"

Gulls called from the bay, hopeless and forlorn. The char of wood smoke and a smith's forge fire carried on the air. "What do you mean, 'this place won't make a difference?'"

Josalind went to the rail, raised her hand, and pinched their new home between thumb and forefinger. "When I was a wee girl, I'd spend bells on this big flat rock, doing this to the ships that passed, to make the world small."

"I would do the same thing," Ryn said. "With our lord's men as they rode by, pretending they were toy soldiers."

"The other children teased me for being different—my ma thought that's what drove me to be alone on that rock," she said. "It wasn't the taunts, but what I saw beneath. Their fear of me. The day I saw that fear in my ma's eyes, my da's too, I knew I had nobody. Nothing I could do anymore could make the world small enough."

No self-pity in her tone, no wallowing. Just that hard bitterness again. The only shield she had against the world's judgment. Whatever vulnerability she'd let slip two nights ago while talking about her visions had been buried deep. "How old were you?" he asked.

"Twelve."

Havlock joined them with something Ryn had missed dearly—his rig with longsword and pistols. He'd put on his armor and lanyards of rank and order earlier for the first time in what seemed like an age, but he still felt like a horse missing a shoe without his rig.

"Time to look respectable again, sir," the sergeant said. He even had the shiv that Ryn would keep hidden in his boot.

Ryn inspected a pistol—oiled and buffed and equipped with a freshly knapped flint. "You're a good man, Sergeant." He buckled the belts around his waist and massaged the squarish pommel of his sword with its facets of colored quartz—red, blue, green, and white. The colors of the dead gods meant to remind him of his oath to the Clerisy. He no longer cared about the symbolism. The fine Sturvian steel assured that he had a reliable blade. Nothing else mattered.