Chapter 254: Heirloom (2) [BONUS]

The Duke was silent for a moment before he answered.

"He used the Winter Oath," he said without hesitation, as if he had been waiting for the question for days. Perhaps he had.

Grane did not move. Behind him, he heard the faint scratch of Varne’s pen.

"The Winter Oath, Your Grace?"

"It is a relic of this house." The Duke’s voice was even and dry. "The first Gannon to hold the north was given it by a mage whose name has not survived. It is a seal of frost, set into the guard of a sword. When the blade is drawn, it grants the bearer the strength of the north for a few breaths. Once. Then it is spent."

"A sword?"

"A longsword. It is given to a son of the family when he leaves for war." The Duke’s eyes did not leave Grane’s face. "The heirloom is attached to the sword, it has passed down nine generations without being used because none of us knew how to use it. My son seems to have figured it out."

Grane let the silence sit for a moment. It was a habit. People filled silences if you give them time.

The Duke did not.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Grane said at last. "But your son was not leaving for war. He was leaving this house in disgrace due to a punishment, or so I was told."

"Yes."

"And yet you gave him the greatest relic of your family."

"I may have punished him as the duke," he said. "But ensuring his safety is my duty as a parent. Those are not the same act, Inquisitor, and I would not expect a man of your experience to confuse them."

Varne’s pen stopped. After a moment, it started again.

Grane inclined his head slightly.

"Where is it now?"

"With him, I would imagine. Wherever he is." The Duke rested his hand on the edge of the desk. "If you mean the relic, it is gone. A thing like that does not remain after it is used. The seal burns out. What is left is an ordinary blade."

"How convenient."

"For whom?" the Duke asked. "My house has lost a thing it kept for two hundred years. My son is missing. I see nothing convenient in either."

Grane opened his hands as if conceding the point. He did not. He merely moved on.

"There are witnesses who say an enormous amount of cold came from him, Your Grace. Not from a sword, but from the man himself. They say he moved faster than a Grandmaster. They say he cut a beast the size of a hill in half. I have read every report the Crown possesses, and I have never encountered a relic capable of such a thing."

"Then the Crown’s reports are incomplete."

"Or the relic is."

"Inquisitor." The Duke’s voice did not rise. If anything, it grew quieter. "Ask me the question you came to ask. Not the one about the sword."

Grane studied him for a long moment.

Then he asked it.

"Is there any reason, Your Grace, to believe your son made an agreement with something that is not of this world?"

The fire cracked in the grate.

Varne stopped writing altogether.

The Duke of the North walked around his desk. Slowly, without approaching the Inquisitor, he stopped at the window and looked out over the yard. The small figure with a bundle on his back was still there, repeating the same cut in the snow, again and again.

"Nine generations of my family are buried on the northern frontier," he said. "Some have graves. Most do not. The banners in my hall bear names because there was nothing else left to put a name on."

He turned to face the Inquisitor.

"If my house has made a bargain with demons, Captain Grane, it has been a very poor one. We have paid for two hundred years and received nothing but more graves. If my son found a better price than his ancestors, I would very much like to know who sold it to him."

It was the closest thing to anger Grane had heard from him. It lasted only a breath. Then the Duke’s face was as still as before.

"Is there anything else?"

Grane remained quiet for a while.

"The Crown will want to see him," he said at last. "If he lives."

"So will I," said the Duke.

He did not offer a hand. Grane did not expect one. He bowed exactly as deeply as before, and Varne bowed beside him. Corvan, who had been standing by the door without either of them noticing when he arrived, opened it for them.

? ? ?

They rode out through the Gannon gate an hour later. The snow had stopped, leaving the road north white and empty.

Varne waited until the house was out of sight before speaking.

"Do you believe him?"

"About the sword and the relic?" Grane pulled his collar higher. "No. That’s probably a lie."

"Then why didn’t you press him?"

"Because I’d have learned nothing more. A man who keeps you waiting exactly one hour doesn’t break in the second." Grane looked down the road. "And because it doesn’t matter yet whether I believe him. What matters is that he has now said it in front of two officers of the Crown. Whatever happens next, the Duke of the North has put his name on that story."

"He knew you didn’t believe it."

"Yes. He knew, and he told it anyway." Something resembling respect crossed Grane’s otherwise forgettable face. "That tells me more than the story itself."

"What does it tell you?"

"That he will stand in front of his son," Grane said. "Whatever his son turns out to be."

Varne wrote that down too.

They rode on toward the Maren Ridge.

? ? ?

In the study, Corvan stood beside the desk and waited until the riders had disappeared from the road.

"Your Grace."

"Say it."

"There is no relic called the Winter Oath in Gannon’s history. There is a sword called by that name and. I gave it to him myself the night the young master left, because Your Grace asked me to. It is a good sword, I know but it does not freeze bridges."

"I know."

"The house records-"

"-will show that the seal of frost was set into the guard by a mage of the first Gannon’s household," the Duke interrupted, "and that it was entered into the register of the house treasures in the year of the founding."

He picked up his pen.

"Find me the old register, Corvan. And a bottle of the iron-gall ink my grandfather used. It fades in a particular way."

Corvan regarded him for a long moment.

Then he bowed.

"Yes, Your Grace."

? ? ?

Thank you for the magic castle, @Stingdragon ~