Chapter One
My mother was a woman as wise as she was beautiful. She was not a whore, despite stories to the contrary.
She was the eldest of five sisters born of a lord. She renounced her claim to her father’s land and title when she was just sixteen. When a travelling troupe came through town, her heart was stolen by a young man with jet black hair and a singing voice that could make maidens weep.
He was my father.
My mother was a woman as wise as she was beautiful. That is why, when I was two, she tried to drive a blade of pure ivory into my heart.
But let’s back up for a moment to offer some perspective on this tale.
I was born on Harvest-Bane’s Eve, an ill omen if there ever was one. I was my mother’s third: her third child, her third boy. As you’ll see soon enough, the number three plays a pivotal role in my brief and miserable life.
My oldest brother, whose name need not be spoken, collapsed and died of a brain hemorrhage at age twelve. I do not know much about him, having never met him. All I know is that the blood that came from his ear made such a stain on the wood floorboards of our home that it was still there when I made my return sixteen years later.
My middle brother, named Harry after our father, received an ill-aimed crossbow bolt through the gut when he strayed too close to a caravan fight. That was one year later. He was six. I was one.
So, perhaps it was grief that drove my mother to throw me on the table and reach for her knives. They were the only things she carried with her when she ran from home on the back of my father’s horse. The hilts were gilded gold. A third of each could feed one family for three years.
But, the true value lay in the blades.
Narwhal ivory, and centuries old, inlaid with magic to prevent them from ever snapping or growing dull. They were a relic from an older time, when magic had not yet been forgotten.
It always astounded me that she would waste one on a boy such as me.
When my mother raised the blade over her head and uttered the words of the profane ritual that would steer her hand straight and true, a brilliant gust of wind flung the door open. Maybe it was fate that saved me that day.
But even I like to think that fate would not be so cruel.
She gasped, and took her eyes off me just long enough to misplace the thrust. The knife lodged into my collarbone and shattered. I carry the scar to this day.
The shock of her knife breaking reduced my mother to tears. It was confirmation of her most dreaded fear about me. My father—
“Come on!” the old man’s voice rang out like the sound of tearing leather. “You expect us to believe you mother had three Narwhal ivory knives. Hoy! Who do you take us for?”
“I did not say she had three,” the hooded man told him calmly.
“What then? Six?” The old man started to laugh. He cut off with a choking sound, then swept in to show his remaining teeth in a sickening grin. “You spin a tall tale, boy. Hoy! Barkeep! More ale, eh? Keep it flowing all night, that’s what I say.” Without warning, the old man drew into himself. He shuddered. “Ale’s the only thing keeping a man’s bones warm these days.”
The barkeeper was an elderly woman not unpleasant to the eye. She loaded her arms with two pitchers and carried them to the table where three men sat.
