A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

would be in extra hours or lower pay, not the more reprehensible punishments inflicted upon the local stock. In truth, the harshest punishment was inflicted on me, not her. She would remain closed for the rest of the evening. I could only afford a blade under a questionably favorable deal. If I tried to buy from anyone else, I might as well rub two coppers together and pray for rain. That meant no iron today. She wouldn’t be leaving on time either, which meant no walk home.

I ground my teeth as I reached over her counter and grabbed the reed from the inkwell. I tore a sheet from my writ book and scrawled a note:

See you at Turns.

-F

Chapter Four

Summer 1272, Cyllian Imperial Count

I watched her vanish into the dim that held the auditor’s desks. I choked down the bitter taste of disappointment. Upon swallowing, it occurred to me that I had made a tactical error. When I left Cyllia all those years ago, I made a vow to return one day—to finish what I started. Earning my stars was about coin, yes, fame certainly, but it was a means to an end, a tool, a weapon to wield, something I needed to honor that vow. Lira was a complication, a wrinkle in a plan that had become like scar tissue around an old wound; she was a complication I could no longer ignore.

When their buildings crumbled before me, would she be by my side? When I set fire to their world, would she be there, dancing with me among the ashes?

I had come a long way from the boy that first left Cyllia. Days turned to cycles, and cycles had turned to years. Time had tempered my lust for revenge, just as it had tempered the pain. A reckoning, so long-awaited, was now something of a dream, distant and unattainable, a refuge long ago where a child could escape the pain. But heavy are the drums. They had grown quiet, patient as I had grown patient, but they waited for me still, lingering in the dark like a bed of smoldering coals.

I consolidated my coins into a single purse, content with the comfort bought with a fistful of iron. There was time to answer more significant questions another day. I folded up my writ book and proceeded down the walkway to the assessor’s office.

The office was at the opposite end from the market, where the commissary and other vendors were located. It was positioned here to be closer to the residential section of Forhd, which made visiting the office for writs and taxes just that much more convenient.

Travel within the House was something of an inconvenience. Dozens of alleys ran in loops throughout the building, connecting different sections via corridors and causeways like a massive spider’s web. Staircases led up or down in various places, linking the levels above with those below. The most direct routes were closed off, reserved instead for the sigil guard, while traffic was funneled to the wide alley that made up the outermost loop of the building—we called it the Broad Way.

I edged around a bend and approached the drop stalls. Dozens of wooden cubbies lined either side of the wall. More than half were barren. The drop stalls were intended to be a sort of vendor-less shop. Merchants would place items, food, clothing, anything they could fit in the box with a predetermined price. The attendant that worked the stalls would then remand the payment until someone’s return.

The boxes themselves weren’t large, roughly two feet by two feet, which put certain limitations on items that could be sold there, items like a majority of my craft. Most of us found ways to work around that limitation. With trade growing in Forhd, there was always a wealth of new customers visiting the House. It was in this that the boxes demonstrated their real value. Vendors would display replicas of goods or simply list their inventory on paper and use their box as an advertisement or dicker-less presale.

“A customer will stop for a pint, but won’t stay for a barrel,” Ada liked to say. He rented a stall here on that premise, and I kept it going after he passed. If Ada, one of the cheapest Ruks in all of Belen, saw the need to pay three nobles a cycle for advertisement, so did I.

Our box, my box, was nothing special. It had a placard with the name of the shop and a crude map of Forhd with our location marked. I kept a list of some common items I made—tables, chairs, axles, and the like, all with prices listed as negotiable. My only addition was a bundle of elderwood bolts.

Materials on an elderwood hinge assembly cost a little more than a silver noble a piece. I typically sold them at four or better, so in addition to being small, and a great demonstration of my skills, they were also quite lucrative to keep in stock. I had two in my pocket and was intent to replenish my inventory, but as I neared my stall, I saw the same six hinges that were there two days prior. I also saw the letters “R U K” crudely carved into the sign Monroe asked me to put up listing the shop for sale.

“Charming.” I sighed.

The attendant noticed me standing in front of the box and trotted over. He was short even for a Cyllian, with thin, black hair that he combed over the top. It was an unfortunate look considering he wasn’t much older than I was. Still, he was pleasant enough for a Southerner, if not a bit chatty. His name was Corin or Corbin, something to that…

“Faerin!” the man exclaimed with an outstretched hand.

I held my arm out with the sleeve pulled up, but he didn’t bother checking my mark before taking my hand in his own.

“There was a man here earlier, name of Dallon. He looked through your papers there and asked for