A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

officer, stole a fortune, murdered a generous man, started a war, and destroyed a third of the food supply needed to fuel that war effort. I was surprised they didn’t kill me in the courtroom.

So, I slept the kind of sleep that only comes with hopeless despair. I wasn’t entirely sure when I would be executed; such a thing might take some time. Now that I was sentenced, there was little need to rush. There were still questions they had, and I assumed that a few adjusted fingers and a split lip would be the least of my injuries.

I heard motion outside my door, and my eyes opened. I saw the flicker of torchlight coming in from the half-circle window, but it was not the moving light that might indicate someone approaching. It was the steady light of a torch reminding me it was outside, and I was not.

With a sigh, I picked my legs up and leaned against the wall, watching the light. It was not because I was rested, no, I could have slept for days; it was the grating sound that came from under the wall to the right that had me abandoning sleep. It was a scraping, crunching, obnoxious noise that was not rhythmic enough to be ignored as you might ignore the continuous dripping of water from a leaking roof. I felt the noise scrape across my spine.

“You mind shutting the fuck up over there?” I shouted. “I’m trying to sleep.”

The sound stopped, and all went quiet, save the continuous sound of trickling water. It was silent for several moments, and I allowed myself to close my eyes once more.

Scrape.

My eyes opened, and I stormed over to the hole at the bottom of the wall. “Look, mate, you and I are both in the same boat here, I would appreciate it…”

Scrape.

I let out a groan then took a seat back on my cot. The noise continued for several more minutes. I did my best to ignore them.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Then nothing. It was silent once more. I counted the breaths, five, ten, twenty, one hundred. I held my breath then dared to lay back down and close my eyes. I relaxed and drifted off to sleep; I began a nice dream, Lira was there, and we were doing certain things to each other that…

Scrape.

“Shit and bother, fuck! Stop making that damn noise!”

Silence again. I would not be baited. I sat upright on my cot staring at the wall when a new sound emerged, a trickling of water just louder than normal. When I looked at the little river that ran the length of my cell, I saw familiar bubbles.

“Really? Not content enough to keep me awake, you want to piss down the trough?” I shook my head and closed my eyes, wishing to all the quin of Men and Mere that the wall between us would just crumble away. When I opened my eyes, there was a less pleasant sight accompanying an odorous smell careening off the edges as it made its slow way across my cell.

Scrape.

I resigned myself to say nothing more. In my silence, the noise took on a whole new cadence. It became the wind; it became laughter; it became song. When he got nothing from me, I heard shuffling noise on the other side of the wall, the sound of bare feet on stone.

“You Cyllians are too...serious,” a voice echoed from the wall. His accent was heavy, remote, and difficult to place.

“I’m not Cyllian,” I corrected, not bothering to get up from my cot.

“No?” he asked. “What are you then?”

I rolled over on my cot, putting my back to the wall. “Dead.”

I heard a sharp sound that could have been a laugh, then silence.

“You are...busy,” he said, pausing as if searching for the proper word. “We can talk more later.”

I rolled my eyes and fell asleep again; only this time, my dreams were not so pleasant. I was facing the prime, but I was not on the Heights; it was some other land where the ground was dark and gray. Jaeron was there, standing next to him. He called out to me, shouting for me.

I woke breathlessly then heard the voice again from under the wall.

“Not-Cyllian!” the voice shouted. “Someone comes.”

I heard it too, the heavy sound of boots on stone. I looked out the window of the door and saw new lights approaching. I listened to the sound of a key turning as my door opened. A face was there, one I did not expect. He brought a wooden stool and set it on the far side of the room, near the door, but far enough from me that should I try to attack, he had plenty of time to draw the longsword at his side. It was a wise precaution.

“I owe you an explanation,” Monroe said as he sat and placed a bundle of clothes on the ground in front of him. “I felt it wrong otherwise. You deserve to know why you’re here.”

I sat up from my cot but did not move towards him.

“You may shut the door,” he said to the jailor. “Leave the key in the lock; I will return it to you when I leave.”

The jailor gave him a nod, and for a brief second, I considered. Could it be that easy, that simple? Did Monroe have such command he could just walk in here and set me free?

He turned to me. “Someone must answer for these crimes.” He paused, waiting for the sound of footsteps to echo down the hall.

I glared at him. “Your crimes, you mean?”

He shrugged as if the accusation was well weathered upon his brow.

“One could say that,” he said. “My crimes, the Circle’s crimes, crimes of empire and legacy, does it really matter? You see, Faerin, someone must take responsibility for these crimes so that the rest of us may carry on; it is not about one person. It’s about the work; it’s… about the Cause; it is bigger than all