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

a few things like sleeping by the docks, hiding during the day, coming out only at night to scavenge for food. I don’t know how I got there, but I count the fell moon rising over the ramparts of Forhd as one of my earliest memories. I remember being cold. I remember being hungry. And though I can’t remember her face, I remember missing her.

Now I was celebrating a new day, a new day and a new name. Celebrating would take some getting used to. There was nothing special about the day in the past, nothing worthy of celebration. Some years I received gifts, small things like a new shirt or pair of pants, usually secondhand and tattered, but a gift to me, nonetheless. Ada, when he did gift, always did so in threes as was tradition. Though most years, the day was just like any other day, it began with the sun rising over the mountains and setting out to sea.

Today, I woke in a suite of rooms, not the guest house I was accustomed to. The suite contained a bedroom, a sitting room with a small shelf of books, and a butler’s corner where a few crystal vases of brown and clear liquids awaited.

“These are yours now,” Richard informed me late last night. They felt no more mine than the name I now wore. I was accepting of it, like a borrowed coat on a winter’s day, but it just didn’t fit.

I walked to my wardrobe and opened it to find a display of blues and greys. I pulled a shirt off the wooden hanger. It was long-sleeved and loose-fitting with pearl buttons along the front. I selected a pair of grey slacks only to find they were several inches too short, no doubt Crylwin’s from a time not so long ago. I sighed and pulled on my blue slacks I wore last night. I felt the weight of the lord’s stone in my pocket; it made a clinking noise as it knocked against the iron circle.

The reminder posed a question. Was the entire estate in the service of the Circle or just the Monroes? I found myself reinspecting every conversation I had over the past few years as I stepped out into the hallway.

The estate was alive around me. A Seveli caravan was due to arrive this morning in preparation for the party. The house echoed with the noise of bustling hands. A dozen people were hard at work, mopping floors, beating the dust from window coverings, and polishing the bronze castings of the oil lamps that lined the hallway.

At first, I thought such work was in preparation for the party; then, as I passed a line of paintings, I discovered the truth. These rooms had once belonged to Crylwin’s mother. They had remained empty and untouched all those many years. Now they were mine.

As soon as I passed the first archway, I was greeted by a familiar face. I smiled.

“Good morning, Lord Faerin,” Jaeron said with a grin. He carried a brown leather messenger bag over his shoulder. At his hip, he wore a small bronze knife with a pearl set handle and over his shoulders, a squire’s cloak dyed in Monroe blue.

“Ughh,” I groaned, “don’t call me that.”

“My lord?”

“Yes, that,” I said, turning around. “Call me Faerin like you always have. Skip the titles.”

Jaeron furrowed his brow.

I bent to his level. “I’m no different today than I was yesterday,” I explained as I adjusted the cloak around his shoulders. “Nor will I be any different tomorrow.”

“But Ama said you are a lord now. She said I’m supposed to treat you like I do the master.” His fingers played nervously with the pearl handle on his knife.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Did she say that you were going to be my squire?”

He nodded.

I rolled my eyes, then placed a finger to my chin. “Did she say that you need to listen to me and do what I say?”

He nodded again.

“Good, then as my squire, you need to know the rules.”

He straightened his back attentively.

“Rule number one: never call me lord.”

He looked at me skeptically.

“Unless there is another lord around,” I relented. “Then, you can call me lord.”

Jaeron nodded slowly.

“Rule number two: make sure I am always given a seat facing the door.”

He closed his eyes, nodding again.

“Rule number three: don’t allow me to embarrass myself.”

He scratched his messy brown hair as he considered, then slowly nodded.

“Good!” I said, tussling his hair. “Then I welcome you to my service.”

I continued down the hall, Jaeron’s footsteps echoing behind. I made my way first to the hallway that led to the atrium. I would need to send a letter to Lira as soon as possible. If I were going to be celebrating a fake ascension on a fake writ day, I would have her with me if for nothing more than to hear her laugh at the farce.

I arrived at the pair of desks outside the atrium and found them empty. In the absence of the scribes was a stack of blank vellum and ink. I scribbled out a letter. It was briefer than it should be, but longer than I would typically risk within the courier network. As I finished the letter, I paused as I went to sign. Monroe was my new house, but I wasn’t ready. I signed it as I always had then folded it on top of itself in the messenger fold.

Jaeron coughed, pointing to the sealing wax warming on the far table. I shook my head, knowing such would only attract more attention. For now, I was comfortable with a letter from me to her.

“Alright then,” I said as I handed him the letter. “Get this to Rick; make sure he knows to take it to the house we visited before we left. Tell him he must deliver it by hand to the lady Lira. Tell him if she is not in to leave it with their house guard, the tall