Free Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) by Ann Marston Page A

that. Sometimes memory comes back, sometimes it doesn’t. It may be that you sealed it off when you discovered the way of Healing.” He looked at me, again with that thoughtful, speculative expression. “Twyla had it, too, ye ken. The Healing. That’s where you got it from, along with the eyes. And she could sense magic, too.”
    I took a deep breath, held it for a long time, then finally let it out. “I—see,” I said slowly. I looked up at him again. “And ti’rhonai . That means nephew?”
    “Aye. And foster-son, too. There’s no much difference, ye ken.”
    “I called you ti’vati once I remember. Uncle?”
    He nodded.
    “Or foster-father.”
    Again, he nodded. He laughed. “You might say I inherited you,” he said. “Rhodri’s three sons of his own. I’ve two daughters but no son. You were my responsibility from the time I swore to Leydon I’d bring you home.”
    Emotions I couldn’t identify jumbled together into one huge, tangled knot in my belly. I’d been no one’s responsibility but my own for as long as I could remember. Suddenly finding myself with not only an uncle, but aunts, cousins and a grandfather as well, left me feeling hollow and empty as a blown egg.
    Cullin put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s no so bad, Kian,” he said with a smile. “It’ll be at least three seasons before we go back to the Clanhold. Ye’ll have time to get used to me by then, and I’ll tell you all ye need to know about the others.”
VI
    We left the small inn early the next morning and reached Honandun a sevenday before Samhain. The merchant-train he had contracted to guard was ready the next morning and we left before I had a chance to explore the first city I had ever seen. A fortnight past Midwinter saw us in Banhapetsut in Laringras, on the coast of the Great Salt Sea where Cullin introduced me to some of the more bewitching delights a city offered. I subsequently discovered what wine sickness could do the morning after to a man’s will to live.
    There was another merchant train, this one carrying silks, spices and exotic fragrances, eager to contract for Cullin’s services for the trip back to Honandun as soon as the passes were free enough of snow to travel. We arrived a fortnight after Vernal Equinox and Cullin announced we were leaving for Tyra the next morning.
    It was still a fortnight before Beltane when the hills and mountains showed a faint bloom of soft green and the lochs reflected the gentle blue of the sky, when we left Isgard and entered Tyra.
    Cullin was right. In the three seasons since I met him, I had grown used to him, although it still gave me an odd sensation somewhere under my breastbone when I thought too hard about the fact that he was my uncle.
    During the long journey south, then back north, Cullin spent the evenings with me, practicing with the sword or bow. He was patient, but implacable about mistakes. He let me get away with nothing clumsy or poorly executed. I sweated freely, practicing sequences over and over until they met with his approval which was never grudgingly withheld, but difficult to attain. For three seasons as we travelled, he told me about his home and his family, so when we finally left the lowlands and began winding our way through the passes and glens of Tyra, the land looked almost familiar to me. Cullin pointed out towering crags as we rode, naming them, and I thought I should recognize them.
    It was a rugged country, all rocky, snow-covered peaks, wide valleys and narrow gorges. In the glens, we rode past small herds of black cattle with wicked, curving horns, flocks of small sheep whose fleece looked faintly blue. Tiny villages, some no more than five or six stone-built houses, nestled into the flanks of the valleys, but none of them too small or too poor to offer a traveller welcome with a meal and a pallet by the hearth for the night. The men, like Cullin, wore kilts and plaids, and the women wore gowns with a plaid of finer fabric draped over