Free Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands by David B. Coe Page A

walked slowly across the west ward to the stables, enjoying the quiet and the soft breeze. Panya shone down on him, stretching his shadow across the stone path and the grass beside it.
    Galdis, his grey, had already been saddled and was waiting for him just inside the stable.
    “He’s all ready, my lord,” the stableboy said, as Filib stepped inside and stroked the beast’s snout.
    Filib nodded. “Many thanks, Doran,” he said, tossing the lad a silver half.
    He led the horse outside and through the west gate of the castle before climbing into the saddle. On most nights he would have ridden through the city to the south gate, but with the streets choked with performers and peddlers, he chose instead to leave the city by way of the upper river gate. Once outside the walls, he rode south along the river before cutting east to the wood. It was the longer way, but with Panya’s glow shimmering on the river, it also proved to be the more pleasant. Before long he was in the North Wood, riding toward the sanctuary where his father had died.
    He had started his rides nearly five years before, on the night of Panya’s full in Bian’s Turn, just a turn after his father’s death. He had been in his thirteenth year then, awkward and unsure of himself. He had worshiped his father, and in the wake of the accident that claimed the duke’s life, he had felt as though the entire world were falling away beneath his feet. As the duke’s only child—Simm, his younger brother, had been taken by the pestilence as an infant—he was entitled to all of his father’s possessions. His sword and armor, his dagger and hunting bow, his saddle, and the lynx-fur wrap he had been wearing when he fell. Filib’s mother assured him that she would keep all of it for him, until he was old enough to use the weapons and wear the clothes. But Filib could not wait. Every item was like treasure to him, a small piece of his father’s life. On some level he believed that if he surrounded himself with enough of them, the pain of his loss would vanish, the wound on his heart would heal. Long before his father’s gold signet ring fit on his finger, Filib wore it on a chain around his neck. Every night for that first year, he would lie awake in his bed, staring at the seal on the ring as it glittered in the candlelight. The Golden Stallion, the Thorald
crest. And he would talk to it as if it were his father, telling of the day’s events and how his mother was doing.
    Eventually, the pain did begin to recede, just as his mother and his uncle and everyone else had said it would. But the comfort he drew from his father’s belongings never diminished. Training with his father’s sword, he felt as though the duke were teaching him to fight. Hunting with his father’s bow, he felt as though the elder Filib were tracking boar and elk beside him. Sitting in his father’s saddle, he felt as though they were riding through the wood together.
    He rode slowly among the trees, moving in and out of the shadows cast by Panya’s white glow and the branches overhead. Night thrushes called to each other, their songs sifting through the limbs with the scent of fire blossom and the low gurgle of the river. An owl called in the distance and the breeze coaxed a gentle rustling from the leaves. just as Filib first glimpsed the sanctuary fires through the trees, another sound reached him, one that was utterly unexpected. Somewhere in the forest, not far, a man was singing.
    He wondered briefly if he was hearing a cleric at the sanctuary, but he soon realized that the sound was growing louder too quickly. The singer was traveling the wood, just as Filib was, and he was heading in Filib’s direction.
    After several moments, he recognized the tune. It was an old Caerissan folk song that one of his nurses had taught him when he was a child. Filib shouldn’t have been surprised. Eibithar’s Revel attracted performers, including singers, from all parts of the Forelands. With