Free Aster Wood and the Blackburn Son by J B Cantwell

his silent request.  
    He turned to Finian. “You are mistaken, my friend,” he said. “Some gold remains in the Fold. I have seen it with my own eyes.”
    A murmur went through the crowd of men.
    “Where?” I asked.
    “In the great castle of Riverstone, within the old quarters of Almara, himself.”
    “But that’s not possible,” I argued over the noise of the men, many of whom were talking to each other now, though nobody seemed to be listening to anyone else. “I was there, myself. They don’t have gold.”
    “Perhaps they didn’t before,” he said. “But she does now.”
    My stomach sank as I considered this. If Jade had gold, real gold, I doubted I would ever be able to reach her. The power it would have over her mind, already tuned to the magic of stone, would be unbreakable.  
    “How do you know?” I asked, my voice almost too quiet to be heard.  
    Kiron raised his hand and the men slowly quieted.
    “When I landed after Jade, I realized quickly where I was. I had been to Aria before, you see, back when Almara and I were younger. I realized at once who she must be, and I followed her to the castle. But something wasn’t right. I couldn’t understand why she had left you. I waited beyond the city gates, trying to decide what to do next, when they began to appear.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “Giants,” he said. “The great Solitaries of Aria came then, carrying with them large crates, the contents of which I could not see from afar. I waited for a time, just outside the stone gates, until my chance arrived. I had the good fortune to slip in behind one, a little smaller than the rest, unnoticed.  
    “But my good fortune did not last. As I was just rounding the last turn to the point where I might be able to view the castle unseen, I was discovered. They took me, and they locked me in the dungeons below Riverstone.”
    “Dungeons?” I asked. “There are no dungeons below Riverstone.” But as I spoke these words, I realized that I didn’t know for sure. We had only seen the upper floors of the castle when we had discovered Almara.  
    “Ah, but there are,” he said. “And when the princess came for me, I learned what had been in those crates.”
    The entire group was silent, hanging on every word Owyn spoke.
    “She took me up into the great chambers above. As we walked from room to room, she told me of her family, small tales of her life there when she had been a young child. The rooms were all empty; not a stick of furniture remained in any of them, even my master’s old study. But in one,” he paused, his expression distant for a moment. “In one, the crates I had seen traveling to the castle were laid out all over the floor. Their lids were ajar, and their contents spilled out as if the princess had been rifling through them for hours, days. Rocks. Every kind of rock you can imagine, in every color ever forged. And in the center of the room, on a tall platform, stood the prize of them all.”
    I remembered that platform, the tall, round table that had stood empty when I had been in Riverstone. And I remembered the way Jade craved closeness to every kind of rock. Each different variety of stone allowed her a different sort of power. And one, we all knew, would bring more power than any other sort.  
    “Gold,” I breathed.
    “Gold,” he confirmed, raising his hand in the air. “The most I, or anyone I have ever heard of, has ever seen. A piece as large as a man’s fist.”
    “But, it’s not possible!” Chapman, for the first time since landing, raised his voice loud enough for us to hear. “Where could she have found such treasure?”
    “I do not believe that she found it,” Owyn continued. “I believe it was gifted to her.”
    “By whom?” Chapman asked.
    I looked at Kiron over the heads of the men, and I knew we both had the same thought. When I looked back at Owyn again, his face confirmed my fears.  
    “The Corentin,” he said.  
    A sharp intake of breath swept