Free The Four Forges by Jenna Rhodes

jingled as he opened a purse. “I can’t leave you with crowns or even half crowns, too many questions. Here are pieces of silver, and a few ten pieces. Use them wisely. The road for me may be long or short, and it may be a full turn of seasons before I’m back here. You’ll make it through?”
    Sevryn nodded as Gilgarran dropped the coins into his palm. “Yes, sir, I will.”
    And he did. Made it that long and longer before the elf returned, and took him as apprentice and showed him many things in the world he had never thought could be. There wasn’t a moment he regretted the handshake or how it had changed him, only the after moments when he mourned having lost Gilgarran before either was ready to let go. Foster father, big brother, teacher. And he never thought to ask just what it was Gilgarran had been doing when he’d leaped out of that third-story window to fall upon Sevryn.
     
Using all that he’d learned in his early years, sharpened and honed by what he’d been taught in his later years, Sevryn moved inconspicuously through the small trade road towns, earning a modest living doing little of anything and keeping out of the notice of whomever he could. A full twenty turns of all the seasons had gone by since that day at the forge—though he could only remember the last two—and he knew of no way to reclaim those lost years. In his life span, with the Vaelinar blood strong in him, two decades showed little except he had grown more toward maturity, but others who might have known him or Gilgarran were much older now if Kerith blooded. He did not seek to find that past or approach it. If he were being watched, he revealed nothing. If he were being trailed, he could not detect it, but if he were the hunter, he doubted he would be seen, so he took nothing for granted.
    He eventually made his way to Calcort, the great hub of all the trader and craft guilds, the capital as it were of the far-flung cities of Kerith, where guildsmen reigned like kings of far far ancient times, and though he listened to the hubbub he learned little of what he truly wished to know. He kept his coin stocked by gambling at the taverns where luck did not seem to have abandoned him, although all else had. Even the alleyways seemed determined to keep their secrets from him.
    Then one day he learned of a Vaelinarran entourage coming to Calcort and the lure, the need, of seeing and hearing those who had imprinted his blood and destiny hit him hard. He made plans.

Chapter Six
    “I WOULD NEVER QUESTION your wisdom, but—” “Yet you do.” Lariel turned on her half brother, with a toss of her head that sent gold and silver highlights shimmering through her long platinum hair and her eyes of three colors, cobalt blue, sky blue, and silver lightning streaks, and watched him closely. Her face was all moon, sun, and sky, and its beauty gave him pause for a moment, bratty sister and bother that she had always been. The wall and door framed her, with the window at her shoulder, shuttered though it was, letting through glimmers of light to set motes dancing about her. She stood balanced, her lean and toned body, despite her formal gown, at the ready, her stance that of a swordswoman rather than a dancer.
    Jeredon Eladar rocked back on one heel. No less formidable than his Warrior Queen sister, he deferred to her because she was what she was, ruler of Larandaril, and she had decided to make this trip to Calcort and meet with Thom Stonehand in spite of his own misgivings. Kernans and Galdarkans didn’t have the answers she sought. If the Vaelinars did not know, no one did. If she had misgivings, she did not show them. A ruler had to believe in her decisions, once made. Lariel Anderieon stood under the high-arched ceiling of the best room the modest inn had to offer, far from the rooms of their holdings in Larandaril, and far from the best those lands could provide, and her eyes flashed as she waited for him to counter her.
    “Vaelinars are liked