Free Season of Sacrifice by Mindy Klasky

they were at a feast.
    Reade did not enjoy the meat nearly as much as he had anticipated. With every bite, he thought of the stories the duke had told. Stories? Or truth? After all, Duke Coren had cried . Reade had never seen a grown man cry before, not even when Sartain Fisherman came to tell Mum that Da had gone.
    Were there bad things happening back home, back at the Headland of Slaughter? Was Alana Woodsinger evil? Were Mum and the other People in danger—even more danger than he and Maida? Reade swallowed his stew and tried to believe that everything would be right in the end.

4
    The next morning, Reade’s shoulder still hurt where the duke had pinched him. It wasn’t fair. He had only wanted to help, to explain that Duke Coren did not understand the People. Reade rubbed his arm through his golden robe and sulked as he drank from Duke Coren’s cup.
    They left the inn just after sunrise. All the villagers gathered to see them on their way, and more than one person muttered about riding west to “root out” the People’s threat. As the village disappeared behind them, Duke Coren looked down at Reade and said, “You were wise not to speak out last night, Sun-lord. It would have been wicked to lie to your people.”
    “I wasn’t going to lie!” Reade was grumpy. Mum would have said that he needed to go back to bed, that he needed more sleep until the honey in his dreams had sweetened the day. Reade knew that he didn’t need more sleep. He just needed his shoulder to stop hurting.
    “Ah, but you were! Not because you intended to be bad, but because you did not know the truth. Always remember, Sun-lord. When you speak out of ignorance, you might speak a lie. Your people would have been hurt, if you had lied to them.”
    “My people weren’t in that smoky room. My people are at the Headland!”
    “Some of your people are at Land’s End.” Duke Coren nodded. “But the better part of your people are inland, spread between here and Smithcourt, Sun-lord.”
    The duke’s words were scary. How could Reade’s people be inland? How could anyone know him between here and Smithcourt? Reade did not want to think about all those strangers, people like the fat woman and the whiskered men in the tavern. They weren’t fishermen. They didn’t even grow herbs outside their own homes. They were different from the People. Worried about what Duke Coren might say regarding the strange inland people, Reade asked a different question, one that he’d wanted to ask since the duke first spoke to him. “Why do you call me that? Why do you call me Sun-lord?”
    “Because that is who you are. That is who I came to find and free—the Sun-lord and the Sun-lady.”
    “But I’m just Reade. I’m just one of the People. I don’t know anything about your lords and ladies!”
    “As you grow closer to your home, you’ll learn the true stories.”
    “My home is behind us! My home is with Mum!” There. That was what Reade had wanted to say all morning, for days, even.
    “That was your home of exile, Sun-lord. Your mum was a good woman. She kept you safe until it was time for you to come to your true home. You’ve grown, now, though. You don’t need your mum anymore. You’re a big boy, and I’ve come to take you away from your home of exile, to Smithcourt. To your home of truth.”
    Reade’s voice was very small. “Home of truth?”
    “Aye, Sun-lord.”
    “Then I’ll never see Mum again?”
    “You’ll see many things, Sun-lord. Many, many things.”
    “But I want to see Mum!”
    “Maybe you will, Sun-lord. Maybe you’ll see her after we arrive in Smithcourt, after you do your work in the Service.”
    “The Service? What’s that?”
    “That’s another story, for another day. Sit back now, Sun-lord. We’ve a long ride ahead of us.”
    Reade had been fighting the darkness that spread inside him, the fuzzy feeling that always came over his body after he drank from the duke’s golden cup. His arms and legs were heavy.