Free Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno by Violette Malan Page A

be.”
    Gun turned down a steeper street, little more than an alley, that led seaward, toward the main market square. “If I’d thought to try Finding you , I might have known. But it was just Brothers I was looking for, the nearest ones.”
    They turned the corner into a slightly wider street, and Gun led them under an arched gateway into what was clearly the stable yard of an inn. Dhulyn looked around; the cobbles were even, with clean straw spread to prevent shod hooves from slipping. The water in the troughs looked fresh, and the young boy currying a fat pony off to one side clearly knew what he was about. He looked up at the noise they made entering, and he laid his brushes down neatly where the pony could not get at them before running forward to accept Bloodbone’s reins from Dhulyn’s hand.
    “We’ll want rooms as well,” Parno said.
    “I’ll speak to my father,” the boy said, apparently unable to tear his eyes away from their Mercenary badges until Parno’s horse Warhammer nudged him in the back. Then the boy bobbed his head, took up both sets of reins, and led the horses away.
    “Back door’s faster for our rooms,” Gun said over his shoulder as he gestured them forward. “Unless you want to speak to the innkeeper first.”
    “The boy will speak to his father, and I assume if you can afford to stay here, so can we.” Dhulyn tapped the armlet she’d tucked into her sash.
    The door from the stable yard opened into a short hallway, with stairs leading upward on the right, three doors on the left—one of which Dhulyn’s nose told her was the kitchen—and an opening at the far end that led directly to the common room at the front of the inn. Dhulyn caught Parno’s eye as they prepared to follow Gun up the stairs. When she’d first met him, Gun had been Scholar in a High Noble House in Imrion for some months and had grown plump and out of shape with good feeding and little exercise. Now, from the way he ran without effort up the stairs, it appeared that he had returned to the good practices of his Scholars’ Library.
    “Hold back a bit, my heart,” Parno said from behind her. “Give him a chance to tell Mar we’re coming.”
    “And Mar a chance to pick up their dirty clothes off the floor?” Dhulyn stopped to let Parno catch up.
    “Or draw up the bedcovers,” he agreed.
    They didn’t need to see which room Gun had gone into; by the time they had reached the head of the stairs, Mar was out and running toward them. There were no strangers present, but Dhulyn still hesitated before opening her arms and accepting the younger woman’s hug.
    “There now, my Dove,” she said, patting Mar’s shaking shoulders. “You’d think we were returning from the dead.” She caught Parno’s eye over Mar’s head and winked.
    “You can’t fool me, Wolfshead,” the younger woman said as she stepped back. “You’re just as glad to see me as I am to see you. Both of you,” she added as she turned to receive Parno’s kiss. “I know that Mercenary Brothers aren’t supposed to have family outside of the Brotherhood, but I still think of you both as my kin.”
    Mar-eMar Tenebro alluded to the fact that they were actually kin, she and Parno. But more significantly, Parno thought, Mar, Dhulyn, and Gun shared something that Parno did not. All three were Marked. Though come to think of it, of the three, only Gun’s Mark worked well and reliably. Without the assistance of other Seers, Dhulyn’s Sight was erratic and almost impossible to direct, while Mar’s Mark was gone now, burned from her by the awakening of the Sleeping God.
    “Where now?” he asked. “This seems a public spot for a reunion. Your rooms or the common room downstairs?”
    “The common room can wait, I think,” Gun said. “For the moment I’d rather have the privacy of our own rooms.”
    The Scholar hadn’t misspoken; he and Mar actually had rooms, a miniature suite comprised of a sitting room with a single window on the