His home was in the village below the fortification. There he would find his wife and his child, and discover anew their place in his life. Nothing needed to be the same as it had once been. Their nights of indifference and hard silence would be behind them now. Rint finally understood the gift she was to him, and now that they had made a child he would look with clear eyes upon all that was precious and sacred.

No longer would he flee her company, escaping into the wilds. He would make the future different from the past. For every person, change was within reach. He had made his journey and it would be the last one he would make. His future was at his wife’s side.

I have sworn vengeance against Draconus. But I will join my sister and put away my sword. I, too, am done with this.

By midday, they had ridden out from the hills on to flat land. The way ahead was wreathed in smoke. The smell did not belong to a grass fire. It was rank, oily.

The four Borderswords broke into a fast canter.

In his head, Rint uttered a list of vows to his wife and to his newborn child. The list began and ended with a vision of him standing with her, in a home emptied of his anger, the temper he could never quite control. And he saw the guardedness leaving her eyes, her hand leaving the grip of her knife which she had drawn countless times to defend herself against his rages. He saw a world of peace, floating as if painted on stone. The hand that could paint the past could paint the future. Rint meant to prove it.

‘Riders on our left!’

At Ville’s shout Rint turned, rose on his stirrups. Directly north was the long line of a dust cloud.

‘Must be the hunting party,’ Galak said. ‘Abyss below! There was no one at Riven!’

My wife. My child.

The distant riders were converging on them, and Rint now saw that they were Borderswords. No. No. He pushed his mount into a gallop, fixed his eyes eastward, to that dark smudge that was Riven Keep. But the tower was mostly gone, only one wall rising to two-thirds its original height, black as charcoal against the grey sky.

It was just one more damned argument. I rushed out, thinking only of escape lest I tear the knife from her grasp. And there was the call, a summons from Lord Draconus, who wanted an escort into the west. I found Feren. I badgered her into joining me. We needed to get away.

My wife’s face is burned in my mind. It was fear that made it a stranger’s face. It had always been fear that took away the face I knew.

I was running. Again.

Life was easier out there. Simpler. Feren was rotting, drinking too much. I had my sister to think of—