Lucius slammed down his cup. “A soldier? A soldier? What kind of fool idea is that?”

Han hadn’t expected this reaction from Lucius.

“Well, it’s good money, and I wouldn’t need an apprenticeship, or schooling, or—”

“You’ve got schooling, boy! Schooling enough to know you don’t want to go as a soldier. Here I just got done feeling guilty because I thought you was dead. Soldiers’ lives are too cheap these days. If you was an officer, you’d have a chance, anyway.”

“Officers come from the academies,” Han said. “I’ve got no money for that. I thought I could save up some money from soldiering, and then go to the academy.”

“’Course you can,” Lucius said sarcastically. “You think Wien House’ll take you one-legged? Blind like me? With your lungs burned out by the poisons the Prince of Arden uses? Do you want to end up like your father?”

“You’re right, Lucius. I have all kinds of other options,” Han said, wondering why everyone had a license to lecture him lately. “How to decide? I could be a ragpicker. I could keep mucking out stables. I could be a fancy boy; the money’s good, and the clothes…”

“Doesn’t Jemson want you for a teacher?” Lucius interrupted.

How does he know these things? Han thought. “Well, I’m not going into orders, if that’s what you mean. Besides, I kind of burned that bridge,” he added, thinking of Corporal Byrne and Rebecca with the green eyes that could pin you to the wall. It seemed a lifetime ago, but he’d bet no one had forgotten it.

They both fell silent, each wrestling with his own thoughts.

“Funny they’ve not come after you,” Lucius said finally. “The Bayars, I mean.”

“Maybe the jinxpiece isn’t as valuable as you thought,” Han suggested. Lucius scowled and shook his head, and Han added, “Or maybe they don’t know who I am.”

“Hmmph. Well, we can hope for that, boy,” Lucius said. “We can hope for that.”

C H A P T E R  N I N E T E E N

NAME DAY

Despite feeling left out of the ceremony itself, Han couldn’t help getting excited as the name day celebration approached.

Every year at summer solstice, all the clan children who turned sixteen during the warm weather months were celebrated at a naming ceremony. It was one of the few times during the year that Marisa Pines and Demonai camps came together for dancing and flirting and matchmaking between the clan families. It was also a time for show-off cooking, so it was bound to be the feast of the year.

The guesthouses were full three days before solstice, and visitors spilled over into the other lodges. Even the Matriarch Lodge had its share of guests.