It was more than that, though; right then, he wasnt even sure who he was. The dreams that had come to him had hinted that he was someone else, someone from a strange place that wasnt the Northern Kingdom. Devin didnt know what to think of that, didnt know who he was meant to be. Where did what hed done against the wolves fit into it all, too? Hed done magic, but what did that mean?

As he reached the city, his feet turned automatically on the route that would take him over the citys many bridges, toward home. Hed gone a dozen steps through the crowds of the city before he realized that he didnt have a home to go to, not anymore. He couldnt go back to the House of Weapons either, because he didnt work there anymore, so what did that leave?

He looked out over the city, caught in the mid-morning sun that made it seem as though the mists of the day before had never happened. Its thatched houses spread out between the streams that filled the city the way spider-web cracks might spread across a mirror. Devin could make out the districts, noble, then poor, then poorer, down to the spot where Devins home sat… his former home, he corrected himself.

The people there bustled along cobbled streets, toward the businesses in which they worked, or toward the great forms of the Houses that stood over the city. The House of Weapons was already belching smoke from its forges into the sky, while the House of Scholars sat aloof from the cacophony of the city. The House of Merchants squatted at their heart of the citys markets, while the House of Sighs was quiet during the day, the last of the patrons from the night before already gone. The smell of the city was a mixture of smoke and sweat, the press of people impossible to ignore.

Devin looked past all of that, toward the solid, gray-walled block of the castle. Rodry would be there, and the prince might help him. Master Grey might be there, and this time Devin might be able to get answers from him. Were Princess Lenore not off on her wedding harvest, there might have been a chance to catch a glimpse of her, and the thought of that made Devins heart ache even though he knew he should ignore that feeling.