The Warded Man

interest in seeming strong, in making Arlen fight. All she wanted now was to find him before he left and tell him that she loved him, and that she would continue loving him no matter what he chose to do.
    She reached the city gate in record time, panting from exertion, but it was too late. The guards reported that he had left the city hours earlier.
    Mery knew in her heart he was not coming back. If she wanted him, she would have to go after him. She knew how to ride. She could get a horse from Ragen, and ride after him. He would surely succor in Harden’s Grove the first night. If she hurried, she could get there in time.
    She sprinted back to the manse, terror at the thought of losing him giving her fresh strength. “He’s gone!” she shouted to Elissa and Ragen. “I need to borrow a horse!”
    Ragen shook his head. “It’s past midday. You’ll never make it in time. You’ll get halfway there, and the corelings will tear you to pieces,” he said.
    “I don’t care!” Mery cried. “I have to try!” She darted for the stables, but Ragen caught her fast. She cried and beat at him, but he was stone, and nothing she did could loosen his grip.
    Suddenly, Mery understood what Arlen had meant when he said Miln was a prison. And she knew what it was like to feel diminished.
    It was late before Cob found the simple letter, stuck in the ledger on his countertop. In it, Arlen apologized for leaving early, before his seven years were up. He hoped Cob could understand.
    Cob read the letter again and again, memorizing every word, and the meanings between the lines. “Creator, Arlen,” he said. “Of course I understand.” Then he wept.

SECTION III

KRASIA

328 AR

CHAPTER 17
RUINS
328 AR

    WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ARLEN? he asked himself as his torchlight flickered invitingly on the stone stairs leading down into the dark. The sun was dipping low, and it would take several minutes to get back to his camp, but the stairs called to him in a way he could not explain.
    Cob and Ragen had warned him about this. The thought of treasures that might be found in ruins was too much for some Messengers, and they took risks. Stupid risks. Arlen knew he was one of these, but he could never resist exploring the “lost dots on the map,” as Tender Ronnell had put it. The money he made messaging paid for these excursions, sometimes taking him days from the nearest road. But for all his effort, he had found only dregs.
    His thoughts flashed back to the pile of books from the old world that crumbled to dust when he tried to pick them up. The rusted blade that gashed his hand and infected it so badly he felt his arm was on fire. The wine cellar that caved in and trapped him for three days until he dug himself out without a bottle to show for it. Ruin hunting never paid off, and one day, he knew, it would be the death of him.
    Go back , he urged himself. Have a bite. Check your wards. Get some rest .
    “The night take you,” Arlen cursed himself, and headed down the stairs.
    But for all his self-loathing, Arlen’s heart pounded with excitement. He felt free and alive beyond anything the Free Cities could offer. This was why he became a Messenger.
    He reached the bottom of the stairs, and dragged a sleeveacross his sweating brow, taking a brief pull from his waterskin. Hot as it was, it was hard to imagine that after sunset the desert above would drop to near-freezing temperatures.
    He moved along a gritty corridor of fitted stones, his torchlight dancing along the walls like shadow demons. Are there shadow demons? he wondered. That would be just my luck . He sighed. There was so much he still didn’t know.
    He had learned much in the last three years, soaking up knowledge of other cultures and their struggles with the corelings like a sponge. In the Angierian forest, he had spent weeks studying wood demons. In Lakton, he learned of boats beyond the small, two-man canoes used in Tibbet’s Brook, and paid for his curiosity about water demons with a puckered scar on his arm. He had been lucky, able to plant his feet and haul on the tentacle, dragging the coreling from the water. Unable to abide the air, the nightmarish creature had let go and slipped beneath the surface once more. He spent months there, learning water wards.
    Fort Rizon was much like home, less a city than a cluster of farming communities, each helping one another to ease the inevitable losses to corelings who bypassed the wardposts.
    But Fort Krasia, the Desert