Brightly Burning Read Free Page A

up water. Lan’s oldest brother Sam wasn’t even in the equation—he spent so much time at his Master’s that Lan scarcely even saw him.
    A proper little copy of Father, he is, Lan thought cynically. And how nice for him that is. Same for Feodor. They never got into trouble just for existing; they never got the long looks of disgust or disappointment. Not once. Back home, that hadn’t mattered; Lan was out at dawn and not back until dark, and if his parents were disappointed in him, at least he was able to avoid them.
    Why can’t they just send me back home? he thought longingly. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford it, not with all the silver his father was throwing around lately. They kept saying that it was time he grew up and took on some responsibilities and made something of himself. . . .
    Why? Highborns don’t have to! There are plenty of people with well-off parents who aren’t expected to go out and “make something of themselves.”
    The only thing he really wanted to do was out of the question, of course. Given a choice, he’d have entered the Guard. He knew he rode well enough to get into the mounted troops; he certainly didn’t fancy marching for leagues and leagues on his own two feet. He rather thought he’d look good in the Guard uniform of dark blue and silver, and it was an admitted magnet to attract pretty girls, or at least it had been at home. Even foot soldiers got attention when they passed through Alderscroft.
    The one and only time he’d mentioned his ambitions, there had been such an outcry he hadn’t dared say anything about it again. And without family support—well, he could pretty much forget about getting into the mounted troops, at least for a long while. If you brought your own horse and passed the riding trials, you went automatically into the cavalry, but if he didn’t have family support, he wouldn’t have a horse. And he wasn’t so desperate that he cared to just run off and join the ground troops.
    Definitely not. Without some weapons’-training, real training with a Weaponsmaster, he’d go straight into training with that most basic of front-line weapons, the pike. It would be months before he got his hands on a bow or an edged weapon, and all his time would be spent on grueling marches and drills.
    I might as well be a woodcutter, it would be as much work and more interesting.
    And anyway, he couldn’t even run off to join the Guard for another two years. Even if he lied about his age and identity, his parents would probably find out where he was and drag him home again.
    Nobody would believe I was sixteen anyway. Skinny and lanky he might be, but he was also undersized. He didn’t even look fourteen. Feodor looked older than he did, and was certainly taller.
    Of course, as his father pointed out constantly, a lack of height didn’t matter to a merchant or a Guildsman.
    By this time he had brooded himself into a truly black humor, and the moment he heard the house-maids come giggling into the kitchen for their late breakfast, he bolted up the stairs for his room, now carefully polished and scrubbed, any trace of him erased. He took a perverse pleasure in pulling the curtains shut on the morning sunshine and undoing their work by casting himself on the bed, boots and all.
    He closed his eyes, nursing his bitterness in silence, wishing that he could will himself back home to Alderscroft.

    HE didn’t realize that he’d dozed off until he started awake to find his mother shaking him and the curtains pulled wide open again to admit the midday sun.
    â€œWake up!” she said crossly, the dreaded frown lines making deep creases between her brows. Her face, a perfect oval framed by the braids she wore wrapped around her head, was the very portrait of parental annoyance. Her hazel eyes narrowed with suppressed anger. “When I told you to find something to do, I didn’t