Six Heirs Read Free

returned to Arkary, simply announcing that it would be better if everyone ignored what had happened. As he was a Sage, everyone accepted his decision and quickly forgot the incident.
    Reyan Kercyan was most wronged. They took away his title of Duke. They took his land. And he was publicly disgraced. He did not sink into a depression as one might have expected, but continued to live in Lorelia anyway, where he survived as a merchant.
    For her own part, Tiramis left the Council of Mothers. She merely declared that the Matriarchy wasn’t in danger and that she never again wanted to be questioned on the subject. The Ancestress herself asked that everyone respect this request; it was useless to revive these seemingly terrible memories.
    Tiramis took Yon in Union the next year. Yon is my ancestor, the grandfather of my grandmother.
    They moved here 118 years ago, to this same small southern province where I live.
    To everyone else, Nol and the emissaries are forgotten. There may be a few people who know some of the story, but they would have trouble distinguishing between the facts and the stories that are occasionally told.
    I have not forgotten. The heirs have not forgotten.

    Something wasn’t right.
    Nort’ had always possessed a sort of sixth sense that had saved him many times before, and this latest feeling of alarm was clanging louder than the six hundred bells of Leem.
    Ever since the apogee, he’d felt that he was being watched. Nort’ had always attracted looks, generally feminine ones, with his imposing muscular frame, but this was something else. Someone was watching him.
    Nort’ guarded the western door to the imperial gardens of Goran, standing with the most military bearing possible, arms tense at his sides, hand firm on his halberd. He usually performed his duty with an exceptional patience, but today he was ill at ease.
    He examined the passersby, then examined the closest windows in an attempt to expose his spy. He shot a glance at his two subordinates, frozen in the same posture, hoping that one or the other shared his fears. But they apparently had nothing on their mind except the changing of the guard.
    An old, filthy man clothed only in rags approached them, presenting an equally soiled cup in his wrinkled hands.
A foreigner, no doubt
, he thought to himself,
maybe a Lorelien
. The man broke into a series of pleas in a mix of Ithare and Goranese when Nort’, with a wave of his hand, had his subordinates unceremoniously sweep him away.
    This episode brought him back to the task at hand and made him temporarily forget his worries. It was hot at the end of the day, and Nort’ began to look forward to the change. His right arm was tired, and more than anything, he wanted to drop that cursed halberd, which was killing his shoulder.He also couldn’t wait to walk a bit. He was a former trooper and never really got used to the guard’s long decidays of forced immobility. Finally, his patience was rewarded: he was relieved to hear the six bells ring briefly from somewhere behind him in the palace, marking the end of the sixth deciday. The door opened, exposing three military men dressed in thicker clothes for the night guard. There was the necessary orchestra of exchanging halberds, then the ritual salute, and the new guards took their place.
    Nort’ decided not to mention his feelings to the night guard. Nort’ saw no real reason to inform them, and he would be roundly mocked if he confided his childish fears to the veteran warriors.
    He decided not to return immediately to the guards’ barracks since he had some free time. But the feeling of being watched stopped his long-awaited stroll before it could really begin. He couldn’t be at ease until this cursed foreboding, which stuck with him like a bad hangover, passed.
    If he had to, Nort’ was prepared to start a little skirmish with some strangers to soothe his unease.
    Yet he felt himself walking quite fast, muttering with a hand glued to the hilt of