Sunstone - Dishonor's Bane (Book 2) Read Free

the driver to turn around in his seat.
    “That a sigh of relief or the end of a prayer?” Kinoru said. He had a friendly, if rumpled, face of a peasant perhaps ten years older than Shiro. Kinoru had done something wrong in his youth and had become a slave. He toiled as a peasant on his neighbor’s farm. His neighbor would rent Kinoru out to him from time to time and Shiro had appreciated the help when he needed another set of sturdy hands.
    “I really don’t know. Today is a day of sighs. In five years, I may look back and think it otherwise.”
    “Well, it isn’t everybody that’s picked by the Sorcerer’s Guild.”
    “Nor is it everybody that makes it through the apprentice years of the Guild alive.”
    “Ah, that be the rumors, Shiro. But you’ve still got your youth.” Kinoru said
    Youth, he thought. Twenty-six years old. Two kids and a wife dead before him. A farm worked by one man alone for two years. The tension of the last ten days wore Shiro out and yet; he admitted to himself, the tedium of solitary farming had been taxing.
    He had made his farm prosper. It still took backbreaking work, but he produced the best of what ever he grew. His vegetables and fruit sold at higher prices than all the others at market and his oranges were always larger. He’d often get up in the morning and see branches cut from his orange orchard; knowing farmers would try to graft his branches onto their trees. The Gods blessed him with the ability to coax more out of the plants than anyone else in the village, but he suspected his green thumb just might be a manifestation of his power. If that were the case, then the new owner would be sorely disappointed.
    He jumped off the cart at the next village and pressed a steel coin into Kinoru’s hand.
    “Thank you, old friend. I’ll always think of you.”
    Kinoru laughed. “Me? I’m just a peasant, not even a noble farmer such as yourself.”
    “You’re still a man I admire, Kinoru. Good luck and good bye.” Shiro’s old life seemed to instantly disappear. He nodded at his friend for the last time and bounded into the dark recesses of the inn.
    The innkeeper looked at the cart and then at Shiro. “You have the money to stay the night?”
    Shiro showed his tattoo to the owner and let the man examine the new identity stick, given to him by the sorcerers. He now had six weeks to get to Boriako and an unlimited amount of funds to do so. With his identity stick came a chop, a little cylinder with the carved symbol of the Sorcerer’s guild. When the chop was dipped in red ink and stamped on a document, any government office would repay the holder. It gave Shiro the ability to draw on the guild for lodging, meals, and transportation. He took advantage of that by taking the best room and slept in late.
    He procured a horse from the inn and set off east towards Boriako, the capital city on Roppon Isle. The journey would take a month, including the long ferry ride from North Isle to Roppon proper. Shiro had never been on a large boat. He didn’t know if he looked on such a ride as an adventure or a curse.
    Four nights later, Shiro stood at the entrance to a ramshackle inn nestled in the midst of a stand of woods. The thatched roof seemed to be in disrepair. The paper windows had plenty of holes. The place was likely filled with drafts.
    “Newly tested, eh?” the proprietor, a tall woman, walked out to greet him. She had frizzy gray hair that she let grow in long waves, unusual for Ropponi who typically wore their hair straight. Tradition called for women to bind theirs up in large loops wrapped around their heads and men to arrange their long hair into topknots.
    “I am. The only one chosen from my village,” Shiro said. He would prefer to stay quiet about his predicament, but the woman must have noticed the redness around his tattooed wrist as soon as he dismounted.
    “Let me see that,” she said, grasping his left arm. “You rarely see the wavy line or a red dot. That