The Apprentice Read Free Page B

permission to join them. Setting the candle down on the
table, Rowan took a plate and served himself a cut of meat with some bread and
an apple.
    Dinner
was an awkward scene for Rowan. Not a word was spoken about their earlier
argument. He did not want to be the one to bring it up, because he didn’t know
what to say. So it hung in the air, a problem to be ignored.
    He
finished eating quickly, grabbed the candle and went to his room, where he
closed himself off from the others. Rowan used his flame to light several
larger candles spread throughout the room. Once he felt there was enough light,
Rowan placed the flame on his desk and pulled a blanket around himself. Cold
permeated through the walls, and outside the weather was beginning to turn bad.
The wind was now howling and rain fell much harder than it had earlier. He
pulled his legs close to his body for warmth.
    In a
little under a year, he could leave this place and go somewhere else. He loved
his father and his brother, and he would miss them deeply, but he had to leave.
Life in the Vale was suffocating him.
    He had
pondered how to go about leaving, for it would require a sum of money that he
did not have. He had yet to figure that out. He also had no idea where he would
go. But living within the valley, he felt confined.
    Knock!
    The
knocking came from the front of the house. It shook Rowan from his thoughts. Who
could be all the way out here at this time? It was almost an hour’s walk to
the nearest house and the town was even farther. No one would travel that
distance in weather like this.
    Rowan
opened his door to see Brennon speaking with someone that he had never seen
before.
    The
stranger was tall and well built. His black hair was like that of a raven’s and
hung tied back in a ponytail. He carried a traveling pack on his back and at
his hip was a long, ornate sheath encasing the blade of a sword. The sheath had
the word Sidia inscribed vertically in ornate golden runes. Rowan looked
from the blade back to the man. His posture was relaxed and yet his gaze seemed
to travel around, alert, taking in every detail of his surroundings.
    Brennon
finished conversing and then came over to Rowan.
    “The man
claims that he is in need of shelter from the storm, and bandages for some
wounds that he has taken.” Brennon glanced back towards the man now standing
just inside the doorway, his gaze focused on the sword. “He has given the name
Baird, and he is willing to compensate us for our trouble. I told him that he
may stay in your room, so I need you to set a place for him to sleep.”
    Rowan
nodded. He was not happy about sharing his room with a stranger, but the man
was willing to pay. They could use the money to buy tools and supplies, rather
than having to trade for them.
    The
conversation over, his father turned away to stoke the fire so that the man
could warm himself and dry his cloak, which looked to be soaked through. Rowan
left to gather some straw for a mattress and blankets to use as sheets. There
was not much, and what they did have was not of the best quality, but it would
serve well enough. The stranger’s cloak hung by the fire when he returned but
the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Rowan went to his room intending to make
up the man’s bed, and when he opened the door he found the man inside and
reading one of his books.
    “What
are you doing?” Rowan dropped what he was carrying and grabbed the book. It was
a tattered hand-bound thing, one where he had scribbled in notes and thoughts
throughout the margins. “You should ask before taking things that don’t belong
to you.”
    He
returned the book to its proper place before going back to pick up the bandages
and extra bedding. He set the blankets on top of the make-shift straw mattress
and walked over to his own bed.
    “You
write well for one of your age. I am curious, who taught you?” The man's gaze
focused intently on Rowan.
    “No one
taught me. I learned on my own.”
    “That is
quite