The Arcanist Read Free Page A

there was much to see. His bed chamber was dark, and whoever was banging was downstairs, beating on the front door. Maybe he should start closing the front gate in future he thought.
     
    “It's late. Go away!”
     
    Edouard was in no mood for visitors as he yelled from his bed at whoever it was banging on the door in the middle of the night. And he was really banging, probably hitting the huge oak doors with some sort of mace. If he hit them any harder he might even smash them out of their solid iron frames. Maybe whoever it was wasn't really knocking. Maybe he was actually trying to break the door down? Perhaps it was some sort of gang of hoodlums. Still, the bar would hold he knew. At least long enough for him to get to his pistols. Of course even as he thought about that he heard the truth yelled at him from outside.
     
    “Get your useless bones out of bed little brother, or I'll haul them out and toss them on the cold, wet grass!”
     
    “Marcus?” Of course it was Marcus. Who else would call him that? Who else could smash a door so hard? And Edouard knew his voice. But what was he doing thumping on his door in the middle of the night? What was he doing there at all? He lived ten leagues out of the city. Of course, wondering about it wasn't going to appease either his curiosity or his brother's demands.
     
    “Coming you great oaf!”
     
    He knew he had to as he threw off the covers and found his feet. Marcus was never the patient sort, and he would have made good on his threat, after knocking the doors down of course. When they were children he'd done that exact same thing many times.
     
    “Sola.”
     
    A quick word and a wave of his hand and the oil lanterns on the wall burst into life, turning Edouard's dark bed chamber into something far more welcoming with their golden glow. Sometimes it was useful having the spark, even if his family mostly considered it an embarrassment. And it gave him enough light to see his dressing gown draped over the end of the huge bed where he'd left it before retiring for the evening.
     
    “Make it quick. It's an accursed hoar frost out here.”
     
    It wasn't actually. Winter had left the lands once more, and it was quite mild. But his older brother had always felt the cold for some reason, and he was naturally impatient.
     
    Tying his robe securely around his middle, Edouard hurried out of his room and descended the stairs, quickly sending another spark to the hearth in the great room, which had been banked for the night. It burst back into flame quite quickly.
     
    At the bottom of the stairs he crossed the lobby, bare feet slapping on the marble tiles of the hallway, and found the bar to the front doors. A heartbeat later he had it up; the door was flung open, and his brother marched in, muttering under his breath about his tardiness and heading straight for the fire. Edouard couldn't help but notice he was in his full armour, the steel clad boots clattering on the marble floor of the entrance hall and then hammering into the wooden floorboards of the great room.
     
    “Took you long enough. It's colder than a witch's tits out there.”
     
    The steel armour explained some of his brother’s susceptibility to the cold. The armour always made both the heat and the cold worse. And even as he realised that Edouard had to wonder; why was he wearing the stuff anyway?
     
    Usually Marcus made do with the symbolic accoutrements of his profession; an elegant cuirasse, pistol and sword, all of which could be worn with proper woollen britches, a decent white shirt over a vest and a uniform jacket. But not this night. This time the britches were gone in favour of leggings and steel plates to protect his thighs. He was wearing chain as well as his cuirasse and so the shirt had been sacrificed in place of a thin cotton vest. Instead of his fashionable jacket he was wearing a cape over his shoulders, an item of clothing that offered damned little protection against the cold. And