The Traitor's Heir Read Free Page A

by. Perhaps I would have been happy binding books all my days, despite my struggle to buy bread. But the fire finished it all.”
    She looked at him sadly. “I know –”
    â€œNo, Aeryn,” he retorted. “You don’t. My father and his books were all that I had left. Everything I loved, everything I had worked for, my home and my livelihood…”
    Aeryn touched his hand. “You still had hope.”
    Eamon scoffed angrily. “Being taken in by a kind-hearted smith and given work isn’t hope, Aeryn. The Gauntlet was my hope – a chance to do something better, be someone better. A chance to start again. It’s been taken from me, just like everything else.” He could not meet her gaze. “I’ve been forbidden to swear.”
    Aeryn watched him hard for a moment. “What happened last night?”
    He paused, and suddenly he was pushing through the trees, the smell of blood and fire in his nostrils.
    â€œYou want to know what happened to me?” he said. “I was sent to hunt for a man in the woods and I disobeyed an order to search in groups. I found the fugitive and I lost him. He got away from me and nobody caught him. And because I brought the news of his escape to Captain Belaal and Lord Penrith, and lost my dagger in the process – thus making an idiot of myself – they won’t let me swear .” His hands began to shake. “I’ve made a fool of myself and I’ve lost everything,” he said bitterly, “as I always do.”
    Gently, Aeryn reached across and touched his arm. “You’re not a fool, Eamon,” she said. “If Hughan were here, he’d say the same.”
    â€œHow do you know what he would say?” Eamon retorted.
    â€œYou used to listen to him,” Aeryn answered.
    â€œYes,” Eamon said, and fresh, wrathful tears leapt into his eyes. “But Hughan’s been dead for eight years! For Master’s sake, Aeryn!”
    Aeryn looked at him strangely. “Don’t swear by him.”
    â€œDon’t start with that,” Eamon snapped.
    â€œHughan never thought the Gauntlet was where you should be,” Aeryn said quietly.
    â€œHughan’s dead! ” Eamon cried, and then fell silent. The memory of Hughan stung at him in the long quiet. He pressed his hands into his eyes. “Ladomer thought I could do it,” he whispered. “He told me I could do it…”
    â€œLadomer is a Gauntlet officer,” Aeryn pointed out. “Isn’t it possible that his opinion is biased?”
    â€œHe was my friend long before he was my officer,” Eamon answered. It had been Ladomer who had finally convinced him that it was not too late to try for the Gauntlet, and Ladomer who had encouraged him, guiding him through every part of his difficult training. “Ladomer knows me, Aeryn.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    As Eamon looked across at her injured face, some of his anger ebbed away.
    â€œI’m sorry, Aeryn,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to get so angry with you. It’s just…”
    There was a pause. “I know what you’ve been through, Eamon,” Aeryn told him, “and I know how much you have longed for this day, and how much of your hope you’ve set on it. But I don’t believe for a moment that you are lost if you don’t swear. Something greater might come of it.”
    â€œLike what?”
    Aeryn shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, “but something will come. It always has before.”
    Eamon drew a deep breath. He looked down at the patches of black beneath the caked layers of mud on his boots, then back to Aeryn. He wondered whether she might be right.
    â€œI expect I look like a beast,” he exhaled miserably, though not quite as miserably as before.
    Aeryn brushed some of the dirt from his sleeves. “Red isn’t your colour,” she said with a