Solace Arisen by Anna Steffl Page B

it have found them here? Arvana clutched the Blue Eye and scanned the sky. There was no smoke except for the light gray billowing from Ferne Clyffe’s chimneys.
    “The damn steward is a usurper,” Degarius snarled and took off in a gallop.
    By the time Arvana understood his concern was over the occupation of his home, he was too far ahead to catch. Without waiting for her, he dismounted, drew his sword, hurtled the steps, and burst through the front door. While Arvana tied the horses, she heard him shout, “Mrs. Karlkin, why is my house open?”
    Arvana tiptoed across the porch and peered around the open door. A handsome, stout woman with a halo of blond-going-gray hair was standing in the foyer. She was likely the housekeeper Degarius had been yelling at. With her arms crossed over her apron in satisfaction, she was watching a weeping Chancellor Degarius embrace his son. Through sobs, the chancellor said, “Fassal has made a public condemnation...but issued no call for your arrest...still it’s dangerous...the price on your head.”
    The housekeeper saw Arvana and gave her a head-to-toe look. Feeling like a spy, Arvana was about to retreat to the steps, when the woman motioned her inside with unexpected friendliness.
    “I’m at liberty?” Degarius asked his father.
    The chancellor released his son and looked at him from arm’s length. “Myronan, don’t hope for it. They’ve stripped you of your appointment. As it is, we’re lucky King Lerouge didn’t pull his troops. Plus, you have no time. The war likely starts in three days. We think the Gherians will declare at the end of their Winter Solemnity. Alenius has called a meeting of the Cabinet of Counties to mark the event—at sunset in the Fortress. The nine days of atonement began a week ago.”
    “So soon,” Degarius muttered. “We’ll just make it.”
    “We? Going where?” The chancellor turned around and narrowed his rheumy, astonished eyes. “Hera Solace?” He glanced to Degarius. “Myronan?”
    “Miss Nazar is with me.”
    His father pinched his brow and looked between them. Undoubtedly, he’d heard from Lady Martise the circumstances of his son’s disgrace. Undoubtedly, he would blame her, too. Though he’d been the kindest of men in Acadia, he was Degarius’s father. He was probably wondering why she was here when his son so obviously disdained her. Arvana steeled herself for a chilly reception.
    Instead, the chancellor said matter-of-factly, “I’d heard you’d perished in Solace with the rest.”
    With the rest. Why couldn’t he have just said something unwelcoming? The rest.
    “Mrs. Karlkin,” Degarius said, “I need the keys to the attic and my grandfather’s chest.”
    A great ring of keys came from the housekeeper’s apron pocket. She singled out two. “These would be them, Lord Degarius.”
    “The attic?” his father asked. “What must you have from the attic this moment?”
    “Something I should have looked for a long time ago,” Degarius mumbled as if to himself and started up the stairs. “It would have spared me a world of trouble.”
    Arvana began to follow when the housekeeper curtsied to her. “Excuse me, but how should I address you? I heard hera and miss.”
    “Miss, now.”
    “Ah yes. For now.” The housekeeper curtsied again. “Most excellent.”
    As Arvana grasped the baluster, she turned to give the woman the only thing she could for her kindness—a grateful look. The housekeeper accepted it with a smile so warm it consumed her genial, black, quail-like eyes. Intuitively, Arvana knew all the goodness of the world had been bound up in this woman.
    At the end of the second floor hall, Degarius unlocked a door to narrow, steep attic stairs. His father led the way up to a cavernous attic flooded by channels of light coming in through the dormers. It had the fusty smell of a dead person’s house that had been kept locked and unswept for many moons. Degarius weaved through crates, past an old table with