The road continued, and four days after they left Ifrin's Crossing, they reached the foothills that marked the true borders of this Kingdom. Charia and Brin might end and begin at the river they'd crossed so recently, but the culture didn't change noticeably until they reached the first mountain village. Then Simon saw that they were built like little fortresses.

All of them kept a fire that was usually fueled by wood or dung burning throughout the night and had heavy shutters and doors on all the buildings, along with barns for storing herds. Some went further than that, building their homes next to each other in large rings with all the doors facing inward like some kind of flimsy fort. Many used cliffs and natural defensive structures.

Simon hadn't noticed such arrangements during his time in Freya's valley, but according to Eddek, one only saw arrangements like this in the highlands. "Lowlanders are indistinguishable from foreigners in some ways," he told Simon. "In the northern valley, which conditions are safer, people spread out, but up here… every night may be your last."

That wasn't their only strange feature that Simon needed Eddek to explain to him. Every one of the villages they passed wasn't even a village in the strictest sense. It was a clanhold, and everyone who lived there shared a surname, and most matters were decided communally.

"That's why you call me Eddek," he explained. "If I was among my kin, they might call me Eddek Farel, Eddek Branson, or even just Erben, which is sort of like… heir to the Hold."

All of that made sense, but Simon had never really thought about it or even asked about it, which showed just how little time he'd spent here in any of his lives. The clanholds were deeply suspicious of Simon in almost every interaction.

In fact, they viewed him with such suspicion that part of Simon wondered if he would have been simply rejected outright if he'd come through the region with a dark aura. There was no way to know for sure that any of them could see it, of course, but the way that some old women stared at him made him sure that they did. Trying to trade with them using foreign coins was a miserable experience, but Eddek was mostly able to sort things out there.

He wasn't much in the wilderness and could get sullen on the trail sometimes, especially as food ran low. In town, bartering with his own people, he seemed much more at home. Once he explained the tragedy that befell their caravan, though, people opened their doors wide for the group. Outsider or not, the rules about hospitality in such cases were quite clear.

News was offered nearly as freely as food after that, which was how they found out they weren't too late for the festival that had inspired this whole journey in the first place. "It's not really a festival," Eddek clarified after he found out. "I just told you that because you don't really understand our ways. It's a moot, and I'll be attending for clan Eddek."

"A moot?" Simon asked as he tried to clarify the way these facts fit in his head with other lives. If these two had died on the road, then they never would have come, and if they'd waited at the miller's for someone to come looking for them, they would have reached their destination far too late. So, whatever happened next, they'd be changing history, though for the worse or the better, he couldn't say.

"Yeah, they're held in the capital every year, and if the clan leaders want a say in what the King does, they can come and vote on some things," he said. "There will still be drinking and dancing and all the rest, especially after it's over. I've been to them before. This is just my first time coming alone."

"Alright…" Simon answered, feeling like he was missing some important information here. "So why isn't your father here this time? Aren't you a little young to be here on your own?"

"A clan's Erben can attend on behalf of his father," Eddek said, sounding a little hurt by Simon's words. "He's told me what to vote for and what to vote against. In all things not discussed, I am to vote with Clan Grelden, our closest ally. It's simple."

"Yeah, but—" Simon tried to drive the point home, but Kayla interrupted him.

"My master is coming on his own because he will be staying here for the foreseeable future," she said. "He's going to be educated by the fine Miesters of the city."

"Well, yeah, obviously," not realizing he hadn't bothered to explain that to Simon until now. "Father will be along next year, and without my funds or my manservants, it will be harder, but I'll manage."

Simon spent most of that evening drawing more details out of Eddek to make sure there wasn't anything else he hadn't left out up until now, but there didn't seem to be. Still, the boy had all the time in the world to tell him these things in this life and more time to tell him some part of it in past lives, which made Simon leery of trusting the idea of putting him in any position of real responsibility.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Either his dad is way more confident in this situation than he ever should be, or I'm not being told everything, Simon told himself.

From that night on, they no longer camped in the wild. It was too dangerous, according to the locals, and they moved only as far as they could from one village to the next on any given day as they made their way to Adonan. Even with all those precautions, though, they still had to deal with a pack of mangy beastmen three days outside the capital.

There were only four of them, and Eddek did as he was instructed and protected their mule and his serving girl, but all he had to do was stand there with his sword. Simon dispatched the rest of them, earning himself only a shallow gouge from one of their horns as he narrowly dodged a charge. His leather armor stopped the worst of it, but even so, he had to waste good whisky from their supplies to make sure it didn't get infected.

Kayla helped him with that when they reached the next town. She bandaged it, too, which felt very strange to Simon. It was the first time in a very long time that he was letting something heal the natural way instead of just closing it up with magic, and he was unsurprised that he didn't like the feeling.

Still, neither the attack nor the worsening weather stopped them from reaching the capital. It was smaller than he remembered. It wasn't quite as cramped as the other clan holds he'd seen, but now that their design was a familiar sight, he could see their DNA in the layout of this place.

The heart of the city was surrounded by an old city wall that looked like it meant business. It couldn't have contrasted more with the edge of the city, which was surrounded by a much smaller one that showed how much less the inhabitants had become of their surroundings over the intervening decades or centuries.

Most of the large buildings were built from gray stone, and the smaller ones were made from yellow brick. The roofs were dominated by dark slate, making the whole thing look like an armed camp, and that wasn't softened by the sprawling castle that dominated the center of the city.

Today, it stood like a quiet giant, but if Simon didn't do anything, then one day in the future, it would become the site of a violent massacre that was caused, or at least coordinated, by Kayla and Simon had trouble unseeing that. It wasn't until Eddek pointed out that the colorful banners indicated which clan head was staying where for the moot that he was able to shake himself free of those screams and half-remembered flames.

While Simon was quite sure that he'd never seen the wider city before, it was just familiar enough that he searched the nearby hills looking for the cabin that he was pretty sure he'd fought the werewolf near, but he didn't see it. Who knows, he thought with a shrug as they approached the main gate.

There, Eddek's presence counted far less than it had at the smaller clanholds and did nothing to fend off a particularly vigorous inspection by the guards. They went through everything that Simon had on him, but fortunately, nothing screamed, 'I'm a warlock, please kill me!' In the end, they seemed far more suspicious about his fat purse of silver than about any of the magical equipment he had on him.

That was ironic, considering he'd looked pretty shady in some lives, but the most he usually merited was a terse warning, like, 'Just so you know, you draw that thing in this town, and it will cost you your life.'

Here, though, they went through all of their things and asked Simon, in particular, plenty of questions. Who was he really? Where did he get the money? Why did he bother to travel so far out of his way? Why bother to risk his life at all for strangers?

Simon tried to pay the good guy at first and told them the truth, but when they weren't buying it, he decided that being a little mercenary was in order. "Alright, you caught me," he admitted. "Saving the heir to a whole clan? That's gotta be worth some real money to the Eddeks, right? I'm just sticking around until I can get paid for my efforts."

Kayla's eyes bulged at that admission, but Eddek, at least for all of his other faults, caught on immediately. "Why shouldn't he get paid?" the young man asked. "When my household guard was cut down, he saved our lives. It's a fair bargain all around."

"Be that as it may," the guard agreed, "Does he really have to come into the city?"

"There's no rule against foreigners coming into Adonan," Eddek said back, sounding almost confident beneath the guard's scrutiny.

"Yes, but during the Moot, we're supposed to—" the guard answered.

"I know my rights," Eddek declared. "I am Eddek Farel, Erben of my clan, and as representative for house Eddek, I can bring whoever I want as part of my entourage. I have no plans to leave behind my last and only bodyguard, regardless of where he might come from."

"Fine," the guard growled. "As soon as we've sent for someone who can verify your identity. Who shall we call."

"Karl Grelden," Eddek answered. "He'll vouch for me."

The guard paled at the mention of a Karl, which was the title for their clan leaders, but he nodded and sent a man to do just that.

Yes, Simon decided as he watched all of this play out. There are definitely bigger things at play here than I'll be able to see as an outsider. I've got a lot to learn.

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