Chapter 8 — Vardenmoor

The capital city of the Cinderlands had been many things in its long life, and was currently — in the sixth year of the interregnum — a city holding its breath.Forty thousand people within walls that had stood for three centuries. Markets that ran because trade ran regardless of politics. Temples to the old-empire gods that still drew worshippers from habit. The palace complex at the city's centre, occupied by a rotating skeleton government of Council members who had enough administrative function to keep the water running and the grain moving and not enough political authority to decide anything larger.And at the palace's heart: the broken throne room, sealed since the night the Ashen Throne cracked, which the Council had decided was the most politically neutral thing to do.They entered through the north gate. There was no one flying Vane's colours here — Vardenmoor was claimed by none of the warlords yet, too significant a prize to be taken by one without triggering war with the others, and so it sat in a fraught independence that everyone was too afraid to resolve.People looked at Kael.Not everyone. But some — the ones with old enough faces to remember the years before, who had heard the old stories, who recognized the ash-marks or simply felt something in the presence of him that they couldn't name. He felt their recognition like warmth, like the Cinderstone under his feet, which was everywhere here — the whole city built from it."They know what you are," Deven said quietly."They know the marks," Kael said."Is there a difference?"He thought about it. "Yes. The marks are a tool. I'm a person. What I do with it is up to me."Deven looked sideways at him. "You've changed since Cinder's Edge.""I was in Cinder's Edge for sixteen years and had no idea what I was carrying. Yes. I've changed."— ✦ —