Silas Jorn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Silas didn't answer the old guard's demand. He told Marcus he needed a day, then poled his ferry away before the man could argue. The truth was he had no truth to give. He didn't know whose death the ring marked. A small mark scored the inside of the band, pressed into the metal beneath the crest. He had run his thumb over it a hundred nights. He couldn't read it. Until he did, he couldn't name the drowned lord, and he couldn't prove who killed him. He tucked the ring into a small leather pouch on a cord and hid the pouch under his shirt. Then he climbed the hill to the university library. He had heard scholars there could read old marks. He pushed through the heavy doors into cold, dim air that smelled of dust and paper. A woman stood on a ladder, sliding a book into place. She wore glasses and a tight bun, and she didn't turn when the door groaned. "We close at dusk," she said. "Whatever you've lost, it isn't in here." "Are you the one who reads the old scripts?" Silas asked. Evelyn Clarke came down the ladder and studied him. Her eyes moved from his muddy boots to his hood. "I read many things. Ferrymen aren't usually one of them." She held out her hand, palm up, already sure he wanted something. "Show me." Silas hesitated. Every eye that saw the ring was a new mouth that could talk. But he had no other way forward. He drew out the pouch, tipped the ring into her hand, and watched her face. She carried it to the window light. She turned it slowly. Her thumb found the small mark, the same one that had beaten him for a month. "This crest belongs to a river house," she said. "But this mark inside isn't a crest. It's a name-sign. A private seal." She glanced up. "Where did you get this?" "The name," Silas said. "Read me the name." She held the ring closer. Her lips moved. Then she went still. "This isn't the crest's owner," she said quietly. "A signet's inner mark names the maker, or the one who ordered it made. This ring was commissioned by someone else. A second person. Someone who wanted the lord to wear it." Silas's stomach dropped. He had chased one dead man. Now the ring pointed past the corpse to a living hand. "Do you know the name?" he asked. "I know the mark," she said. "A merchant house downriver. They still keep an office here." She closed her fingers around the ring, not giving it back yet. "And they'll want to know who's asking." Silas took the ring from her hand and pushed it back into the pouch. He had his answer. But the answer had teeth. Somewhere downriver, the person who ordered the ring was still alive, and now a librarian knew he was hunting them.