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Chapter One

Ten years, and countless misfortunes, later...


Things tended to go wrong in Hammerwall Bastion. Knots were always slipping free of their ropes, knives lost their edge a day after whetting, new axles broke within a mile of home, and old friends argued about nothing at all. Even the weather was strange. The lightning that crackled just beyond the orderwall sometimes froze in place for long heartbeats, as though pausing in its stroll across the sky to stare curiously at the tiny citizens of the steading. Chaos was always in the air. You could taste it.

Rae Kelthannis licked his lips and looked out over the dry expanse of his family’s homestead. Father was in the field, white-haired head bent to the thresher, trying to urge another hour of work from the failing machine. It was supposed to be harvest season, but there was little more in that field than dirt and withered leaves. His sister was in the coop, gathering eggs. And stacked up next to the coop was a face cord of unsplit firewood, waiting for Rae’s attention. He hefted the ax and examined its edge. Ruined. Corrosion pitted the iron head, and the haft was soft with rot. He dug a finger across the wood, burrowing a rut in the handle.

“This is what we get for living in a border steading,” Rae muttered. “Even the chores have gone mad.”

“Mad chores still have to be done, Rae,” La said. She emerged from the coop with a basket in her hand, her skinny knees scuffed from the constant stooping. His sister had outgrown the rest of the family years ago, and her tattered wardrobe the year before that. Gone was the pudgy, tear-stained child who had fled Hadroy House ten years earlier. La had grown up in a more difficult world, and had grown difficult with it. Her short plait of black hair was pressed flat against her scalp with sweat, and her arms and hands were tanned and scarred from hours spent in the sun, and hard labor. She set the basket of eggs down, then peered doubtfully at the ax in Rae’s hands. “Though I doubt you’ll get much done with that old thing. What happened to the new ax?”

“This is the new ax.” Rae tossed it against the woodpile in disgust. The haft splintered apart and disintegrated into dust. He gave a long, low whistle. His sister looked up from her task and raised her brows.

“That’s pretty bad,” La said. “I mean, even for Hammerwall. Didn’t we buy that last year?”

“Seven months ago. And the handle was guaranteed for five years. Supposed to be stonebound.” Rae picked up a shard of the shattered haft and turned it over in his hands. “If this is stonebound, I’ll eat it whole.”

“You may have to, if the harvest doesn’t come in.” La glanced at their father, still bent over the ailing thresher. “I should see what’s wrong.”

“Give him a minute. He likes to figure these things out himself. Doesn’t get much chance to exercise that brain of his anymore.” Rae nestled the broken handle in his hand, then turned his back so his father wouldn’t see what Rae was doing, should he look over suddenly. With his other hand, Rae slowly wove the basic symbols of the earth realm over the handle, aligning the fringes of his soul with that of stone. The wood responded, vibrating and emanating a gentle light. La hissed at her brother.

“You’re not supposed to be doing that!”

“Who’s going to notice? And just as I thought, there’s less stone in here than in a mosquito’s belly.” Rae dropped the weak incantation and threw the handle onto the firewood. “At least we can burn it safely.”

“One of these days you’re going to slip up, and Dad’s going to figure out what you’ve been reading his secret books.” La gathered up her basket of eggs. “Or worse, the justicars are going to hunt you down and sear your soul.”

“The last thing the justicars are going to do is hunt down an unlicensed spiritbinder on the edge of the world and arrest him for talking to rocks,” Rae said. “I’m sure they have more important problems to deal with. Even in Hammerwall.”

“If only you were just talking to rocks, Raelle,” La said sternly. Rae hushed her and busied himself with the firewood. Their father, finally fed up with the thresher, was ambling over.

“What’s this about talking to rocks?” Tren asked. Sweat ran in dusty trails down his wrinkled face. When neither of his children answered immediately, he looked at the broken ax with some displeasure, then shook his head. “Ah. That is testing the limits of my considerable patience.”

Ten years of hard labor had tested Tren Kelthannis in a lot of ways, not least of them his patience. He still had the slight build and piercing gaze that Rae remembered from their days at Hadroy House, but his once soft hands bore calluses, and the tan on his face and arms had no place in the libraries he had spent most of his life. This desolate farm was as far as the family’s limited funds could take them after they had fled the baron’s service, but it was far enough from Fulcrum that no one knew their names, or the shame of their father’s former master. If talk around the town was that Tren had neither the bearing, expertise, nor vocabulary of a farmer, then so be it. That was just talk, and not the kind that would get any of them thrown in jail. So far.

“You two get inside and get cleaned up for dinner. Tomorrow you can go into town and buy a new ax. Take the old one with you. Harlen has to answer for that guarantee.” Tren turned and walked toward the barn, muttering the whole way. “Stonebound, my ass. There’s more stone in that bastard’s head than there was in that wood. And La? You’ll need to take a look at the thresher before you go. Might be we need some new parts.”

“I guarantee we need some new parts. Enough parts to make up an entire thresher,” La said quietly. She turned to her brother with a sad smile. “Just as I guarantee we can’t pay for them. I’ll find a way to get it up and running again.”

“I might be able to help with that. Morgan has another job for me. Big one, he said.” Rae pocketed the ruined axehead. “Going to the Bastion will give us a chance to talk it over.”

“Speaking of trouble . . .”

“Yes, yes.” Rae waved his sister off, then scooped up the basket of eggs. “Let’s get these inside before Dad finds us more chores.”

What the Kelthannis home lacked in size, it more than made up for in cleanliness. Their mother would always be manor-born, even if their station had fallen greatly, and she wouldn’t tolerate untidiness or sloth. The small main room was impeccably made up, with a sturdy table, four chairs, a hutch that contained their few worldly possessions, and a lounge chair tucked under the stairwell, surrounded by the few books that Tren was willing to display. The truly interesting tomes were hidden behind a loose space in the floorboards, and contained what little knowledge of spiritbinding that Rae had been able to glean since their flight from Hadroy House. Not that he could truly call himself a spiritbinder. Not yet.

“Raelle, there’s no way you split all that firewood, young man,” Mother said as she emerged from the kitchen. Lady Kelthannis’s face was ruddy and sweating from the heat of the oven, and her once gracious hands were knotted with arthritis and age. She wore a simple blue dress, her favorite color going back to the better days, though the fabric was cheap broadcloth rather than lifespun silk and crushed velvet. The smell of dinner wafted out behind her.

“Rae broke the ax,” La said, sticking her tongue out at her brother when Mother’s back was turned.

“Chaos broke the ax. I just happened to be holding it when it finally succumbed,” Rae said. “We’re going to the Bastion tomorrow, to get Harlen to make good on his guarantee. And La will need to get some parts for the thresher.”

“The ax, the thresher . . . it’s a miracle this house hasn’t come down around our ears,” Mother said. “Fine, fine, whatever your father says needs to be done. Just make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

“In Hammerwall?” Rae asked. “You must be joking. It’s barely fit to be called a bastion at all.”

“Yes, well, I know you better than you think, young man. Stay close to your sister. She has a way of scaring off the kinds of people who might lead you astray. Now get to your rooms and get ready for dinner. Your father will be hungry.”

Rae retreated into his room and closed the door. He was serious about Hammerwall, despite his mother’s doubts. It was a poor excuse for a bastion. The tiny cluster of traders, government officials, the garrison of soldiers, and the narrow spire of the central warding antenna that provided the steading with its bubble of protection against encroaching Chaos wouldn’t have registered as a town back home. But here in distant Hammerwall, at the edge of the Ordered World and as far from Fulcrum as a mortal soul could get, it was a virtual metropolis.

Changing for dinner meant clean pants without patches, a soft shirt that was two sizes too small, and a cravat with dull-steel pin that Rae had polished until it shone like silver. He dragged through the process, fussing with the cravat over and over, even though he had been able to tie them with his eyes closed since he was eight. When he emerged, the rest of the family was already seated.

Father said the binding, Mother served the meal. Dinner was a hash of various meats and leftover vegetables, scavenged from whatever didn’t sell at the market. They set to eating quietly. Exhaustion from the day’s chores pressed down on the meal. After a long silence, Mother cleared her throat.

“If the children are going to town anyway, I thought they could pick up some bread from Chelsea,” she said. When Father didn’t answer, she glanced up. “The honeycakes. If we can afford it.”

“We can,” he said. “As long as Harlen stands by his guarantee and refunds the ax.”

“You know he won’t.”

“He might. He has a soft spot for Lalette.” Father looked up and smiled thinly. “Make sure you bring your best smile, La.”

“I can go to the bakery while La is conning Harlen into a free ax,” Rae said.

“Or you can stay with your sister and make sure Harlen sticks to his word,” Mother said. “I know what the baker’s daughter looks like, Rae. You might steal a loaf just for the chase.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is fair,” La said. “You think I like being told to smile at an old man so my family can pay for some bread?”

“Have you had a look at the thresher yet?” Father asked before the conversation could get out of hand.

“Main gear is slipping. I’ll try to hack it together tonight, but if I can’t reset the teeth we’ll have to replace it.” La said.

Tren let out a long sigh, pushing his food around the plate with a dull spoon. “Do what you can. Give her a hand, Rae. Without the thresher, we’ll have to do it by hand. And we can’t afford the parts.”

“I might be able to scrounge up some cash,” Rae said. “Morgan owes me for—”

“I don’t want to hear what that boy owes you, nor why,” Mother said stiffly. “We’ll do without honeycakes, if that’s the sort of people you’re meeting in the village.”

“Work is work,” Rae said. “And we aren’t in a position to be picky about the work we take.”

“He’s a criminal.”

“He is not a—” Rae started, but Father silenced him with a look.

“We can’t draw the wrong kind of attention, Rae,” he said simply. “Now. What’s for dessert?”

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” Mother answered. “For the honeycake.”

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. After dinner, Tren retreated to the remnant of his library, while the rest of the family helped clean up. Rae watched his father settle into the threadbare lounge chair tucked between the shelves, in the small space under the eaves that served as his last refuge. Rae’s earliest memories were of his father among his books, though there had been so many more books, and such brighter lights. There were a lot of memories like that.

After dinner, Rae and La changed back into their work clothes and headed out to the barn. La carried an old frictionlamp in her hand. Its steady hum blended with the insects singing in the night. Once they were clear of the house, she turned to him sharply.

“You shouldn’t provoke them like that. Do you think they like knowing what you do for extra cash?”

“What’s the harm?” Rae asked. “Morgan has plenty of legitimate work for me. Amateur bondwrights are hard to come by, especially ones who don’t ask what’s being done with the final product. Most times I just bind a little wind to a knife, or weave a spirit of death into a bullet.”

“Unlicensed spiritbinding is a capital offense, Rae. The justicars could come down on you so hard, you’d have to blink to fart.”

“Let’s not pretend the justicars give two cracks about Morgan and his gang,” Rae said with a laugh. “That’s business for the Hammerwall houseguard. And they have their hands full with smugglers coming across the orderwall.”

La stopped walking and cut the frictionlamp. Rae stumbled to a halt and whirled on her. “What the—?”

“Hush,” she hissed, then took him by the arm and turned him back toward the house.

There was a light bobbing its way down the road, held aloft by a figure still swaddled in shadow. It paused briefly at the end of the Kelthannis driveway, then walked briskly toward the house. As the figure stepped into the circle of light thrown out from inside the house, Rae’s throat closed up.

The man wore the tight coat and high collar of the justicars, with his spiritblade slung over his shoulder and a brace of firelocks on a bandolier. He looked young, but if he was a lifebinder it might not matter. Spiritbinders woven through with the realm of the fae could look incredibly young regardless of their actual age. His hair was short and blond, swept back like an explosion. He walked up the short stairs to the Kelthannis porch, then pounded on the front door. Rae’s mother answered a few moments later.

“What is he saying?” La whispered.

“My hearing’s no better than yours, especially with you hissing in my ear.” Rae strained his ears, but all he could get were solemn tones. Mother retreated into the house, to be replaced by Tren. To his credit, Father looked the part of a startled farmer, rather than a hunted criminal.

“Can’t you do something with the air? Bend it to carry the sound, or something?”

“Like I’m going to risk that with a justicar standing right there,” Rae said. “Now be quiet.”

Tren and the justicar spoke for a few moments, until finally the justicar thanked them loudly and turned away. Tren watched as the justicar walked away, barely glancing in the direction of the barn before going back inside and closing the door.

About ten feet from the front door, the justicar stopped and looked directly at where Rae and his sister were crouching in the field. He nodded, as though in greeting, then continued down the driveway, disappearing in the direction that he had come.

“Do you think he saw us?” La asked.

“He saw something.” Or sensed it. Even the low-level spiritbinding that Rae did, without having anything woven into his soul, could leave a mark. “Either way, he’s gone. I’m going to find out what that was about.” Rae stood and started toward the house. La grabbed him.

“Give them a minute. If you go in there right now and start yelling, Mother’s going to get upset and Father will just yell back.” La’s grip tightened on his arm. “Let them talk things through.”

“He’s going to want to run again,” Rae said.

“We don’t have the money for that.” La released him, then jerked her thumb at the barn. “Speaking of being flat broke . . . let’s try to talk some life into this thresher.”

“I can get the money,” Rae said. La arched a brow in his direction.

“Something illegal, I assume. And dangerous to boot,” she said. “Is this one of Morgan’s stupid plans?”

“He has a lead on a job, but he needs a spiritbinder for it. A real spiritbinder, not the clever tricks I can do.”

“Well, the only spiritbinder we know is Dad. And we both know he’s not going to risk revealing that, especially now that there’s a justicar in the steading sniffing about,” La said. She punched Rae in the shoulder. “Give it up, brother. You’ll have to think of something else.”

“I can do it,” Rae said. “I can bind a spirit.”

La chuckled and rolled her eyes.

“No, seriously. I’ve read the manuals, and I’ve developed an affinity for lesser motes. You’ve seen me start fires without a match, or summon the wind.”

“I’ve seen you set your shirt on fire. I remember that eruption of mud that lived under your bed for three weeks before you could figure out how to dispel it. Face it, Rae, learning from a book is never going to make you a spiritbinder.”

“I have more than a book,” Rae said, then looked meaningfully at the root cellar.

“Rae,” La cautioned. “Don’t risk it.”

“I can’t make enough binding trick knives and anchor traps, La. We don’t need the money to fix the thresher, or buy honeycake, or”—he gestured in frustration at the farm—“any of this. We need real money. And there’s only one way to get that.”

“You know what Father would say.”

“Father’s had his say. Look where it’s gotten us.” Rae shrugged. “Maybe it’s time I stepped up and did something about all this.”

He marched to the root cellar. La followed a moment later, the thresher apparently forgotten. Rae unlatched the door to the root cellar and went inside. It was too dark to see anything until La descended the stairs with her frictionlamp, casting a warm, ruddy glow throughout the cellar.

The root cellar was a narrow, damp space, lined with rough shelves that held dozens of murky jars and sacks of potatoes, waiting for the winter. They had just enough laid aside for the season, if they watched what they ate and were lucky with the weather. Father had done the math very carefully, calendar and slide rule in hand. The rest they sold. It was going to be a close thing, but it always was. Every year was a game of starvation and survival, calculated in hoarded vegetables and the market price of shriveled apples.

Rae made his way between the stacks of supplies to the far side of the cellar. A heavy wooden chest at the end held their spare clothes and blankets. The chest was set into the slatted boards of the wooden floor. Rae knelt and undid the hidden latch that kept it in place. He lifted the chest and slid it to the side, grimacing with the effort. Moving the chest revealed a narrow space in the floor, presumably dug by his Father shortly after they purchased the farm. Rae had only discovered it by accident. A thin package lay in the secret compartment, about as long as Rae’s arm and wrapped in burlap. Rae carefully lifted the package from the floor and set it on the ground beside the chest. La set the frictionlamp on one of the shelves, then wrapped her arms around her body, shivering.

“I’ve always hated that thing,” she whispered.

“Do you even remember the day we got it?” Rae asked. La shook her head. “Then what are you scared of? It’s just a dead man’s spiritblade.”

“Then why is Dad hiding it in here? Why is he still on the run?” She took a step back. “Don’t try this, Rae. Maybe Dad’s come up with a plan. Maybe we don’t need to leave Hammerwall after all.”

“This happened in Fiskel, and again in Terrapin. Even a hint the justicars were snooping around, and we packed up. I’m sick of it.” He reached forward and unwrapped the package. The rough burlap peeled away to reveal a long sword. It looked like the fractured surface of a frozen pond whose depths swam with murky shadows, much deeper than the sword could possibly be. The light from La’s lamp danced through the fault lines, refracting and filling the weapon with a warm inner light. Running a finger along the surface of the blade, Rae felt no break in the material, no rough edge to catch his skin. Despite the cracks that spiderwebbed through the interior of the sword, the edge was still as sharp as a razor, and the handle smooth and comfortable. He lifted the sword from its swaddle and held it up to the light.

This was a spiritblade, the tool mages used to bind their souls to spirits from the arcane planes, and a focus to help them command and control those spirits. It was also a safeguard, protecting the spiritbinder’s soul from the influence of the other realms. His father had one, binding him to the elemental plane of Air, though Rae had not seen it in years. And if Rae was going to be a true spiritbinder, he would need to forge his own. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to do that. So, for now, this ’blade would have to do.

Never mind that it had belonged to Rassek Brant, the man responsible for the Hadroy Heresy. Father had told them the stories, as a warning, and a promise of what would happen if Rae meddled in the affairs of the Iron College. And besides, Rassek Brant was long dead, and the Kelthannis ties to the Heresy forgotten. What’s the harm?

“So what are you going to do? If Rassek is dead, wouldn’t the bound spirits be long gone? What good is this thing to you?” La asked.

“The pattern is still here. The map. Every spirit that bastard bound is recorded in the blade. Sure, it’s woven in with the tapestry of his soul, but for the lesser motes that shouldn’t matter. Just a matter of reading the map.” Rae balanced the sword tip-down on the floor, then took the frictionlamp from the shelf and shone it directly into the blade. “Like this.”

The broken interior of the spiritblade lit up like lightning caught mid-stroke, projecting a disk of light onto the floor. The illumination was a mind-numbingly complicated tapestry of knots, swirls, and runes. The pattern shifted and grew as Rae tilted the blade back and forth, letting him study different parts of the tapestry more closely.

“Bloody Order,” La whispered. “How are you supposed to read that?”

“Ignore the stuff in the middle. That would take a greater mind than mine to unravel. But here on the outside? Lesser motes. Father said Rassek was a stormbinder, just like him. Let’s see if I can bind a bit of the Air.”

Shifting the sword, Rae brought the edge of the glowing disk into focus. The sigils were broad and swooping, their lines interweaving with the frayed edges of Rassek’s soul, locking together to form a tapestry of mystical skeins.

Rae picked one of the sigils at random. It was different from the others; the pattern was less sure, the lines blurring together. He focused on the mote, letting his mind relax and slowing his breathing as he fixed the pattern in his mind. The lines of power filled his vision, and the sword started to hum against his hands. A good start! Now he just needed to align his soul with the sigil and let them intermingle. His father’s words returned to him.

The spiritbinder lives inside his soul. Deeper than mind, deeper than body, deeper even than this world.

“Deeper than mind, deeper than body,” Rae whispered. He closed his eyes and focused on the rune that hovered in his consciousness. “Deeper than mind, deeper than body. Deeper than . . . than . . .” What the hell does that even mean? Rae thought. No, no, I have to focus. I can do this. Deeper than—

A shock went through Rae’s arm as the barriers between the material world and the elemental realm shifted. Vertigo rushed through his body, sending his stomach flipping up into his throat. A gust of wind crawled over his hand and into the loose sleeve of his shirt. The buttons of his shirt blew apart. Rae stood up, dropping the sword as he was buffeted by the storm mote. The released spirit fought its way free of his clothes, only to spin through the narrow confines of the root cellar, upsetting jars and kicking up a cloud of dust. La squealed and jumped back, covering her face with both arms.

The mote looked like a curlicue of thick air. It rumbled between the shelves, snaking its way between preserves before settling on a bag of potatoes. The burlap sack snapped back and forth, until finally the fabric tore open. The mote dove into the sack, sending potatoes rolling across the floor, dancing and bumping in the spirit’s miniature whirlwind.

Rae lunged for the bag and lost his balance, lurching into a shelf of preserves, upsetting Mother’s collection of sour apples. The mote erupted from the bag and flattened itself against the ceiling. A cloud of grit and biting dust filled the cellar. Rae shielded his face with one arm and rushed the mote, waving his other arm at the tiny spirit, trying to scare it off. A prickle of lightning went through his hand, drawing a yelp of pain. La screamed again as the mote roared past her, struck the heavy door just hard enough to push it ajar, and escaped through the crack. Rae heard it scream up into the night sky, another ghost in the woods.

Rae and his sister looked around the cellar. Potatoes, some of them inexpertly mashed by Rae’s boots, lay scattered across the floor. A crock of molasses rolled slowly off its shelf and smashed to the floor, breaking in slow motion as its contents oozed between the shards of pottery. Rae coughed, waving his hand in front of his mouth, trying to clear the dust.

“Well. That was a pretty good start,” he said.

“Or a complete disaster. Depends on your perspective.” She squinted at the wreckage of their winter reserves. “Mom’s going to have your hide for this.”

“We can clean it up. A couple potatoes, a jar of molasses. She’ll never notice the difference.”

“We? Dear brother, you can clean this up. I have a thresher to fix.” She tromped up the stairs and exited the cellar. Rae sighed in resignation.

“I can’t do this alone. Not without a tutor, or at least a . . . map of my own soul. Hm.” Rae rubbed his chin, thinking about tomorrow’s trip to the Bastion. “Yeah. A map.

“I know just the guy . . .”


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Framed