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pace was relaxed and his strides were great.
    He had one task: an ultimatum to issue. A warning.
    Children in the streets ceased their play and crowded under the snow-covered eaves to watch as the man in black strode by. “Walker, Walker, Walker,” they whispered to each other in excited, hushed tones. “Silent, not a talker!”
    Stillness reigned in Quaervarr where he walked. It spread up the street, causing children’s games to fall silent, adults to cut off conversations and watch, and even the barking of dogs and the neighing of horses to cease. When a pail slipped the notice of a stable boy and fell clattering to the ground, those nearby cringed in surprise.
    Walker did not slow or pause. Carrying his bundle, he walked through the main street of Quaervarr toward the mansion of Lord Singer Dharan Greyt.
     

     
    Reading a romance by Alin the Mad, a Cormyrean writer of great skill who had a talent for description, even if that description ran to the fantastical, Greyt had just finished swallowing the last bit of venison and had lifted the vintage to his lips when the doors to his dining hall banged open. He looked up in annoyance, but he didn’t need to. He knew who it would be.
    “Stonar’s gone?” the young man asked. “Now at least you can relax, with that oaf out of the way. At least for a while.”
    “Dearest son, won’t you join me? I’m almost finished with my lunch,” he said.
    Meris, frost caked on his white cloak, grinned and smoothed his jet-black hair with a brush of his hand. He had a couple of men with him at the door—the Greyt family rangers were little more than hired thugs and disconsolate woodsmen—but the Lord Singer hardly noticed. Meris took all his attention.
    Meris was armed with a sword and a hand axe, the weapons of hara-sakal, the specialized high axe, low sword style imported from the barbarians of Rashemen, and his dusky skin was rosy from the frosty morning. While Greyt admired the pale sheen of his own face, he found Meris’s slightly darker features, aesthetically, to be more than decent. Greyt had made a good choice with Meris’s Amnian mother, gods rest her soul. He tried to remember how she had died, but the exact details escaped him. No matter.
    “Thank you, no, father. I’ve already eaten,” Meris said. His voice was rich and full but carried a sinister undercurrent, a twist to the tone that hinted that everything he said was slightly mocking. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
    “That it’s terrible out and there’s nothing to hunt?” Greyt yawned. He swirled the wine in his goblet and pointed to the window, where it was still dark outside, even though the sun had risen some time ago. “I already noticed the lack of sun.”
    “Something else,” Meris replied.
    Their manner was always curt, which was fine by Greyt. He didn’t like Meris so much as he approved of him. The dusky youth reminded him of himself. He suspected his illegitimate son had killed his siblings to clear his own path to inheritance. Ruthlessness ran in the Greyt family like blood.
    “Aye?”
    “A death that occurred two nights past. Well, two deaths, actually,” Meris said.
    “A drunken brawl?” Greyt asked. “Tell me Unddreth finally had an accident—”
    “No,” Meris replied. “Deaths at the house of Sir Drex Redgill, your longtime friend.”
    “Drex got a little hot under the collar and took it out on a couple servants again, eh?” Greyt waved dismissively and took a sip of his wine. “Not my concern.”
    “Unless he took it out on himself, something else happened,” Meris said. “Drex was killed two nights past, along with one of his guards.”
    The Lord Singer squeezed the goblet so hard it shattered in his hand. “What?” he asked, wincing as the shards sank into his flesh. A healing potion was brought quickly, and he quaffed it to stifle the pain.
    “Drex was slain.” The guards at the door—Greyt family rangers, loyal servants all of them—looked at Meris