Read Treason's Shore for Free Online

not stormy. A rare sight, the rising sun in a milky-pale sky behind the city; for many in the southern fleet who possessed spyglasses, it was a heartening sight after more than ten years away.
    The southern fleet commander, Stalna Hyarl Fulla Durasnir, did not notice the weather.
    For those watching from the walls and tower crenellations the complicated geometry of wind-curved sails were silhouetted against a dark western horizon, from which racing clouds tumbled, bringing yet another storm.
    As they neared, the fleet peered hungrily back at Twelve Towers, so named for the twelve original ships that had gone a-viking in search of glory and trade. Finding no trade or prey, the twelve had sailed north toward what they thought was home. They’d found instead a rocky, grim coast and no humans anywhere: somehow they had ventured out of their world and into another. Faced with the immediate prospect of a winter that promised to be even less merciful than those at home, they’d dug in and built a city. Twelve ships, twelve towers, twelve clans in varying precedence. By the time those clans had renamed themselves the Oneli, the Sea Lords, the twelve towers had been reinforced into mighty, bastioned edifices on the surface connected by a single stone-patterned road that bridged the river; large as the towers were, they gave no sign of the far larger complex of domiciles underground joined by a system of tunnels.
    Those onboard the ships, sweeping their spyglasses over the thick-walled imposing towers of pale gray stone, strained to pick out individuals from the clusters of mostly flaxen-haired heads. Already the wind had begun to rise, ripping across the gray seas from the snowy northern wastes, and hoods came up, some faces covered entirely except for the eyes.
    From his position before the koldar, at which two strong men braced against the running current, Stalna Hyarl Durasnir stood in full battle armor, silver over white, his winged helm fitted over his long, thinning gray-streaked yellow hair. The rising wind whistled through the wires holding the wings in place and tugged at his sweeping white fine-woven wool cloak. He braced his feet on the surging deck, knowing that he was an object of scrutiny by all those gathered on the walls in the city.
    With the steadiness of long practice he kept his glass aimed as the towers gradually emerged from the predawn shadow. There was the Anborc, the King’s Tower, highest of all, reigning over the widest complexity of underground tunnels and dwellings. As he expected, the glints of color along the upper parapet resolved into the formal cloaks and hoods of Elders in the Houses . . . but not all twelve. He swept the gathering again, narrowing his eyes, and yes, two were missing.
    Why? No, the question that mattered was whether the Elders had convened a Breseng, which would be a formality appointing Rajnir king. Not every House would deem it necessary to mount the walls to view the return of the fleet for that. If the Elders had invoked a full council, a Frasadeng, that required everyone to participate in choosing a king.
    And required a candidate for kingship to answer all questions put to him.
    Durasnir spared a thought for Prince Rajnir, who sat in his cabin, Dag Erkric attending him. As the fleet neared the outer reaches of the harbor, fleet watched towers, towers watched fleet. The prince stayed hidden.
    Durasnir swung his glass to other end of the visible part of the city, and leveled the sights on Sinnaborc, the Tower of Transgressors, or Traitors’ Tower, where despite the racing wind, black specks circled high in the sky. Durasnir ignored the death birds, which kept vigil long after the bones of traitors chained to die of exposure had been picked clean. He stared at the blobs of light glowing around the tower: several new ghosts shimmering as the last shadows of night dissolved. As the first rays shot outward from the rising sun, the ghosts glimmered, paled, vanished.
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