Blackstone (Book 2)

Published by Raconteur House

Manchester, TN

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

BLACKSTONE

A Raconteur House book/ published by arrangement with the
author

PRINTING HISTORY

Raconteur House mass-market edition/May 2015

Copyright © 2015 by Honor Raconteur

Cover Illustration by Katie Griffin

Flags by Honor Raconteur

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not
participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in
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Purchase only authorized editions.

For information address:

Raconteur House

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www.raconteurhouse.com

Other books by Honor Raconteur
Published by Raconteur House

THE ADVENT MAGE CYCLE

Book One:
Jaunten
Book Two:
Magus
Book Three:
Advent
Book Four:
Balancer
Advent Mage Compendium
The Dragon’s Mage

Special Forces 01

The Midnight Quest

Kingslayer

THE ARTIFACTOR SERIES

The Child Prince
The Dreamer’s Curse

DEEPWOODS SAGA

Deepwoods
Blackstone

KINGMAKERS

Arrows of Change

Destiny is character worked out.

Dear Reader,

I am proud to present to you
Blackstone
, book two of
the Deepwoods Saga. I have also included a short story at the end, titled “The
Story of Erik Wolfinsky.” This is the first of the Origin Tales, all short
stories that will share how each member came into the Deepwoods guild. I had
lots of fun writing them, and I’m proud to share Wolf’s story with you here.

Happy reading!

~Honor Raconteur

Siobhan plopped onto the bench and leaned over, pushing a
set of blond bangs out of the way. “Rune? You fall asleep studying again?”

A bloodshot eye slowly creaked open. “No.” The ex-assassin
pushed back from the table, rolling his head around on his shoulders in a clear
gesture of stress and exhaustion. “I just gave my eyes a break, is all.”

“I see.” She studied him openly, planting an elbow against
the table and propping her chin in her hand. Ever since they’d returned to
Goldschmidt six months ago, Rune had been studying nearly non-stop. If he
wasn’t learning reading or arithmetic from Markl, he was engrossed in
pathmaking lessons with Grae. His brain hadn’t yet melted or started smoking
from the overuse, but Siobhan had a side bet with Wolf on when it would happen.
“I know you have your first pathmaking test tomorrow, but…”

Rune swallowed hard. “Grae says he’s a stickler.”

Ahhh. Hence why he was so nervous. “I think he meant he was
a stickler for
manners
, dearling, not the finer points of pathmaking.
You’ve only been learning half a year anyway, they don’t expect you to know it
all at this point.”

“Eh, but—” Rune faltered, eyes darting about the hall. At
this mid-hour of the morning, no one else was about, as they were all off on
their own routines. He lowered his tone anyway to a more confidential level.
“It’s
Grae
that’s my master. And I’m his first student!”

“Hence they’ll expect more out of you than any other
apprentice in your position?” she finished doubtfully.

He nodded emphatically.

“Rune.” Siobhan took a deep breath for patience. “Darling. I
don’t know where you got the idea that Grae was this prodigy at pathmaking and
understood everything the first time it was explained to him. That’s not the
case. He struggled to understand concepts just as much as you do.”

Those wide blue eyes nearly crossed. “But he’s a genius at
it!”

“He certainly is. But his genius lies in taking what he
already knows and using those concepts to form something extraordinary. Rune,
it took him five years as a master Pathmaker before he figured out how to
create the coral pattern. And I was there the first time he tried it and it
didn’t work!”

“It didn’t work?” Rune repeated incredulously.

She chuckled at not only his flabbergasted expression but also
the memory of those days. “It took a solid week of him fussing and
experimenting before it finally worked right. And even to this day he’s making
improvements on it, as the pattern looks a little different every time I see
it.”

“Oh.” Rune sat back and looked blindly at the far wall,
processing this.

Siobhan waited him out patiently, letting him come to his
own conclusions.

“Siobhan…” Rune asked slowly, “were ya there when Grae took
his test as journeyman?”

“I was.”

“How did he do?”

“He was so nervous the entire test he could barely speak. We
all wondered if he’d pass.”

Rune’s forehead wrinkled up in bemusement. “Who tested him?”

“Master Lynn,” she answered with rich amusement.

“Same Master Lynn that’s coming ta test me?” Rune hazarded.

“Same one,” she confirmed cheerfully. Patting him on the
shoulder she said kindly, “As long as you can speak, answer questions, and not
accidentally send those two into a marsh somewhere, I think you’ll be fine.”

All the tension drained out of him. He ran a hand roughshod
over his face. Something that could have been an amused snort came from behind
his hand but she couldn’t see his face to be sure. He finally lowered it and
looked at her directly. “Yeah, I can do better than that. He’s due in at
dinner. Wake me up before then?”

“You finally going to sleep?” she asked, not unsympathetic,
although very amused that he had pulled an all-nighter to be ready.

“I think I’d best, don’t ya?”

“Can’t argue that,” she agreed, shooing him off with both
hands.

With a heavy tread, Rune disappeared up the stairs and to
the third level. His was the only bedroom up there, as everyone else took up
rooms on the second story. But he seemed to like his loftier perch.

She watched him go, shaking her head slightly. If that’s all
it took to give him some breathing room and lower his tension, she should have
said something three days ago, when they were informed Master Lynn was coming.

They still had rough days with Rune. He oscillated between
being a troublemaking rapscallion to this broken child that did anything and
everything to please the people around him. The first month alone had been no
joking matter, once he realized that they fully intended to keep him. Siobhan
had woken up many a night to find him on her bedroom floor, which Wolf hadn’t
taken kindly to. But six months of consistent love, attention, and patience had
brought about startling results. Rune showed signs now of steadying out,
becoming more confident with his place here amongst them.

Conli drifted out from his clinic with an empty pail in his
hands. He glanced up the stairs to catch a glimpse of Rune’s disappearing back.
“Did you finally convince him to sleep?”

“I convinced him there was no reason to be nervous,” she
corrected. “He’s the one that decided to sleep.”

“Good.” Conli clearly didn’t care about methods, but
results.

“You were right all those months ago,” she said on a sigh,
pushing away from the table. “I’m really a mother to him.”

He patted her on the shoulder, an amused smirk pulling at
the corner of his mouth. “Still feel odd?”

“With a child taller than I am, why would I?” she growled
sarcastically, although she couldn’t help but smile as he chuckled. “No, not
really. I’ve gotten used to it now, I suppose.”

“You must have; otherwise you wouldn’t have given him your
last name.”

She splayed her hands in an easy shrug at this. “He needed a
full name. No one would take him seriously if he didn’t have one.” And it would
have served as a social stigma, a mark of his past, for the rest of his life if
he continued to be only ‘Rune.’ Siobhan hadn’t thought much of it, at first.
She’d named Rune once already, why not complete the job?

But the look on Rune’s face when she’d offered made her realize
she hadn’t thought it completely through. In that moment, he’d looked at her
like a child that had just been handed a part of the heavens.

And in that moment, she’d gained a son, a child, whether she’d
intended to or not.

“You realize that when he passes the journeyman test, we’re
likely to have a lot of fights and arguments with the other guilds,” Conli
warned, his humor fading.

“I know,” she agreed heavily. No one took a pathmaking
apprentice seriously the first few months of his training as very few could
grasp the mechanics, theories, and calculations behind it. Having the talent
was only the base level, the first step of what it took to become a true
Pathmaker. But if a person could pass the first test into journeyman, then they
proved that they had the capability to become a true master. At that point,
they could even work, with their master’s supervision.

That was part of the reason why another master had to come
in and supervise the journeyman test, to make sure that the apprentice truly
had the necessary skills and wasn’t being helped along by his master. But
another part of the reason was to register the newly minted journeyman on the
list of available Pathmakers. When he was registered, anyone and everyone that
needed pathmaking skills could call upon him.

When Rune made that list, every major guild in the four
continents would surely cry in outrage that Deepwoods had not one, but
two
Pathmakers. They’d certainly be knocking on Blackstone’s door and her own,
trying to get her to hand one or the other over.

Just imagining it was giving her a headache.   

Conli eyed her with open misgiving. “Do you even have a
plan?”

“I certainly don’t,” she responded congenially, “but am
currently taking suggestions.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not looking forward
to this.”

“They’ll only badger us for about a year,” she said with mock
enthusiasm that sounded hollow in her own ears. “After that, it’ll taper off.
We’ll just take a lot of escorting jobs to far off, exotic places in the
meantime.”

“You mean run away.”

Siobhan shook her head sorrowfully. “It sounds so demeaning
and cowardly when you put it that way.”

“I have a destination in mind,” Fei said calmly from somewhere
above her head.

She froze before looking upward in creaking degrees. Fei
lounged casually on one of the beams overhead, one leg tucked up against his
chest, watching them with a distinct twinkle in his eyes. “Fei. How long have
you been up there?”

“A while,” he admitted candidly. With agility that would put
a monkey to shame, he put a hand on the beam and swung himself off and to the
floor with barely more than a thump. Her Saoleord skulker didn’t look at all
fazed to have been caught hanging about in the ceiling, every black hair in
place, slanted dark eyes meeting hers easily. His habit of perching in obscure
places had only gotten worse since Rune, the bad influence, had come into the
guild.

Really, at this point, she’d be more surprised to find the
man sitting on an actual chair.

Blowing out a breath, she waved a hand, encouraging him.
“Well, let’s have it. Where do you think we should go?”

“Saoleord.”

She and Conli both froze. Saoleord? The city that no one
ever visited and only natives could find? Granted, Fei was from there, so he
could find it easily, but in the seven years he had been with her, he’d never
once suggested going back himself or taking the guild with him.

“Why?” Conli asked slowly, blue eyes studying Fei’s face.

Fei seemed to take a breath before admitting quietly,
“Because I think we’ll need help very soon.”

Siobhan didn’t need to ask what he meant by that, not in a
way. Ever since they’d returned from Wynngaard six months ago, the economy in
Orin had worsened. The trade monopoly between the three guilds in Robarge and
Wynngaard had certainly raised the capital to fix the Grey Bridges but at the
same time, it had done a devastating turn to Orin. People hadn’t been doing
well over there to begin with, but now…well, most of the continent was on the
verge of complete destitution. Everyone was watching Orin carefully with baited
breath, waiting to see what they would do next. No one doubted that they would
do
something
. When you pushed a person that far into a corner, they’d
react one way or another.

Siobhan had spoken to Guildmaster Darrens on several occasions
about this, trying to reason with him, but it had all come to naught. She
didn’t have the power or persuasion to make the man change his mind, and even
if she did, she’d have to convince the other guilds that were a part of this
agreement as well.

So yes, she understood very well why Fei was worried. What
she didn’t see was how going to Saoleord would help. “Fei, I’m lost. Why would
you want to go home?”

He hesitated for a long moment before speaking, and even
then, he was obviously choosing his words carefully. “Before I left home, I was
being trained under a master historian. I was to take his place when he
retired.”

She and Conli shared a startled look. This was the first
time that Fei had mentioned anything about his past. A historian?

“It’s why I left, in a way,” Fei admitted wryly. “I was not
suited to sitting about for long periods of time when I was young. I wanted to
see more of the world with my own eyes, not simply read about it.”

Now that, that made perfect sense to her. Even now Fei
couldn’t manage to sit still for more than an hour. Well, unless he was
sneaking up on somebody. “Go on.”

“But I still learned much of the history of the world before
I left. I have seen this pattern before. The last time that one country was
pushed into an economical depression by another country, it led to war.”

Her blood froze. “War?”

“Can a war even be possible?” Conli objected. “A skirmish I
could see; one guild or one city attacking another is very possible. But to
have a war, an actual war as you mean it, you’d have to get several main guilds
to cooperate enough to fight on a united front. We can barely get them to agree
on trade agreements.”

Fei shook his head, mouth set in a grim line. “Orin is
desperate. They will band together to pillage and loot, if nothing else. I tell
you, the history that I learned showed this exact set of events happening over
and over again. We are primed for war but we are not ready for it. If Orin
pulls together an army and marches against us, they can destroy us city by city
without anyone being able to stop them.”

Siobhan felt a tremor shake her to the very core. She had a
terrible premonition that Fei was right. The world hadn’t seen an army in
hundreds of years and for the exact reason that Conli had just said. So if an
army
did
come against them, they wouldn’t begin to know how to fight
them off or have a united enough force to do it with. “How would Saoleord
help?”