The Heirs of Andorin

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In the elder years, when the western woods ran from the sea-cliffs to the white feet
of Mount Erel, Andorin was prince beneath the boughs of Calathor, and men who
had never seen him knew his name. He was the king’s only son, proud in the way of
those who have been loved without doubting it, and terrible in anger because no
grief had taught him its price.

The quarrel began over a small thing, as the ruin of houses often does. A border-lord
had broken oath, and King Maelor would answer treachery with fire. Andorin called
the judgment cruel. His father called mercy vanity when paid for with another man’s
blood. The hall heard every word. At last Andorin unbuckled the silver clasp of his
house, laid it on the black step beneath the throne, and said that if obedience
measured a son, then Maelor had none. Before dawn he rode east alone, meaning
to return when anger cooled. Pride proved longer-lived.

Maelor died in the ninth winter. The crown remained upon his bier because no hand
dared lift it. Andorin’s cousins would not take what was his; his enemies would not
admit that it was. Lords kept their own levies, gates closed between valleys, and
grievances that had slept beneath one king woke hungry under none. Roads
narrowed to tracks. Watchtowers burned. Wolves tasted horseflesh. Men who had
toasted one another across Maelor’s table nailed each other’s colors to trees. Still
Andorin did not come.

Years found him beyond the mountains and used him hard. He fought beneath
strange banners, crossed deserts where the stars seemed nailed too near the earth,
and buried companions no singer in Calathor would know. Messengers sought him
and failed. Others found him and went home unanswered. The prince who had left
rather than bend became a gray-eyed wanderer who learned, late and by inches,
that a man may flee a throne and still drag its weight through every country.

Then, in the thirty-first year of exile, a child brought him a broken silver clasp. It had
passed through six hands. Blood blackened one edge. On the back, beneath the old
device of his house, someone had scratched with a knife: COME BEFORE WINTER.

Andorin turned west.

By autumn, rumor outran him. Shepherds swore a lone rider had crossed the High
Green. A ferryman on the Lorn refused payment from a stranger and wept afterward
without saying why. In Calathor, swords came down from walls. Chests sealed since
Maelor’s funeral opened. Cousins who had spent thirty years insisting they wanted
no crown began counting soldiers, gates, neighbors.

Beyond the last forest, where the road climbed toward the mountains, Andorin saw
his homeland again. He did not quicken his horse. No army followed him, no herald,
no banner. He had left as a son certain that honor meant never bending; he returned
to a country that had spent thirty years breaking in his shape.

Beyond those green miles stood the empty throne.

Andorin rode toward it.