The Traitor's Heir by Anna Thayer

the flames still held his eyes.
    â€œWho would have thought it: Telo, one of them . Time was when Edesfield was safe from snakes, more or less.”
    Eamon could feel grief working into the dark marks about his eyes. Black smoke tunnelled off the stakes. He didn’t dare look to see how much remained. How long had he staggered in the square, disgorging his stomach? A moan left his lips.
    â€œTelo seemed such a good man.” Smithy’s voice was steady as he pressed Eamon’s shoulder in comfort. “Appearances can be deceptive, I suppose. A snake is a snake, lad, and the Gauntlet are just in dealing with them.”
    Just? The vulturous word hovered in Eamon’s mind. What justice was this?
    The wind blew ash into his face. People danced around the fires under the watchful eye of the Gauntlet, under his eyes. He heard Telo’s voice in his mind again and drove it away in terror.
    But Aeryn. Where was Aeryn?
    The smith briskly rubbed his hands and patted Eamon fondly on the back. “Go home and rest, lad.”
    Eamon rose. Some of the Gauntlet had begun to disperse back towards the college and the barracks. Belaal and a few others remained in the square, encouraging the patriotic celebration.
    Eamon was entitled to stay in the college barracks, but he knew that he could not that night. He would go back to the smith’s, to the small rented room that had been home since his own had burned down.
    He looked once more at the dying pyres; the grim glint of the flames grinned back at him.
    The smith disappeared back into the crowd to join the celebrations. With a dreadful shudder, Eamon turned for home.
    Smoke permeated the streets, clinging with leech-like intensity to his lungs. His mind tossed over the day’s events, trying to force them to a logical conclusion, but there was none to be reached.
    His steps wound towards the smith’s forge, past the wall where he had sat that morning picking mud from his dagger. Though not even a day had passed, he felt a year older.
    He stopped at the building’s side door. The forge was cramped up against the wall of a fishmonger’s, and the smell of fish and smoke mingled uncomfortably. Scales and innards were mashed in among the cobbles in the yard. They would not be removed until rain came, and the smell would linger for some time thereafter.
    Eamon fumbled in the small pouch at his side, searching for his key. Even if he could find it he expected that it would be difficult to locate the keyhole; then again, the door was a feeble thing and he knew it could be convinced to open without one. His father’s house had been warm and dry, with broad rooms of books which Eamon had read while his father worked at binding. Eamon sighed; it had been a long time since he had read a book, and longer still since he had bound one.
    The lodging that the smith had offered him was made up of an old, disused storeroom that let out the warmth in the winter and did not keep cool in the summer. Eamon’s hands had gone from binding books to stoking the forge and polishing blades until he had joined the Gauntlet; then he had paid the smith rent from his slim wages.
    His fingers found the stalks of his keys; they chinked as he grasped them in his aching hand. He stood, keys suspended uncertainly by the door, for a few moments. His hands shook. Everything had happened so fast…
    Why Telo? The thought hounded him. Why? There had to be an answer.
    He could not sleep, not like this. He shoved his key back into his pouch and returned to the streets.
    Soon he neared the shattered windows of the Morning Star. No lights burned there that evening; the Gauntlet had doused them and smoke clung to the walls. As he approached, Eamon saw several figures with barrels and bottles fleeing from the doorway; rats that sensed the coming of a feline adversary.
    Feeling oddly bruised Eamon watched them go. A smoke-clogged wind pushed the inn’s sign on mournful hinges; the