The carriage shuddered like it might tip, then righted itself, wheels grinding over a rut that Soren suspected was more crack than road.
He braced his boots wide, fighting the urge to grab the seat frame with both hands, noble company or not, he'd rather look terrified than test his luck on these slush-buried arteries.
The windows had fogged over by now, giving only quick glimpses of white plains and the distant graphite of Ashgard on the horizon, shrinking by the minute.
His companion was unbothered.
Veyr Velrane had made a throne of his half of the carriage bench, slouching low enough to stretch his boots to the opposite seat, which meant Soren's knees crashed into them every time the carriage lurched.
The boy's cloak was stitched with a scatter of starbursts, all gold thread and little judgment, though the rest of him looked like he'd been poured into the outfit as an afterthought.
An artful chaos of hair, a stripe of blonde beside a stripe of ink black, tumbled over Veyr's brow, one lock nearly touching his flicker-blue eyes.
"The trick," Veyr said, gesturing with a ring-heavy hand, "is not to fight the motion. Accept chaos, Soren of Ashgard. Embrace the bump."
"Easy if you don't have breakfast fighting it back up," Soren managed, patting his own stomach for show.
Veyr grinned, a longer smile than most nobles would waste on a gutterboy, then kicked one heel up to the window ledge. "That's what makes you interesting. Most who come from Ashgard eat stone and never learn to spit it out."
Soren had no idea how to reply, so he nodded, which made the carriage bounce feel strangely dignified for a moment.
Two horsemen rode in the lead, heads lowered and cloaks streaming in the wind.
The banner of Velrane, sun-cut gold and a streak of red, on white so blinding it seemed to dare the landscape to look away, snapped overhead.
Soren watched the guards, wondering how much they actually paid attention.
The last two had spent most of the journey trading curses under their breath, but these rode in silence, as if the world out here wasn't worth comment.
"Is it weird?" Veyr asked after a silence, "knowing your House doesn't even play the game anymore?"
Soren squinted. "You mean the culling? Or something else?"
Veyr wagged a finger. "No, not the Choosing. I mean the actual game. The contracts, the alliances, the threats. The pageant of flags."
"I never had to," Soren admitted. "We just did what kept us alive."
The seat across creaked. Veyr leaned forward, elbows on knees, suddenly conspiratorial. "That's why they picked you, isn't it? The panel? You're not a swallow-tail, you're a…" he snapped his fingers twice as if chasing the exact bird, "...a crow. Not made for display. Made for what happens after."
Soren said nothing, which he regretted when Veyr didn't fill the silence for a whole minute. Somewhere above, the sun cleared a spit of gray sky and filled the carriage with a blinding, brief heat.
The map between Veyr's boots lit up with every river, range, and city, brighter than he'd ever seen them in any barracks school.
"So." Veyr tapped the map, then patted the space beside him until Soren gave in and shuffled over. "Let's do your orientation, as I see it."
He pointed to a ragged splotch in the center. "This is us. The old border, before the Tithing. Now all Ashgard's really got is the city and the ice north. But south, see this band of gold? That's Sunspire. My family, House Velrane. The ones who still have taste. We make the rules, and occasionally, the knives."
Next, his finger stabbed a blue-black crescent to the east. "Underground, but not literally. House Kaldris. They run half the ashfields, built their keeps inside the old glaciers. Mean, orderly, humorless. Their motto is 'Purge the rot or die cold.'"
A green cluster, webbed with lake names Soren had only heard as jokes: "Verdane Confederacy. House Yllaire. Nothing gets in or out unless they bless it, and they bless nothing except poison and coin. They're supposed to be neutral, but even their neutrality has a price-list."
Veyr's finger circled a coastal ring. "Coralward. House Merien. They claim the ocean and anything else not nailed down. Their admirals want to be gods, but their sailors are better than ours at dying with good stories."
He moved next to a sand-smudge to the far west. "Blackridge. House Dreshaun. They duel for everything, even their own coffins. You ever met a Dreshaun brat? No? Keep it that way, unless you like having your drink poisoned and your shoes set on fire."
Finally, Veyr's finger returned to Ashgard, tapping the spot three times. "And here, the sad monument. No offense. The guilds and blood lines once ran the world from here, but now… Your House is a question no one wants to answer. They say the old Lords traded their seed for a curse, which is why every Ashgard scion dies off in the wild, or in the gutter. That's what they say, anyway."
"I heard worse," said Soren.
"Oh, please. They call us sunborn fascists with a taste for velvet." He grinned. "Everyone's got a script in this world. You just play it better than most."
The carriage lurched, hard, and Veyr fell shoulder-first into Soren, knocking their heads together. They both yelped, then swore, then collapsed into a laughter that bordered on indecent.
When the moment passed, Veyr asked, "You ever fought with an actual sword? Not the blunted trash, but real steel?"
Soren shook his head. "Once..most of the time just street knives. Axes, when there was wood to chop. That's it."
"That's going to be a problem," Veyr decided, like a doctor pronouncing a cold terminal. "But I like that. It'll keep the others guessing."
Soren looked at the map again, then at the blur outside, then back to Veyr. "What about the Houses that didn't make it on your map?"
The princeling's eyes flicked up. "You mean the ghosts? The ones who lost, or ran, or joined the wrong side at the end?"
"Yeah."
Veyr shrugged. "They get what's coming, sometimes. Sometimes, if they get smart, they reinvent themselves as something new. But mostly, they haunt the edges and try to sell the world on why they should matter again."
Soren felt the shard at his chest, still there, still warm, though it pulsed slower than before. He wondered if Valenna, wherever she was, would have called this company beneath her, or a practical cost of business.
"Here," Veyr said, reaching to fold the map. "Let's skip the theory. Tell me what the knife in your coat would do, if I tried to rob you right now."
"I'd let you," Soren said. "So you'd have to figure out what came next."
That, finally, earned a pause. Then a smile. "That's Ashgard gutter combat. I like the style."
The rest of the ride went quickly, either the road got better, or Soren stopped caring about the bumps.
When the carriage halted at the next town's gate, the guards dropped from their saddles and bowed, which Soren tried not to stare at. Velrane stepped out, eyes alive, then turned and offered Soren a hand. "You want out, you take the left. You want to go on, you take the right."
Soren took a moment. Then, right hand first, he climbed out into the world that had just been mapped on his behalf, and didn't look back when the carriage vanished behind another plume of white and gold.
His boots hit the ground with more certainty than he expected. Veyr, already meters ahead and dazzling every market vendor in the village with his smile, shouted: "You coming, Thorne? Or do you need the map again?"
He followed, because the world wasn't going to let up, and neither was he.