Date: 2018-08-07 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Audiobook; Magic
Description: "Morgan Rice's imagination is limitless. In another series that promises to be as entertaining as the previous ones, A THRONE OF SISTERS presents us with the tale of two sisters (Sophia and Kate), orphans, fighting to survive in a cruel and demanding world of an orphanage. An instant success. I can hardly wait to put my hands on the second and third books!" --Books and Movie Reviews (Roberto Mattos) The new #1 Bestselling epic fantasy series by Morgan Rice! In A CROWN FOR ASSASSINS (A Throne for Sisters--Book Seven), Sophia, Kate and Lucas finally get the chance to journey in search of their l

A CROWN FOR ASSASSINS

(A THRONE FOR SISTERS -- BOOK 7)

MORGAN RICE

Morgan Rice

Morgan Rice is the #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the epic fantasy series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising seventeen books; of the #1 bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising twelve books; of the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a post-apocalyptic thriller comprising three books; of the epic fantasy series KINGS AND SORCERERS, comprising six books; of the epic fantasy series OF CROWNS AND GLORY, comprising 8 books; of the new epic fantasy series A THRONE FOR SISTERS, comprising eight books (and counting); and of the new science fiction series THE INVASION CHRONICLES. Morgan’s books are available in audio and print editions, and translations are available in over 25 languages.

TURNED (Book #1 in the Vampire Journals) ARENA ONE (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy)  and A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1 in the Sorcerer’s Ring) and RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Kings and Sorcerers—Book #1) are each available as a free download on Kobo!

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Select Acclaim for Morgan Rice

“If you thought that there was no reason left for living after the end of THE SORCERER’S RING series, you were wrong. In RISE OF THE DRAGONS Morgan Rice has come up with what promises to be another brilliant series, immersing us in a fantasy of trolls and dragons, of valor, honor, courage, magic and faith in your destiny. Morgan has managed again to produce a strong set of characters that make us cheer for them on every page.…Recommended for the permanent library of all readers that love a well-written fantasy.”

--Books and Movie Reviews

Roberto Mattos

“An action packed fantasy sure to please fans of Morgan Rice’s previous novels, along with fans of works such as THE INHERITANCE CYCLE by Christopher Paolini…. Fans of Young Adult Fiction will devour this latest work by Rice and beg for more.”

--The Wanderer, A Literary Journal (regarding Rise of the Dragons)

“A spirited fantasy that weaves elements of mystery and intrigue into its story line. A Quest of Heroes is all about the making of courage and about realizing a life purpose that leads to growth, maturity, and excellence….For those seeking meaty fantasy adventures, the protagonists, devices, and action provide a vigorous set of encounters that focus well on Thor's evolution from a dreamy child to a young adult facing impossible odds for survival….Only the beginning of what promises to be an epic young adult series.”

--Midwest Book Review (D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer)

“THE SORCERER’S RING has all the ingredients for an instant success: plots, counterplots, mystery, valiant knights, and blossoming relationships replete with broken hearts, deception and betrayal. It will keep you entertained for hours, and will satisfy all ages. Recommended for the permanent library of all fantasy readers.”

--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos

“In this action-packed first book in the epic fantasy Sorcerer's Ring series (which is currently 14 books strong), Rice introduces readers to 14-year-old Thorgrin "Thor" McLeod, whose dream is to join the Silver Legion, the elite knights who serve the king…. Rice's writing is solid and the premise intriguing.”

--Publishers Weekly

Books by Morgan Rice

THE INVASION CHRONICLES

TRANSMISSION (Book #1)

ARRIVAL (Book #2)

THE WAY OF STEEL

ONLY THE WORTHY (Book #1)

A THRONE FOR SISTERS

A THRONE FOR SISTERS (Book #1)

A COURT FOR THIEVES (Book #2)

A SONG FOR ORPHANS (Book #3)

A DIRGE FOR PRINCES (Book #4)

A JEWEL FOR ROYALS (Book #5)

A KISS FOR QUEENS (Book #6)

A CROWN FOR ASSASSINS (Book #7)

A CLASP FOR HEIRS (Book #8)

OF CROWNS AND GLORY

SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN (Book #1)

ROGUE, PRISONER, PRINCESS (Book #2)

KNIGHT, HEIR, PRINCE (Book #3)

REBEL, PAWN, KING (Book #4)

SOLDIER, BROTHER, SORCERER (Book #5)

HERO, TRAITOR, DAUGHTER (Book #6)

RULER, RIVAL, EXILE (Book #7)

VICTOR, VANQUISHED, SON (Book #8)

KINGS AND SORCERERS

RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Book #1)

RISE OF THE VALIANT (Book #2)

THE WEIGHT OF HONOR (Book #3)

A FORGE OF VALOR (Book #4)

A REALM OF SHADOWS (Book #5)

NIGHT OF THE BOLD (Book #6)

THE SORCERER’S RING

A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)

A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)

A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)

A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)

A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)

A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)

A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)

A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)

A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)

A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)

A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)

A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)

A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)

A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)

THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)

THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

ARENA TWO (Book #2)

ARENA THREE (Book #3)

VAMPIRE, FALLEN

BEFORE DAWN (Book #1)

THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

TURNED (Book #1)

LOVED (Book #2)

BETRAYED (Book #3)

DESTINED (Book #4)

DESIRED (Book #5)

BETROTHED (Book #6)

VOWED (Book #7)

FOUND (Book #8)

RESURRECTED (Book #9)

CRAVED (Book #10)

FATED (Book #11)

OBSESSED (Book #12)

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Copyright © 2018 by Morgan Rice. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

Sophia stood before the Assembly and tried not to feel overwhelmed by the splendor of it all, or by everything that was due to happen today. Around her, nobles stood in the kind of finery that had kept Ashton’s tailors and dressmakers busy for weeks, while soldiers stood in their finest dress uniforms.

It wasn’t just the nobility, of course. The Assembly of Nobles was an assembly of everybody now, with common folk on its benches, dressed in whatever they’d been able to find for the occasion.

“I feel underdressed,” Sophia said to Kate, who gave Sophia her arm to lean on. Her dress of simple white seemed almost plain beside the gold and the jewels, the silks and the brocade, and even after adjustments by the city’s dressmakers, it still strained to cover the swell of her pregnancy. Beside her, Sienne, her forest cat, pushed against her with a gentle purr.

“It’s your wedding day,” Kate said. “You are by definition the most beautiful woman in the room.”

“Our wedding day,” Sophia pointed out, although someone watching wouldn’t have known it from looking at her sister. Kate was in military uniform, and Sophia doubted that anyone had dared to suggest a wedding dress.

“There’s just the small matter of your coronation to take care of first,” Kate said with a smile.

Sophia took a careful breath, feeling the child within her move as she did. That made her smile. All these weeks, and it was still hard to believe that she would be a mother soon.

“Ready?” Kate asked.

Sophia nodded. “I’m ready.”

Kate led her outside, and the cheers of the waiting crowds hit Sophia in a wall of sound. There were so many people there. Sophia could hear them, and feel the presence of their thoughts around her. She could feel a mental message of joy from those with gifts like hers seeping through the rest of it, though there were few enough of those.

“I wish Cora and Emeline could be here,” Sophia said.

“They’ll be back once they persuade Stonehome’s leaders to come out of hiding again,” Kate assured her.

Sophia had half expected them to stay after the battle with one of their own on the throne.

I’d thought they would stay, Sophia sent to her sister.

Kate shrugged. They’re used to hiding, and most of them have lives in Stonehome. Cora and Emeline will get them back. Now come on, your carriage is waiting.

It was, and the idea that she would be processing to her wedding in a gilded carriage was almost enough to make Sophia laugh. If anyone had told her that this would be her wedding when she was growing up, she wouldn’t have believed them. Still, the carriage was necessary. Sophia wasn’t sure that she would be able to make the journey down to the city’s main square on foot at the moment without arriving exhausted, so she and Kate mounted their carriage, four white horses drawing it at a stately trot, while all the members of the Assembly followed behind, cheering their support.

If only they could be that united when they’re debating, Sophia sent to Kate.

You’ve managed to get plenty done, Kate sent back. You must be doing something right.

Sophia wasn’t sure how much she’d achieved so far though. Oh, she’d made her declarations at the end of the battle for Ashton, and she hoped that she’d made life better for people, but life in the kingdom was complex. It seemed that for every proposal she made, there were a dozen objections, suggestions, recommendations.

Take the rebuilding of Ashton after the battle. If she looked out from her carriage, Sophia could see buildings in the midst of reconstruction, soldiers turned to laborers as they worked on the city, yet every day seemed to bring a fresh debate on whether this or that building was more appropriate, on who owned the land, or who should do the work now that indentured labor was no longer an option.

That’s one thing I have achieved, Sophia sent as they passed a group of men who wore their marks of ownership on bare calves, no one bothering them or trying to command them now that they were free. If I don’t do anything else, that will be enough.

I think you’ll do plenty more, Kate assured her.

Around them, the crowds continued to cheer. Music played here and there as street performers joined in the celebrations. Lord Cranston and his men marched in, joining the procession in perfect step as they headed toward the square. Someone threw something and Kate caught it, looking wary, but it was only a flower. Sophia laughed and tucked it in the short locks of her sister’s hair as best she could.

“I’m going to do something to make you look like a bride,” Sophia said.

“For that, shouldn’t we both be wearing masks?”

“No,” Sophia said firmly. That was one thing she had been clear on, for the same reason that none of this would be taking place inside the Church of the Masked Goddess, but in the square beyond instead.

That square was so tightly packed with people that it took soldiers to keep a clear space at its heart. There was a platform set there, festooned with silks, with a throne set upon it alongside an altar. The current high priestess of the Masked Goddess stood there, along with Sophia and Kate’s cousins Hans and Jan; Frig and Ulf were in the mountain lands, seeing to the rebuilding of Monthys, while Rika, Oli, and Endi were back in Ishjemme.

Lucas stood there too, resplendent in his silk robes, managing to look both delighted for his sisters and surprisingly restless all at once.

Do you get the feeling that he just wants to get all of this out of the way so that he can go look for our parents? Sophia sent to Kate.

So that we can look, Kate corrected her. It must be hard, waiting like this when he knows where to look now, and not even having the prospect of a wedding to pass the time.

If either of you thinks I am anything less than happy for you, Lucas sent to them both, then you are mistaken. I would not miss this day for anything. Are you ready to be queen, Sophia?

In answer to that, Sophia stepped down from the carriage and strode up to the stage while the crowd cheered. She turned to look around the people assembled there, feeling the joy from them, and the hope. She knew that they would expect her to speak.

“A few weeks ago, I took Ashton by force,” she said. “I made decisions as a queen because I had an army to back me. Then I went to the Assembly of Nobles and I put my case to them. They agreed to me being the queen because my blood gave me the right to it. Today, I am to be crowned, but neither of these things seems like enough. So I ask you this: will you have me for your queen?”

When the answering roar came, Sophia moved to the throne and seated herself upon it. Hans came forward with a crown, a delicate thing whose platinum and gold wires twined to seem like vines, jeweled flowers set along its circumference. He passed it to the high priestess of the Masked Goddess. This was one part of the ceremony Sophia could have done without, but if she was going to reunite all of Ashton, she had to show that she was willing to accept all of its people, including the Masked Church’s many followers.

“By the power vested in me by the Masked Goddess,” the high priestess said, then paused as though remembering that she should say more, “by the right of your blood, the authority of the Assembly, and… apparently, the will of the people, I name you Sophia, queen of this kingdom.”

The cheers as she set the crown on Sophia’s head were almost deafening. Sophia looked around at the smiling faces of the people she cared about, and she knew that there were very few things that could make her happier.

Except, of course, the wedding that was about to follow.

***

Sebastian stood in the entranceway of the Masked Goddess’s temple, wishing that he could have been out there with Sophia for the moment when she was crowned. That would have been one broken tradition too far, though, given what they were about to do.

“Nervous?” he asked Will, who was standing beside him in his soldier’s uniform. His family would be out there in the crowd somewhere. A part of Sebastian wished that his family were still around to see this moment, in spite of everything they’d done to the kingdom, to him, and to Sophia.

“Terrified,” Will assured him. “You?”

Sebastian smiled. “I’m happy that this is happening at all, after everything that went before.”

Trumpets sounded, signaling his cue to move forward and finally wed the woman he loved. He moved through the crowd, his outfit as simple as Sophia’s, a second half to make a whole. The people stepped aside for him, and Sebastian still found himself a little surprised by the goodwill they seemed to have for him in spite of all the rumors that had been started about him and in spite of everything his family had done over the years.

He stepped up onto the platform and dropped to one knee, his head bowed in acknowledgment of his newly crowned queen. Sophia laughed and stood, pulling him to his feet.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “You don’t ever have to bow to me.”

“I do though,” Sebastian said. “I want people to see that this is your kingdom. That you are the queen.”

“And soon you will be my king beside me,” Sophia said. She looked as though she wanted to kiss him, and Sebastian definitely wanted to kiss her, but that would have to wait.

The high priestess made a small sound of annoyance, as if to remind them that there was a wedding waiting.

“We are gathered today to witness the wedding of Queen Sophia of the House of Danse to Prince Sebastian of the House of Flamberg. They stand unmasked in the sight of the goddess, and before one another.”

It conveniently left out the part where neither of them had followed the traditional ceremony in the first place. Sebastian let it go. The fact that he was marrying the woman he loved was the only thing that mattered.

“Now,” the high priestess said. “Queen Sophia tells me that she wishes to say her own words at this point. Your Majesty?”

Sophia reached out to touch Sebastian’s face, and in that moment the crowd was quiet enough that the words carried over it on the breeze.

“When I first met you,” she said, “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know where I fit into the world, or even if I could. I knew that I loved you, though. That part was a constant. That part hasn’t changed. I love you, Sebastian, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

It was Sebastian’s turn then, but he hadn’t prepared what he would say. He had thought that he would know when the time came, and, it turned out, he did.

“We’ve been through so much,” Sebastian said. “I have had moments when I thought that I had lost you, and moments when I knew that I did not deserve you. I tried to follow you beyond the kingdom, and in the end, you are the one who found me here. I love you, Sophia.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “I never thought that I would be the one marrying into royalty.”

The high priestess took their hands, placing them in one another. Sebastian’s heart pulsed with anticipation. Ordinarily, this would have been the moment when she pronounced them married, but that wasn’t the way Sophia wanted things.

Instead, the horns sounded again.

***

Kate looked out toward the entrance to the Church of the Masked Goddess, unable to contain her excitement much longer. Her sister getting both crowned and married would already have made this one of the best days of her life at any other time, but now, it felt as though she’d waited long enough. She watched with eager anticipation as Will stepped out.

Neither of them looked as regal as Sophia and Sebastian did, but that was fine by Kate. They were soldiers, not rulers. It was enough that Will was the same gorgeous boy she’d first seen when he’d come to visit his parents’ forge.

He marched down toward the platform, and halfway along his route, Lord Cranston and his men drew their swords, forming an arch of steel for Will to walk beneath. It made Kate glad to see it, and glad that they were all still alive after all the battles they’d fought.

Will came up onto the platform and Kate grabbed his hand for herself, not waiting for some withered old priestess to decide that it was time.

“When I first met you,” Will said, “I thought you were headstrong, stubborn, and probably likely to get both of us killed. I wondered what kind of wild girl had come into my parents’ forge. Now I know that you are all of those things, Kate, and it is just a part of what makes you so amazing. I want to be your husband until the stars grow so dull I can’t see you, or until I grow so dull I start to slow you down.”

“You don’t slow me down,” Kate replied. “My heart’s beating faster just looking at you, for one thing. I wish I could promise to settle down with you and to make things peaceful, but we both know that’s not the way that the world works. War can come even in the happiest times, and it’s not in my nature to stand by for it. Still, until blade or bow or just old age claims us, I want you to be mine.”

It wasn’t the traditional kind of promise, but it was what was in Kate’s heart, and she suspected that was the part that counted. The high priestess didn’t look particularly impressed, but from where Kate was standing, that was just an added bonus.

“Now that we have heard your own promises to one another, I ask you, Sophia of House Danse, do you take Sebastian of House Flamberg to be your husband?”

“I do,” Sophia said beside Kate.

“And do you, Kate of House Danse, take Will… son of Thomas the smith, to be your husband?”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Kate pointed out, trying not to laugh at the old woman’s inability to comprehend that someone born to a smith might not have a house name. “All right, all right, I do.”

“Do you, Sebastian of House Flamberg take Sophia of House Danse to be your wife?”

“I do,” Sebastian said.

“And do you Will take Kate of House Danse to be your wife?”

“I do,” he said, sounding happier than Kate suspected anyone had a right to be at the prospect of being joined to her for life.

“Then it is my pleasure to declare that you are one flesh, joined in the eyes of the goddess,” the priestess intoned.

But Kate didn’t hear her. By that point, she was far too busy kissing Will.

CHAPTER TWO

The Master of Crows watched his fleet with satisfaction as it sailed in to land on the northern coast of what had once been the Dowager’s kingdom. The invasion fleet was like a bloodstain on the water, the crows flying above in great flocks that seemed more like storm clouds.

Ahead lay a small fishing port, hardly a fitting start for his campaign, but after the time they’d spent at sea, it would be a welcome taste of things to come. The ships hung back, waiting for his signal, and the Master of Crows paused for a moment to appreciate the beauty of it all, the peace of the sunlit shore.

He waved a hand idly, and whispered, knowing that a hundred corvids would croak the words to his captains. “Let it begin.”

The ships started to move forward like the individual components of some beautiful machine of death, each one slotting into its allotted place as it moved toward the shore. The Master of Crows guessed that the captains would be vying to see who could perform their duties the most precisely, trying to please him with the obedience of their crews. They never seemed to learn that he cared about little except the death to follow.

“There will be death,” he murmured as one of his pets landed on his shoulder. “There will be enough death to drown the world.”

The crow cawed its agreement, as well it should. His creatures had been well fed in the last weeks, the deaths from the battle for Ashton still filling his coffers of power, even as fresh deaths flowed in from around the New Army’s empire every day.

“There will be more today,” he said with a grim smile as both soldiers and would-be soldiers lined up to defend their home on the shore.

Cannon sounded, the first shots echoing across the water, the crashes of their impact reverberating. Soon the air would be thick with smoke, so that he would be the only one able to see what was happening, thanks to his birds. Soon, his men would have to trust his orders absolutely.

“Tell the third company to swing wider,” he said to one of his aides. “It will prevent anyone from escaping up the coast.”

“Yes, my lord,” the young man replied.

“Have a landing boat prepared for me as well.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And remind the men of my orders: those who resist are to be killed without mercy.”

“Yes, my lord,” the aide said again.

As if the Master of Crows’ captains needed to be reminded. They knew his rules by now, his wishes. He sat on the deck of his flagship, watching cannonballs strike flesh, and men falling beneath the barrage of musket fire. Finally, he decided that the moment was ripe, and he made his way to the landing boat that was being lowered, checking his weapons as he went.

“Row,” he commanded the men there, and they strained against the oars, striving to get him to the shore along with his troops.

He held up a hand as his crows warned him, and the men stopped rowing in time for a ball shot from an aging cannon to strike the water in front of them.

“Continue.”

The landing boat slid through the waves, and, in spite of the overwhelming force of the New Army’s numbers, some of the waiting men leapt to attack it. The Master of Crows hopped onto the quay to meet them, his blades rising.

He thrust through the chest of one, then stepped aside as another swung at him. He parried a blow and cut another man down with the casual efficiency of long practice. It was so foolish of men like this to think that they could hope to defeat him, even hurt him. Only two people had managed that in a long while, and both Kate Danse and her detestable brother would die for that in time.

For now, this was not so much a fight as a slaughter, and the Master of Crows reveled in it. He hacked and he thrust, bringing down foes with every movement. When he saw a young woman trying to run, he paused to draw a pistol and shoot her in the back, then continued about his more pressing work.

“Please,” a man begged, throwing down his sword in surrender. The Master of Crows gutted him, then moved onto the next.

The slaughter was as inevitable as it was absolute. A scattering of badly armed militia couldn’t begin to hope to defend against this many foes. It was done so quickly that it was hard to imagine what they had been trying to achieve by standing at all. Presumably something to do with honor, or some other nonsense.

“Ah,” the Master of Crows said to himself as he looked through the eyes of one of his creatures and saw a knot of people fleeing into the nearby hills, heading south. He came back to himself and looked over to the nearest of his captains. “A group of villagers is fleeing along a trail not far from here. Take men and slaughter them all, please.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man said. If the work of killing the innocent bothered him, he did not show it. But then, if he had been a man to balk at such things, the Master of Crows would have killed him for it long ago.

The Master of Crows stood in the wake of the battle, listening to the kind of quiet that only came with death. He listened to the crows as they landed to begin their work, and felt the power start to flow in as they consumed their share. It was a pitiful trickle compared to some of the battles that had gone before, but there would be more to follow.

He sent his awareness out into his creatures, letting them speak with his voice.

“This town is mine,” he said. “Submit or you will die. Deliver up all those who have magic, or you will die. Do as you are commanded, or you will die. You are nothing now, slaves and less than slaves. Obey, and you will stave off being food for the crows for a while. Disobey, and you will die.”

He sent his creatures up into the air, surveying the land that he had taken in this first advance. He could see the horizon stretched out far from him, with all the promise of more land to conquer, more deaths to feed his pets.

The Master of Crows did not normally receive visions. At best, his crows gave him enough to guess at what would happen. He was not the witch of the fountain, to pluck at the strands of the future, and even she had not been able to foresee her death. Now, though, the vision came rushing in to him, borne on the wings of his pets.

He saw a child, cradled in its mother’s arms, and he recognized the kingdom’s newly crowned queen instantly. He saw danger behind the child, and more than danger. The death he had staved off so long with the lives of others stalked in this babe’s shadow. It reached out for him, with the innocence of a child, and the Master of Crows recoiled from it, fleeing back to himself.

He stood there in the middle of the town he had taken, shaking his head.

“Is everything all right, my lord?” his aide asked.

“Yes,” the Master of Crows said, because if he admitted to weakness he would only have to kill the man. If any hint of the fear that rose within him got out, then all who saw would die. Yes, that was a thought…

“I have changed my mind,” he said. “We will save conquest for the next town. Raze this one. Kill every inhabitant, man, woman or… babe in arms. Leave no two stones together.”

The aide did not question that any more than his captain had questioned hunting down those fleeing.

“It will be as you command, my lord,” he promised.

The Master of Crows had no doubt that it would be. He commanded, and people died in response. If there was meant to be a child who was a threat to him… well, that child could die as well—along with its mother.

CHAPTER THREE

Emeline stood at the heart of Stonehome and tried to contain some of her frustration as she looked around the stone circle at all the inhabitants. Cora and Aidan stood beside her, which was some support, but when everyone else there was so set against them, it didn’t seem like enough.

“Sophia sent us to persuade you to come back to Ashton,” Emeline said, focusing on the spot where Asha and Vincente sat. How many times had she had this argument there now? It had taken all this time just to get to the point where they would discuss this together at the circle. “There was no need for you to return to Stonehome after the battle. She is building a kingdom where our kind are free, and have nothing to fear.”

“There is always something to fear while those who hate us exist,” Asha retorted. “She could have ordered the Masked Goddess’s churches shut down. She could have seen their butchers hanged for their crimes.”

“And that would have restarted the civil war,” Cora said from beside Emeline.

“Better to have a war than to live beside those who hate us,” Asha said. “Who have done such things to us as can never be forgiven.”

Vincente put it in more measured terms, but wasn’t much more helpful. “This is a place where we have built a community, Emeline. This is a place where we can be sure we are safe. I have no doubt that Sophia has good intentions, but that is not the same thing as being able to change things.”

Emeline had to fight back the urge to shout at them for their stupidity. Cora must have seen that, because she put a hand on Emeline’s arm.

“It will be fine,” she whispered. “They’ll see sense eventually.”

“What you call ‘sense,’” Asha snapped from the other side of the stone circle, “I call a betrayal of our people. We are safe here, not out in the world.”

Emeline shot her an angry glance. Asha couldn’t have heard Cora’s whisper from there, which meant that she’d read Cora’s mind. That was more than rude; it was dangerous, especially when Asha had been the one to teach Emeline how to pull memories out of someone.

“People are free to come and go if they wish,” Vincente said. “If Sophia really does deliver a kingdom where our kind are free, people will come of their own accord, without the need for emissaries.”

“And what will it look like until then?” Emeline replied. “What will it look like when all those with gifts are hidden away, as if they are ashamed of them? Will it look like we are no threat, or will it give people space to claim that we are plotting in secret? For the old rumors to reappear?”

The hardest part about the crowd around them was that it was impossible for Emeline to gauge what effect her words were having. With another crowd she could have reached out for the feel of their thoughts, or at least listened to them talking to one another. Here, the conversations were silent things of thoughts flickering back and forth, well directed enough that she wasn’t a part of it.

“Perhaps you have a point,” Vincente said.

“They do not,” Asha replied. “They are the ones who have made us less safe, by making it so that people know where we are.”

“We haven’t told anyone,” Cora said.

Asha snorted. “As if they couldn’t have taken it from your head. If you weren’t sent by the queen, I’d take every thought you have for that.”

“No,” Aidan said, putting a protective hand on Cora’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t.”

Vincente stood, his full height more than impressive enough to calm things. “That’s enough bickering. Asha, the new defenses will be more than enough to protect us, even if people find us. As for the rest of it… I suggest a seeing.”

“A seeing?” Emeline asked.

Vincente made a gesture that encompassed the crowd around them. “We join our minds together, and we see what will result from each action. It is not perfect, but it will help us to decide what we must do.”

The idea of joining her mind to so many others was a worrying one, but if it would give her a chance to persuade them, Emeline wasn’t going to hold back.

“All right,” she said. “How do we do it?”

Simply connect your mind to the others’, Vincente sent. They are waiting.

Emeline reached out with her gift, and now she could feel the minds of those around the circle waiting for her. They were open now in a way they had not been before. She took a breath and plunged in amongst them.

She was herself, and not herself, both an individual mote of thoughts and the larger cloud of them that drifted together. With so many of them in one place, there was power here that was more than one person could ever have possessed. That power drifted into focus, and Emeline felt Vincente’s hand guiding it with what she suspected was skill borne of long practice.

Concentrate on the future, he sent. On seeing what will happen if—

He didn’t get further than that, because in that moment, a vision overtook them with the force of a forest fire.

There was fire in the vision. It flickered over the rooftops of Ashton, consuming, destroying. Soldiers in ochre uniforms marched through the streets, killing as they went. Emeline heard women screaming from inside houses, saw men cut down as they fled in the streets. The vision seemed to float through the streets, barely giving them all enough time to take in the carnage as they headed for the palace.

Around them, the destruction of Ashton made Emeline ache to watch it. The slaughter was horrific, but strangely, the loss of the places that she’d grown up around was almost as bad. Seeing barges burn on the river made her think of the one she’d tried to escape the city on. Seeing the marketplace filled with corpses instead of stalls made her heart break.

They reached the palace, and the Master of Crows was waiting. There was no mistaking who he was, in his old-fashioned long coat and with his birds circling. Even in this image, the sight of him made Emeline shudder, but she couldn’t look away. She watched him marching through the palace, killing with such ease that it almost seemed inconsequential to him.

The image shifted, and he was standing on a balcony, a baby in his arms. Instinctively, Emeline knew that it was Sophia’s child. There was a shine to her that reminded her of Sophia’s thoughts, and Emeline wanted to reach out to protect the child.

There was nothing she could do here, though, except watch as the Master of Crows lifted the baby, as he held her above his head. As the crows came down to feed…

Emeline gasped as she snapped back into her body, her heart racing. Around the circle, she could see other people looking up, stunned or shaken. She knew they’d seen all the same things that she’d seen. That had been the point of it.

“We have to help them,” Emeline said, as soon as she had enough breath to do it.

“What?” Cora asked. “What’s happening?”

“The Master of Crows is going to burn Ashton,” Emeline said. “He’s going to kill Sophia’s baby. We saw it in a vision.”

Instantly, Cora’s expression was set. “Then we have to stop him.” Emeline saw her look around the circle of people. “We have to stop him.”

“You want more of our people to die for you?” Asha demanded, from the far side of the circle. “Didn’t enough fall just to give your friend the throne?”

“I have heard of this man,” Vincente said. “To go against him would be dangerous. It is too much to ask.”

“Too much to ask that you help save a child?” Emeline demanded, hearing her voice rise.

“Not our child,” Asha said.

Around them, the circle buzzed with thoughts. That only annoyed Emeline more, because it reminded her of just how much power there was in Stonehome.

“Not yours?” Emeline countered. “She will be the heir to the throne. If you ever want this to be your kingdom rather than a place you hide from, she’s your responsibility as much as anyone else’s.”

Vincente shook his head. “What would you have us do? We cannot fight the whole of the New Army in Ashton.”

“Then bring the child here,” Emeline replied. “Bring everyone here. Ashton might fall, but this is a safe place. It was designed to be safe. You said yourself that there were new defenses.”

“Defenses for us,” Asha replied. “Walls of power that take great effort to maintain. Should we protect a city’s worth of people who cannot contribute to that? Who have always hated us?”

Cora spoke up then. “When I came here, I was told that Stonehome was a place of safety for anyone who needed it, not just those with magic. Was that a lie?”

Silence greeted her words, and Emeline could guess what the answer would be even before Vincente gave it.

“You forced us into one fight,” he said. “We will not willingly choose another. We will let this pass, and we will rise from the ashes. We cannot help you.”

“Will not,” Emeline corrected him. “And if you won’t, then I’ll do it myself.”

“We will,” Cora said.

Emeline nodded. “If you won’t help, then we’ll go to Ashton. We’ll see Sophia’s baby safe.”

“You’ll die,” Asha said. “You think you can go up against an army?”

Emeline shrugged. “Do you think I care?”

“This is madness,” Asha said. “We should stop you leaving for your own safety.”

Emeline narrowed her eyes. “Do you think you could?”

Without waiting for an answer, she stood and left the circle. There was no point in debating any longer, and every moment they waited was another in which Sophia’s baby was in danger.

They had to get to Ashton.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sophia hadn’t been able to talk anyone out of a lavish wedding party, even though it sounded like the kind of thing that the nobles before her might have thrown. Looking around the lawn of the palace, though, she was grateful that she hadn’t been able to call it off. Seeing so many people there, feeling their enjoyment, only made her buzz with happiness.

“There are a lot of people who want to congratulate us,” Sebastian said, his arm around her.

“They do know that I’ll know if they mean it, right?” Sophia replied. She rubbed her lower back. There was a deep ache there that made her want to sit down, but she also wanted to be able to dance with Sebastian, just a little.

“They mean it,” Sebastian said. He gestured to where some of the noblewomen of the court were standing, or dancing along to the music of strings and pipes. “Even they’re happy for you. I think they like living in a court where they don’t have to pretend all the time.”

“They’re happy for us,” Sophia corrected him. She took his hand, leading him out onto the patch of lawn that was serving as a dance floor. She let Sebastian take her in his arms, the musicians at the side taking their cue from the two of them and slowing the pace of the dance a little.

Around them, people whirled together, far more energetically than Sophia could manage right now. The ache from her back had spread to her belly now, and she took that as her moment to step back from the dance. Two chairs, two thrones, had been set up by the side of the lawn for her and Sebastian. Sophia took hers gladly, and Sienne ran up to curl at her feet.

“It reminds me a little of the dance where we first met,” she said.

“There are differences,” Sebastian said. “Fewer masks, for one thing.”

“I prefer it like that,” Sophia said. “People shouldn’t feel that they have to hide who they are just to have fun.”

There were other differences too. There were ordinary people here as well as nobles, a clutch of merchants talking off to one side, a weaver’s daughter dancing with a soldier. There were people there who had been indentured once, now free to join in the festivities rather than having to serve there. Several girls Sophia recognized from the House of the Unclaimed were off to one side, looking happier than they ever had there.

“Your majesties,” a man said, approaching them and bowing low. His red and gold robe seemed to shine against the darkness of his skin, while his eyes were so pale they were almost lavender. “I am High Merchant N’ka of the Kingdom of Morgassa. His glorious majesty sends greetings on the occasion of your wedding, and has bid me to travel here to discuss trade with your kingdom.”

“We’d be happy to talk about it,” Sophia said. The merchant started to say something, and a look at his thoughts suggested that he was planning to negotiate an entire treaty right then and there. “After my wedding day, though?”

“Of course, your majesty. I will be in Ashton for some time.”

“For now, enjoy the celebrations,” Sophia suggested.

The merchant offered a deep bow and slipped back into the crowd. As if his approach had given permission to everyone else, a dozen more people came forward, from nobles seeking advancement to merchants with goods to sell and common folk who had grievances. Each time, Sophia said the same thing she’d said to the merchant, hoping that it would be enough, and that they would enjoy the rest of the evening.

One person who didn’t seem to be enjoying the festivities quite so much was Lucas. He was standing in a corner with a goblet of wine, surrounded by an assortment of pretty young noblewomen, and still there was no smile on his face.

Is everything all right? Sophia sent over to him.

Lucas smiled in her direction, then spread his hands. I am happy for you and Kate, but it seems that every woman here has taken that as an indication that I should be married next, and to them.

Well, you never know, Sophia sent back, perhaps one of them will turn out to be perfect for you.

Perhaps, Lucas sent, although he didn’t feel remotely convinced.

Don’t worry, we’ll be trekking after our parents across dangerous terrain soon enough, Sophia promised, and you won’t have to deal with the scary business of royal celebrations.

In answer to that, Lucas said something to one of the women near him, extending a hand and leading her out onto the dance floor. Of course, he did it perfectly, dancing with the kind of elegance and grace that probably came from years of instruction. Official Ko, the man who had raised him, would have seen him trained in that as carefully as in everything else.

Kate and Will were already there, although they seemed to be so wrapped up in one another that they were mostly ignoring the music. It probably didn’t help that her sister was better with a sword than she was at dancing, while Sophia doubted that Will knew many formal court dances. The two of them seemed happy enough just in one another’s arms, whispering to one another and occasionally kissing. Sophia wasn’t entirely surprised when they slipped off together in the direction of the palace while no one else was looking, doing it so smoothly that Sophia doubted anyone else even noticed.

A part of her wished that she and Sebastian could do the same; this was their wedding night, after all. Unfortunately, while the new head of the army might be able to avoid people’s attention for a while, Sophia suspected that they might notice if their queen and king left the party early. The best thing was to enjoy the moment while it was there, accepting that all these people had come here because they wanted to wish her and Sebastian the best.

Sophia stood again, heading over to one of the tables where food was laid out on great platters that could have fed hundreds more. She started to pick through the partridge and the roast boar, the sugared dates and the other delights that she could never have imagined when she was a child in the House of the Unclaimed.

“You know that you could have a servant bring you food?” Sebastian said, although he did it with a smile that told Sophia he already knew what her answer would be.

“It still feels strange commanding people to do things for me that I could do for myself,” she said.

“As the queen, I’d say you should get used to it,” Sebastian said, “except I think that it’s probably good that you aren’t. Maybe the whole kingdom would be better if people remembered what it’s like not to be the one giving orders.”

“Maybe,” Sophia agreed. She could see people watching them now, and a quick look at the thoughts of those around them told her they were expecting her to speak. She hadn’t planned for that, but even so, she knew she couldn’t disappoint them.

“My friends,” she said, picking up a glass of cool apple juice. “Thank you all for coming to this celebration. It’s good to see so many people whom Sebastian and I know and love, and so many more of you I hope we will have the chance to know in the days to come. This day couldn’t have happened without all of you. Without friends, without help, Sebastian and I would probably have been killed many weeks ago. We wouldn’t have each other, or this kingdom. We wouldn’t have the chance to make things better. To all of you.”

She lifted her glass in a toast that the others there quickly took up. On impulse, she turned and kissed Sebastian. That got cheers that roared around the gardens, and Sophia decided that they wouldn’t have to sneak off like Kate and Will; if they announced that they were going, people would probably carry them back to their rooms. Perhaps they should try it. Perhaps—

She felt the first spasms deep inside her, her muscles contracting with such force that it almost bent Sophia double. She let out a deep groan of pain that left her struggling to breathe.

“Sophia?” Sebastian said. “What is it? Are you all right?”

Sophia couldn’t answer. She could barely stand as a fresh contraction of her muscles hit her so hard that she cried out with it. Around her, the crowd murmured, some obviously looking concerned as the music ground to a halt.

“Is it poison?”

“Is she ill?”

“Don’t be stupid, it’s obvious…”

Sophia felt wetness run down her legs as her water broke. After so much time waiting, now it seemed as though everything was determined to happen far too fast.

“I think… I think the baby’s coming,” she said.

CHAPTER FIVE

Endi, Duke of Ishjemme, listened to the grind of the great statues as his men dragged them up the shore, hating the sound but enjoying what it represented. Freedom for Ishjemme. Freedom for his people. Today would be a symbol and a sign that people would not forget.

“We should have destroyed the statues of the Danses years ago,” he said to his brother.

Oli nodded. “If you say so, Endi.”

Endi caught the note of uncertainty. He clapped his brother on the shoulder and felt Oli flinch. “You don’t agree, brother? Come on, you can tell me the truth. I’m not some monster who only wants to hear people say yes.”

“Well…” Oli began.

“Seriously, Oli,” Endi said. “You shouldn’t be afraid of me. You’re my family.”

“It’s just that these statues are part of our history,” Oli said.

Now Endi understood. He should have guessed that his bookish brother would hate destroying anything connected to the past, but it was past, and Endi meant to see that it stayed that way.

“They controlled our home for too long,” Endi said. “As long as we have reminders of them sitting along the fjords alongside our true heroes, it will be a claim that they can step back in whenever they want to rule us. Do you understand, Oli?”

Oli nodded. “I understand.”

“Good,” Endi said, and signaled to his men to begin their work with axes and hammers, shattering the statues, reducing them to rubble that would be good for no more than building with. He enjoyed the sight of Lord Alfred’s and Lady Christina’s images breaking apart. It was a reminder that Ishjemme was not beholden to them or their children any longer.

“Things will change, Oli,” Endi said, “and change for the better. There will be houses for all who need them, safety for the kingdom, better trade… How are things with my canal scheme?”

It was a bold plan, to try to connect Ishjemme’s fjords given the number of mountains that stood on the peninsula’s interior, yet if they succeeded, Ishjemme could become as wealthy as any of the mercantile states. It also meant that his brother had something useful to do, keeping track of the progress, making sure that there were good maps to use.

“It is hard going,” Oli said. “Cutting through mountains and building locks for the boats takes a lot of men.”

“And a lot of time,” Endi said, “but we’ll get there. We must.”

It would show the world what Ishjemme could be. It would show his family just how much tradition had held them back. With a project like this to his name, probably all of his brothers and sisters would acknowledge that he always should have been his father’s heir.

“We’ve had to reroute several sections already,” Oli said. “There are farmsteads in the way, and people are reluctant to leave their homes.”

“You have offered them money?” Endi asked.

Oli nodded. “As you said to, and some left, but there are people who have lived there for generations.”

“Progress is necessary,” Endi said, as the crack of the hammers continued. “But don’t worry, the problem will be solved soon.”

They walked around to where more men were working on ships. Endi made a point of knowing about every ship that came into the port now. He’d spent long enough dealing with spies and killers to know how easily those could slip in. He watched the progress of the men as they worked to replace some of the vessels that were still stuck across the water. Ishjemme had to be defended.

“Endi, can I ask you a question?” Oli said.

“Of course you can, brother,” Endi said. “Although you’re the clever one. I suspect there’s not many things you could ask me you haven’t already read in one of your books.”

In truth, Endi suspected that there were plenty of things he knew that his brother didn’t, mostly about the secrets people kept, or the things people did to plot against one another. That was his world.

“It’s about Rika,” Oli said.

“Ah,” Endi replied, cocking his head to the side.

“When will you let her out of her rooms, Endi?” Oli asked. “She’s been cooped up there for weeks now.”

Endi nodded sadly. His youngest sibling was proving surprisingly intransigent. “What would you have me do? I can’t let her out when she’s in this rebellious mood of hers. The best I can do is keep her comfortable with the best food, and her harp. If people see her disagreeing at every step, it makes us look weak, Oli.”

“Even so,” Oli said, “hasn’t it been long enough?”

“It’s not like sending her to bed with no supper because she stole one of Frig’s dolls,” Endi said, with a grin at the thought of Frig ever playing with dolls rather than blades. “I can’t let her out until she’s shown that she can be trusted. Until she swears fealty to me, she stays there.”

“That could be a long time,” Oli said.

“I know,” Endi replied, with a sad sigh. He didn’t like locking his sister up like that, but what else could he do?

A soldier came up, offering a bow. “The prisoners you ordered have been brought, my lord.”

“Good,” Endi said. He looked over to his brother. “It looks as though we’re going to have a solution to the canal problem. Come on, Oli.”

He led the way back to where the statues had been broken up, the rubble lying in fragments on the ground. Perhaps a dozen men and women stood there, their hands bound.

“I’m told you are the ones who own farmsteads on the route of our new canal,” Endi said. “That you refused to sell your properties, even though I tried to be generous.”

“They’re our farms!” a man piped up.

“And this is about the prosperity of the whole of Ishjemme,” Endi shot back. “Every family will benefit, including yours. I want to offer you the money again. Can’t you see that you have no choice?”

“A man is always free to choose his path in Ishjemme,” another of the farmers shot back.

“Yes, but that path has consequences,” Endi said. “I’ll give you one last chance. As your duke, I command you to yield your claims.”

“It’s our land!” the first man shouted.

Endi sighed. “Just remember that I gave you the choice. Refusing to heed your duke’s command is treason. Men, execute the traitors.”

His men moved forward, the same axes and hammers in their hands that they’d used to smash the statues. They smashed flesh just as easily. Statues might not shriek, or beg, or make wet, gurgling sounds, but the crack of bone was near enough to the crack of stone. Endi looked around at his brother, not surprised to see Oli ashen-faced. His brother wasn’t as strong as he was.

“I know it’s hard, Oli,” he said, as more cries came in the background, “but we must do what is necessary if we are to make Ishjemme strong. If I do not do the cruel things that must be done, then others will come in and do worse.”

“As… as you say, brother.”

Endi took his brother by the shoulders. “At least this means that the way will be clear for the building projects now. I’m right in thinking that a traitor’s lands are forfeit, aren’t I?”

“I… I think that there are precedents,” Oli said. Endi could hear the quaver in his voice.

“Find them for me,” Endi said.

“What about these people’s families?” Oli said. “Some will have children, or old folk.”

“Do whatever you think is best to care for them,” Endi said. “Just so long as you get them out of the way before the work must be done.”

“I will,” Oli said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I… I’ll send out messages to the work crews at once.”

“See that you do,” Endi said.

He watched his brother hurrying off, knowing that Oli didn’t really understand the need for all of this. That was the luxury that came with knowing he would never have power. Rika had the same luxury. The two had probably been the only ones of his siblings who had never been warriors, never had to deal with the harsh realities of the world. Part of the reason that Endi had done all this in front of Oli was to make sure his brother learned what was sometimes needed.

It was for his own good. It was for everyone’s good. They would see it in time, and when they did, they would thank him for it. Even soft-hearted Rika would curtsey and admit that everything Endi had done was for the best. As for everyone else, they could go along with what needed to be done or…

Endi stood and listened to the sound of the hammers falling some more. They would thank him for it in the end.

CHAPTER SIX

Jan Skyddar must have been the only person in the whole of Ashton who found himself unhappy on Sophia’s wedding day, having to force a smile just so he wouldn’t ruin things for her and Sebastian, having to pretend that he was happy for her even though the ache in his heart threatened to tear him into pieces.

Now that they’d rushed her away to give birth to her child, to her and Sebastian’s child, it was even worse.

“Would you like to dance with me?” a noblewoman asked. Around Jan, the party seemed to be continuing, the music back in full swing as it turned from celebrating Sophia’s wedding to celebrating the impending heir to the throne.

The woman was beautiful, elegantly dressed, graceful. If he’d met her a year ago, Jan might have said yes to the dancing, and to almost anything else she suggested. Now, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t feel anything looking at her, because doing it was like staring at a candle compared to the sun. Sophia was the only one who mattered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to be kind, to be good, to be all the things that he should be. “But there is… someone I am deeply in love with.”

“Someone waiting for you back in Ishjemme?” the noblewoman said, with a mischievous smile. “That means that she is not here.”

She reached for one of the laces of Jan’s doublet, and Jan caught her wrist gently but firmly.

“As I said,” he said with a rueful smile, “I love her very much. I don’t mean it as an insult, but I’m not interested.”

“A faithful man,” the noblewoman said, as she turned to walk off. “Whoever she is, I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

“If only things were that simple,” Jan said with a shake of his head.

He moved through the party trying not to be the ghost at the feast. The last thing he wanted to do was to spoil anyone else’s joy today, least of all Sophia’s. That was the hardest part about loving her so much, he found: it was impossible to be as selfish as he should have been about it. He should have felt jealousy toward Sebastian, should have hated him with a passion. Should have been angry with Sophia for choosing a man who had put her aside once over him.

He couldn’t do it. He loved Sophia too much for that. He wanted her to be happy more than anything else in the world.

“Are you well, Jan?” Lucas asked him, moving in with the kind of smoothness that made Jan grateful that the two of them would never cross blades. Jan had always thought that he could fight, but Sophia’s siblings were like something else entirely.

Maybe it was just as well that Jan’s mind was closed to being read by others, or they might have fought. Jan doubted Lucas would take well to knowing just how hopelessly in love Jan was with his sister.

“I’m fine,” Jan said. “Maybe a few too many nobles trying to catch me the way a fisherman would go after swordfish.”

“I’ve had the same problem,” Lucas said. “And it is hard celebrating when at the same time you are thinking about something else.”

For a moment, Jan thought that Lucas must have somehow seen past even the protections he had in place and seen things he shouldn’t have. Perhaps it was just so clearly written on his face that it didn’t take a mind reader to work it out.

“I am happy for my sisters,” Lucas said, with a smile. “There’s just a part of me that wants our parents here to witness all of this, and knows I could have been out finding them. Maybe I could have brought them back to see Sophia’s wedding, and the birth of their grandchild.”

“Or maybe sometimes we just have to be strong and accept that things don’t happen the way we want,” Jan suggested. “And it means that you get to be here. You get to see your niece or nephew.”

“Niece,” Lucas said. “Visions take the fun out of guessing. You’re right, though, Jan. I’ll wait. You’re a good man, cousin.”

He clasped Jan’s arm.

“Thank you,” Jan said, even if he wasn’t sure that he believed it sometimes. A truly good man wouldn’t hope that eventually Sophia would put all of this aside, loving him the same way he loved her.

“Now,” Lucas said, “I was looking for you because a message came for you by bird. The boy who brought it from the aviary is over there.”

Jan looked over to where a young man stood by one of the banquet tables, snatching food as though uncertain whether it was really meant for the likes of him.

“Thank you,” Jan said.

“You’re welcome. I should get back to Sophia. I want to be there when my niece comes into the world.”

Lucas walked away, leaving Jan to head over to the messenger. The boy looked a little guilty as Jan approached, stuffing a cake into his mouth and chewing hurriedly.

“You don’t need to worry,” Jan said. “The party is for everyone, you included. There are some things everyone should get to celebrate.”

“Yes, my lord,” the boy said. He held out a note. “This came for you.”

He held out a tightly rolled message for Jan to take. Jan lifted it, reading.

Jan, Endi has taken Ishjemme. He’s killing people. Rika is his prisoner. I have to do what he says. We need help. Oli.

The note made Jan freeze in place. He didn’t want to believe it. Endi would never do something like this. He would never betray Ishjemme like this. Oli wouldn’t lie, though, and Endi… well, he’d always liked sneaking about in the shadows, and it had been suspicious, the way so many of their ships had turned back midway through the battle for Ashton.

Even so, the idea that his brother had mounted some kind of coup was hard to comprehend. If anyone else had sent this message, Jan would have called them a liar. As it was… he didn’t know what to do.

“I can’t tell the others,” he said to himself. If he told his siblings, they would want to rush back to make sure that Ishjemme was safe, and that would deprive Sophia of support that she desperately needed. He couldn’t ignore a message like this though.

That meant that he had to go home.

Jan didn’t want to go home. He wanted to be here, as close to Sophia as possible. He wanted to be here in case there was more violence, in case she, or his siblings, needed him. Ashton was just recovering from the conflicts that had ruined it, and leaving it now felt like abandoning it. It felt like abandoning Sophia.

“Sophia doesn’t need me,” Jan said.

“What’s that, my lord?” the messenger asked.

“Nothing,” Jan said. “Can you take a message for me to… take it to Sophia when she’s able to hear it. Take her the message that you gave me, and tell her that I have gone to deal with things. Tell her that…” He couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to then. “Tell her that I will return soon.”

“Yes, my lord,” the messenger said.

Jan set off in the direction of the docks. The ships from the invasion were still there, and some of them would listen if he asked for their help. He wouldn’t take many of them, couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Sophia unprotected, but he would need some show of force if he was to convince his brother to back down.

Sophia didn’t need him right then, but it seemed that his younger brother and sister did. As much as Jan hated to leave Ashton, he couldn’t ignore that. He couldn’t stand by while Endi took Ishjemme by force. He would go there, find out what was truly happening, and deal with it. Maybe when he was done with it, he would have worked out what to do when it came to the woman he loved.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sophia lay upon the bed that the midwife had all but ordered her to, servants crowded around her, and a few nobles, and frankly enough people to make her wonder if a queen got any privacy. She would have ordered them out if she’d had the breath to do it. She couldn’t even ask Sebastian to do it, because the midwife had been quite clear that there would be no men in the room, not even kings.

“You’re doing well,” the midwife assured her, although Sophia could see the concerns in her mind; the preparations for a hundred different things that might go wrong. It was impossible to hold back her powers right then, thoughts washing over her in waves that seemed to match the pain of her contractions.

“I’m here,” Kate said, rushing into the room. She looked around the people there.

Who are all these people? she sent to Sophia.

I don’t want them here, Sophia managed through the pain. Please, Kate.

“Okay,” Kate shouted, in a voice that was probably better suited to her new role with the army. “Everyone who isn’t actively me or the midwife get out! No, no arguing. This is a birth, not a public performance. Out!”

The fact that her hand was on her sword hilt probably helped to get people moving, and in under a minute, the room was empty except for the three of them.

“Better?” Kate asked, taking her hand.

“Thank you,” Sophia said, then cried out as a fresh wave of pain hit her.

“There are some valerian leaves in a bowl there,” the midwife said. “They will help with the pain. Since you just got rid of all the servants, I think you just volunteered to help me, your highness.”

“Sophia won’t need them,” Kate said.

Sophia definitely felt as though she needed them, but then she understood what her sister meant. Kate touched her mind, and she felt Lucas too, the two of them working together to draw her mind away from the pain, out of the confines of her body.

We are here for you, Lucas sent, and so is your kingdom.

Sophia felt the kingdom around her, the way she had only a few times before. The connection was undeniable. She wasn’t just its queen, she was a part of it, in tune with the living power of everything that breathed within its borders, with the energy of the wind and the rivers, with the cool strength of the hills.

The midwife’s voice drifted in from a distance. “You need to push with the next contraction, your majesty. Be ready. Push.”

Push, Sophia, Kate sent.

Sophia felt her body respond, even though it seemed to be somewhere distant now, so far off that the pain that seemed to be waiting seemed like something that was happening to someone else.

You need to push harder, Kate sent.

Sophia did her best, and she could hear cries of pain that she guessed must be her own, even though it felt as though that didn’t touch her. It touched the kingdom, though. She saw storm clouds gathering above her, felt the earth rumble below. With as little control of that connection as she had, she couldn’t stop the roiling buildup.

The storm clouds burst into a torrent of rain that made rivers swell and drenched the people below. The storm was brief and powerful, the sun coming back into the sky so quickly it was as if it had never happened, a rainbow spreading in its wake.

You can come back to yourself now, Sophia, Lucas sent. See your daughter.

He and Kate drew Sophia back in, pulling her back to herself so that she was looking at the room again, breathing hard while the midwife stood a little way away, already wrapping a small form in swaddling. Lucas was there now, having obviously ignored the midwife’s injunction.

Sophia felt a wave of joy break over her as she heard her daughter cry out for her, gurgling in the way babies did when they wanted their mothers.

“She sounds strong,” Kate said, taking the baby with surprising gentleness and waiting for the midwife to leave before holding her out for Sophia to take. Sophia reached out for her daughter, looking down into eyes that seemed to take in the entire world. Right then, her daughter was the entire world.

The vision hit Sophia so quickly that she gasped with it.

A red-haired young woman stood in a throne room, representatives of a hundred lands kneeling before her. She strode out into the streets, distributing bread to the poor, picking up flowers strewn at her feet so that she could laughingly make a crown of them for a group of children. She reached out for a wilted flower and brought it back to health…

…She strode through the middle of a battlefield, a blade in her hand, thrusting down into the bodies of the dying, ending their attempts to cling to life. She reached down for a young man and drew the life out of him with a touch, feeding it into the great well of power that would let her heal her own troops…

…She danced in the middle of a ball, laughing as she spun, obviously loved by those around her. Artists worked at the side of the room with everything from paint to stone to magic, creating works so beautiful they almost hurt the eye to look at them. She welcomed the poor into the feast, not as charity, but because she didn’t see any difference between feeding her friends and feeding everyone who was hungry…

…She stood at the lip of a fighting pit, before a group of nobles who shook as they knelt, looking up at her with a mixture of fear and hatred that made Sophia wince to see it.

“You betrayed me,” she said, in a voice of almost perfect beauty. “You could have had everything, and all you had to do was follow my commands.”

“And be no better than slaves!” one of the men said.

She stepped toward them, a sword in her hand. “There must be a price for that.”

She moved close, and the killing began while around her the crowd chanted one word, a name, over and over “Christina, Christina…”

Sophia snapped back to herself, staring down at her daughter, not understanding what had just happened. Sophia understood the feel of a real vision by now, but she didn’t understand what all of this meant. It felt like two sets of visions at once, each contradicting the other. They couldn’t both be true, could they?

“Sophia, what is it?” Kate asked.

“I… I had a vision,” Sophia said. “A vision about my daughter.”

“What kind of vision?” Lucas asked.

“I don’t understand it,” Sophia said. “I saw her, and half the time she was doing these beautiful, wonderful things, and the rest… it was so cruel, so evil.”

Show us, Kate suggested.

Sophia did her best, sending across the images of the vision to both of them. Even like this, she didn’t feel as though she got the full sense of it across to them. She couldn’t convey how wonderful and how terrifying it felt, how powerfully real it all was, even compared to the other visions she’d had.

“May I touch her mind?” Lucas asked, when Sophia had done it.

Sophia nodded, guessing that he was checking for any sign that her daughter wasn’t what she appeared to be. After what Siobhan had tried to do, trying to take over her unborn form, the prospect of it was terrifying.

“She’s still herself,” Lucas said, “but I can feel the power there. She’s going to be stronger than any of us, I think.”

“What do the visions mean, though?” Sophia asked them. Her daughter looked so perfect in her arms. Sophia couldn’t imagine her ever stalking through a battlefield, sucking the life out of people the way the Master of Crows might have with his birds.

“Maybe they’re possibilities,” Kate suggested. “Siobhan used to talk about looking at the strands of the future, picking out the things that would make other things happen. Maybe these are two ways that her life could turn out.”

“But we don’t know what makes the difference,” Sophia said. “We don’t know how to make sure that the good things happen.”

“You raise her with love,” Lucas said. “You teach her well. You help her to move toward the light, not the dark. Little Christina will have power, whatever you do, but you can help her to use it well.”

Sophia recoiled at the name. It might have been her mother’s, but after the vision, she couldn’t give it to her daughter, she wouldn’t.

“Anything but Christina,” she said. She thought about the flowers that she’d seen her daughter weaving together in the street. “Violet. We’ll call her Violet.”

“Violet,” Kate said with a smile, holding out a finger for the tiny baby to grab. “She’s already strong, like her mother.”

“Like her aunt, maybe,” Sophia replied. Her smile faded a little. “Don’t tell Sebastian about all of this, please, either of you. He shouldn’t be burdened with the knowledge of this. With what she might become.”

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to,” Lucas assured her.

“Me either,” Kate said. “If anyone can raise her to be a good person, it’s you, Sophia. And we’ll be there to help.”

“We will,” Lucas said. He smiled to himself. “Perhaps I’ll have a chance to play Official Ko’s role and pass on some of the things he taught me.”

They seemed so certain that things would turn out all right, and Sophia wanted to believe it. Even so, a part of her couldn’t forget the things she’d seen. Her daughter smiled up at her in perfect innocence. Sophia had to make sure it stayed that way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Henry d’Angelica, eldest son of Sir Hubert and Lady Neeme d’Angelica, had what he suspected was the hardest job in the kingdom right then: trying to mollify his parents regarding everything that had happened in the kingdom in the last few weeks.

“Ianthe is distraught, of course,” his mother said, through her tears, as if it was news that his aunt would be upset about the death of her daughter.

His father was better at anger than at sadness, bringing a wrinkled fist down on the wood of the fireplace. “The things those barbarians did to her… do you know they put the poor girl’s head on a spike?”

Henry had heard that rumor, along with a hundred others, mostly repeated by his parents. The house had been consumed by little else since the invasion. Angelica had been falsely accused of treason. Angelica had been torn apart by a mob, or hanged, or beheaded. The invaders had run through the streets, slaughtering anyone in royal colors. They had sided with the son who had murdered the old queen…

“Henry, are you even listening to us?” his father demanded.

In theory, Henry shouldn’t have flinched. He was nineteen, a man grown. He was tall and strong, a fine swordsman and a better shot. Yet there was always something in his father’s voice that made him just a small boy again.

“I’m sorry, Father, what did you say?” Henry asked.

“I said that something must be done,” his father repeated, with obvious bad grace.

“As you say, Father,” Henry said.

His father gave Henry an angry look. “Honestly, I have raised a vapid shell of a man in you. Not like your cousin.”

“Now, my love…” his mother began, but in the halfhearted way she usually did.

“Well, it’s true,” his father snapped, pacing before the fireplace like a guard before a castle gate. Not that a man as important as Sir Hubert would have appreciated the comparison. “The boy can’t stick with anything. How many tutors did he go through as a child? Then there was the commission with that military company I had to buy him out of, and the business with joining the Church of the Masked Goddess…”

Henry didn’t bother pointing out that all of that had been down to his parents. There had been so many tutors because his father had a habit of firing them whenever they taught anything he didn’t agree with, so that Henry had mostly educated himself in the house’s library. Equally, his father had been the one to decide that a commission in a free company was no place for his son, while the business with the church had even been the old man’s idea, until he learned that it would mean that Henry would never be able to give the family the heirs it required.

“You’re daydreaming again,” his father snapped. “Your cousin wouldn’t be. She made something of her life. She married a king!”

“And almost married a prince twice over,” Henry said, not able to stop himself.

He saw his father go white with anger. Henry knew that expression, and knew what it portended. So many times when he was growing up, he’d seen that expression and had to stand there, not flinching at the slaps or the switching that had come next. He steeled himself to do the same today.

Instead, as his father lashed out, Henry found his hand moving up almost automatically to catch the arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise as he held his father’s wrist in place, looking at him evenly. He stepped back, letting his father’s arm drop.

Sir Hubert rubbed his wrist. “I want you to leave my house! You are not welcome here anymore!”

“I think you’re right,” Henry said. “I should go. Please excuse me.”

He felt oddly calm as he left the room, heading upstairs to the room he’d had since he was a child. There, he started to collect things together, working out what he would need, and what he would have to do next.

Henry only had only known his cousin a little when she was alive. There were those who said that with his golden hair, deep blue eyes, and handsome features he actually looked a little like her, but Henry had never been able to see it. Perhaps it was just that Angelica had always been the standard against which he had been found wanting. She was more intelligent, or able to get on with people better, or more successful at court.

Henry wasn’t sure that any of those things were true. Typically, before his father had been rid of them, his tutors had been surprised by how quickly Henry learned, and he’d always had a knack for getting people to do what he needed. His lack of success at court had mostly come from a lack of interest.

“That will have to change,” Henry said to himself.

He had heard the rumors about his cousin, but he had also been clever enough to seek out his own information, paying men for what they knew and drinking with travelers at the local inn. From what he could understand, his cousin had been put aside not once, but twice, by Sebastian, the son who was rumored to have murdered his mother. Angelica had then sided with Rupert, probably to make sure that she got to the throne, only to find that Sophia Danse’s invasion turned anyone connected with the ruling family into a target.

“And it got her killed,” Henry muttered as he fetched clothes and money, pistols and his old dueling rapier.

He had no doubt that Angelica had engaged in plenty of nefarious practices to get where she’d ended up. A part of Henry wished that he didn’t understand how these things worked, but he did, and even someone like her didn’t rise to be queen by accident. She’d always been quick to cheat or lie in games as a child, whenever it seemed it would gain her an advantage.

Yet the things the rumors accused her of… those sounded more like someone’s revision of history to make themselves sound innocent. They were an excuse to have her killed, clearing the way for power.

If he were like his father, Henry would rage in impotent anger at that. If he were like his mother, he would break down at the horror of it while simultaneously spreading gossip. He wasn’t like either of them, though. He was a man who did what was needed, and he needed to do this.

“The family honor will allow no less,” Henry said, standing and hefting his bag.

He walked downstairs, pausing at the door to the drawing room.

“Mother, Father, I will be leaving now. I will not be returning. You should know that I will avenge my cousin’s death, whatever it takes. I am not doing that so that you will be proud of me, because frankly I don’t care what you think. I am doing it because it needs to be done. Farewell.”

As goodbyes went, it was singularly unemotional, but Henry found that he had nothing better for them as he stalked from the house, ignoring his mother’s wailing and his father’s angry stares.

He went around to the stable, selecting the fine chestnut mare he always rode, along with a brindled horse to carry his pack. He started to saddle them, knowing every step of it by heart. Already, his mind was past thoughts of his parents, concentrating on the things that he would need to do in the days to come, the alliances he would have to make, the fights that he would have to win with words and gold and steel.

Was their new queen truly one of the Danses? It was possible, given the rumors, but even if she were, that would not give her the right to take the throne. That had fallen to Rupert, and Angelica through him. Since the only remaining member of the Flambergs was almost certainly guilty of treason, that meant…

“Yes,” Henry said, with a rueful smile at how easily it had come to him, “that might work.”

It wasn’t that he wanted to do this. He didn’t need a throne any more than he’d wanted the priestly occupation his parents had tried to foist on him. It was simply a necessary component of what was to come. Charge into Ashton and attempt to kill the queen, and he would be no more than a traitor.

Yet he couldn’t allow the invaders from Ishjemme to go unpunished. At a stroke, they had undone all the careful work constructed following the civil wars. They had undone the old order and instituted a new one where the Assembly of Nobles was rearranged at the ruler’s whim, and where his cousin could be executed on no more than the word of the queen.

Henry would not stand for that. He could make things as they were again. He could make them right.

With that in mind, he set off riding. He would need support for this, and thankfully, Henry knew exactly where to find it.

CHAPTER NINE

A week didn’t seem like enough time to Sophia. Not enough time to spend with her husband. Not enough time to dote over Violet, who cooed up at her whenever Sophia held her, and who reached out for Sienne’s fur whenever the forest cat came close.

“We don’t have to go so soon if you don’t want,” Lucas said, as they stood at the docks, people crowding around them to see them off as they waited before the ship that was to carry them. High Merchant N’Ka waited aboard, smiling down, probably because of the chests of goods and promises of trade Sophia had given him.

“Or we could go,” Kate said. “We could bring our parents back to you.”

Sophia shook her head. “I know it seems mad doing it so soon, and it hurts more than I can say leaving Violet behind, but I feel as though, if we’re going to find our parents, it needs to be the three of us. They made sure that the map only came together for all three of us for a reason.”

“It doesn’t have to be now, though,” Lucas said.

“If not now, when?” Sophia asked. “We have peace for a while. Sebastian can hold the kingdom together, and I’m not caught up in all the details of ruling yet. If I leave it too long, I might never do it.”

Plus, I’ve seen how much waiting has disappointed you, she sent. I want you to be happy, and I want Violet to have her grandparents.

I’m sure they will dote on her, Lucas sent back. And we will find them.

Sophia clung to that certainty as she went over to the spot where Sebastian stood with their daughter. She could sense that he was trying to be strong for her, that he wished she wasn’t going, or that he was. She kissed him tenderly.

“I won’t be gone so long,” she said.

“Every moment will feel like too long,” Sebastian replied. “And it is a long way to go that far south.”

“The high merchant is sure that the journey to the coast won’t take more than a week or two,” Sophia said, hoping that he was right. “After that, the journey into the interior might take another week, two at most. I will be back to you before you know it, along with Violet’s grandparents, if they’re there to find.”

“Two months will feel like an eternity,” Sebastian said. He ran her hand through her hair. “But I know how happy it will make you to finally find your parents. I’d go with you if I could.”

Sophia knew he would, and the idea of their whole family trekking to find her parents was one that made her ache with longing, even though she knew that it couldn’t happen.

“One of us has to stay here to run things,” she said.

“I just wish I could make sure you’re safe,” Sebastian said.

Sophia looked around at the ship, where a mixture of servants and Ishjemme’s soldiers were finding space on the deck. “I have half a regiment with me, along with Sienne, Lucas, and Kate. I think I should be the one worried about you without us to look after you.”

“I’ll do my best not to get imprisoned by anyone again,” Sebastian promised with a smile that Sophia returned.

“I love you so much,” she said, kissing him once more. She leaned down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “And I love you too. When you’re older, we’ll tell you the story of how we went to find your grandparents so that they could see you.”

There were so many things that she was leaving behind in the kingdom. Her daughter and her husband were the most obvious among them, but there were so many others as well. Her cousins were here, Hans working on the treasury, Ulf and Frig on the Monthys estate, Jan… well, she hadn’t seen him since her wedding day, but she hoped that he was all right.

The various factions in the kingdom seemed to be settled for the moment. The Church of the Masked Goddess and the Assembly seemed to be quiet for the moment, while the progress for the people who had been downtrodden under the Dowager had already begun. More than that, Sophia trusted Sebastian. If anyone could run things here while she was gone, he could. The nobles and the people all respected him, while he probably knew the business of government a lot better than she did.

Even so, letting go of him and Violet was the hardest thing she had done.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised. “I’ll learn how to call up the wind to push the boat faster if I have to. I won’t let anything separate us any longer than it has to.”

“And when you get back, you’ll have stories to tell,” Sebastian said with a smile that Sophia could see he didn’t feel. He was being brave for her, but sometimes brave was enough.

“Come on, Sienne,” she said.

She forced herself to make her way up the gangplank, standing on the deck while the crowd on the dock cheered and waved. It was the kind of moment that should have felt like an epic beginning. Instead, she found herself hoping that they would be able to find her parents and get back here as quickly as possible.

***

Kate was having a hard time letting go of Will.

“I wish you could come with me,” she said.

“I could if you wanted,” he suggested.

Kate shook her head. “I want to have something good to come back to, and you definitely count as something good.”

Just the thought of that had her thinking of all the nights since the wedding, all the joyous times they’d spent in the few days they’d had since their wedding. It had her thinking of all the close moments that they’d spent together, the small touches, the laughter…

“You have to stay,” Kate said, trying to convince herself as much as Will. “Sebastian is going to need all the help that he can get, and Lord Cranston will need you for an aide.”

“I don’t know if there will be much for a free company to do,” Will said.

Kate shook her head, took his hand, and led him over to where Lord Cranston was waiting. Kate snapped off a salute.

“Since you’re the head of the army now, I suspect that I should be saluting you,” Lord Cranston said.

“Why do you think I’m saluting you, my lord?” Kate replied with a grin.

Lord Cranston looked at her in something like shock. “What exactly are you saying, Kate?”

“That someone must make sure that the kingdom is safe,” Kate said. “And I don’t trust anyone to make sure that the army stays on Sebastian’s side more than you.”

“Even though I am variously old, mercenary, drunken, capricious, and inclined to switch sides?” Lord Cranston said. Kate guessed that he wasn’t entirely joking.

“You have never gone back on your word that I know of,” she said. “As for the rest of it… well, I wouldn’t want you any other way. The army is in your charge, my lord.”

“And when I decide that our neighbors pay better?” Lord Cranston said.

“Then you’ll back Sebastian anyway,” Kate replied. She held out her hand. “Pretend all you want, but we both know you’d rather die than go back on your honor.”

Lord Cranston smiled tightly. “Don’t tell anyone. I have my reputation to think of.” He nodded over to Will. “Am I to take it that I need to find yet another new aide?”

“Will’s going to stay here,” Kate said.

“So that I have all the help I can get?” Lord Cranston asked.

“So that he stays safe,” Kate replied. “I know Sophia wants to pretend that all of this will be an easy trek across a little open countryside, but if my parents have been able to hide for all of this time, there must be some dangers out there. I want Will here, where nothing can happen to him. Keep him safe for me, my lord?”

Lord Cranston offered a bow that would have graced any courtier. “I will do all that I can, your highness.”

Kate hugged him as he straightened up. “I know you will. Keep yourself safe too.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that to you?” Lord Cranston said. “Given that you’re the one about to embark on the potentially dangerous journey, I feel that I may have the easier task here.”

“You think it’s easier to deal with a bunch of free companies who aren’t happy about being absorbed into a royal army than to trek across the south?” Kate countered.

“Perhaps not,” Lord Cranston said. “Stay safe, Kate. If you go around dying while you’re away, I shall definitely count it as being absent without leave.”

“Then I shall do my best not to,” Kate assured him.

Lord Cranston took her hand, then drew her into a hug. Kate was surprised by how much she would miss the older man, but for all that he’d taught her, he wasn’t her father. Her father, and her mother, lay at the end of this journey. Kate clutched the locket she wore around her neck. She would find them. They would be a family again.

***

Sebastian held his daughter and tried not to think about how the world always seemed to find a way to separate him from Sophia. He made himself appear happy as the ship pushed away from the dock, because he knew the sight of him falling apart would be like a lead weight in Sophia’s heart.

Will moved to stand beside him. He had the same expression of carefully composed happiness as he waved goodbye.

“Do you think they can tell?” Sebastian asked him. “How we’re really feeling, I mean?”

Will’s eyes widened for a moment, then he seemed to compose himself before he shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, your majesty.”

“Will, we’re brothers-in-law, and I’ve always hated all that anyway. Sebastian is fine.”

King Sebastian, left in charge of the kingdom that had been his mother’s and was now his wife’s. He’d never wanted to be the king, never expected to be. There was so much to do in Ashton, and beyond, in the ridings, the shires, the North and the mountain lands, and Sophia wasn’t here now to drive it all forward.

“I’m going to miss her every moment she’s gone,” Sebastian said.

“Me too,” Will said, obviously meaning Kate. “I guess the best we can do is look after things here, make sure they have something to come back to. It won’t be that long.”

It wouldn’t. Even so, Sebastian suspected that every moment that Sophia was away would feel like an eternity.

CHAPTER TEN

Oli was working on tax records in the library when the serving woman limped into the room. She was a few years older than him, with a slender frame and mid-brown hair, so ordinary looking that she might have been anyone. Oli certainly didn’t know her, although he was always better with remembering things he’d read than people’s faces. He glanced up as she came in, wondering if she was there to remind him to eat. He’d been forgetting that a lot recently, with the amount of work Endi had for him.

Instead, she shut the door and locked it, which was enough to make Oli frown.

“I’m pretty sure that one of your brothers would have had a sword out by now,” she said, in an Ashton accent. She smiled as Oli reached for the knife he used to sharpen his quills. “You have some steel in you then. That’s good. You’ll need it.”

“Who are you?” Oli demanded. “Answer me, or I’ll call the guards.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you,” she said. She paused for a moment. “Although frankly, the things I have to say might get you killed anyway. As for who I am, call me Rose.”

“You’re not a servant,” Oli said, standing. It felt slightly ludicrous when Rose moved to sit on another of the library’s chairs, so he sat back down.

“Forgive me if I sit,” she said. “Getting here wasn’t easy. I was half mad with my own poisons most of the way, stowed away in the hold of one of your brother’s ships because it was that or drown. I’m an assassin, incidentally,” she said, as if it was nothing.

Oli froze, not knowing what to say to that. It wasn’t something people said.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asked.

She cocked her head to one side. “What, by having a nice conversation with you first? I thought you were meant to be the clever one, Oli Skyddar. It’s why I came to you. Well, that, and you’re the only one here.”

“If you want something, you should talk to Endi,” Oli said. “He was always in charge of spies and things, and now he’s the Duke.”

“I can’t talk to him,” Rose said, settling in her chair. “I have information, a story to tell, but there’s a price for it.”

“What price?” Oli asked.

“I want forgiveness for all my past crimes,” she said. “The world… let’s just say that it hasn’t turned out the way I expected and maybe… well, maybe I’ve realized that I was on the wrong side for a lot of things.”

“The side of killing people?” Oli countered. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have you hanged for it.”

“There’s a whole handful,” Rose said with a shrug. “For a start, you’re Oli Skyddar, who loves the law and the way things are done. You wouldn’t just have someone hanged with no trial, and I’ve given you no evidence to use at one. Then there’s the part where you wouldn’t learn what I know without torturing me, and I don’t think you have the stomach for that one. Then there’s the way things are going here, and I know you don’t like that.” A knife appeared in her hand. “Oh, and there’s the part where I could cut your throat before you got halfway through shouting. There’s that, too.” She stretched out. “Besides, soldiers kill people far more than I ever have. Probably at least four of your siblings have killed more people than me with their own hands, and if you count all the ones Endi has ordered killed…”

Oli got the point. He wasn’t sure if he agreed with it, because there seemed to be something very different about skulking about in the dark compared to fighting an enemy openly, but he got it. It seemed that he had a decision to make.

“All right,” he said at last. “If you give me your information, you get to go free, with no penalty for past crimes.”

“I’ll need that in writing,” Rose said. “You of all people should know the value of the written word.”

Oli nodded, took out his quill, and started to write. There were precedents for this, of course, in the songs and the sagas: men forgiven all manner of misdeeds because of some act of heroism or redemption, or soldiers who switched sides and became loyal.

“There,” he said at last, pushing the paper across the table. “The men of Ishjemme will know it’s real. Now, tell me what you know.”

“It’s time for my first admission,” Rose said. She looked Oli squarely in the eye. “I’m the one who killed your father.”

Oli was out of his seat in an instant, his knife in his hand as hatred roared through him. He hadn’t thought that he could feel so much emotion toward anyone.

“Your written word, Oli Skyddar!” Rose said, and that was enough, just, to bring him shaking to a halt.

“You came here to taunt me with it?” he demanded. “Or did you think you could come here to say sorry?”

“Neither,” Rose replied. “I’m only telling you so that you understand that I know things. Although I am sorry, I guess. Strange, I never thought I’d feel that.”

“You’d better talk quickly,” Oli said.

Rose nodded. “I was given the job of killing your father by Milady d’Angelica. I was supposed to be the one who killed King Rupert too, although the way things worked out, I wasn’t the one to do that one. Well, working for her, I learned things. I like to know about the people who send me out, so that I know if I have to run afterwards. Do you know that she and your brother Endi exchanged messages for years?”

Oli felt something tighten in his throat. “Are you saying…”

“That Endi had a part in your father’s death? Probably,” Rose said. “He knew about it, at least. He certainly gave her information on Ishjemme, betrayed it. He even tried to have your cousin Sophia killed.”

“Another job for you?” Oli said, bitterly.

“It was meant to be,” Rose said. “But it’s a long way to Ishjemme, and Endi sent some thug of his own first. Bjornen?”

Oli recognized that name and nodded. Anger was rising in him again, but a different kind of anger, and not directed at Rose.

“Rika was hurt in that!” he said. “Endi… he helped to kill the man.”

“Occupational hazard,” Rose said. “Leave no trace behind, especially if it’s going to fail. So there you have it. Your brother is a traitor. He’s wrapped up in the death of your father, in the betrayal of Ishjemme to its enemies, in stealing the duke’s throne…”

It was too much. A part of Oli wanted to believe that it couldn’t be true. That Endi would never do all of this. Yet another part found it all too easy to believe. He’d seen what his brother had done since taking power, the people he’d had killed because they disagreed. Was it so hard to believe that he might have done the rest too?

The only question was what Oli was going to do about it. He’d called his brother Jan home, but there was no sign of him yet. Oli didn’t even know if he was alive, although he had to hope. Even if Jan did come, what could he do alone? No, Oli had to decide what to do here. He had to be the one to act, even if it wasn’t what he was best at.

“I don’t know what to do,” Oli said.

Rose shrugged. “They say that information is power. Certainly, it’s persuasion. Right now, I guess that makes you the most persuasive man in Ishjemme.”

Oli nodded, because the assassin had a point. The information he had now could persuade men, if he could find the men to persuade. In spite of Endi’s efforts, maybe because of them, there were plenty of people who weren’t happy with him as a ruler. Only the sense that he had the right kept him in place. If Oli could spread this news, then he could raise men. He could stop his brother.

Of course, that would place his sister in danger.

“Well, that’s me done,” Rose said, snatching up her guarantee of safety. “I’ve said what I have to say. Time to see if you keep your word, Oli Skyddar.”

She moved toward the door, limping as she did with what had to be some injury sustained in killing his father. The thought of that made Oli’s anger rise again, but also made him think. This woman had been able to sneak into the middle of a battle fleet, had gotten here, to the heart of Ishjemme’s castle, without being spotted. What else might she be able to do.

“Wait,” Oli said.

Rose paused, a knife in her hand again.

“About to have me executed anyway? I thought better of you.”

“What if… what if I had a job for you?” Oli asked.

“You have someone you want killed?” Rose replied. “Are you about to tell me that you want your brother dead?” She shook her head. “You might not have noticed, but I’m not exactly at my best right now.”

“I don’t want anyone dead,” Oli said. “But I do have someone I need you to keep alive.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rika had grown to hate her rooms in the last few weeks with a passion she hadn’t known she possessed. She hated being stuck in these four walls, hated Endi for keeping her there like this, hated everything that was happening in Ishjemme while she was cooped up there.

She was even starting to hate her harp, and Rika hadn’t ever believed that could be possible. She’d never loved anything as much as playing it when she was a child, but now, it just seemed like another symbol of how trapped she was. What good was it, playing a beautiful instrument like this, if the world around her wasn’t beautiful?

“Maybe I should just apologize to Endi so he lets me out,” Rika said, for what had to be the hundredth time. For the hundredth time, she rejected the idea out of hand. There were some things that people had to stand up for. He was killing people.

Would he kill her?

That was a treacherous thought. Endi was her brother. He wouldn’t hurt her. He’d said as much, and Rika wanted to believe him. She still loved him, even though she hated everything that he was doing. She wanted to believe that if she could talk to him long enough, maybe she could persuade him that what he was doing was wrong.

“Of course, for that, I’d need to get to talk to him more,” Rika said. “I’d need to be out of here.”

With nothing better to do, she set to playing her harp. Once, the music had been bright and beautiful, but now Rika found herself inflecting the strings with sadder strains, pouring what she felt into the music. Somewhere in it all, Rika thought she heard the sounds of an argument from beyond the door, but she played louder to cover it. The two guards who stood out there were always as unyielding as stone; Endi’s men, with no kindness or give to them.

“You play very beautifully,” a woman’s voice said. “Kind of sad and pretty all at once. I like that.”

Rika looked around to see a woman dressed as a servant, carrying a basket.

“Who are you?” Rika asked. “You mustn’t be here, because it will make Endi angry.”

“You don’t need to worry about Endi.”

“I’m not,” Rika said, “but I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”

“Sweet, thinking about me rather than yourself.” She stepped up to Rika, running a finger along the line of the scar that ran faint and white along her face, then sighed. “Amateurs. Always doing things so clumsily. Oh, I’m Rose, by the way. Oli sent me to get you out of here.”

“Oli sent you?” Rika said, frowning. That didn’t make a lot of sense. Oli was very clever, but he wasn’t always the best when it came to actually doing things.

“Let’s just say that I owe him. I owe both of you.”

That just deepened Rika’s frown. “And I’m supposed to just go with you? How do I know this isn’t some trick? That you’re not trying to make it look like I’m running so that Endi’s people can hurt me?”

Rose smiled sadly at that. “And there I’d heard that you were so innocent of the harsh sides of the world. I guess everyone learns sooner or later. The truth is that you don’t know, although if Endi wanted you hurt he could just walk in and do it without any tricks. So you’re going to have to decide for yourself. Do you want to trust me? Do you want to get out of here?”

Rika didn’t have to think about it for long before she nodded. “Let’s go.”

“Good answer,” Rose said.

She led the way out of the room. Two guards lay slumped there, and Rika wasn’t sure if they were breathing or not.

“You did that?” she asked.

“It’s a talent.”

Rika followed Rose as she led the way over to a balcony. The other woman reached into her basket, pulling out a long length of rope and fastening it in place.

“Do you need me to lower you down?” Rose asked.

Rika shook her head. “When I was little, Frig used to make me climb trees with her. She thought it would make me be like her and Ulf.”

Rika took hold of the rope, clambering down it as quickly as she could. The truth was that it had been a long time since she’d climbed any trees, but the thought of what might happen if anyone caught them now gave her the strength to do it. She set her feet down on solid ground…

…just in time for one of Endi’s soldiers to round the corner of the castle.

“What’s this?” he said with a laugh. “Lady Rika, making a run for it? Oh, your brother’s going to love this. First your brother takes off and they say he’s gathering men. Then they say half the dukedom is ready to rise up. Now this? Come on, we’re going to take you to—”

There was the twang of a bowstring and a crossbow bolt appeared, half buried in the soldier’s head. Rika resisted the urge to cry out in shock or in horror, instead looking up to where Rose was dropping lightly from the rope, a small crossbow still in her hand.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Rika said. “We could have—”

“Could have done what? Talked nicely to him?”

“I was thinking hit him with a rock and knocked him out,” Rika said. Why did people always assume that because she tried to be kind she was stupid?

“Maybe,” Rose said, “but that’s not what I’m good at. I kill people.”

“Well, don’t kill any more unless I say so,” Rika insisted.

For a moment, it looked as though Rose might argue, but then she nodded. “All right, why not? I guess if I’m going to try being a better person, I have to start somewhere. Come on, if Oli has done his part, there are some people waiting for you.”

She led the way out toward one of the many stands of trees that dotted the city. Sure enough, as Rika approached, she could see people waiting there for them, perhaps a dozen, all ordinary folk of the city, but all armed.

“What is this?” Rika asked as she approached them.

Almost as one, they fell to one knee.

“Lady Rika, we are happy you are safe,” one older man said. “I am Wol the carpenter. People around Ishjemme are ready to rise up at your command.”

“At my command?” Rika asked. She looked at Rose, who shrugged.

“People have heard how you would not accept Endi’s false rule,” Wol said. “You risked imprisonment and death rather than side with him. Your brother Oli has come around to our side, but it is you we want to lead us.”

Rika wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She didn’t think she was a leader, but the truth… the truth was that Endi needed to be stopped.

“All right,” she said. “For now.”

“We will take you to safety,” the carpenter said. “Then we will rise up together and take back Ishjemme.”

Rika looked again at Rose. The other woman shrugged.

“It looks as though you’ve found yourself an army.”

Rika shook her head. “But I never wanted an army.”

“Maybe that makes you the best person to have one, then,” Rose said. “Now, I should be going.”

“Going?” Rika said. She stepped forward and hugged Rose. “Just like that? You saved me and now you’re going to go?”

“Trust me,” Rose said, “once you find out about who I am and the things I’ve done, you won’t like me very much. I’d rather leave while you still think I’m your friend.”

“You are,” Rika said. “Please stay? Whatever it is, whatever you’ve done, you saved me. Besides,” she said, looking around at the ordinary folk of her rebellion and thinking about the soldiers Endi employed, “I think we’re going to need you.”

Rose stepped back. For a moment, Rika thought she was going to turn and walk away. Then she gave a single, terse nod.

“All right,” she said. “Just promise me that you won’t have me killed when you hear the rest of it. I have your brother’s word on that.”

“Then you have mine too,” Rika said, without hesitation. She looked around at the people there. “Is this everyone?”

Wol the carpenter shook his head. “No, my lady. Half of the island is ready to stand with you. There are plenty of people who think that what Endi has done is wrong, and now that Oli is telling people about his betrayals, they’re ready to stand against him. They’re just waiting for you to give the word.”

Rika hesitated. She had an entire rebellion, it seemed, waiting for her command, but she knew what that command would mean. If she told them to act, then people would die, and be hurt, and have their lives ruined. She thought about how much her heart had broken when she’d found out that her father had died. Could she put anyone else through that, even to stop Endi?

The answer to that was simple: she had to.

“Get messages out to people,” Rika said. “Tell them that the time has come to rise up. Tell them… tell them that it’s time to free Ishjemme from my brother.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sophia felt the heat beating down on her like a club as their ship came into port in Morgassa. Sienne wound against her legs, and Sophia could only imagine what the forest cat was feeling with her layers of fur.

“We’re here,” Sophia said to Lucas and Kate as they stared at the city alongside her. “We actually made it to Morgassa.”

They had made good time, the wind in their favor for almost all of the journey south. Now, the capital of the other kingdom stood before them in a series of low white buildings with flat roofs. Even the larger buildings, the granaries and the palace, the warehouses and the market, were built in the same style. The dark-skinned people of the city bustled about doing all the kinds of tasks that Sophia might have seen in Ashton, plus plenty that she wouldn’t. Some of them stared at them; she wondered how many outsiders they saw.

High Merchant N’Ka swept a hand toward the city as their ship bumped up against its dock.

“Is it not the jewel of the world?”

“It is a beautiful city,” Sophia admitted.

“There are such things to see here,” the merchant continued. “Our pleasure gardens bring travelers from a thousand miles around. The temple of the seven snakes still stands despite the efforts of a hundred different invaders. Our market of hidden things—”

“I wish that there were time to see it all,” Sophia said, interrupting him. “But I left my child and the man I love at home so that I could find my parents. I don’t want to spend any longer away from them than I have to.”

Sophia could feel the ache that came with missing Sebastian and Violet, and she guessed that things were no better for Kate when it came to Will. This was a time for planning the next part of their journey, not for sightseeing.

Lucas seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he took out the flat disc that could lead them to their parents, waiting for Sophia and Kate to put their hands on it. The map upon it spun into shape, the glowing point of their parents’ presence there to see. The image of a golden city shimmered in the air above the ship’s deck.

“It’s still a long way to go,” Lucas said, as the image faded.

Sophia nodded. “We’ll need to travel quickly.”

She turned and saw High Merchant N’Ka staring at them with a shocked expression. She assumed that it was just the magic of the device that had him so in awe, at least until he spoke again.

“The Forgotten City… you’re hunting for the Forgotten City.”

“You know about it?” Sophia asked.

“Everyone in Morgassa knows the stories,” he said. “They say it lies beyond a door of gold, but what sits beyond that, no one knows, because it will not open for them.”

“It will open for us,” Kate said, with her usual determination. “Even if I have to break it down.”

“The king will want to see you,” the merchant said.

“We wouldn’t want to trouble him,” Sophia replied. She didn’t want to get caught up in the niceties of royal visits when she could be out searching for her parents.

“You don’t understand,” High Merchant N’Ka said. “It is forbidden to search for the city. All those who do are to be brought to the king.”

Sophia looked into the man’s mind. She could see the fear there at being caught up in something that was suddenly much larger than he had anticipated. He didn’t want to upset the guests traveling with him, especially when Sophia had soldiers with her, but he didn’t want to upset his king, either.

“I’ll go,” Sophia said, looking around at the others. “You two can start making preparations for the journey so we don’t lose any time.”

“Are you sure?” Kate asked, her hand on the hilt of her sword. “I don’t like the idea of you going into a strange king’s home without anyone to protect you.”

“I’ll have Sienne,” Sophia assured her sister. “And I’ll shout for help if I need it.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Kate promised.

“We’ll be waiting,” Lucas corrected her.

***

Sophia made her way with High Merchant N’Ka through the city to a spot that was clearly a castle, or palace, or other grand building. The white walls were offset with jewels here and there, flashes of blue painted on it so that it seemed like an ocean wave. Guards stood outside the palace, holding spears and with short blades at their belts.

They said something in a language that Sophia didn’t understand, but she got the gist of it: they wanted to know who the stranger was. High Merchant N’Ka said something in reply, and the guards looked at Sophia in the same way that he had when she’d mentioned the city. They opened the gates, then fell in beside Sophia as they escorted her inside.

The interior of the palace was far more extravagant than the outside had been. The walls were painted with a mixture of geometric designs and pictures that showed men and women in the midst of what seemed like heroic acts: trekking across wastelands, fighting strange creatures, climbing cliffs. Servants stood around the palace, dressed in simple white kilts or dresses, clearly waiting for instructions.

The guards led them to a large chamber, where more servants and guards lined the way toward a throne apparently carved from stone, on which sat a muscular man who must have been in his forties. His crown was crafted from ivory, set with diamonds. High Merchant N’Ka bowed deeply as he approached, but Sophia only offered a dip of her head. She suspected that rulers weren’t supposed to bow to one another.

A quick exchange followed, in the same language as before. The king called out something, and a woman in the white dress of a servant moved beside him. The king spoke again.

“I am King Akar of Morgassa,” the woman said, translating his words with an expression so impassive that she might as well not have been there. “High Merchant N’Ka was sent to trade with you, Queen Sophia, not to bring you here before me. Although now that I see you, I am glad that he has.”

“I brought myself,” Sophia answered, “because I believe that something I am looking for might lie within your kingdom.”

The king’s expression turned serious. “The Forgotten City. It is a forbidden place. We do not go there. You will not go there. Stay instead as my guest. Let me show you how beautiful Morgassa is.”

“With respect,” Sophia said, “I must journey to the Forgotten City.”

King Akar’s expression went from serious to irritated. He spoke in a long stream that sounded all the stranger for the translator’s lack of inflection. “When I was a boy, men from other lands would come to this kingdom in search of its lost treasures. We tried to tell them that they were not lost; that they were hidden for a reason, and that they were ours. Fools in masks tried to get us to worship a goddess who was not ours, and tried to take gold and people. They put marks on them and said that they owed this goddess just for existing. They called the ones among us with magic evil, and tried to kill them. They thought that they could come to my home and take what they wanted. Do you think you can take what you want, Queen Sophia?”

Sophia had the feeling that her next words would determine a lot of what happened to her and the people with her. The king had made no threats, but the guards around them made it clear that he had the power to enforce whatever he decided.

“I had a mark like the ones you’re talking about once,” Sophia said, “and if you’ve heard of me, you know that I have as much reason as anyone to hate the Church of the Masked Goddess, that I set the indentured in my kingdom free, and that I’m currently looking at your servant and wondering how much choice she gets in any of this.”

King Akar looked over to the translator, then back to Sophia.

“A good response,” he said through her. “And one that will see you welcome as a guest in my home. But you still haven’t said what you’re looking for in my kingdom.”

“I came here to find my parents,” Sophia said. “I’m not here to steal, or to hurt people, or to do anything else, just to see the parents I haven’t seen since I was a child. I didn’t even know that this ‘Forgotten City’ existed until I saw it in a device my parents left behind to find them.” She sought something else to say. “I have left my child and my husband behind to do this. I have left my kingdom at a point when it probably needs me to keep the peace. If you have people with magic, let one of them look into my mind. They’ll see the truth of all I’m saying.”

King Akar sat there for a minute, staring across at her.

“That will not be necessary,” he said at last. “You will have my assistance in preparing a caravan for the journey, and my translator will go with you to help you.” The translator looked at him in obvious surprise, then continued. “I warn you now, though, it will be a hard journey. The wastes are unforgiving, the salt plains even more so.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Sophia assured him. “I’ll do whatever it takes to find my parents.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

With every stride his army took southward, the Master of Crows could feel himself growing stronger. With every town and village that fell to them, every death, every battle against those who tried to make a stand, his creatures fed and he was sustained.

He smiled as he thought of everything this small island kingdom had given him and that smile only widened into a rictus when he considered all that it would in the coming days. Unlike the continent, it hadn’t been at war with him for years. Its people didn’t know the best ways to hide, didn’t know to avoid his crows, and he hadn’t depleted its stock of those with magic yet.

“I wonder if they realize what they lost when they killed Siobhan,” he mused aloud. How long had the woman of the fountain kept him and those like him out of the island she lived on? If not her, then the former rulers, the Danses. Now, there was nothing to stop him.

One of his creatures landed on his outstretched hand, looking out over the advancing army as he carried it. They’d passed the ruins of Monthys now, the great army passing over the river that barred the way into the main part of the kingdom. Ashton lay to the south, and the Danses’ children with it.

“I will take their land, I will kill those with power,” the Master of Crows promised the birds around him. “And that will give us enough power to take other bastions held by those who would defend them.”

The Master of Crows could feel his birds’ approval at that thought, but then, they always liked anything that promised to feed them more. This was different, though. This island kingdom promised enough power that they could take anywhere they wanted.

On a whim, the Master of Crows started to whistle. It wasn’t something he normally did; he’d not done it for a long time. The tune was so old that even he didn’t know where it had come from. He whistled, and around him every crow, every raven, every magpie joined in, the cacophony spreading out over his army so that the boot steps seemed to slam in time to the off-kilter song of the birds.

The Master of Crows looked around at those who marched nearest to him. If his aides thought it was strange, they said nothing. They’d learned to say nothing.

He stopped whistling when he saw the crow cages.

The gibbets should have been full. His outriders had one task, and that was to fill them, whether it was with those with power, or the inhabitants of villages, or simply with those who were too slow to get out of the way. Doing it fed his crows, even as it sowed the fear of what would happen to those who did not surrender.

At first, the Master of Crows thought that perhaps someone in his ranks had been lazy. He turned to an aide, ready to issue the order to summon back the outriders so that examples could be made, but then he paused, taking a second look at the gibbets. He stalked over to them, angular and graceless as a hopping crow, looking at them first through one eye, then the other.

“What do you see?” he asked the nearest of his aides.

The young man paled as the Master of Crows asked him the question. “S…someone has broken the cages, my lord.”

“Correct,” the Master of Crows said, taking in the snapped locks and the broken chains. The bars on some of the gibbets were bent, while others had been tipped onto their side.

“And what do you think that means?” he asked.

“I don’t know, my lord,” the aide said.

“Then think!” the Master of Crows snapped back, rounding on him. “If someone has broken the cages, what does that mean?”

“Rebellion, my lord?” the aide said with a frown. “Peasants trying to get back their families? Witches who still had enough power to break free?”

The guesses were all ones that fit with things they’d seen in the past, but in their own way, each was a foolish guess.

“The outriders are well armed, and each set of gibbets would have guards,” the Master of Crows said. “More importantly, I did not see this happen. I did not see it, do you understand?”

“No, my lord,” the aide said. “I thought… I thought that you saw everything.”

The man’s faith in his general was the only thing that saved his life right then. Instead, the Master of Crows struck out at one of the cages with his foot, bending the metal as he sent it flying. He sent his awareness out into his crows, and quickly found what he was looking for.

He stalked out from the path, out among the rocks and the heather, until he found the small ditch where a dozen of his outriders’ bodies had been left. The men had sword cuts marring their bodies, and the holes that marked out bullet wounds.

“This is not from a few peasants,” the Master of Crows said to his men. “Note that there are no bodies from others here, no signs of them being able to fight back? They were ambushed by experts. Experts who could do it without being spotted by my birds.”

That as much as the rest of it told him that these were dangerous foes. He had beaten whole armies whose generals hadn’t worked out how to stop him from seeing every move that they made. This was something that was enough to make him pause, and think.

He could have let this go. It was just a few lost morsels compared to the feast that his birds would have in Ashton, after all. If that had been all it was, then he might have left it. At most, he would have told some of his men to keep a watch for people fleeing from them. Yet if there was a foe like this out there, he wanted to know. He wanted them dead.

“Where are you?” he mused, sending his awareness out into his creatures.

He scoured the countryside around them, suspecting that those who had done this could not have gone far. The Master of Crows knew the condition of bodies as well as anyone alive, and his outriders had not been dead for long. His birds flew their patterns, dividing up the land around as the thermals took them. It took him a minute or two before he realized that something was missing.

There was a whole strip of ground where none of his birds flew. No, that wasn’t quite true, because a raven wandered into it even as he watched, only for it to disappear from his awareness as if it no longer existed. Or as if someone had picked it off the moment that it got too close.

He bombarded the area with his crows, determined to see more, to find out what was happening. Some were taken down as the others had been, but more got through, too many to stop completely.

He saw them then. A column of figures hiked through the landscape: villagers and townsfolk, people with wounds that suggested they had been the ones in the cages and others who merely looked as though they had run ahead of the army. They moved through rocky areas of heath and moor, sticking to whatever cover they could find, led on by two figures who did not look ordinary. A man and a woman, too similar too be anything other than siblings, led the small column.

The Master of Crows recognized Ulf and Frig Skyddar instantly. A man should know his enemies, after all. They were firing short bows, bringing down as many of his birds as they could. He heard them call out to the column of refugees, and it broke into a run, heading for a deep gouge in the moorland, and an area of forest that lay at the far end.

“The ones who did this are to the southeast,” the Master of Crows said, coming back to himself. He strode over to a war horse, mounting it without caring whose it was. The beast whinnied and reared, perhaps sensing what was on its back, but he mastered it quickly. “I require a hundred men with me, now.”

Men rushed to their own horses, mounting and moving in behind the Master of Crows as he kicked his beast into a gallop.

“I want them before they reach the safety of the woods,” he called out. “Kill everyone we find. There are to be no survivors. The crows feast today.”

***

Frig cursed to herself as she urged the column of refugees to move faster, because the truth was that there was only so fast that hungry, often injured people could move.

“I’m not sure I like being the hunted rather than the hunter,” Ulf said beside her as they loped along.

“It certainly lends a sense of perspective,” Frig agreed. She glanced up, seeing the crows that now filled the sky, not letting them out of their sight. There was no way that even she and Ulf could hope to kill them all to blind their owner again.

“We need to make it to the forest,” Ulf said.

“You do have a way of stating the obvious, little brother,” Frig said.

“I thought I was the elder twin,” Ulf shot back.

Frig shook her head. “I’m the elder. It’s why I’m the clever one.”

Ulf snorted at that. “If either of us is so clever, why are we running from half an army?”

The answer ran alongside them, in the form of men, women, and children who would be dead otherwise. The sensible thing, when the Master of Crows’ army had started moving south, might have been to abandon the Monthys estate they were supposed to be rebuilding on two fast horses and run for Ashton.

“But when did we ever do the sensible thing?” Frig muttered to herself.

“If you wanted to do the sensible thing, we could still run ahead for the forest,” Ulf pointed out. He must have caught her expression. “What? I’m not saying that I’d ever do it. Just that if you wanted to, you could.”

Frig pointed to the small gorge that ran through the moor toward the forest. “Get yourselves in there,” she yelled to the refugees. “At least they won’t be able to run us down on horses that way!”

Yelling didn’t get the column to move any faster, but the sight of specks on the horizon did, and the thunder of hooves behind it.

“They’re coming,” Ulf said. He had his axe out now.

“We’ll not need that,” Frig said, and she didn’t know if she was trying to convince him or herself. “We’ll make it.”

She could see the speed with which the enemy was getting closer. The horses were at a full gallop, and there was no way now that the people with them were going to be able to make it into the forest in time. If Frig had possessed a few dozen hardened men, she might have set an ambush, but the only real fighters here were her and her brother.

They scrabbled into the gorge, helping down the weakest and the slowest. Frig lifted a child down into her mother’s arms, and that was enough of a reminder of why she and Ulf couldn’t just hurry to safety.

“Someone needs to slow those soldiers,” Frig said to her brother.

“I’ll do it,” he shot back. “You lead the others to safety.”

“I’m the eldest. I’ll do it.”

“I’m still not convinced that you’re the eldest,” Ulf said. “And if you think I’m leaving you behind, you’re more cracked than Kate got with that witch inside her.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you behind,” Frig insisted. She sighed and pointed to what looked like the narrowest part of the gorge, where rocks had fallen in on either side to produce a kind of passageway. “I reckon if two people can hold anywhere in this, it’s there.”

Ulf nodded, and the two of them moved to the far side of it, waiting while the refugees kept running.

“What I wouldn’t give for about fifty snares right now,” her brother said.

“That would still leave fifty of them to fight,” Frig pointed out as she counted the approaching foes. They were almost to the gorge now. “Can’t you even count?”

“A man has to have some fun,” Ulf said with a grin.

“True enough,” Frig said. The soldiers were dismounting now, forming up to march into the gorge. She could see the tall figure standing in amongst them, giving the orders, and she knew who it had to be. “It might almost be worth dying to kill that one.”

“Who said anything about dying?” Ulf said. “We’re going to stand here and chop them all down like trees, then go back to Ashton to boast about how we won the war by ourselves.”

Frig smiled, even though there was little enough to smile about then. “You know that I know when you don’t really believe what you’re saying, right?”

“Yes, well…” Ulf shrugged. “Just don’t go around dying before me, sister.”

“I was about to say the same thing,” Frig replied.

“Maybe if neither of us dies first, we’ll get through this after all,” Ulf said with another wolfish grin.

Frig hugged him then. “I love you, you big oaf.”

“I love you too, little sister.”

“I keep telling you that I’m older than you. A full fifteen minutes it was!”

The soldiers were in the gorge now. Without hesitating, Frig stepped out and sent an arrow flying toward the Master of Crows. He moved out of the way as if he’d been expecting it, and the arrow took a man behind him. Ulf fired a pistol, which brought down another man, then started sending arrows from his hunting bow.

Frig kept up her own fire, focusing her aim on the New Army’s leader, continuing to hit those around him when he dodged with inhuman speed. She ducked back as a volley of musket fire came, ricocheting off of the rocks and sending stone chips flying.

Man after man fell with arrows in him. Frig dared a glance back and saw that the refugees were further along the gorge now, but they weren’t clear. The two of them couldn’t run. Not that this had ever been about running.

“That’s the last of the arrows,” Frig said, sending the last one shooting forward, then drawing her sword.

“I’m out as well,” Ulf said.

The soldiers came at them then, forced to come no more than a couple at a time in the confined space. Ulf had been right, it was a little like chopping down trees. The first man came at Frig and she hacked his head off, while Ulf buried his axe in another’s ribs. Frig kicked away the body for him, then parried a blow aimed at her head.

They kept coming at her, and Frig kept fighting, hacking and slashing, never leaving her blade still long enough for there to be a gap into which another man could step. She and her brother worked like two halves of a whole, fitting together with the kind of precision that only total trust could bring. Ulf caught a blow aimed at her head and she stabbed the soldier responsible. She tripped a man and Ulf finished him.

It was tiring work, because all battles were. No matter how strong you were, after the first few moments, battles became about who could keep swinging their weapon, who could push forward.

It was almost a shock when the New Army’s men pulled back.

They didn’t go far, just to the far end of the narrowed section, but Frig was more than grateful for the pause. She took out a water skin, taking a long swig. She offered it to Ulf, who shook his head.

“Not unless it’s whiskey.”

“Do you think it would be full if it were?” Frig countered, checking herself over. She had wounds on both arms, and she couldn’t even remember how she’d gotten them. None of that mattered now, because the refugees were starting to climb out of the gorge, heading into the forest.

“It occurs to me that once they’re clear, we can actually try pulling back,” Ulf pointed out.

Frig wished that it were that simple. “Once we pull back from here, they can come through in force and they’ll have a clear shot at our retreating backs.”

“So we have to hold here and hope that we kill them all?” Ulf said.

“Or that they pull back far enough that we can run,” Frig said.

Neither seemed likely. Worse, some of the Master of Crows’ soldiers seemed to be pulling out of the gorge and starting to circle around it.

“You have seen what my men are doing,” the Master of Crows called out. “Soon, they will have blocked you in, and they will also be in a position to fire down upon you from above. Leave it much longer, and you are going to die.”

He made it sound inevitable. The worst part was that he was probably right.

“You wouldn’t be talking to us if you didn’t have another suggestion,” Frig said.

“Come out and surrender yourselves. You have fought well. I respect that. You are more valuable to me as hostages than you are dead. Perhaps when this is done, I will even permit you to join my army.”

“A generous offer,” Frig said. “Why should we believe it?”

The answer to that came back swiftly. “Because I do not have to make it.”

Frig looked across to Ulf, lowering her voice. “The trouble is, he has a point. We’re probably dead if we stay here, and we probably are worth something as hostages.”

“You think Sophia would open the gates to Ashton because he has us?” Ulf said.

Frig shrugged. She didn’t know about that. “I bet Kate and Jan and even Hans would mount some stupid rescue mission though. Probably get themselves killed.”

“They might succeed,” Ulf pointed out.

“They might,” Frig agreed, “but if I were the enemy, I’d stick everything I had around us and make it impossible.

Ulf was silent for a minute. He looked over at her, and Frig knew instinctively that he was thinking what she was. “I don’t see that we have much choice.”

Frig nodded, agreeing with him. “We have to do what we have to do.”

They stood, weapons kept carefully down as they moved forward. Frig hung her head in shame, her sword trailing on the ground as they approached. Ulf was the picture of a broken man, blood on his face, hair hanging lankly in front of it.

Frig waited until she was within a dozen yards of the New Army before she looked up at Ulf and smiled.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” he said, and bellowed a challenge.

They charged.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Henry d’Angelica paused at the gate to the Duke of Axshire’s estate, gathering himself for what was to come even while he took in the view of the country house that some fine landscaper had probably carefully contrived.

To Henry, it looked contrived, the trees that had stood before it when he’d last visited cut down to stumps to improve the view, some of the old defenses of what had once been a mighty castle improved to modern standards of aesthetics. Henry couldn’t understand this constant need to improve things. Until the events of the last few months, the kingdom had functioned well enough. Maybe not perfectly, but that was a matter to bring up at the Assembly of Nobles, not a reason to tear it all apart.

He rode down toward the duke’s home, hoping that others would be there. It was one thing sending off messages at every stop along the way, quite another for those to actually gather people here. Even so, as Henry approached, he could see signs of plenty of people gathered: horses, extra servants rushing to attend to errands, the sound of people within. He hopped down from his horse, handing his reins to a servant and taking his bag down before heading inside.

“Henry, it’s good to see you,” Sir Archibald Hemsworth said as Henry walked in. Predictably enough, the man was drunk. “I must say, it was a good idea, gathering everyone for a party like this.”

“It’s not a party,” Henry said. “Where are the Duke and Duchess?”

“The dining room, I think. If it’s not a party, what is it?”

“You’ll see.”

Henry went through to the dining room. On another day, he would have taken the time to dress for dinner, and it was only the courteous thing to do under most circumstances. Today, though, he wanted to impress upon people the urgency of his task. Of their task.

There were nobles waiting in the dining room. Nobles, a couple of priests, a man or two who looked as though they were from the Free Companies. There weren’t as many people there as Henry had hoped, but there were more than he’d feared there might be.

Duke Loris of Axshire strode over to him, a man only a few years Henry’s senior, made duke thanks to the death of his father. His wife, Imogen, was with him, as lovely as ever. They’d always been the perfect couple, even back in the brief days before Henry’s father had bought him out of his commission in the army.

Neither of them looked pleased.

“Now see here, Henry,” Loris said. “I know that we’re old friends, but you can’t just dump half the nobles of the kingdom in a man’s home without even asking him first.”

“It’s not half,” Henry said, and he couldn’t help a note of disappointment there. “I was hoping for more.”

“More?” Imogen said. She’d always had the loveliest voice, even if it was currently filled with annoyance, and under other circumstances, Henry might have hoped… but that was in the past. Better that it stayed there.

“I think you’d better tell us what’s going on,” Loris said. “You’re my friend, Henry, but this is not something that friends do.”

Henry nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, both of you, but I needed to gather people somewhere, and my parents’ house was out of the question after I left.”

“After you left?” Imogen said, in a tone that suggested she understood.

“I’m not welcome there any longer,” Henry said. Before either of them could do anything like offer him sympathy, he moved out into the dining room, throwing his bag on the table and raising his hands for quiet. It took a while to come.

“My friends,” he said, “thank you for coming with so little notice. I know that many of you are wondering what is happening. I know that I have asked a lot by doing this.” He looked out over the crowd of them. “Trust me, I intend to ask more.”

“Got a gambling debt you can’t pay?” one man called out from the back.

“I think that’s more your department, my lord,” Henry called back. “But I do have a debt that needs to be paid. A debt of blood and of honor, owed to my family.”

This silence was more total than the last had been.

“What are you doing, Henry?” Earl Jalland asked.

“I’d ask what all of you are doing instead,” Henry countered. “We were invaded just a few short weeks ago by a foreign force. That force put a girl who by her own admission has magic and was one of the Indentured upon the throne. It set a prince beside her who was responsible for the death of his own mother, and between them… between them they killed my cousin!”

He brought his fist down on the table sharply.

“There are men and women in this room who claim to stand for every ancient family in this kingdom. Who claim to stand for the values of religion. Who have military forces of their own, and political weight. Yet still, all of this goes unavenged. A man condemned as a traitor sits on the throne, beside a woman who is either a liar or someone come to drag us back to a past where the chaos of magic was normal.” He pointed an accusing finger around the room. “Why do you not act, gentlemen?”

“To what end?” Earl Jalland replied. “King Sebastian and Queen Sophia have been confirmed by the Assembly—”

“An Assembly that they have stuffed with their own supporters, using commoners to fill it!” Henry snapped back. It was time to play his best card. “As the closest male relative of Queen Angelica, I claim the right to the crown.”

People froze then, staring at Henry as if he had gone mad. He had half expected that; he was not a fool.

“This is—” one man began, but Henry didn’t let him finish.

“Was Angelica recognized as the queen of this kingdom?” he demanded. The question got a few nods in response. “By the real Assembly of Nobles, not something stuffed with those without the upbringing to truly act in the country’s interests?” More nods followed. “And am I her closest cousin, the eldest male of the line? Then with the Dowager and King Rupert dead, with my cousin dead, and with Sebastian disqualified by dint of being a traitor, I am the only choice left as king.”

They didn’t roar their approval, but then, Henry had hardly expected them to.

“So what do you want us to do?” one noble asked.

“I’d like you to gather up your men and prepare to take back the throne,” Henry said. “I’d like you to aid me in punishing these murderers and these invaders. My cousin’s parents will provide their forces, obviously, and with enough help, we can make the kingdom what it was again. I’d like you to go to your estates and ready yourselves for battle!”

This time, he’d half hoped for a cry of allegiance, but instead, he got more silence.

“This is madness,” Earl Jalland declared. “Worse than that, it is the kind of dangerous talk that could see a man hanged. I will have no part of it.”

He walked out.

“You can’t win,” a mercenary captain declared, following him.

Even the priests edged their way to the door. “We can give them no excuse to do more to our church,” their leader said. “Princess Kate is already vehement in her hatred of us.”

One by one, they started to drift away. Finally, Henry was left sitting by himself at one of the dining chairs. Imogen and Loris came to sit with him.

“Henry,” Imogen said, reaching out to take his hand, “are you all right? All of this… it doesn’t seem like you.”

“Imogen is right,” Loris said. “You were always the one trying to get me to be sensible, and yet now you’re engaged in a scheme that could get you killed?”

“They murdered my cousin,” Henry said. He shook his head. “They’ve done so much evil… someone has to stop them.”

“But why you?” Loris said. “And don’t give me all of that about being king. I know that’s just to get people on side.”

“I am king,” Henry insisted. “Technically. But you’re right. It’s just… if I don’t fight for my family’s honor, what else is there?”

“You’ll stay, of course,” Imogen said. “If your parents have cast you out, you’ll stay. And maybe when things settle down, you’ll see things differently.”

Henry shook his head. “Things aren’t going to settle down. Do you know the rumors on the roads? They say that the New Army is back.”

That made both of their eyes widen.

“It’s why I didn’t argue harder,” Henry said. “Today wasn’t about winning them over; it was about planting a seed.” He opened his bag, spilling out some of the wealth he’d taken when he left. “This will pay for criers to spread the news of what our new rulers did, and it will buy the companies who don’t like being subsumed into the royal army. It will buy spies to find out what the traitors plan, and messengers to deliver promises to each of the factions.”

He knew what those promises would have to be. To the Church of the Masked Goddess: renewed ascendancy. To the nobles, their Assembly back as it was. To the captains, gold, or the chance to push out foreigners, or both. He would make any promises he had to for his revenge.

“Ashton will fall,” he said. “So we will prepare your estates, Loris. When it falls, people will flock here, and they will remember who promised them that he could solve things. Then they will march together, and I will see Queen Sophia’s and King Sebastian’s heads on pikes!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sebastian had always thought that he’d understood the business of ruling, but the sheer scale of the things he had to deal with managed to take even him a little by surprise. Keeping on top of the events of the kingdom meant gathering information from every corner of it, and that, it seemed, meant report after report, from both messengers and the crowd of lords and ladies who clustered in the great hall with seemingly nothing better to do.

“Your Majesty,” a courtier said. “More refugees have arrived at the city, saying that their villages have been burned.”

“Find space for them,” Sebastian ordered the man.

“Soon there will be no space,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t we turn at least a few away?”

“And if I were to turn you out of your home, my lord?” Sebastian countered. “If I were to give you and your family nowhere to go? Would you say that there was no space then?”

The courtier swallowed. “Space will be found, Your Majesty.”

He bowed and hurried off.

“You’re going to make enemies if you threaten them with seizing their lands when they disagree,” Hans said, beside him. Will was on the other side, the three providing a unified front in the face of the nearly endless needs of the kingdom.

“That’s not what I did,” Sebastian said. He thought about the conversation. “But it’s what he will hear, isn’t it?”

Hans nodded.

It was hard to get these decisions right. Every choice Sebastian made impacted on the lives of the people he ruled. Forcing the courtier to let in more people would probably save lives, but it would also mean more hungry, desperate people in Ashton, without their usual chances to work or protect their families. Already there had been fights and thefts, although in the great wash of Ashton, it was hard to notice.

“How are the defenses?” Sebastian asked Hans.

“The rebuilding work was already underway when we heard the news of the New Army landing,” his cousin said. “The inner walls have been reinforced, while fortifications have been placed around the outer city to slow the enemy’s advance.”

One of the lords spoke up then. Sebastian recognized Earl Neversham. “Your Majesty, the Assembly of… that is, the Assembly has asked questions regarding the tactics that you have chosen in defending against this invasion.”

Sebastian might have felt better about the man if he hadn’t almost called it the Assembly of Nobles, or if his family hadn’t made their money as slavers.

“What questions?” Sebastian asked.

“The issue has been raised of King Rupert’s approach to the last incursion by this foe,” the man said. “Whatever we may think of the ethics of it, it cannot be denied that it was very effective.”

“In destroying large sections of the kingdom,” Sebastian said. “Hans, how long is agriculture on the peninsula likely to take to recover?”

“Perhaps twenty years,” his cousin said. “Perhaps longer.”

Sebastian fixed Earl Neversham with a level stare. “And you want to do the same to the rest of the kingdom? Do you want the people to starve?”

“Of course not,” the man said, although Sebastian suspected that he probably hadn’t thought about it one way or the other. “But there is nothing to stop us from riding out to meet them with our armies.”

“Except for the part where the Master of Crows would see our every move, surround us, and slaughter us,” Will put in.

“We have no way of knowing that,” Earl Neversham said with a faint sneer that Sebastian suspected he wouldn’t have used on either him or Hans. “I have some experience in the royal regiment, and I think—”

“With respect,” Sebastian said, “Will has direct experience of fighting the New Army. As do I. As does Hans. If we go out to meet them in the field now, we will be defeated, and I will not sacrifice men like that for no good reason.”

“Then I will take that news back to the Assembly,” Earl Neversham said with a bow. In its way, it was a threat. This was not a tyranny where Sebastian could just do what he liked. The Assembly could overrule him, although it would probably take so much time to do so that the war would probably be done by then. Besides, he had enough support there for now to win the votes he needed. He hoped.

Then he saw Lord Cranston marching into the hall and knew that his troubles were just beginning.

“The three of you should come,” he said, ignoring the rest of the room. “There’s something you need to see.”

Sebastian followed without asking questions. If the mercenary captain was in enough of a hurry to do without so much as a sarcastic comment, the situation sounded grave indeed. Sebastian hurried after him, Hans and Will in his wake, half the court in theirs. Together, the group made its way up to the roof of the palace, from where it was possible to see both the city and the lands spread out around it.

“Do you see?” Lord Cranston said, pointing.

Sebastian saw. A black cloud sat on the horizon, except that it wasn’t a black cloud: it was a tumbling flock of birds, crows and ravens and more. Beneath it, a wide band of ochre uniforms stood out against the green of the landscape, the soldiers marching together as one.

“They’re here,” Sebastian said, a sense of dread filling him. Had they done enough to prepare? Could they ever do enough to prepare for that?

“They’re here,” Lord Cranston agreed. He started looking out at the army through a ship’s viewing glass, staring at it as if taking in every detail.

“Have the defenses manned,” Sebastian said. “Bring people in from the outer city. Demolish whatever buildings you can on the outskirts before they arrive. I want clear lines of fire. I want every man, woman, and child within the walls before they get here.”

“Straightaway,” Will promised.

Hans turned to go with him, but to Sebastian’s surprise, Lord Cranston held up a hand.

“There’s more you need to see. Both of you.” He held out the viewing glass.

Sebastian took it first, pointing it toward the advancing army. It was only through the glass that he saw the posts being carried before the army, the figures impaled upon them. Every so often a crow would come down to peck at them before flying away. Despite that, it was still far too easy to work out who they were.

“Ulf… Frig…”

“What about them?” Hans demanded, then took the viewing glass as Sebastian handed it over. He looked through it, and then roared in a way that Sebastian might have expected from his dead brother. Sebastian had to grab him to stop him from running off down the stairs.

“Let me go!” Hans demanded. “I’m going to kill them, and you will not stop me!”

“Hans, think,” Sebastian said. “It’s what he wants. It’s what he wants you to do!”

“Then he’ll get what he wants and more,” Hans said. “He killed my brother and my sister!”

“And I know what it feels like to lose someone,” Sebastian said. “It feels like it’s carved your soul out, leaving a dead space inside that just fills up with anger.”

“Then you know why I have to do this,” Hans said.

“No,” Sebastian shot back. “I know why you have to hold back. The best revenge against the Master of Crows isn’t to throw yourself against him blindly. It’s to win. It’s to protect the people of Ashton, and then, when the New Army breaks itself against our walls, when he doesn’t have anything left, we’ll crush him together.”

Hans stepped back, breathing hard. Sebastian could still see the anger in his eyes, but Hans was the most self-controlled of all the siblings. Sebastian didn’t want to think about what might happen when Jan or Endi found out.

“You’re right,” Hans said. “We need to win this. When it’s done, though, I want your word that the Master of Crows will be dead.”

“You have it,” Sebastian assured him. There were some things that shouldn’t be left in the world.

Before that part, they still had to protect the people of Ashton. It would be a hard fight, maybe an unwinnable one. Sebastian would have felt a lot better if Lucas had been there to fight on their side, or Kate had been there to sneak out and kill the Master of Crows while no one was looking.

Above all, he wished that Sophia were here, and not just because of the power that Sebastian had heard about her bringing to bear in the past. He wished that she were here because trying to do this without her left Sebastian feeling incomplete and weaker than he should have been.

“I will hold,” he promised. “I will hold until you can come back for me and our baby.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sophia sheltered as best she could beneath an awning on one of the caravan’s carts along with King Akar’s translator and a couple of the others who didn’t want to walk. The heat of the Morgassa sun was oppressive, beating down and leaching the moisture from her body. It reflected off the salt plain they were currently on, the crust cracking as the caravan worked its way over it. Even Sienne lounged within the wagon, apparently not wanting to do more than stretch in the sun.

“Are you all right, my lady?” the translator asked, offering her water. She seemed to have taken it upon herself to serve as Sophia’s maid.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Sophia said. “Tell me about yourself. It will help to pass the time.”

“There is little to tell,” the woman said. “I serve our king. I was born into his service.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Sophia said.

“I am Lani,” she said, seeming unwilling to say more.

Sophia didn’t push her, but she planned to get more out of the translator when there was time.

“You should come up and ride in here,” Sophia called down to Kate and Lucas. Lucas was wrapped in his usual silks, a scarf around his head to keep off the sun. Kate had improvised something similar using a bolt of red cloth, copying the costumes of some of their guides.

“I want to see the route,” Kate called back up. “We’re almost to the edge of this salt flat.”

Looking out of the wagon, Sophia saw that it was true. Their little group had made better time than they’d hoped. Ahead, a set of jagged hills stretched as a barrier, a dirt road cut through them the only hint that there were people there at all.

Their group pulled up onto that road, wagons and soldiers, horses and strange-looking creatures that their guides called camels, which moved with a misshapen lack of grace, but were a lot stronger and faster than they appeared. The caravan plodded forward, eventually coming to a fork in the road with no sign, and no sense of which way was the right one to go.

Even so, the guides pointed insistently to the right-hand fork.

“They say that is the best way,” Lani translated. “There are watering holes both ways, but the left way has… dangers.”

Sophia nodded. “If that is what they think is best, then—”

She gasped as the vision hit her.

Dry ground. Empty holes where water had once been. Animals staggering to a halt and then collapsing. People crawling as their bodies gave way beneath the heat…

“Wait,” Sophia said. “The water holes have dried up that way. If we go that way, we’ll die. Tell them that we must take the left-hand path.”

“As you command,” Lani said, and relayed the instruction to the guides. They said something back. “They say that the dangers that way are very great, my lady. That the water holes only dry up once in a dozen years.”

“They have dried up this year,” Sophia assured her. “I saw it. Trust me.”

“I do not need to trust you,” Lani said. “My king has commanded, and I obey.”

It was a way of putting things that worried Sophia a little. King Akar had told her that everyone he commanded was free, but Sophia had seen herself how quickly that could become a lie. She was grateful when Lani relayed her insistence, and the caravan swung to the left.

It pushed forward, up a slight slope, then along through the rocks. The guides looked skittish at having to go this way, and even a couple of King Akar’s soldiers looked as though they would rather go any other way.

“What is it that they’re so afraid of?” Sophia asked Lani.

“They say that wild things live this way, my lady.”

Sophia wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew it had to be better than the certain death of the other direction. The caravan pushed forward, moving to the edge of the rocks, so that Sophia could look out on an open area of semi-desert beyond. Compared to her kingdom, it was a wasteland, but next to the salt flat, it was almost a paradise.

The only problem was what stood in between.

Lizards basked on rocks and sand, each larger than a wolf, each with spines running down its back and claws as big as knives. One yawned wide, revealing teeth that looked as though they might be able to punch through armor.

“There are too many to fight our way through,” Lucas said, as Sophia stepped down for a better look.

“And we can’t sneak through,” Kate said. “They’d only scent us.”

“The men want to know if you’re ready to turn back,” Lani asked Sophia.

Sophia didn’t want to say yes, because doing that would mean giving up. They couldn’t take the other route, so if they couldn’t take this one, they might as well go home. A part of her longed for that, longed to see Sebastian and Violet again, but after all this way, she wasn’t going to give up. She found herself looking over to Sienne. If she could tame a forest cat, couldn’t she do something with the lizards before them?

“There’s something I want to try first,” Sophia said.

She stepped toward the lizards, reaching out with her gift. It seemed like forever since she’d tamed Sienne, but Sophia could still remember the feeling of connecting with a mind that wasn’t human, and she’d had plenty of practice with her powers since then.

She felt for the shape of the lizards’ minds and found them, jagged and predatory. Reaching into them meant reshaping almost everything that Sophia thought about the world. For a moment, she was the hunger and the need to pounce, the heating blood that came from the sun’s glare and the scent of rotting flesh from previous kills. Then Sophia reached out and started to calm, started to push thoughts into the beasts, started to push them.

She stepped out into them, and they parted like a crowd making way for a procession, stepping back until they were as far from Sophia as they could get.

“Bring the wagons through,” she said. “Hurry.”

She wasn’t sure how long she could hold something like this. Affecting one mind was hard enough; to affect so many took absolute concentration. Sophia sweated as she worked to hold the lizards there, and a single bead of it dripped into her eye. Her concentration wavered only for an instant, but it was enough for one of the beasts to leap forward at her, and Sophia couldn’t move to give it her attention, because that would just have meant releasing the others.

Sienne leapt to her defense, the forest cat pouncing on the lizard, her claws ripping into it while her jaws clamped down on the nape of its neck. She shook it the way a smaller cat might have a rabbit, the crushing pressure breaking bones and cutting off breath. Finally, almost contemptuously, she tossed it aside.

“Hurry,” Sophia said to the others, and they finally started to move. The camels and the horses came first, the wagons following. Kate and Lucas brought up the rear, walking slowly with Sophia as they made their way toward the far side. Sophia was shaking with the effort of holding the lizards back now, and Sienne was growling, as if preparing for another attack.

A lizard broke clear, and Lucas’s sword flashed down to cut its head from its body. Another came at them, and Kate shot it with one of her pistols.

“Time to run, I think,” Kate said to Sophia.

Sophia nodded and sent a burst of fear out into the beasts, making them recoil as she and the others ran for the safety of the wagons. Lucas and Kate had her arms, all but carrying her as they forced Sophia forward. The three of them dove into the last of the wagons, while around them, their soldiers sent a volley of arrow and musket fire into the advancing lizards, and Sienne leapt up beside them.

The drivers whipped the horses into motion, and they set off.

Around Sophia, all the others in the wagon were shaking. Lani was there, and she was looking at Sophia with obvious fear and shock.

“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” Sophia said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“You might,” Lani said. “You might when you know…”

Sophia looked into her mind. Like that, it was easy to see that King Akar had sent her to make sure that they took nothing from the Forgotten City; that she was to poison them if they did. She didn’t want to, but she’d served him all her life, and if she failed, he would have her impaled. Now, she knelt there, waiting for death at being discovered.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Sophia said. “I’m not going to hurt you, and we really aren’t here to steal.”

She heard Lani breathe a sigh of relief. “I thought…”

“I know what you thought,” Sophia said, “but you’re safe here. I’m not going to hurt you. Nothing is. We’re past the danger of the beasts now.”

Lani shook her head. “Forgive me, my lady, but you’re mistaken. The danger of the beasts is just the first of the dangers on this journey. We will not be safe until we reach the Forgotten City. Maybe not even then.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lucas held back the thirst he felt, being patient, knowing that they would need more water later on. Around him, the caravan continued on into Morgassa’s wastes, traveling along tracks that probably saw more animals than people.

There must be some people out here, though, because Lucas could see the tracks of feet on the road. Some of those tracks were strange, larger than they should have been, far larger than anything human.

“These look fresh,” Kate said, and Lucas knew that she’d spent enough time hunting to tell the difference. “Too fresh.”

You think they’re still here? Lucas sent to her, not wanting to warn anyone listening.

I think we need to check, Kate sent back.

Lucas extended his senses, knowing that his sister would be doing the same. He felt the presence of minds just ahead, in a patch of scrubby bushes near a watering hole. He’d had enough lessons in strategy to know that it was a good site for an ambush; people would have to come to the watering hole, simply because failing to do so would mean dying of thirst.

There are enemies ahead, Lucas sent to Sophia.

And we can’t avoid them because we need the water, she sent back.

No, Lucas agreed.

Then what option do we have? she asked.

I think a direct approach might be best, Lucas sent, and then called out aloud. “Hello! We know you’re there. You might as well come out!”

“And I thought I was the impulsive one,” Kate said.

This wasn’t about being impulsive, though. It was about getting them to reveal themselves before they found themselves in a fight. It worked, too. Men came out from the bushes and rocks around the watering hole. Men, and more than men. Creatures that had never been human stood amongst them, with tusks and horns, claws and patches of scales. Some of them dragged a group of men and women, their hands bound, tied to one another with a length of rope.

At the creatures’ heart, a creature who had to be fully eight feet tall stepped forward, a single eye glaring balefully at them. Lucas had never seen a cyclops before, but he had heard of their strength and their ferocity, their cruelty and their cunning.

Apparently, this one was well traveled enough to have learned their language too.

“Surrender, little humans. If we fight, then many of you will die, and dead folk make poor slaves.”

“Perhaps you’re the ones who’ll die,” Kate snapped beside Lucas. He could feel her anger, and he could guess the reason for it. He knew she would not stand by while people were treated as poorly as the ones there.

“A little thing like you will not live long,” the cyclops said. “Perhaps I will eat you, or perhaps I will keep you.”

Sophia was walking forward now. “Or perhaps you’ll lose too many men fighting us,” she said. “Why not turn around and walk away?”

Lucas could feel the power Sophia was pushing out, but he’d heard enough about cyclopes to not be surprised when the one in front of them took a step forward.

“That won’t work, witch,” it said. “And I’ll enjoy skinning you.”

“If you fight us, you will lose many men,” Lucas said.

“So you think I should just let you go?” the cyclops suggested.

“Obviously not,” Lucas said. “If you do that, your men will no longer respect you, and then you will have to fight all of them.”

“So what do you suggest?” the cyclops said.

They both knew where this was going, but Official Ko had often said that the form of a thing mattered.

“How about you and I fight instead?” Lucas suggested.

“And why would I do that?” the cyclops demanded.

Lucas looked over to Sophia, asking silent permission. She nodded.

“Win, and the others here will surrender to you,” Lucas said. “You’d take far more than if you fought all of us.”

“And if I lose?” the cyclops asked with a laugh that suggested how likely it was.

Lucas looked over to the prisoners it had already taken. “Your men leave, leaving the people you’ve taken behind.”

“You’re asking a lot,” the cyclops said.

“It’s just what each of us would take if we won the battle,” Lucas said.

The creature drew a sword as long as Lucas was tall. “True. Very well.”

You know they won’t keep their word? Kate sent.

We’ll deal with that when we get to it, Lucas assured her, then drew his own curved blades.

He stepped forward to meet the cyclops, and it swung at him faster than anything human could have. Lucas barely leaned back from the blow in time. With another foe, he would have leapt in then, trusting in the weight of the blade to carry it well past while he struck, but the cyclops brought it back around as easily as Lucas might have wielded a short sword. Lucas barely swayed aside in time.

He struck low, then high. Each time, the creature he faced parried, its greater reach and strength giving it room to deal with the blows. It struck back, and it took all of Lucas’s strength to absorb the blow with his swords.

“Humans are so weak,” the creature said, and swung blow after blow at him. Lucas blocked and dodged, gave ground, and did everything he could to survive. It was all he could do.

Against another opponent, he would have read their movements using his gift, or used the speed and strength that his powers gave him to overcome them. Yet the cyclops was a blank slate to him, and its size and strength left him feeling like a child fighting with an adult.

He couldn’t lose, though. Not when the freedom of everyone with him was on the line. He couldn’t.

Instead, Lucas attacked.

He attacked with all the skill that his tutors had drilled into him. Know your enemy, they had said. Well, what was a cyclops’s weakness? They only had one eye, which meant that they couldn’t judge distance precisely. They were huge, so they couldn’t hope to deal with threats down by their feet. They were strong, so it was all too easy for them to overcommit.

Lucas struck from the very edge of the distance where the cyclops could reach him, rolling forward and striking at the cyclops’s ankles. He came up, striking again and again, forcing the creature to look one way, then striking the other. He cut again and again, drawing blood from a dozen places.

Then the cyclops kicked him.

The force of it sent Lucas sprawling, the impact crashing through his chest. It felt as though his ribs had been crushed, and he lay there, trying to breathe. The cyclops reared over him, its sword raised.

One other thing about cyclopes: they tended to be overconfident.

Lucas sprang up, his blades slashing out. One plunged into the creature’s chest, while the other slashed across its throat. Blood spurted, almost black, spraying across the ground around them. The cyclops stood there, its sword still raised as if it might strike down even now. Lucas braced himself, knowing that there would be no way to stop the stroke if the cyclops managed to lash out now. It would be worth it, though, because his sisters would be safe.

Then the cyclops toppled over backward, dead before it hit the ground.

Lucas stood up, his blades in his hands still, looking around at the creatures in the cyclops’s band. Sophia stepped up next to him, and Kate on the other side, ready to fight if they tried to go back on their word.

“The prisoners,” Lucas said.

The creatures grumbled amongst themselves, then shoved the bound humans in Lucas’s direction.

“We have more,” one of the tusked creatures muttered, before the group of them started to shuffle away. “You’ve saved these, but others will suffer.”

They headed out into the wastelands, and Lucas didn’t relax his grip on his swords until they were almost out of sight. Beside him, Sophia breathed a sigh of relief.

Kate didn’t.

“You’re thinking about whoever is left where they’re going?” Lucas said.

Kate nodded.

“We can’t fight them all, Kate,” Sophia said. “There aren’t enough of us.”

“I know,” Kate said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

“You’re not thinking of fighting, are you?” Lucas asked.

Kate shook her head.

Sophia put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll need to stop and camp here anyway,” she said.

“Do you need help?” Lucas asked.

Kate shook her head. “If we all go, they’ll see us.”

We’ll be here if you need us, Lucas sent.

I know, Kate replied.

Lucas watched as she set off in the direction that the creatures had gone. Right then, he didn’t feel frightened for her, only for the monsters she was tracking.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kate stalked the tribe of desert creatures the way she might have hunted deer with her cousins back in Ishjemme. The tracks were easier to follow though, in a broad wash of prints and scruffs, broken ground and dust in the distance. She could even feel their thoughts if she stretched her powers out, the cruelty and the thoughts of what they would do to those prisoners they did have all too easy to pick up on.

“I can’t leave them,” Kate whispered over the wind of the wastelands. She couldn’t abandon people to creatures like this, any more than she could have left the other children in the House of the Unclaimed. She might be a princess now, might have lost the gifts Siobhan’s fountain gave her, might have her own mission to find her parents, but she still couldn’t stand by while there were slave takers there.

She followed the tracks for a couple of miles, until a low encampment rose up ahead. There were stakes set around the outside, and it was only as Kate got closer that she realized that there were as many bones there as wooden ones. Skulls and ribcages showed where people had gotten too close, or perhaps where they had tried to escape.

Inside, she could see the cages, set among the tents. She could see the men, women, and children held there, and anger burned in Kate at the sight. If she’d still been everything she was as Siobhan’s apprentice, she might have charged down there and taken on the creatures right away.

Instead, she waited and watched, forcing herself to remain still while the creatures moved among the slave cages, while they struck out, or dragged people from them.

“You have to wait,” Kate told herself, clenching her fists and crouching down among a stand of prickly bushes.

Darkness fell quicker than it might have done back home, falling like a curtain, punctuated only by moonlight. Kate finally dared to move from her hiding place, creeping forward while sticking to the shadows.

There were guards, of course. Kate could feel their minds, and thankfully, unlike the cyclops, it was an easy thing to reach into them, watching where their awareness lay, picking out the blind spots. She slipped forward in silence, moving up behind the first of them.

She struck out with a dagger, and even if she didn’t have the speed or the strength that she’d once had, she still knew exactly where to strike with it to bring a foe down in silence. Up, under the base of the skull and into the brain while she dragged the sentry back. Swiftly, quietly, she moved on to the next one.

She couldn’t have fought them openly. She’d watched the fight between Lucas and the cyclops. The speed with which her brother moved had been amazing to watch, but it had also been a reminder that she couldn’t have done it. There were things she could do, though.

Kate moved through the camp like a ghost, killing as she went.

It was gruesome work, but there was a dark part of Kate that felt a kind of savage joy in it; the same joy that she’d felt in taking vengeance at the House of the Unclaimed. This was the reason that she’d come alone: it wasn’t just that it was easier to slip in without help; she didn’t want her siblings seeing this side of her. In the moonlight, she could see the red of the blood on her hands, but Kate didn’t regret it. Creatures who could keep people in cages deserved to die.

Kate took a breath. She hadn’t killed all of them yet, but she didn’t want to leave the prisoners in their cages any longer. She moved among the dead, finding keys on the corpse of a creature with teeth like a wolf and setting them to the chains that held the cages closed.

“Go quietly,” she said in a soft voice, then put a finger to her lips, hoping that the people there would understand that part at least.

They started to slip out, moving in knots and clumps, parents holding onto children, husbands to wives. They started to move out into the night, slipping through the stakes on the edge of the camp and disappearing into the darkness.

That was when an alarm went up, in cries and howls and the clattering of armor. Groggy monsters, and men who were as bad as monsters, started to scurry out of their tents, looking around for enemies.

Kate drew her sword, killed one with a backhand slash across the throat, and sprinted away in the opposite direction to the prisoners she’d freed. She hurried through the stakes at the edge of camp, felt the presence of an enemy close behind her, and spun to thrust her saber through his chest.

She kept going, out into the night, changing direction as often as she could just in case an arrow followed her. Kate found a hollow, lay down in it, and spread her attention. They were searching for her now, thoughts of their prisoners forgotten. Kate was both grateful for that and worried by it; it meant that the people she’d come to save were safe, but it meant that she would have to play cat and mouse now with a group of people who were a lot less friendly than any cat.

“And I’m no mouse,” Kate reminded herself.

She waited for them to spread out, searching, then closed in on a pair of humans who were hunting off to one side, moving in near silence. Kate brought one down with a whisper-quiet flick of her sword, but even so, the other turned, obviously sensing that something was wrong.

Kate was on him without hesitation, striking out with her sword and her dagger in almost the same instant, slicing through flesh and bone. The man cried out, but Kate was already running away into the dark.

It reminded her a little of the beach where she’d called up fog to hide her while she’d struck at the New Army’s men. Here, though, there was only darkness, and Kate had no way of knowing if any of the non-human creatures could see in it better than she could make them out by moonlight, using their thoughts as a guide.

She snagged another of them, coming around it from the side and rushing in with her sword a flash of red and silver in the moonlight. She killed another in the dark, and another. This was what she was made for, what Siobhan had apprenticed her to do, but she chose her own targets now, and there was no doubt that beasts who threatened her family, and who enslaved ordinary people, deserved it.

She could feel them banding together in the dark now. Worse than that, the remaining half dozen of them were moving in her direction. From their thoughts, she could make out that they were doing it through a combination of small sounds, scent, and the better vision of one of their number. There would be no hiding from them.

Kate could run, she supposed, but she had no way of knowing how fast they were. Worse, that would leave them free to hunt more people, and Kate couldn’t allow that. She had to stop them. Readying her sword, her pistols, and her dagger, she waited on a patch of open ground well-lit by moonlight for them to come to her.

They stepped into the moon’s shine together, a tight band of some of the largest of the creatures, and Kate started to regret waiting for them. If she’d still had her strength and speed, killing them would have been easy, but now, how many could she take? One? Two?

One of them growled something at her. Kate didn’t understand the words, but she could guess the sentiment.

“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me slowly. Or you’ll do it if I don’t surrender. Why do people always talk so much before fights?”

Then Kate heard another growl, and she smiled, because this hadn’t come from the creatures. This was the growl of a forest cat.

Kate drew a pistol and shot down one of the creatures just as Sienne leapt in at them, rending and tearing at another. Lucas slammed into them from the other side, his sword swinging, while another of the beasts seemed to be having trouble remembering how to move, presumably thanks to Sophia. Kate leapt forward, her sword feinting high, then slashing low as one of the creatures went to parry. By then, Lucas was already on a second opponent, while Sophia stepped forward and stabbed the creature she’d frozen in place with indecision.

As quickly as thinking about it, the fight was done. Kate cleaned her weapons, then rushed forward to hug her siblings.

“I know we said we’d leave you to it,” Sophia said, “but I thought it might be nice to even the odds at least a little.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. Sienne brushed against her legs. “Yes, thank you too.” A thought came to her. “You weren’t watching at the camp, were you? You didn’t see all of it?”

In spite of her joy at freeing the prisoners, Kate had no wish for her brother and sister to see the ease with which she’d slid back into killing her foes by stealth, or the lack of mercy that she’d shown in hunting them down.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, Kate, Lucas assured her.

“If you hadn’t killed them, I would have,” Sophia agreed.

Kate cocked her head to one side. “I thought you were all about being the merciful queen?”

“I try to be,” Sophia said. “I try really hard, but there are some people where the best thing to do for the world is kill them.” She hugged Kate again. “Anyone who threatens my little sister, for a start.”

Lucas wrapped his arms around the pair of them. Kate had never felt as loved as in that moment, or as much like she belonged. She just hoped that it would be like this with their parents when they found them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Master of Crows commenced the assault with a night bombardment, ordering his artillery to fire on the outer circle of houses, enjoying the beauty of the flames that licked up from the successful hits.

“Personal combat,” he said to the nearest of his aides, “is a dance. A skirmish is a butcher’s work. A battle is little more than commerce: I trade you these lives for those, offer you that piece of ground in exchange for your slaughter.”

“As you say, my lord,” the man said, clearly not comprehending a word of it.

“A siege, though… a siege is a symphony.”

It rang as one in his ears. From the first low notes of the cannon to the high screams of a population being terrorized, it was there. But there was more to it than that. A siege meant planning. It meant performers playing their parts as he had written them, acting on time and to best effect. He was the conductor, naturally, a whole orchestra of violence laid out for his direction.

One part of that violence played out beyond the docks, as frantic people took small boats and large out from Ashton, seeking safety wherever they could find it.

“Fools,” the Master of Crows said, with contempt for those who did not understand that their part in all this was to die. Still, that would come. He looked out to the horizon. “Right about… now.”

Perfectly on cue, his ships swung into vision, having tracked his army down the coast. They descended on those who tried to flee in their own motif of cannon fire and crunching wood, which probably sounded like cacophony to anyone other than him.

“Have men advance on the outer city,” he ordered. “Be aware of traps. Kill anyone you find. Other cities we can hold, but I want Ashton empty by the end of this.”

“Yes, my lord,” his aides chorused.

He watched his men start to march forward, the rhythm of their feet adding to the symphony of the violence. They spread out, moving into the outer city at a dozen points, and the screams from it followed. Not as many as he’d hoped though; someone had done a good job of getting people into the inner city in time. Still, that just meant that, if the siege wore on, hunger and disease would be even worse in there.

“There’s a bright side to everything,” he said with a faint smile.

The Master of Crows spread his awareness. Through the eyes of his crows, he could watch a dozen points of slaughter. He watched men dying on the deck of a sloop filled with people trying to escape, some jumping into the water in the hope that the sailors striking down with bill hooks wouldn’t notice them…

He watched a family cowering in a house hiding behind the door, while boots crashed against it, and finally, men burst in with blades. He saw the father rush forward with a knife and manage to stab one of them before he went down, then heard the children’s screams…

He saw one of his cannon crews pushing forward in advance of his command, apparently anticipating their assault on the inner city’s walls. He saw the flash of one of Ashton’s cannon, heard its roar, and saw the bloody explosion of steel, wood, and flesh as the shot struck…

Wherever he looked, people died. He watched men and women cut down in the streets because they had been too foolish to seek safety elsewhere when they had a chance. He watched them killed as they surrendered, or as they tried to fight; it made no difference. He watched a squad of his own men cut down by musket fire, a cluster of Ashton’s soldiers racing to their next defensive point. They didn’t make it. A cannon shot took them before they even made it halfway.

“Let them die,” the Master of Crows said, not caring if his men heard. They would probably assume that he was talking about the enemy anyway. In truth, it only made a little difference to him who died, so long as the power from those deaths surged into him.

“Our men report heavy resistance in the outer city,” an aide said, lifting a message as if the Master of Crows could not see the fighting with a thousand sets of eyes.

“Very well,” the Master of Crows said. “Pull them back and sound another bombardment.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man said, looking faintly pleased by it. It seemed like too much concern for his fellow soldiers, so the Master of Crows made a mental note to put the man on the front line soon. He had no time for those who were weak.

Still, he’d anticipated this. A siege was not a thing composed of a single moment. Instead, they ebbed and flowed, waves of violence coming with a rhythm that most people could only anticipate once they’d been in too many to survive. The Master of Crows had, and he could feel the flow of this one, even before he reached out to his crows again to send his next orders.

“Target their defenses,” he said, his words croaking from the throats of his birds. “Destroy the spots where they have placed their cannons first.”

His men rushed to obey, and now the Master of Crows watched the artillery duel unfolding. His forces had more and bigger cannons, but the defenders had the height of the walls on their side, and built up emplacements using earth and sand, defending their weapons as they fired back. He saw men on both sides dying, and settled in to enjoy the violence.

“I want an assault prepared on the river gate before dawn,” he commanded his aides. “They will defend it, but it will draw them in,” he said. “I want an artillery barrage prepared to target the gate when they come to fight.”

“But won’t that kill our men too?” the same aide as before asked.

“They will do as they are commanded,” the Master of Crows said. “They will trust that their actions are part of my larger plan. You trust that, don’t you?”

“Y…yes, my lord,” the aide said.

“Good, because you will be leading the assault. Deliver the orders. I will be watching.”

The man swallowed, and looked as though he might have said something if he didn’t know that the Master of Crows would kill him for any disobedience. He hurried off, and the Master of Crows set one of his birds to watch him.

The siege would wear on, step by step, day by day. They would bombard the walls. They would make forays into the city to kill those who still hid. They would attack by water and by land, again and again, with death the only outcome. The perfect outcome, as far as the Master of Crows was concerned.

So long as they maintained the pressure on the city properly, no one would escape. The outcome of the battle was already certain. The only element of skill involved was conducting it methodically, making sure that it produced all the carnage his crows required. The pounding of the cannons would continue, the pop of muskets and the clash of blades. Eventually, the city would fall. Eventually…

The flicker of power within the city caught him by surprise. He knew that the sisters were not there now, but it felt like their strength, their energy. Could he be mistaken? Could it just be some witch left in the city whose powers shone out? No, this was too much power to be anyone ordinary, almost too much power to comprehend.

“Find them,” the Master of Crows said, sending the command out to his crows.

They flew, spreading out around the city, and he felt for the power, trying to pin it down, trying to find who was at the heart of it. The search led his crows in the direction of the palace, where through their vision it seemed that the building shone white with the energy contained within. Soldiers on the roof shot at them, shot most of them down, but some made it through. One flew in through an open window…

There was a child there, lying in a cot and giggling in spite of the battle raging around it. Power shone from the child, uncontained and unfathomable.

“What a feast you will be,” the Master of Crows said.

He sent his crow forward. It hopped to the edge of the cot, looking down at the child. The baby reached up, and the crow prepared itself to peck…

The Master of Crows found himself cut off, his awareness flung back into his body. It didn’t matter though, because now he’d seen the prize that lay within the city. It was a prize that was worth more than the rest of it put together, and one that he could not, would not, wait to seize.

Now, the siege was no longer a symphony; it was an irritation.

“Gather men,” he commanded. “I want a route punched through to the palace, whatever it takes. I want every man thrown at one point on the wall. Nothing else matters!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Will ducked out of the way of stone shards as a cannon round struck a nearby wall. He felt something graze his cheek, and his hand came away wet with blood when he touched it. He didn’t have enough time to check how deep the gash was though, because Lord Cranston would be waiting for the latest information on the progress of the siege.

“Looks as though this could be a tough one, your highness,” a soldier from Lord Cranston’s regiment called out, gesturing with his musket. It took Will a moment to decide that the man wasn’t making fun of him, no matter how uncomfortable he might be now at being a prince by marriage.

“It will be even easier than taking money from you at cards, Johannes,” Will called back.

The man laughed, and looked as though he might be about to say something, but in that moment another cannonball struck. Will threw himself flat, feeling more than hearing the shrapnel flying overhead. Johannes wasn’t as quick.

“A physiker!” Will started to call out. “We need a physiker over here!”

He did it by instinct, but that instinct faded when he saw the mess of blood and meat that was left of the other man. Any physiker who could put that back together would be a magic worker more powerful than either Kate or Sophia.

Right then, Will both wished that they were there, and was grateful that they were not. Kate in particular, because there would be no way she would be able to keep herself from charging into the midst of the enemy, and the thought of her doing that terrified Will. It was almost enough to cut through the blank horror he felt at seeing a man reduced to this in front of him.

He snatched up Johannes’s musket, which was somehow still intact even when the man who had held it was not. On instinct, he popped up over the ramparts, firing at the mass of enemies below.

“Die!” he yelled out to them, as if that would make it happen. The truth was that he couldn’t even make out if his shot hit or not.

Will ran on toward Lord Cranston, who strolled amongst the men as if nothing more strenuous than a garden party was happening. It seemed an utterly mad image, but then, there was nothing sane about what was happening right then. Will stopped in front of him, snapped to attention, and offered a salute.

“I think we can dispense with that, Will,” he said. “What news from the artillery crews?”

“They’re taking a battering,” Will said, “but their emplacements are letting them weather it, at least. They think they’ve hit a couple of the enemy’s positions.”

“Good,” Lord Cranston said. “They need to keep it up. If we can deprive the enemy of his cannons, he’ll have to get into the city the slow way.”

“I don’t know if we can get them all,” Will said.

Lord Cranston shrugged. “If a man aims for perfection, he may at least attain excellence. I’d settle for half of them going silent.”

“I’ll relay the orders,” Will said.

“I think they know for the moment,” Lord Cranston said. “I’m more concerned with you.”

“I’m fine,” Will said automatically.

Lord Cranston raised an eyebrow. “I may not be the mind reader that your wife is, young Will, but even I can tell that is a lie.” He touched his cheek in the same spot Will had been struck.

“It’s nothing,” Will said. “Not compared to… Johannes is dead.”

“I saw,” Lord Cranston said. “I’d say he was a good man, but from what I remember he was the most terrible cheat at dice.”

Somehow, that cut through everything Will was feeling. “How can you make jokes?”

Lord Cranston spread his hands. “A man must do something to contain the horror of war,” he said. He gestured to some of the men huddled together on the wall. “Some find strength in camaraderie. Some find it in loyalty to their flag or their cause. Some find it in drink if they can’t find it elsewhere. I believe you’ve been finding it in anger. Shooting over the wall was a foolish move, Will.”

“I had to do something,” Will said. “I had to make his death mean something.”

“By firing out at random?” Lord Cranston countered. “I appreciate the sentiment. I even share it, but you should not risk your life for a petty revenge on men who probably fired the fatal shot at random.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Will said.

Lord Cranston shook his head. “No, I suppose not.”

He gestured, and Will followed him, moving just in time for cannon fire to strike the spot where they’d been standing only moments before. Will stared at the patch of ramparts in horror. Lord Cranston seemed as calm as ever.

“How…” Will began.

“Simple arithmetic,” Lord Cranston said. “We would have been targeted the moment you saluted me. A minute to load, and perhaps another to aim… still, it gives us one thing. We know where that cannon is.”

One of their own weapons boomed, and out on the fringes of the city, a gunnery emplacement exploded.

“You’re using yourself as bait?” Will said, horrified. “My lord, if we lose you…”

“Oh, I’m being as careful as I can,” Lord Cranston assured him. “Besides, you are hardly being more cautious.”

“I’m not the one who can come up with the plans to save us!” Will insisted.

Lord Cranston shrugged, and then led the way into a tower with a good view out over the battlefield.

“There isn’t much to it,” he said. “Sebastian is doing an admiral job with his parts of it. I suspect that you would do all that was required as well.”

“Even so, the men look up to you,” Will insisted. “Your presence means too much to them to risk that way.”

“And you mean too much to Kate to risk yourself by carrying my messages,” Lord Cranston countered. “Compared to how angry she would be if I let anything happen to you, walking in front of a few cannon seems practically safe.”

Will guessed that he had a point. Even so, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

“I have to do my part,” he said. “The whole city is on the line.”

“And it will continue to be on the line for some time to come,” Lord Cranston assured him. “This is a siege, not some hasty ambush, over in an hour. Do you think that you can win this by yourself?”

“I’ll be more careful,” Will promised. He looked out over the battlefield. “What will happen now?”

“Attack after attack,” Lord Cranston guessed. “They will make forays over the next few days, seeking to establish where we are weakest, where we are slow to respond. They will pound the walls with their cannon day and night, and set sappers to try to destroy our walls, although anyone stupid enough to try to dig under a city this close to the coast deserves to drown for his efforts.”

“You make it sound like… like it’s boring,” Will said.

“Because it will be,” Lord Cranston assured him. “There will not be heroic charges or glorious duels. This will be a slow affair, with us waiting to see if we have any allies left in the world, and our foes waiting to see if they can starve us into submission. The only way that the enemy can breach our walls is by committing everything they have to a single point, and their losses would be horrendous. I do not see even the Master of Crows engaging in that kind of foolishness.”

Will supposed that he should be reassured by Lord Cranston’s assessment. After all, sooner or later, help would come, even if right then he couldn’t think where it might come from. Maybe Kate would return with an army she’d commandeered at sword point. Will wouldn’t put it past her.

All they had to do was hold out. As Lord Cranston had said, taking the city in a rush would cost the New Army far too many men. Will could feel… not safe with that, because he’d already seen just how unsafe the siege was, but at least as though they had a chance.

Then he heard the trumpets beyond the wall, and saw the New Army start to reposition. Lord Cranston was staring at it as well.

“What are they doing?” Will asked.

“I… don’t know,” the older man admitted.

Cannon fire slammed into a point on the wall not far from the palace, all the enemy’s weapons seemingly targeting one spot. They didn’t even alter their fire when the cannons on the wall started to target them. Men started to march forward, and even when musket shots cut them down, they kept coming.

“They’re doing it,” Will said. “They’re actually doing it.”

He saw Lord Cranston swallow. “They are. But this... there must be something the Master of Crows wants very badly if they’re…” He paused.

“What is it?” Will asked.

“Get to the palace,” Lord Cranston commanded him. “Take men with you and hurry. I will try to hold them as long as I can.”

“What’s happening?” Will asked.

Lord Cranston pointed to the palace. “They’re coming for Sebastian and Violet, Will. It’s the only explanation. You have to hurry. You have to help defend them!”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

“We know where they’re coming from,” Sebastian said as the first rays of dawn illuminated the palace’s roof. “Get every weapon we have trained on the point where they’ll breach.”

“I will,” Will promised him. “But you have to think about running. You can disappear into the city.”

“If I run, then people will lose heart and there will be a slaughter,” Sebastian said. He couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t let the people of Ashton be killed just so that he could save himself.

“You need to think about Violet,” Will said.

Sebastian knew that he was right. His biggest fear now was that something might happen to his daughter, but running wasn’t the answer to that. There were too many crows in the sky to slip out without being seen with her, and the thought of sending her away with someone else made Sebastian’s heart tighten in his chest.

“All I can do is defend her with everything I have,” Sebastian said.

The sound of cannon continued to come from beyond of the wall, pounding at it, damaging it. Sebastian could see fires inside the city now, people rushing through the streets as they tried to form bucket chains to the river. A part of Sebastian wished that he could be out there helping.

“I should go to the wall,” he said. “It would raise morale.”

“Not if they saw you hit by cannon fire,” Will said. “Besides, Lord Cranston won’t allow it.”

“I’m the king, Will,” Sebastian pointed out.

“You think that makes any difference to Lord Cranston?”

Will had a point there.

“At least get anyone who wants inside the palace,” Sebastian said. “Maybe the extra set of walls will defend them a little longer.”

That was where they were now: defend a little longer, hold on a few more hours in the face of the inexorable push of the New Army. Hold on, and hope against hope that some kind of relief would come for the siege.

“Has there been any indication that help is coming from the rest of the kingdom?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s been silent,” Will said, “but how would a message get through? A bird would be brought down by crows, and a messenger wouldn’t get through the lines. We have to hope.”

They had to hope, and keep hoping, until there was no hope left. Until…

With a great crack that reverberated around the city, a section of the city wall crumbled and fell. It seemed to do it almost in slow motion, the ancient stones finally deciding that they could take no more of the battering they had received and collapsing in an avalanche of falling rocks filled with the screams of the men who had occupied that section. For a moment, everyone around Sebastian seemed to stand there in stunned silence as ochre-uniformed figures poured through the gap, onto the straight parade before the palace.

“Fire!” Sebastian ordered. “They’re bunched up down there. This is our best chance to hurt them!”

Around him, men seemed to get the message, cannons booming with grapeshot, muskets and bows firing down from the palace roof and walls and windows. The barrage hit the oncoming tide of men and cut them down in a scythe stroke of carnage. Soldiers were punched from their feet by lead shot and crossbow bolts, falling in the path of the next in line, filling the street with what was almost a barricade of their numbers.

With any other force, that would have been enough to make them pull back and reconsider their approach, or at least spread out into the surrounding streets, starting a secondary siege of the palace. Instead, wave after wave of troops came forward, obviously more frightened of their general than they were of the cannons they faced.

“He doesn’t care about them dying,” Sebastian said. “He’s just sending them forward to get slaughtered.”

“So we keep killing them,” Will said. He shouted over to a cannon crew. “Redirect your aim. You’re firing high!”

Will hadn’t seen the danger yet, but Sebastian could.

“If they just keep coming, then they make ground every time we have to reload,” he said. “They’re just throwing men at us until they make it here.”

“So we shoot faster,” Will said.

Already though, the enemy were getting closer, almost to the low walls that marked the limits of the palace grounds. Sebastian heard the clash of blades as they fought with the men there, paying with blood for every step forward they took. The problem with that equation was that the Master of Crows seemed to be willing to pay the price.

It begged the question of what was so valuable to him that he was willing to spend the blood of so many of his men, rather than just waiting for the siege to play out over weeks or months…

“I have to get to Violet,” Sebastian said, drawing his sword and running down from the roof, a cluster of men with him.

He heard the crash of soldiers breaking into the palace and sped up his dash to get to his daughter. He passed guards and they joined him, forming a wedge as they made their way down toward the royal bedrooms.

As they reached them, Sebastian saw soldiers of the New Army heading the other way. He didn’t hesitate, just yelled a battle cry and slammed into them.

He cut down one man with an overhand blow, then shoved him back into the others. A man thrust at him and Sebastian stepped aside from the blow, hacking at the man’s arm. He kicked out at a soldier’s knee, forcing him down for one of the guards to finish. Step by step, Sebastian fought his way to the door of his daughter’s nursery and forced his way inside.

Violet’s wet-nurse was in there, a knife in her hand as if she might defend her charge from the world. It was a brave move, and Sebastian was grateful for it.

“Wrap Violet up,” he told the young woman. “We might have to leave soon.”

The young woman looked as though she might reply, but then cried out a warning. Sebastian spun to see an enemy soldier forcing his way into the room. Sebastian cut the man down without hesitating, then slammed the door, forcing a wardrobe down in front of it.

“We don’t have much time,” Sebastian said. “Hurry.”

The wet-nurse set about wrapping Violet in swaddling to carry her. Even as she did it, Sebastian heard men hammering on the door. The lock gave way, and they started to shove the weight of the wardrobe back.

Sebastian stabbed into the gap, hearing a man cry out. He thrust again, and saw his blade slice into a face. Still, the soldiers kept coming. They forced the door wider, revealing the battle in the corridor outside and letting a pair of men into the room. Sebastian started forward at one, changed direction and sliced his blade into the second man’s throat.

He felt something scrape along his side and turned in time to parry a second blow from the first man’s sword. He cut back, exchanging blows with the soldier, none of them getting through. The other man’s eyes went wide, and he collapsed, the wet-nurse standing over him with her dagger.

“How are we going to get out of here with Violet?” she asked, in the brief lull in the fighting.

“I don’t know,” Sebastian said. He checked his side where he’d been hit. His hand came away wet with blood, but there was nothing to do but ignore it.

He stepped out into the corridor. For the moment, it seemed to be empty of everyone except his own soldiers. Sebastian knew it wouldn’t last. If they were going to keep Violet safe, they had to leave now.

“Come on,” Sebastian said to the wet-nurse. “You have to stay next to me with Violet, whatever happens.”

“I will,” she promised.

“Guards with me!” Sebastian ordered. “Protect Princess Violet, whatever the cost!”

He knew that the men would stand. They hadn’t hesitated when his daughter had been in danger. They hurried downstairs as a group, doing their best to avoid the fighting there. A small cluster of the enemy came at them as they were on the stairs. Sebastian parried a blow and then sent a man tumbling, stabbed another as he raised his sword.

“They’re here!” a man called out, even as Sebastian cut him down.

“Quick,” Sebastian said. “If we cut through the ballroom, we can get out onto the lawns and use the maze to lose them.”

They made for the ballroom, fighting their way through the melee. Sebastian used himself as a shield between the fighting and his daughter. A sword grazed his cheek, but he didn’t care. Another cut into his off hand, but he just cut down the man who had struck the blow. They pressed forward in a wedge around the princess, and Sebastian knew that this was real love and real loyalty, all of them willing to give their lives for one small child. Men peeled off from the wedge, defending, holding back the tide. By the time they got to the door they were looking for, it was just Sebastian and the wet-nurse.

They made it into the ballroom, their reflections spread out around them in the mirrors. The doors on the far side were open…

A tall figure stepped out into the doorway.

“Give me your daughter,” the Master of Crows demanded.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Sophia was back in Monthys, the flames rising around her. She was there with Kate, and their nursemaid was there, trying to lead them to safety. They heard the voices of the men who had come to kill them, and Sophia knew what was coming next because she’d seen it so many times before.

“Go and hide,” their nursemaid said. “Get away when you can.”

The dream shifted, so that she and Kate were hiding in a space too small for any adult, listening to their nursemaid’s screams… only now they were different screams and this wasn’t Monthys. Sophia heard a baby’s cries, and she was walking through the corridors of the palace, surrounded by dying people in soldiers’ uniforms, searching for her daughter.

She knew without being told that her daughter was in danger, yet Sophia couldn’t find her. She was somewhere down the next corridor, through the next doorway… out of reach. There was a glow ahead, and somehow Sophia knew that it was coming from Violet, but when she reached out to touch her…

Sophia woke with a gasp in the dawn light, the wastes around her still cool, not yet baked by the heat of the day. The warmth of Sienne next to her was as good as a blanket, and Sophia ruffled her ears as she woke.

“Not every dream is a vision, right, girl?”

This one felt too much like one, though.

She stood, stretching and dressing, stepping out into the camp they’d made and finding that no one was awake yet. She walked to the edge of it, looking out to try to gauge how far they still had to go, how much longer it would be before she could get back to her daughter. Sienne sat next to her, probably keeping a sharp eye out for any small animal foolish enough to wander close.

“If it’s a vision, should I turn back?” she wondered aloud.

Could she get back to Ashton before whatever happened in her vision happened? Was it a vision of the future, or worse, of the past, telling her about something that had already happened? Sophia wanted to believe that her daughter was safe, because Sebastian would keep her safe whatever it took, but there was too much of a sense of dread hanging on from her vision.

Sophia looked out over the wastes, taking in their vast emptiness, the sand and the scrub, the broken ground and the promise of the searing heat from the sun when it rose fully. That was when she saw the footprints.

They glowed with the same light that Sophia had seen in her dream. Three sets of them stretched out there, along with a set of paw prints beside them. They stretched into the distance, off into the wastes, away from what passed for a road. The lines of prints formed a silvery path that seemed to stretch out like a river waiting to carry them to their destination.

“Do you see them too, girl?” she asked Sienne, but Sophia already knew the answer to that. This was still a part of her vision.

Sophia stared at them, trying to make sense of them. They weren’t in the direction their guides had been leading them. They really didn’t suggest going home to Ashton. If the glow from the footprints hadn’t been the same as the glow in her dream, she might have ignored them and turned back anyway. That glow seemed to carry a message with it, though: this was the way to her daughter. This was the right thing to do.

It was just three sets of footprints. Sophia could guess what that meant. She crept around to where Kate and Lucas slept in bedrolls, both of them electing to sleep under the stars rather than in a tent. She went to shake them awake, but their eyes snapped open as she did.

Careful, she sent, we can’t risk making a sound.

What is it? Kate sent back. More creatures?

She sounded almost hopeful. Sophia shook her head.

I’ve… seen something, a vision, I guess. Footprints for the three of us and Sienne, leading out into the wastes alone.

So we are meant to go that way? Lucas asked.

Sophia nodded, then beckoned. The other two stood, following her to the edge of the camp. Sophia could still see the footprints shining away into the distance.

“Do you see them?” she asked.

Lucas nodded. “I do.”

“I don’t,” Kate said. She spread her hands. “But then, I was never as good at seeing things. If you say it’s there, it’s there.”

It felt good to Sophia that her sister trusted her that much, but it also stung a little in the reminder of just how much Kate must have lost when they excised the witch from her head.

“So you want us to go out there without the others?” Kate asked. “What do you think it means? That the others have been lying to us about where the Forgotten City is?”

“Or they don’t really know,” Lucas suggested. “Or we have taken a wrong turn somewhere. These are all possible things.”

“I guess,” Kate said.

“I don’t know,” Sophia admitted. “What I do know is that the glow in the footsteps is connected to Violet somehow.”

She told them about her dream then. Kate nodded with understanding at the vision of Monthys, then clenched her hands when she heard that Ashton might be in danger.

“We should go back then,” she said.

“It’s too far,” Sophia said. “And this… this feels like the way we have to go if I’m going to see Violet again. I know it’s a lot to ask, Kate, but I need you to trust me on this.”

Sophia’s heart sank at the thought that they might go their separate ways again. They’d spent so much time apart, and this had been the first time since the orphanage that they’d really had time together. Yet maybe Kate would feel that she had to go back, that she—

“OK,” Kate said.

“You’ll do it?” Sophia asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

Kate put a hand on Sophia’s arm. “I wouldn’t do anything to put Violet in danger,” she said. “If you say that going with you this way keeps her safe, then I’m going with you.”

“Me too,” Lucas said. “I believe that your vision has shown us a better way to our parents. We will find them.”

Sophia looked around at the camp. “If we’re going, we need to go soon. People will start waking up any minute.”

“And if they see us heading off into the wastes, they’ll probably want to come along for the ride,” Kate said. “Okay, I’ll be quick.”

She darted back into the camp, silent as the desert wind around them. She came back with her sword, a couple of water skins, and some food. Lucas already appeared to have all of his possessions on him, standing ready to walk out into the wastes next to his sisters.

“Are we ready?” Sophia asked. The others nodded, but even so, she didn’t feel ready. They were about to abandon the caravan they’d carefully put together to get them to their destination, in favor of striking out alone based on no more than one of her visions. It seemed like a foolish, dangerous thing to do.

Yet with the prospect of finding her parents and getting back to her daughter set ahead of her in a clear, glowing pathway, the only thing Sophia could do was follow it. She just had to hope that in the meantime, Violet and Sebastian would stay safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Lucas could feel the heat of the day starting to build as the three of them trekked further and further from the path. The sun beat down on them and he covered up as best he could with the silks he wore. Soon, he’d sweated through them, the heat making them cling to him as they trudged on.

“They’ll have realized we’re missing by now,” Kate said. “Do you think we should erase our tracks so that they can’t send anyone after us?”

Of course Kate would think of that. Sophia was the one who saw the big picture for things, had the vision to find them a route. Kate was the one who thought about if they could be seen, who could sneak into a camp full of creatures without fear and not be heard while she killed them. Where did that leave Lucas, though?

“What are you thinking?” Kate asked him.

You have to ask, instead of looking? he sent.

No, but I thought it might help to talk, she sent back.

“I’m just wondering where I fit in,” he said.

“Wherever we are,” Sophia replied. “You belong with us, Lucas.”

Lucas smiled at the certainty in that. “I just mean that you’re the one with the most powerful magic, Sophia, and Kate, you can fight, and disappear into the darkness… I’m a bit of both, but maybe neither.”

Kate put a hand on his arm. “You fight better than I do these days,” she assured him.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Kate replied. “But maybe don’t spend too much time worrying about what use you are. We wouldn’t have gotten past that cyclops without you.”

That wasn’t the point, though. Yes, Lucas could fight, but was that all he was good for?

“Besides,” Kate continued, “that’s not the point. You’re our brother.”

Lucas smiled at that. It was good to have a family. No matter how well Official Ko’s household had treated him growing up, it hadn’t been the same thing.

They kept walking, deeper into the wastes. Lucas could follow Sophia’s shining path now that she’d shown it to them, but she was the one who led the way. It wasn’t just that she was the one who had the best chance of guiding them to their destination; it meant that he and Kate could keep to her pace, watching out for when she became tired.

She kept going, though, leading them on across the broken ground, further into the sun. Around them, Lucas could hear occasional calls of desert lions or hyenas, but nothing bothered them now as they walked. Nothing except the relentless heat. That sapped Lucas’s strength, and although he tried to ration the amount he drank from his water bottle, soon it felt far too light.

“We’re going to have to find somewhere to stop,” Sophia said.

There was nowhere, though. There was only the continuing onslaught of the sun, which seemed to be determined to leach away every drop of moisture they possessed.

“I think I can see something,” Kate said, pointing.

Lucas saw it too: a faint shimmer in the distance, the faintest flash of green from a tree. They’d spotted an oasis.

Lucas increased his stride, making for the oasis. He had his hands near his swords as well, because he imagined that the only source of water for miles around would attract its share of predators. The four of them trekked forward, and Lucas could feel a little hope rising in his chest at the sight of the oasis. Sophia’s vision had led them to it, and if it could do that, then was it so hard to believe that it might lead them to their parents too?

They made it to the oasis, and it was only as they reached it that Lucas’s heart sank again. The oasis was dry.

It looked like a vibrant, living place. There were date trees and palms arching up over the space where a pool of water would have stood. There was a low stone building that looked as though it had once been a permanent shelter, perhaps a waystation in the desert. The pool sat empty, though, the ground around it looking hard and mostly dry.

“There’s no water,” Kate said, and Lucas could hear the disappointment in her voice.

Sophia sat down in the shadow of one of the trees. “There’s a bit of shade, at least.”

They all knew that wasn’t going to be enough though. Lucas slumped to his knees, feeling defeated. There were some foes that couldn’t be fought just by swinging a sword.

Then you must find another way. The way of virtue is acceptance, but it is also adaptation. Water flows around obstacles, down into any crack, pooling in any space.

That thought sounded far too much like the memory of Official Ko’s voice for comfort. It had been the kind of lesson that seemed to make perfect sense in a comfortable room, but which seemed far too abstract to be of any use in the middle of a desert. What use was philosophy in the face of dehydration? Already, Lucas could see Sienne lying down on her side, panting in the heat.

Except… what if the reason he was remembering this particular lesson was because it wasn’t just abstract?

“We need to dig!” Lucas said, as soon as he realized the truth of it.

“Dig? In this heat?” Kate replied. “We’ll die of heat exhaustion, Lucas.”

“The trees are still green, there are still patches of soft ground,” Lucas said. “There is water here, but it has gone under the ground. I’m sure of it.”

He took out the broadest and flattest of his knives, using it to start digging in one of the places that seemed softest. It was hard going, because the tool wasn’t designed for the job, but Kate and Sophia quickly joined him.

Lucas looked over to Sophia. “You’ve controlled the weather before, back home. Do you think you could pull water closer to the surface here?”

“I think that’s because we have a connection to the land back home,” Sophia said. “But… I guess I can try.”

She went quiet, her eyes half closed. Lucas could feel the power that she was working with, tapping into the vibrancy of the land around them. For his part, Lucas kept digging, setting aside his knife and working with his hands once the ground was soft enough to do it.

The effort of it was enough to bring more sweat beading on his skin. The heat made Lucas feel dizzy with the effort, and he suspected that if this went on much longer, he would pass out.

Then, there at the bottom of the hole he was digging, he saw truly damp earth.

“We’re almost there,” he said, working as furiously as he could. He kept expanding the hole, digging his way down…

…Water pushed around the sides of his hands, springing up and there for the taking. Lucas opened up the hole a little more so that it could fill properly, then dipped his hands in it, lifting it to his lips. After all that effort, it was the best thing he had ever tasted.

There was more to it, though. Lucas could see the stone now around which water was barely trickling, and from his lessons he knew that an oasis like this would form through a connection to an underground pool. If that connection had shifted, even slightly, it might be enough to close it off.

Maybe that could be undone.

With his hands and his knife, he worked at the rock, trying to move it. He was stronger than most people, but even so, he had to strain at the rock, feeling the solidity of the earth beneath him as it refused to give way.

Then it did.

The movement was so sudden that it sent Lucas sprawling. When he looked up, the pool in the middle of the oasis was already starting to refill. In a matter of moments, he’d managed to bring it back to life.

They filled their water skins and drank as much as they could. Sophia’s forest cat lapped at the pool of water until it seemed that she might burst. Kate splashed water on her face, then flicked some in Lucas’s direction. He laughed.

Sophia put a hand on his shoulder. “You can do plenty more than fight, Lucas.”

That was one good thing about siblings who could reach into his thoughts: they knew exactly what to say. It was the truth, though, and that made it even better.

If they could have stayed there, perhaps things would have been perfect. Perhaps they would have stayed out of sight of the world for days or longer, eating dates and drinking cool water. Even as he thought it, Lucas knew that they couldn’t. The path that Sophia had seen still lay ahead, and their parents were somewhere at the end of it.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Kate followed the others, having to trust that they knew where they were going, and their visions were guiding them in the right direction. Even following them was getting harder, because sand and dust were swirling up now in the wind, making it harder and harder to see ahead.

Is there any sign of where we’re going? she asked.

Not yet, Sophia sent back.

You’d think that an entire city wouldn’t be so hard to find, Kate sent.

Lucas joined in. There must be a reason that it is the Forgotten City.

Kate had to admit that he had a point. It was strange to think that a city could become lost, forgotten about, and abandoned. Would that happen to Ashton at some point in the far future? There was no desert to swallow it, but Kate could imagine the sea rising up over it, or the greenery around it stretching out to—

“Wait!” Lucas said, stretching out an arm to stop Kate.

She looked down and saw the reason why. Her feet stood on the edge of a precipice, a gouge in the landscape reaching down so far she couldn’t see the bottom. One more step, and Kate would have tumbled out into it. Lucas, Sophia, and Sienne all stood by the edge, staring out over it as if hoping it would go away if they waited long enough.

“Is there a way around it?” Kate asked.

Sophia shook her head. “The footprints lead across it, but I don’t see… wait, there, what’s that?”

The dust briefly cleared enough for Kate to see what looked like a rope bridge across the ravine. The remains of one, anyway. Most of the ropes had fallen away, either cut or just rotted to the point where they fell.

The three of them went over to it, examining the remains of a structure that looked far older than they were. There were stone posts set there, with rings that were obviously there to tie the bridge’s ropes to. Only the one line remained: a thick bight of hempen rope that might have seemed far more secure if it hadn’t been so old and dry.

“How are we supposed to cross if there’s only one rope?” Kate asked. She pulled at the rope, trying to test its strength. “Sophia, I’m pretty sure you’ve never practiced tightrope walking.”

“It never came up at court,” Sophia agreed.

“I have learned,” Lucas said. “Official Ko thought that it would be good for my balance to practice with staffs while balanced on a wire. I fell off a lot.”

Of course Lucas would have learned, and he still had the kind of magic running through him that made this kind of thing an easy physical feat. Kate just had her own balance, and the knack of reading minds as she went.

Kate looked out again, and through a gap in the dust, she thought she could see piles of ropes on the far side, probably spares so that the bridge could be built and rebuilt as many times as people needed.

“If one of us can get over there, I think we might be able to reconnect the bridge,” Kate said.

“I’ll go,” Lucas offered.

Kate shook her head. “You’re too heavy. This rope might hold me, but it will snap under your weight before you make it halfway. I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?” Sophia asked. Kate could hear the worry there. The worry for a sister who wasn’t as strong as she had been, and who didn’t have the skills she’d once possessed.

“I’m the smallest,” Kate said with a grin she didn’t feel. “It will be easy.”

To forestall any further discussion, Kate took off her shoes and hopped up onto the rope, using her hands to steady herself as she stood, feeling the rope beneath her feet. Since this wasn’t some circus display, there was no reason to do this with any grace, but a part of her wanted to prove to herself that she could do this.

She started to step along the rope, feeling it stretch under her weight, sensing the sway of the hemp in the wind. A gust caught Kate and she grabbed for the rope with her hands as well as her feet, hanging upside down now as she tried to keep from tumbling into the depths. This far out, there was no sign of Sophia or Lucas through the dust.

“They’ll miss you when you fall, of course.”

Siobhan’s voice came to Kate so clearly that she might have been standing next to her.

“Go away,” Kate muttered. “You’re not real.”

“Aren’t I? Well, perhaps you know more than me, Apprentice.”

“We got you out of my head,” Kate whispered. “We killed you.”

“And now here you are, killing yourself,” Siobhan’s voice whispered back. “You could have let Lucas do this, but here you are, trying to prove that you’re still something without my fountain’s gifts.”

Kate ignored her, starting to inch along the rope in the direction of the ravine’s far side.

“You’re not anything without what I gave you, of course,” Siobhan kept going. “Without the extra strength and speed, what are you? Just a scared little girl. You can’t fight like your brother, you can’t control the world around you like your sister. You’re nothing.”

“At least I’m real,” Kate muttered. She ignored the tears in her eyes. They were falling to the sand.

“You know they’re not,” Siobhan said, answering her thoughts. “They’re because you know your siblings would be better off without you. Why not just let go? You can have a nice, heroic death, and they’ll be free to reach their potential without having to carry you.”

The tears were coming harder now, but still, Kate inched along the rope. Then it snapped.

She cried out, but she clung to it as it swung her toward the far side of the ravine. The rock slammed into Kate, knocking the breath from her. Still she clung to the rope.

“You might as well let go,” Siobhan’s voice said. “You don’t have the strength to pull yourself up without what I gave you.”

“For an all-knowing witch, you don’t know much,” Kate snapped. She didn’t bother trying to do the work with her arms. Instead, her feet sought out the cracks in the rocks, her toes finding spaces that would hold her. The combination was enough, barely, to let her start heading upward. “I might not have the strength or the speed anymore, but I remember everything I learned.”

There was no answer to that, but that made sense. Of course, even a version of Siobhan, who was no more than a figment of her imagination, would find the most annoying moments to appear and disappear.

At least it meant that Kate could concentrate on trying to clamber up the rock wall. Her hands found purchase on the rope, but Kate didn’t want to trust her whole weight to it given how easily it had snapped before. Instead, her feet found foothold after foothold, pushing her up the ravine’s far wall while she pulled with her arms.

It was tiring work. The effort of moving herself up when the whole world seemed to want to pull her down was exhausting. A part of Kate wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to let go…

Then she thought of Will, waiting for her back home.

“I’ll see him again,” Kate said, gritting her teeth. “And I’ll climb all the walls I have to in order to do it.”

She pulled herself up the next few steps, and her hands felt the lip of the ravine. Kate pulled herself up over that lip, lying flat on her back while she remembered how to breathe normally.

Kate? Are you there? Sophia asked. Can you hear me?

I’m here, Kate sent back. I’m fine. I’ll get the ropes over to you now.

She stood up, looking around for the ropes she’d glimpsed. They were there, and to her surprise, they looked newer than the one that had given way beneath her. Maybe someone had been planning on replacing the bridge. Kate tied them at her end, then tossed them over to the far side, flinging them as hard as she could.

The others started to make their way across the bridge, Sienne padding across with effortless grace then curling up next to Kate while she waited for the others.

“Oh, sure, you make it look easy,” Kate said, and sat there, stroking the forest cat’s fur. The dust was thinning now, and she could see Sophia and Lucas walking across, the new rope bridge more than enough to hold their weight.

Siobhan’s voice came in to fill the gap while she waited.

“You’re right, you do remember what you learned. Just make sure that you remember all of it. I have a feeling that you’ll need some parts before too long.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Cora had never sneaked into a war zone before, and she wasn’t sure that she ever wanted to have to again. She, Aidan, and Emeline slipped in along the line of the river, watching the skies for crows, hiding whenever they saw them.

“I hope we’re in time,” Cora said as they ran down toward the city. She couldn’t bear the thought that they might have come all the way from Stonehome to help Sophia’s child, only to be too late.

“We’ll make it,” Aidan said, holding her hand. “We have to.”

Emeline didn’t say anything, her expression set. Cora could guess the source of her discomfort: the city looked as though it was already in the process of falling, ochre-uniformed soldiers pouring in through a breach on one side, heading straight for the palace.

“At least it means they won’t be defending the rest of the city,” Cora suggested.

Emeline snorted at that. “Just bunching up right at the spot we need to get to.”

They didn’t turn around, though, didn’t even discuss it. Sophia’s child was in danger, and none of them was about to stand by to let her die.

Slipping into the city was easier than it should have been. They just waited for people to start pouring out through one of the gates and hurried in while they did so.

“You don’t want to go in there,” a woman called out to them. “They’re killing people on sight, and worse!”

Fear rose in Cora at that thought. She could remember what it had been like having to fight her way into Ashton last time. But she didn’t let the thought stop her; none of them did. The three ran on through Ashton’s streets, following the same path to the palace that they had during the invasion, keeping to the shadows as much as they could.

They drew their swords, because there were too many soldiers in the streets to rely just upon hiding. Cora could hear the sounds of screams in the distance, and the clash of blades from within the city. The only advantage they had seemed to be that the soldiers were so focused on the palace and not on them.

The trouble was, that just meant more of them would be in the way when they got there.

“Do we actually have a plan for this?” Cora asked.

“We get to the palace, we grab Sophia’s baby and whoever else we can, then we get out of here,” Emeline replied.

“I feel as though there might be one or two details missing from this plan,” Cora said, but what else were they going to do? Go back to Stonehome? They’d covered half the country to try to save Sophia’s little girl, and they weren’t going to stop now.

Cora pointed to a spot on one of the palace walls. “There, we’ll be able to get in through a servants’ gate.”

They hurried over and although the gate was locked, it only took a couple of blows from Aidan’s foot to smash it open. The gardens lay on the far side, and Cora instantly saw the spot where they needed to be. The Master of Crows stood by one of the ballroom’s garden entrances, blocking the way. A glance through the windows showed Sebastian, a nursemaid, and a baby who could only be Sophia’s.

“Any ideas for how we get them away from something like that?” Aidan asked.

Cora shrugged. “Only this.”

She charged at the Master of Crows, her sword raised, as she yelled a battle cry that was more of a straightforward yell of anger. She could feel her blood boiling the way it had when she’d hit Prince Rupert over the head with a vase, or when she’d found herself in the middle of the battle for Ashton. She charged at the New Army’s general, aiming to end his evil with one blow…

He sidestepped, and Cora tumbled into the ballroom, Aidan and Emeline bursting in through one of the other doors.

“Ah,” the Master of Crows said, “I see you have reinforcements, King Sebastian. Tell me, if I make you watch them die first, will you give me the child then?”

“No one’s going to die,” Emeline said, although to Cora, she didn’t look confident.

“And how do you plan to stop me?” the Master of Crows asked.

“Like this…”

Something shifted in the room. Now it seemed that they weren’t standing surrounded by flat images of themselves contained in the ballroom’s mirrors. Now it seemed that those images were standing beside them, dozens of versions of them standing beside them, moving as they moved, making it impossible to pick out which was the real version and which was a fake. A dozen versions of Cora leapt forward as she did, striking out with her sword, so that the Master of Crows had to leap back to avoid them all.

“Run!” Emeline called out. “I don’t know how long I can hold it!”

Cora saw Sebastian and the nursemaid run with the child, and then she, Aidan, and Emeline sprinted after them, running out into the gardens with the Master of Crows walking calmly after them.

“You can’t escape me,” he called after them, advancing smoothly. Soldiers fell into line with him, although when one raised a musket, the general stabbed him, cutting down his own soldier as if it were nothing. “The child must not be harmed.”

Cora and the others kept running.

“Into the maze,” Sebastian shouted to them.

Cora nodded and followed into the garden maze, hoping that they might be able to lose the Master of Crows within its depths. At the very least, they could ambush him in there and try to even up the fight. They headed into the center of the maze. At least there they would have a chance.

Then Cora saw the crows gathering, and she knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

There were hundreds of them; thousands. There were so many that they seemed to form a jet-black blanket that covered the maze, landing on its bushes until every surface of the garden maze was thick with them. Beaks tore at the bushes, ripping away twigs, snapping at leaves. Claws ripped at branches, carrying them away easily.

“They’re destroying the maze,” Cora said.

Sebastian nodded, looking around as if seeking some other safe place for them. Cora knew as well as anyone that there wasn’t one, though. There was nowhere to run as the birds tore at the hedges, ripping them into fragments in a display of power that left her feeling insignificant next to the sheer scale of the things the Master of Crows could do. It was like a hurricane tearing at a village, or a plague of insects destroying a farmer’s crops.

In a minute or less, there was nothing left. Rather than the safety of the maze, their small group now stood in the middle of a ring of crows and soldiers, surrounded as surely as if they’d walked into the middle of an enemy encampment.

The Master of Crows started to stalk forward, and Cora’s grip tightened on her sword. If she could find a moment to cut him down, all of this would be over, even if it cost her life.

“You can’t,” Aidan whispered to her.

“I have to.”

“Then it’s obvious what I have to do. I love you.”

He pushed her back, lunging forward at the New Army’s general. Aidan’s sword flashed with all the skill he’d shown on the practice grounds, and for a moment, Cora thought that he might be fast enough, good enough, to end this.

Then the Master of Crows sidestepped, ramming his own sword through Aidan’s chest and holding him there, pinned like a scarecrow.

“No!” Cora screamed, feeling her heart break even as steel slid through Aidan’s. “No!”

Grief burst over her. Aidan had saved her life. He’d died saving her life, trying to do what he’d known she couldn’t. He’d been the finest person Cora had known, and he was gone from the world in an instant.

A part of her wanted to fling herself at the Master of Crows, if only to join Aidan in death, but one glance from those deep black eyes stopped her. If she lunged at him, she would die. There was no chance of killing him, and right then, Cora wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had to live, because it was the only way to make sure that he died.

The Master of Crows smiled as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Probably he did. He let Aidan fall in a ragged heap and then held out a hand.

“I’ve had enough of this foolishness,” he said. “You will hand over the child.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

The Master of Crows advanced on the small group of his enemies, repeating his demand.

“There are only so many times that I will ask for the child before I simply take it,” he said. “That I have not done so should tell you that I wish it no harm.”

“Her,” the would-be king, Sebastian, said. “Violet is not an ‘it.’”

“If you do not hand the child over, none of you will be anything,” he said. “I will order my men forward, and they will slaughter each and every one of you. Then I will have the child anyway.”

“Then why don’t you?” one of the newcomers demanded. Not the one who was still grieving over the man he’d cut down, the other one. The one who’d managed to confuse him with mirror images to get them even this far. “If you could really do all that, I think you’d do it.”

“The child is more valuable to me alive,” the Master of Crows said again. It was even true, in its way. A death like this, in the middle of battle, was not as efficient for taking power as one with the proper symbols and rituals around it. There was a reason those with power ended up in his crow cages.

“And what do we get if we hand her over?” the young woman holding the child demanded. She took a step forward. Sebastian grabbed for her, but she pulled away from him, and the Master of Crows pointed a pistol at him to keep him still.

“Now, now, I thought your lovely wife was all in favor of letting the common folk speak. Speak, woman.”

“If I give her to you, what then?”

The Master of Crows regarded her evenly. “What do you mean?”

“You’re demanding her from us. I… I don’t want to die,” she said. She looked back to the others. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. I have a babe of my own waiting for me at home, and as much as I care about little Princess Violet, she’s not mine, is she? If we’re all going to die anyway, then why not do this?”

“Why not indeed?” the Master of Crows said. He considered his options for a moment, but only for a moment, because the correct course was so obvious. “Very well. Bring me the child and my men will escort you back to your home. You will be allowed to collect your child and any other sundry family, and then to leave the city safely. You will not be harmed.”

He raised a finger as Sebastian started forward again. “Now, now, your majesty. Since you are out of the line of fire of the child, rest assured that my men will shoot you if you or any of the others move again.”

He signaled, and his men leveled their weapons at the three left on the lawn. He would kill them afterward, obviously, but at least this way he had the option of doing it in the ways that were to his greatest advantage.

“Very well,” he said to the nursemaid, beckoning her onward, “come forward.”

She started forward on obviously shaky legs, moving away from the others, bearing the child so gently and so softly that she could have been its mother…

The Master of Crows lifted his pistol and shot the young woman through the throat before she could make it halfway to him. The crack reverberated around the garden, the scent of powder hanging in the air for a moment while the young woman blinked at him in shock. She stood there in stunned silence, a knife clattering from nerveless fingers. The Master of Crows closed the distance to her then, using his speed to reach her in less time than it took for her legs to buckle, plucking the child from her arms as she died.

“A brave move,” he said, looking down at her with contempt, “but a foolish one. Of course, I would have killed you anyway, but that isn’t the point.”

He held the baby against his jacket. She looked up at him, screwed up her tiny features, and cried. Compared to the cawing of crows, it was such a jarring sound. How did parents stand such mewling?

Still, he tried for a parody of a smile; the kind of thing that might have come from a kindly uncle or a grandfather. It amused him mostly because he was anything but kindly, and he could already picture the way his crows would peck at this tiny thing’s flesh.

“There, there,” he said. “Be quiet, tiny child, or I will snuff you out like a candle.”

To his surprise, it worked. The little girl lay against him, looking up at him with inquiring eyes. She even gurgled a laugh, which went to show how foolish children were. Strange to think that he could feel such power coming from something so obviously weak and foolish.

The Master of Crows looked over to the three still waiting in the remains of the maze. He gestured to his men.

“Oh, I don’t need them anymore,” he said. “Take the woman with power and put her in a gibbet. Impale his majesty so his subjects can see. Do what you want with the other one.”

His men started forward, and the Master of Crows looked back down to the child in his arms. She reached out with one tiny hand to touch his face…

He screamed as white light burst around him, burning hotter than any fire as that tiny palm seared into his flesh. The sheer power of it thrummed through him, threatening to tear him apart and sending him to his knees, the child rolling softly from his grasp onto the lawn. The Master of Crows wept with the agony of it, and the pain seemed as though it might consume everything he was in that instant.

He’d been hurt before. Kate Danse had managed to wound him on the beach outside Carrick, while her brother had stuck a sword in him when they’d dueled. This was more painful than either, and all from a touch.

The Master of Crows couldn’t see through his own eyes then, because the white light left afterimages that he couldn’t blink away. He reached out for the eyes of his creatures, but that wasn’t any better. They wheeled and milled, shrieking in their own agony, several of them falling dead where they were, the rest flying at random, getting in the way of any careful judgment of what was happening. He had brief glimpses of his men looking stunned, uncertain of what to do as they tried to locate something to shoot at.

Finally, he managed to grab control of one of them high enough above the scene to be able to look down on it without being affected. The Master of Crows drifted with it for a moment, its soaring flight soothing, the sensation of the wind like a salve against his skull.

He forced it to look down, trying to make sense of what was happening. He could see his crows buffeting and wheeling in a hurricane of feathers and beaks, making it impossible for any of his men to fire. He could see his own prostrate form on the grass, so still that it might have been dead. He could see the child who had done this crawling away, and the woman without any power snatching it up.

His prisoners should have died in that moment, but the milling crowd of birds meant that even those soldiers who did fire muskets hit nothing but feathers. The three were away and running while his men were still trying to make some sense of the situation.

“No,” he told himself. “They will not escape.”

He threw himself back at his body, ignoring the pain, forcing himself to stand even though it seemed to take all his strength to do it. The child had not robbed him of all that he was, had not taken away the power that was his to command. He blinked away the last of the afterimages, stretching out his powers and forcing the crows back to his control. He threw his arms wide and they scattered to the roof of the palace, leaving the way clear for him to see the last glimpses of the retreating figures before they disappeared through one of the gates that led away from the palace grounds.

“Enough of this,” he said, his voice carrying out to his men. “I offer a year’s pay to the man who brings me that child, and death to anyone who fails! Grab them. Kill the others, recover the child!”

His men set off at a run, each fighting to be the first to reach the fleeing figures. The Master of Crows gathered himself, feeling some of his strength seep back in as the killing around the city went on and his creatures feasted.

Slowly, deliberately, he set off in pursuit.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Endi sat in Ishjemme’s great hall, waiting for his brother. Oli had said that they would meet as soon as the sun was up, and he wasn’t one to be late. Endi drummed his fingers on the arm of the ducal seat as he waited, thinking about all the matters that still needed to be dealt with today. He found himself hoping that this wouldn’t take too long.

The great hall was empty except for Endi. He’d promised his brother that much. Oli had said that they should talk alone, and Endi was willing to go along with it. Perhaps this could be resolved by talking to him. Endi wanted to believe that. Oli was family, after all.

Finally, the door at the far end of the great hall opened, letting Oli in. In spite of his message, his brother wasn’t alone. A pair of guardsmen, old veterans who’d been in his father’s service, stood to either side of him. Half a dozen young men from Ishjemme’s clans stood with them, probably the most senior ones available, when so many others were away in Ashton. Several wore the full regalia of their families, with clan colors, torcs, and symbols that made them look, to Endi, like children playing dress up with their fathers’ things.

“So much for meeting me alone,” Endi said, as Oli came forward. His brother actually wore a sword today. “Do you even know how to use that thing, brother?”

“I thought it would show you that I’m serious,” Oli said. He gestured to the young men around him. “I thought these would show you that the old families here support what I have to say, and so do plenty of the guards. There are more outside who let us in.”

“And what do you have to say, Oli?” Endi asked, standing. “Are you going to give me an explanation for why Rika isn’t in her rooms?”

Oli stared at him with a surprising amount of backbone, given how quickly he usually caved in.

“I… sent someone to get Rika out of there,” he said. “She’s safe with the people who are willing to stand against you. I don’t want a war with you, though, Endi. You’re my brother.”

“And your duke, Oli,” Endi pointed out. “Let’s not forget that part.”

Oli shook his head. Endi wished he could say it was a surprise.

“You’re not the duke,” Oli said. “You took our father’s seat by force, and you’re keeping it by murdering people. That isn’t the way that a duke of Ishjemme behaves. Do you think Father would have done any of what you’ve done?”

“Our father didn’t have to,” Endi snapped back, “because he had me to do it for him. He got to sit there, all high and mighty in his honor, because whenever some threat came up in the shadows, I was there to deal with it. I was the one handling the spies. I was the one—”

“Paying the assassins,” Oli said. “Say it. Or are you too much of a coward to admit it? You paid the assassin who tried to kill our cousin. You were in contact with Milady d’Angelica from the start, and she was the one who had our father killed.”

“I didn’t know that was her plan,” Endi said.

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Oli demanded, and now his voice filled the great hall. “You were ready to come back just as soon as he died. Even if you didn’t plan it, you must have known. At the very least, you took advantage of his death to steal Ishjemme!”

“Ishjemme was mine to take!” Endi roared back. “I was the strongest of the heirs. Did you think you should be duke?”

“That has never been how our laws have worked,” Oli insisted. “The king or queen decides.”

“So you want to give Ishjemme to the rule of outsiders?” Endi demanded. He was angrier with his brother than he’d thought. He’d believed that Oli had understood, but clearly not. And now this; now his brother had brought traitors into his hall.

“I want Ishjemme to follow laws,” Oli said. “It has laws, and traditions, and people. You’ve trampled over all three, Endi. Can’t you see that? You’ve murdered people to secure your rule. You’ve killed more when they wouldn’t give up their lands for this canal idea of yours. What are you trying to achieve?”

“Progress,” Endi said, acidly. “I know it’s an alien concept to you, Oli, but sometimes the world moves on from the stories of the past. I’m trying to make Ishjemme safe, secure, and powerful. Yes, those who stand too hard against it are getting hurt, but it will improve the lives of everyone else! It will make things better.”

Oli shook his head. “It stops today.”

Endi snorted at that. “What are you planning to do, Oli? Cut me down in my own hall? So much for doing things according to the laws. Or are you going to challenge me to duel like they did in the sagas? Is that what you came here to do?”

“No,” Oli said. “I came here to talk to you. I came here to persuade you that what you’re doing is wrong, and that you should step down for the good of all of Ishjemme.”

Endi sat back on his seat pointedly. “That isn’t going to happen.”

“Then we’ll take you into custody,” Oli said, gesturing to the men and boys around him. “Rika will rule until our brothers and sisters get back, and you’ll answer to all of us for the things you’ve done.”

“Rika?” Endi said, and then laughed. “You want her to rule?”

“The people love her, Endi,” Oli said. “Even as we speak, they’re rising up to support her. If you try to cling onto power, you’ll be fighting every man and woman of Ishjemme. Now, will you come quietly, or do we have to take you by force?”

“Planning to use that sword after all, Oli?” Endi said. “That’s two good jokes in as many breaths. Here’s my answer.”

He gave a piercing whistle, and men thundered into the hall. Good men. Paid men. They spread out around the little knot of conspirators. Endi pointed to the two guardsmen and nodded. Musket fire rang out and the two men went down, their bodies ripped apart by the lead shot. Oli and the others stood there looking stunned. It made it easy for Endi’s men to move in and disarm them.

“Boys playing at being men,” Endi said with contempt. He stepped forward and punched his brother, hard, feeling his knuckles bruise under the impact. “How dare you try to take what’s mine? How dare you?”

“Endi—”

Endi hit his brother again. “No, shut up! You lost your chance to talk when you betrayed me. You don’t get any say in what happens now. I decide.” He looked around at the young men. His first instinct was to have them taken out and hanged where everybody could see them. But he wasn’t ruled by his instincts.

“Take them all and put them in cells,” he said to his men. “They’ll serve as hostages for the behavior of their families when they get back from the war. Oli too. I won’t suffer traitors.”

He dragged his brother to his feet.

“Did you really think I had no idea what was going on?” Endi demanded. “Did you think I didn’t know about your little betrayal? Every guard who sided with you will die. Every person who stands with Rika will suffer for it, because it’s the only way they’ll learn.”

“There are more people with our sister than you think,” Oli said. “She’ll be coming for you, and I think you’ll find her more ferocious than you remember. Locking her up will do that.”

“I’ll be dealing with little Rika shortly,” Endi promised. For now, he waved to his guards. “Take him and get him out of my sight, before I do what I ought to do with traitors.”

***

Rika stood in the middle of Ishjemme’s main square, feeling both delighted and surprised as a crowd of people swelled around her. She’d hoped that people would come out to join her, of course, because she would have felt pretty silly rising up against Endi by herself, but she hadn’t expected this many.

It felt as though at least half the people of the dukedom were there, from shopkeepers to farmers, weavers to fisher-folk. There weren’t many soldiers, but all of the soldiers were away fighting in Ashton, and anyway, it gave their uprising a surprisingly peaceful feel. Women walked with small children on their hips, men sang songs as they gathered. Someone had erected a small stage, and Rika stood on it, looking out over the masses. Rika wished it could be as simple as just gathering here. She wished they could just stay here then go home, without having to risk fighting.

They had to advance on the castle, though, or Endi wouldn’t believe that they were serious, and they had to take weapons, because Rika had seen how implacable some of the guards with him were.

“My friends,” Rika said, standing up in front of them. She stopped herself. “Everyone says things like that, don’t they? They like to sound sincere, I suppose. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at speaking to lots of people. I could probably sing you a song.”

That got a laugh from some of the people closest to her.

“The truth is I don’t know nearly as many of you as I should. The best I can do is hope that we would be friends if we met. The fact that you’re here is a good sign. It shows that you care about Ishjemme, and the terrible things that my brother is doing. We have to stop those things.”

She paused to let that sink in. Rika steeled herself for the next part.

“It won’t be easy. I’m told that Oli is trying to confront Endi now, but he might not listen, and there are still plenty of his men around. Our best hope is to march on the castle, and show them all just how many of us want things to change. Will you come with me?”

The cheer that greeted Rika took her a little aback, and she couldn’t speak for a moment or two. Another voice rang in that gap.

“Then you are traitors who deserve death!”

Rika recognized her brother’s voice even as Endi stepped into the edge of the square. Dozens of soldiers appeared from doorways, from behind the trees that peppered every space in Ishjemme, from every corner that Rika could see. A group of them dragged a cannon out from under a tarpaulin amongst some fishing boats, while a few on horseback rode into sight, looking ready to ride down anyone who got in their way.

In an instant, Rika felt the mood of things change, the fear and uncertainty of the crowd mixed in with a sudden readiness for violence. Those who had come simply to march and to be there huddled together closer to the center of the crowd, while those men who had brought hammers or short axes, chisels or whittling knives moved closer to the edges. Against the muskets and swords of the guards, it looked like far too little.

“Wait…” Rika began, but there was no time.

“Fire!” Endi ordered, and the world before Rika turned into something hellish.

People screamed as the cannon and the muskets boomed, falling in too great a number to count. Men charged at the soldiers, and the soldiers charged back, blades clashing against farming implements, cutting through flesh, sending blood scattering into the air. The horses that had been on the sidelines charged, their bulk trampling the people nearest to them.

In the chaos of it all, people started to panic, pushing and shoving to get clear. Rika saw a man trip in the middle of the crowd, trampled to death by everyone around him. She saw a little boy pushed away from his mother, and heard him screaming for her.

Without thinking, Rika pushed into the crowd, running for the child. Hands pushed at her, limbs struck her, bruising as they connected. She felt herself stumble, but managed to keep standing. In a press like this, it wouldn’t matter who she was: a duke’s daughter could be trampled as surely as anyone else. Rika saw the little boy ahead, standing in a brief clear space, crying and confused. She forced her way through to him and snatched him up, holding him to her as she forced her way to the edge of the crowd. She saw his mother there and pushed the boy into her arms.

“Take him and run,” she said.

“Thank you,” the woman replied, snatching up her son and fleeing.

Rika hadn’t wanted this. The carnage was too much, too great. Endi was up there on the stage, smiling down at the chaos as if he were enjoying it, and that only made it worse. The pain of it all rose up inside Rika: knowing that her brother had done all of this, had almost killed her with his assassin, had turned into a kind of monster…

She screamed out her frustration, screaming until her voice was hoarse, screaming with all the power of a voice trained to singing. Screaming, Rika suspected, with a trace of the magic that only normally touched her in visions, and that she could never access while waking. It reverberated around the square with all the hurt she felt, all the anguish, all the injustice.

When she stopped, she found that the square was quieter than it should have been. People were staring at her, and Rika had to resist the urge to blush at the attention. Even her brother was staring at her, looking down from the stage with an expression Rika couldn’t fathom.

As she watched, Endi started to clap.

“Well done, Rika. Having to be the center of attention as always. Very dramatic.”

Rika marched up to the stage. “Stop this, Endi. Stop it. These people aren’t the ones that you want. What kind of duke hurts his own people?”

“The kind who has been betrayed by them,” Endi replied. “The kind who tries to do his best for them, only to have it thrown back in his face!”

“Well, you’d know a lot about faces,” Rika said, touching the white line of the scar that still ran down hers. “You gave me this, after all.”

“I didn’t,” Endi shot back. “I saved you!”

“From your assassin!” Rika replied. She gestured to the crowd. “You’re hurting innocent people.”

Endi shook his head. “They aren’t innocent. None of you are innocent.”

Rika looked him in the eye. “Then take this out on me,” she said. “I’m the one leading this. I’m the one they’re gathering behind. Don’t punish them for that.”

Endi was quiet for several seconds. “Why should I?”

Rika had an answer for that part, at least. “Because I’m your sister. Because somewhere in there, I think there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to go around doing this to people. Because you owe me for everything else you’ve done, Endi.”

Again, Endi was silent for what seemed like forever. Rika felt the moments stretch out, and the worst part was that if he decided to just order his men to fire again, there was nothing that she could do.

“Very well,” Endi said. “The people here will not be harmed. You will publicly pay fealty to me here as your duke, and I will allow you to return to your imprisonment until—”

“No,” Rika said.

Endi stared at her. “No?”

“No,” Rika continued. “I won’t bow down to you. You’ve won. It doesn’t mean that you’re right.”

She saw Endi’s hands close into fists. “Rika, you have to bow down to me. Don’t you understand? There are all these people here who are willing to support you as duchess. I can’t allow that. Either I kill all of them…”

“Which you just promised not to do,” Rika said.

“Or you acknowledge me as your duke…”

“Which I won’t do,” Rika said.

“Or…”

“Or you kill me,” Rika said. “I know. I’m not stupid, Endi.”

“This is stupid though,” Endi said. “Rika, bow down to me. Tell them all that I’m the rightful duke.”

Rika thought she could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Good, that meant that they matched her own.

“No,” Rika said.

“Rika—”

“No, I won’t do it.”

Endi was silent. “Then Rika Skyddar, I proclaim you a traitor to Ishjemme, and I sentence you to death for it.”

A part of Rika had thought that her brother might not do it, but more of her knew better. She knew that this had to happen, if it was going to save her people. When Endi drew his sword, that slim bladed, stabbing thing he favored, she even knelt, baring her throat for the blow to come.

Would it hurt? The cut that Bjornen had given her had hurt more than anything she’d known, but really only once she’d had time to think about it. In the instant that he’d hit her, she’d been too shocked to really feel it. Maybe this would be like that. Maybe she would be dead before she even realized.

Endi drew back his arm.

“The laws of Ishjemme demand a trial!” a voice from the crowd called out. A familiar voice. A voice that filled Rika with hope. “And on behalf of my sister, I demand a trial by combat.”

Rika looked around to see the figure approaching, and smiled. She rose up and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him.

“Jan! You’re here!”

“Sorry I’m late, little sister,” he said. “Although it seems that you were doing pretty well on your own.”

***

Jan disentangled himself from his sister’s hug, drawing his sword and holding it two-handed as he stared across at his brother. Anger filled him at the thought of everything Endi had done, and at what he’d been about to do.

“Jan,” Endi said, “I see you’ve come running back from the arms of the false queen to join in this little rebellion. Are you a traitor like our sister?”

“The only traitor I see here is you,” Jan said. “You left the battle for Ashton with our father’s body, claiming it was so that you could see him buried properly. Instead, you came here to take the duke’s seat? And those ships that pulled out of the battle, that was your doing too?”

“Everything I have done, I did for the good of Ashton,” Endi said.

“Including killing people?” Rika demanded beside Jan.

“Be quiet, traitor!” Endi snapped.

“You haven’t proven yet that our sister is a traitor,” Jan pointed out. “The law gives Rika a right to a trial, and trials by combat appear in all the old laws.”

“Like when Maeve Skyddar proved her innocence by fighting her husband the duke with a skillet,” Rika called out. Jan looked across to her. “What? They wrote a song about it.”

“Songs aren’t the same thing as law!” Endi shot back.

Jan shrugged. “Then fetch Oli. Everyone knows that he knows all the old laws. Of course, he’d have some very interesting things to say about the things you’ve been doing, and how many laws those break.”

“I’m the duke,” Endi said. “I decide the law.”

Jan shook his head. “Some laws even a duke can’t break. Besides, you aren’t the duke.”

“Are you a traitor too?” Endi demanded.

“No, little brother. I’m a challenger.” Jan stepped forward. “I challenge you to combat, here and now, for the safety of our sister and your position as duke.”

“And why should I do that rather than having my men take you?” Endi demanded.

Jan smiled grimly. “Because then no one would ever accept you were the true ruler. Ishjemme doesn’t have cowards for rulers. Defeat me, though, and probably even the men who are coming back from Ashton will accept you. You’ll have become duke an even older way than being given it by the queen. You’ll have done it by blood.”

Endi stood there, and Jan had the sense he was trying to calculate the odds, work out what was best for him. Jan hopped up onto the stage with him, waiting.

“If I win,” Endi said, “Rika will bow down to me as Duke. No making me execute her to be a martyr for people. No refusing. If she agrees to that, then this is worth it.”

Jan looked over to his sister for confirmation, and that was when Endi struck. His sword lanced through Jan’s side, but Jan was already twisting away, and the wound wasn’t deep. Endi struck again, sending him staggering, then forcing him to roll from the stage as Endi stabbed down. People gave way, forming a wide circle, giving them room to fight.

“Poor Jan, always so concerned with being the hero,” Endi said, following him. “Always so concerned with fighting fair.”

He kicked dirt up into Jan’s face and Jan parried blindly, managing to deflect Endi’s sword before it could lance through his heart. It sliced into Jan’s arm instead, and Jan had to swing his sword one-handed, doing his best to wipe away the dirt with the other.

“A strong man does what is necessary,” Endi said, cutting and thrusting, then kicking low to catch Jan’s foot. Jan tumbled again, coming up just in time to stop a downward blow aimed at his skull. “He knows that if he hesitates, the people around him suffer for it.”

“You’re running out of people around you,” Jan pointed out, trying to get his breath back. He circled Endi, and when his brother nodded to someone behind him, Jan spun to block the blow, only to find that there was no one there. Pain lanced into the back of his leg as Endi struck him there.

“Such a fool,” Endi said, as Jan tried to hop away. “But then, you always were growing up, as well. Working so hard to please Father, getting all of the attention. Jan the fair, Jan the good. I was the one who actually did things.”

Endi went on the attack then, and with his injuries, Jan couldn’t block everything. More wounds got through, in small nicks and cuts that started to add up onto a wash of blood on his arms.

“Might as well give up, Jan,” Endi said. “I’ll kill you quick, then Rika can have her choice again, and then… well, I might have ‘Queen’ Sophia killed, just to be safe.”

Anger bubbled up in Jan at the thought of Rika being hurt in spite of all Endi had said, but more than that, at the thought of Sophia being hurt. Endi wasn’t going to lay a finger on the woman he loved.

The next time Endi thrust, Jan lifted his left hand and let the blade pierce into it. He screamed with the pain, but also in anger, closing his hand and catching the blade just long enough to hammer Endi with the hilt of his own weapon. Jan struck again, and Endi went down, his thin, stabbing sword pulling out of Jan’s hand and tumbling to the ground.

Jan threw his own sword aside, getting on top of his brother and punching with his one good hand. He struck again and again, his fist pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer, not caring that it came away bloody. He kept going until Endi went limp, and beyond, his hand lifting up to strike again.

Gentle hands caught his arm, and Jan looked round to see Rika, her grip firmly clamped on his wrist.

“That’s enough, Jan,” she said. “We’ve won. We’ve won.”

Jan stood unsteadily, taking up his sword and looking around at Endi’s soldiers. “Will any of the rest of you face me? Do any of you want to threaten my family?”

No one stepped forward. Given the amount of blood on him, Jan was hardly surprised. Even so, the men looked uncertain, as if they might remember at any moment that they were the heavily armed ones, and that they were meant to be slaughtering these people.

To Jan’s surprise, Rika spoke.

“Many evil things have happened today,” she said to the crowd, and to the soldiers. “I don’t know about you, but I just want to go home. Endi fought a duel for the dukedom and a trial by combat over who was the traitor here. He lost both. You followed him because you thought he was the rightful duke, but now you can see that he isn’t. Anything you do now isn’t his fault; it’s yours. So go home. Look at your families. Think about the kind of person you want to be for them, and what they’d think about the things you’re doing. Go home.”

They actually started to drift away. They did it in ones and twos, the people of the crowd watching them suspiciously as they did, as if they might just be regrouping for a charge. More and more of them started to leave, and finally, Rika looked at Jan with a smile.

“Now, we’ve won.”

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Emeline shepherded Cora through Ashton’s streets, running with the others, forcing her to keep up while she held Princess Violet in her arms.

“You have to keep going,” Emeline told her. “We have to get the baby to safety.”

Cora nodded, but Emeline could feel the waves of grief coming off her friend, and reaching into her mind, Emeline could see the desire to stop, to just lie down in front of the onrushing soldiers and wait for them to kill her. Only Violet’s presence on her shoulder kept Cora running, and Emeline would use anything she had to in order to keep her friend alive.

“If you stop, Violet will die, just like Aidan,” Emeline said. “We have to save her.”

It was a cruel thing to say, but right then, Emeline didn’t care if her friend hated her, so long as she was alive to do it. Sebastian was running alongside them as they sprinted through the streets and Emeline found herself hoping that he wouldn’t reach out to take his daughter, because that would be as good as sentencing Cora to death. Maybe he sensed that, or maybe he needed to keep his sword arm free to fight, because he let Cora continue to carry Violet.

Figures ran in from a side street, and Emeline braced herself to stun them as best she could so they could run again, but then she spotted Will among their number.

“A few of us managed to get out of the palace,” he said to Sebastian. “But we’ve lost a lot of men, and there’s no sign of Lord Cranston now that the wall has fallen. Do we have any plan for getting out of the city?”

“The gates should be fairly easy to get through,” Emeline supplied. “With them all pouring in through one breach, they’re not surrounding the city anymore.”

“The question is where we go after that,” Will said.

Emeline wished she had an answer for him. How could anywhere be safe against an army that could take Ashton so quickly, in spite of all the forces there? The best they could do was to run and keep running, hoping to stay ahead of the enemy. If Stonehome were open to them, they might have a chance, but Emeline could guess Asha’s response to that. They would find themselves shut out, lost in the endless mist, waiting to be hunted down.

They were already being hunted, of course. Already, soldiers were racing after them. Whatever had happened when the baby touched the Master of Crows had stunned them for a few moments, but now men were gaining on them. Already, a group of the fastest was gaining on them, racing after them with swords drawn, ready to cut them down.

A second group of men, wearing the colors of Ishjemme, slammed into them from the side, cutting them down with brisk efficiency. Emeline recognized Hans from the taking of Ashton, and she was glad that he was there, because she knew just what a good soldier he was in a crisis. This definitely counted.

“Sebastian,” Hans called out. “Those men we have are trying to reform, and are waiting for your orders. Should we try to get to them?”

“Where?” Sebastian asked.

Hans pointed down toward the outer city, and again they were running. Emeline could see fires around them now, and smell the smoke of burning buildings. Even compared to the damage of their invasion, this seemed like total destruction. How many people had been killed already in the carnage? How many more would be, once the New Army really started its slaughter?

They rushed through into a square, looking around for their people.

“It should just be a few more streets,” Hans said. “I’ve had them regroup on the old training ground.”

It was then that Emeline saw the crows above them.

“Ambush!” she yelled, just as men started to pour into the square. There were only perhaps fifty, which seemed like nothing compared to the huge numbers who had entered the city, yet compared to their small group it would be more than enough. At the very least, it would be enough to slow them until more of the Master of Crows’ men could show up.

“Form a ring!” Hans ordered his men, and they spread out around Emeline, Cora, Violet, and Sebastian. Will stood next to Hans, looking ready to sell his life as dearly as possible. Against so many of the enemy, would it make any difference?

Then a whisper sounded in Emeline’s mind, and Emeline recognized Asha’s voice. We seem to be making a habit of saving you from your stupidity.

They came over the roofs, arriving in a chaotic wave of violence coordinated by the constant buzz of messages running mind to mind. Some leapt down, like Asha, hacking and slashing with more than human speed. Some stayed up high, like Vincente, who shot down into the mass of opponents with lethal precision. Emeline saw men standing dazed as Stonehome’s warriors gripped their minds, and even saw a couple turning on their friends.

In a matter of moments, the group of enemies lay dead or dying, but Emeline knew that there would be more. There always seemed to be more.

“King Sebastian,” Asha said, “the people of Stonehome bid you welcome. We saw a vision of the violence to come, and—”

She reeled in shock as Cora slapped her. It shouldn’t have gotten through, because Cora wasn’t fast enough for that. Emeline saw Asha bristle, and probably only the fact that Cora was still holding Sebastian’s child stopped her from striking back.

“You saw everything that would happen, and you didn’t come!” Cora said.

“You think you can strike me?” Asha demanded. Emeline moved to get between them. So did Vincente. “We came to save you!”

“And we should be grateful?” Cora demanded. “Aidan is dead because you weren’t here!”

Emeline saw Asha freeze in place. “Aidan is dead?”

“He died fighting the Master of Crows,” Emeline said. “I managed to distract him, but it wasn’t enough alone.”

She didn’t quite make that into the accusation that Cora had leveled, but it was close enough that she saw Asha wince.

We didn’t know… Asha began, and Emeline could feel genuine pain there.

You saw enough, Emeline sent back.

“There is no time,” Vincente said. “More of the enemy will be coming. King Sebastian, I wish to offer you and your friends sanctuary in Stonehome. After all that has happened, it is the least we can do.”

Emeline made a sound of disapproval. You’re right about that, Vincente.

What do you mean, Emeline?

“It is the least you can do,” she said aloud. She gestured to the city. “How many people are there still out there who’ll be killed once the Master of Crows decides that he has time to spend on it? How many will die because you’re not prepared to help them?”

“We cannot hope to save everyone,” Vincente said.

“Why not?” Sebastian put in. He gestured to the warriors who had come. “We’ve seen the power you have, and we still have troops, because the walls fell so fast that many survived. If we delay the enemy, we have a chance to evacuate the people of Ashton.”

“With respect,” Vincente said, “that is not what we came here to do.”

“No,” Emeline guessed. “You came here to save Sebastian, or was it Violet?” A horrible thought came to her then. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? You saw how powerful she could be.”

“She belongs with her own kind,” Asha said.

Emeline saw Cora glare at her. “Try to touch her and I’ll kill you,” Cora promised.

“And if she doesn’t, I will,” Emeline added.

“There is no reason to fight,” Vincente said, holding up his hands. “We are your allies.”

“Then prove it,” Sebastian said. “I am the king of this land, and I will not leave my people behind to be slaughtered. Help me to get the people of Ashton to safety in Stonehome, and I’ll come with you, along with Violet.”

Emeline didn’t pick up the silent conversation between Asha and Vincente, but she knew that there would be one.

Think of it this way, she sent over in the direction of the pair, every person who dies is another those damned crows can eat. It’s more power for the enemy.

They didn’t reply. She wasn’t even sure if they heard her.

“Very well,” Vincente said at last. “Our people will assist in the evacuation, alongside your soldiers. We will get as many people out as we can, and we will seek to hide the refugees until we get to Stonehome. I just hope that this plan doesn’t cost us all our lives.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said.

Yes, Vincente, thank you, Emeline sent.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Vincente said, and Emeline couldn’t tell which of them he was saying it to. “We still have to survive this, and with what’s coming at us, it will be anything but easy.”

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Sophia trekked on, following the silvery line of the footprints through deeper and deeper sand. They were far away from anywhere that their guides might have led them now, but still Sophia was certain that it was the right way to go.

Then she saw the golden door, and she was certain.

It sat, incongruous and alone, in the middle of the sandy waste, shining with the reflected sunlight so brightly that it almost hurt to look at it.

“We’ve done it,” Kate said, breathlessly. “We’ve found it.”

“But where is the rest of the city?” Lucas asked.

Sophia had to admit that he had a point. The idea of finding the golden door wasn’t just for its own sake. It was to find the Forgotten City, and their parents within it. If there was no city, then none of the rest of it made sense.

“I don’t know,” Sophia said, “but there must be a reason that my vision led us here. We should investigate, at least.”

She led the way down there, Sienne following at her heels. Closer to it, Sophia could see that the door was carved with symbols, three great circles set upon it, along with words that seemed to shift even as Sophia looked at them, so that she could read them with ease.

“Three shall stand, and two shall pass, but one shall fall,” Sophia read aloud. “Your heart is the key.”

“Sounds kind of ominous,” Kate said.

Sienne didn’t seem impressed by any of it. The forest cat moved close to the door, sniffing at it, then sitting down in front of it as if waiting for it to open. Sophia wished she had the forest cat’s confidence, because she couldn’t see any way to open the door at all.

“Look,” Lucas said, bending down to brush away some of the sand around his feet. “I think there’s something underneath the sand. Help me move it.”

Sophia and Kate did their best to brush aside the sand, and even though there was plenty of it, they quickly managed to clear a space in front of the door. A smooth, black surface lay beneath, so flat it could have been the surface of a lake. Three lighter circles stood in front of it, looking far too much like the ones set on the door.

“Is it stone?” Kate asked.

Sophia shook her head. “I think it’s glass.”

“Sand can become glass,” Lucas said, “with enough heat.”

“And what would give it the big circles?” Kate asked.

Lucas shook his head. “Nothing I know of.”

“Magic,” Sophia said, looking at them, then at the door. The silvery footprints of her vision led right up to it. “I don’t know how it can be, but I’m pretty sure that the Forgotten City is behind that door.”

“I thought the guides knew the way to the city,” Kate said. “That it was some old place full of treasure.”

“Perhaps they are mistaken about where the real city lies,” Lucas said. “I agree with Sophia: I think we need to go through this door. To do that, I think we need to stand on those circles.”

Sophia nodded. Everything about this place seemed to suggest it. What was the alternative? Turning back and making their way through the desert once more?

“I think we have to do it,” she said. She went to stand on one of the circles.

Lucas nodded, and then stepped onto another. They both looked over at Kate.

“If this is what we have to do to see our parents,” she said, and stepped onto the third.

A shimmering wall of light sprang up around Sophia, glittering in all the colors of the rainbow. She couldn’t see beyond it, and when she reached out with her gift, she couldn’t even feel her siblings’ presence, let alone contact them.

She wasn’t alone though, because a voice spoke, in words that seemed so cracked and dusty that they might have seen a thousand years.

“Welcome, Sophia of the House of Danse. Three travelers have come, but only two shall pass. It falls to you to decide which two will pass through the gateway, and which shall be the sacrifice to fuel its power.”

***

“Sacrifice?” Kate said as the words came to her. She pressed at the walls with her hands, but they were as solid as steel might have been. “What do you mean ‘sacrifice’?”

“Everything has a price,” the disembodied voice said. “Passing through the gate takes power, and that power must come from a life. You know this. I have seen your mind. You have studied this.”

Kate had, in a mountain cabin under a man who had preserved his life long past anything normal, and who could take the life from a flower to heal a wound. The principle of it sounded all too real. The idea that she would choose to sacrifice her brother or her sister to go through a door…

“You’re insane if I’m going to choose to kill Sophia or Lucas,” she said. She banged on the wall of light. “Let us out of here. We won’t go through your stupid door if that’s what it costs.”

“Once the process has begun, the price must be paid,” the voice said.

A disembodied voice that wanted her to kill and talked in terms of prices. “I don’t suppose you’re related to someone called Siobhan, are you?” Kate asked, then shook her head. This wasn’t the time for jokes. “Never mind.”

“Why is it so hard for you to choose?” the voice asked. “You have it in you to kill without remorse. You have murdered people in cold blood and in hot. Will one more stain on your soul cost so much?”

“They’re my brother and sister!” Kate snapped back.

“A brother you barely know,” the voice pointed out, its tone never wavering. “A sister who abandoned you at the first opportunity to go and play at being a noble. They look on you with pity now, because you don’t have real power like them. They would sacrifice you in a heartbeat. What is one of them, compared to seeing your parents again?”

Automatically, Kate’s hand went to her locket. For as long as she could remember, seeing her mother had been her only dream.

“It doesn’t have to hurt them,” the voice said, its tone so reasonable, so seductive. “It could be Lucas. It could go back to being just you and Sophia. You could be the one protecting her. Unless you want it to be her?”

Kate could feel tears falling from her eyes now. She didn’t want this. She’d never asked for this.

“You asked when you stepped into the circle,” the voice said. “Choose, Kate. Choose, or the door will take them both, and you too. Isn’t it better for just one to die?”

Kate swallowed. It was. It was better for just one of them to die, rather than all three. And it would mean that the two survivors got to meet their parents. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Wouldn’t it give some meaning to that death?

“Choose, Kate,” the voice said.

Crying while she did it. Kate chose.

***

The door spoke to Lucas with Official Ko’s voice, in a reminder of the past that made his heart ache with it.

“The Way of Virtue tells us that when a choice cannot be avoided, the wise man makes the best choice he can,” the voice said.

“You are not Official Ko,” Lucas said.

“No, I am not,” the voice admitted, “but he was wise in all things, and this is advice from your memories.”

“And you wish me to choose one of my sisters to die?” Lucas said. He folded his arms. “I will not.”

“Are they really sisters to you?” the voice asked. “They share your blood, but how much else? They were raised as commoners. Less than commoners; little more than slaves.”

“And does that make their lives worth less to you?” Lucas countered.

“It means that they do not have your potential,” the voice said. “You have all the training of your youth, along with talents for both seeing and fighting. Sophia has one of those talents, while Kate… poor, useless Kate.”

“She is not useless,” Lucas snapped back. He struck at the wall of light, but nothing happened.

“The wise man does not fight uselessly against that which cannot be defeated,” the voice said.

Lucas shook his head. “Stop doing that.”

“What have your sisters done for you?” the voice continued. “They have dragged you into a war that was not of your making. They have delayed your search for your parents, first until Kate could have a witch taken from her head, and then so that Sophia could have a child. All you ever wanted was to find your mother and father, but they have held you back.”

“I will not do this thing,” Lucas roared at the wall, all thoughts of decorum or self-control forgotten.

“If you do not, they will die anyway,” the voice said. “You will all die of thirst and heat in this place, unable to leave until you are bones. It has happened before. Or maybe one of them will choose you? Do you trust them that much, Lucas?”

“I trust them,” Lucas insisted.

“Why, when you know them so little?” the voice said. “Do you know that Sophia lied about who she was for weeks at court? That Kate has killed at another’s command. Choose, Lucas. Choose or die…”

Lucas knelt, trying to think of a way out of this problem, of a way to make things better. There was nothing, though, only the incessant hounding of the voice to choose, choose, choose…

In the end, Lucas did the only thing he could, and chose.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Sebastian stood by the edges of the city, overseeing the escape, his hand clenching and unclenching on his sword hilt. Around him, Hans’s soldiers, whatever was left of the various free companies, and the warriors of Stonehome all helped to move people along as they fled their homes.

“There are too many,” Asha said, “and they’re moving too slowly. If we stay with them, we’ll never make it to Stonehome before the enemy catches up to us.”

“Then I suggest you help me to slow them down,” Sebastian said. He could understand the woman’s concern for her own people, but when it spilled over into having no concern for anyone else, she lost a lot of his sympathy.

“Or you could get on a fast horse with your child and be in Stonehome well before they get anywhere near us,” Asha suggested.

“Violet will be fine,” Sebastian said. Ignoring her, he went over to where Cora and Emeline stood with Will’s parents. Cora had Violet on her hip, feeding her milk using a piece of cloth.

“Thank you for looking after her, Cora,” Sebastian said, taking her hand.

Cora looked up at him. Sebastian could see the grief in her eyes and wished he could do something to make it feel better for her, but there was nothing, just as there would be nothing for all the other people who had lost those they loved thanks to the Master of Crows’ forces.

“I know there’s nobody Sophia would trust to look after her as much as you,” he continued. “Can you do that for me?”

Cora nodded. “She’ll be safe.”

“We’ll get her to Stonehome,” Emeline promised, and Sebastian believed her. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?”

“I’ll follow as soon as I can,” Sebastian promised. “I couldn’t live with myself if I just abandoned the people I’m supposed to rule.”

“Be safe,” Emeline said.

Sebastian nodded, but didn’t promise anything. There were some promises he couldn’t make. Especially since the bulk of the New Army seemed to be getting closer.

Hans marched up. “My men are doing their best to hold the enemy back, Your Majesty, but we’re being pushed back step by step. If people are going, they need to leave now.”

“I understand,” Sebastian said. He turned to the people fleeing the city. “Follow the people from Stonehome. They’ll get you to safety. Help those who can’t move as well, and don’t stop!”

He looked over to the soldiers who were helping people to get out of the city. “You men, with me. We need to buy them every moment we can to escape.”

Hans and Will fell into step beside him, soldiers gathering around them as they marched forward to hold a line among the streets of the city.

“Are you sure about this?” Will asked Sebastian. “No one would blame you if you left with the others.”

“I’d blame me,” Sebastian said. “And Sophia would understand. We just need to hold long enough to get them a head start.”

“We will,” Hans said. “My men will stand.”

Will nodded. “I’ve had all the cannons we have left set up on this route. The forces holding the enemy further in will withdraw here, and then… well, I guess we hold as long as we can.”

Sebastian nodded. “Do it, give the signal for them to pull back.”

Will took out a trumpet and blew a short blast of notes. More trumpets answered from within the city, and then there were only the moments left to wait as the enemy’s forces came on.

Their people came first, most running flat out as they strove to keep ahead of the enemy who followed them. Some of Hans’s men leapfrogged one another, firing muskets and bows, then falling back behind the next group to reload. Stonehome’s warriors darted forward and back like barracudas storming through a shoal of fish.

They came level with the line Sebastian had set in place, and he spread his arms.

“Hold!” he shouted. “Form up!”

Some kept running, but far more did as Sebastian ordered, turning and standing even though most of them must have already seen more death than anyone should have to. Plenty of them looked over at him as if wondering what he was still doing there, and Sebastian guessed that his presence was a part of what was keeping them in place.

Then the enemy came into view and Sebastian had to remind himself that they needed to do this; that they were all that stood between the people fleeing the city and certain death.

“Hold,” Sebastian called out to the others. “Hold!”

The enemy ran on, and Sebastian saw soldiers from their own side who had been too slow to flee the fighting cut down. There was nothing he could do except watch, because any breach in their line now would let the enemy through. The New Army came closer and closer, and Sebastian drew his sword, ready for what would come next. He lifted it.

“Ready! Fire!”

The last of their cannon roared, filling the streets with grapeshot, and the first wave of the New Army went down.

“Musket fire, staggered shots!” Sebastian ordered. The soldiers with him started to fire, the front rank shooting and then dropping back to reload while the next rank fired. More of the enemy went down, and more, but they kept coming.

The first reached their ranks, and Stonehome’s warriors cut them down. More came forward, and Sebastian jumped into the fight as a soldier with a bayonet came at him. He chopped the strike aside, then cut back, pushing the man away.

The fight slowed down as more of the New Army piled in behind the first ranks, pushing and shoving, fighting to get through. The confined space of the streets limited the number that could get through, and meant that the main task for Sebastian was to keep swinging his sword, making each stroke count. Every space he cut in the ranks of the enemy brought a fresh foe, his arm quickly growing tired with the effort.

Around him, men and women fought with all the ferocity that they could summon, the warriors from Stonehome moving with speed and grace as they cut down the enemy, the soldiers of Ishjemme and Ashton seeming almost mechanical by comparison. It didn’t matter, so long as they kept fighting, and held the line.

“Everyone down!” Will shouted, and Sebastian threw himself flat, in time for the cannons behind them to roar again. More of the enemy were scythed down, and for a few seconds, there was clear space in front of them.

Sebastian risked a glance back. The refugees were further away now, moving with the kind of speed that only came from fear. Even so, they had to keep holding. They had to buy them all the time they could.

The enemy kept coming. Sebastian saw people on his side falling now, one of Stonehome’s people cut down by a half a dozen sword blows, an Ishjemme warrior charging into the midst of the enemy and laying about him with an axe until hands dragged him down.

“We have to pull back,” Asha said, darting past Sebastian to slice down a pair of enemies as effortlessly as breathing. “To stay longer is to die.”

“And if we run, they’ll cut us down while we do it,” Sebastian said.

Asha nodded, and seemed to be in silent communication with the others from Stonehome. Faces around Sebastian creased in concentration, and in that instant, the world around them seemed to freeze. The soldiers advancing on them slowed to a crawl, drifting into immobility.

“Move back now,” Asha said, starting to back away from the lines. “Quickly, we will not be able to hold this for long.”

Sebastian started to move away, the others \ retreating as quickly as they could. He took a final look at Ashton, silently saying goodbye to the city in which he’d grown up. He was still looking back there when he saw the tall figure moving through the stationary ranks of his men, the soldiers returning to mobility as he passed them.

“Run,” Asha said. “There is nothing more we can do.”

She made good on her own instruction, sprinting off to join the others while the warriors of Stonehome went with her.

“It’s not enough time,” Sebastian said to Will and Hans. “We have to hold longer, or they’ll catch the stragglers before they get near Stonehome.”

“Staying now is suicide,” Will said.

“I know,” Sebastian replied, “but I have to. I can’t let my people be killed.”

Will nodded. “I understand. Will you do something for me, Sebastian?”

“Anything,” Sebastian assured him. If they were going to die next to one another, this wasn’t the time to hold back.

“Tell Kate that I love her.”

Sebastian frowned in confusion, and then Will hit him, hard. Hard enough that Sebastian’s legs went from under him and the world swam. He tried to struggle back to his feet, tried to face the fight and save his people, but he couldn’t do it.

“You men, get your king out of here and protect the convoy!” he heard Will order, and then strong hands were dragging him back, while at least half the men of Ashton continued to hold.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Will stood with the last of the cannons watching the advance of the Master of Crows and his men. A glance back told him that the soldiers dragging Sebastian away were already well clear of the fight. That was good. At least one of them would have the chance to survive.

“You know that you could go with him?” Hans said. “We don’t both have to die.”

“Who said anything about dying?” Will countered. “We’ll hold as long as we can, and then pull back when there’s space.”

Hans shook his head. “There’s no need to pretend with me, Will. We both know how this ends, but it doesn’t need to be both of us.”

It was tempting. Will wanted nothing more than to get back to Kate safely, to see her face again and for everything to be peaceful. He wanted it so much that he almost turned and ran. The problem with that was simple: if he ran, everyone with him would run too, and then the New Army would overwhelm them.

The enemy came forward, and now Will was fighting again. He barely blocked a sword blow, stabbing out in return. He pushed an enemy back, then parried a stroke aimed at Hans’s head. The New Army’s men pulled back like waves retreating from the shore, but Will had no doubt that they would be back again all too soon.

“That was just a foray,” Hans said. “They were hoping that with half our men gone we would fall without resistance. The trouble is, we will fall with the next serious push. Especially if he joins the charge.”

He nodded to the Master of Crows.

“Then we need to stop him,” Will said.

“With respect, Will, I don’t think either of us will be outfencing a man like that.”

Will nodded. Perhaps Kate could have done it, or Lucas, but he’d never been the finest swordsman in Lord Cranston’s regiment. He’d been an artillerist, and the son of a blacksmith. Neither of those things gave him a chance of defeating the massed ranks of the New Army.

Or did it…

“Hans, I need you to hold them at a distance for a couple of minutes,” Will said. “I have an idea.”

“Musket fire!” Hans ordered. “Volleys with everything we have!”

The weapons started to fire around Will, drawing the enemy into volleys in return and filling the air with smoke. That was probably a bonus, because it meant there was a chance the Master of Crows wouldn’t see what was happening until it was too late.

“What are you planning?” Hans asked.

“I’m going to blow up the cannon,” Will said. He took a chisel and a hammer, hitting hard into the hot weapon, forcing the kind of cracks that his father would have tutted over, wondering how to repair them. Will winced at the thought of his father, but if he did this right, maybe they’d be getting out of there after all.

Maybe he would see Kate again.

The muskets kept most of the New Army back, engaged in the long-range duel, but some came forward. One came at Will, and he kicked the man back for Hans to cut down. He saw men fighting at close quarters now, pushing and cutting, giving no ground.

“Whatever you’re doing, I suggest you do it quickly,” Hans said.

Will pushed to complete his work, packing the cannon with too much black powder, then blocking it with too much wadding. He pushed a cannonball into it, but only as one more source of shrapnel when the whole thing went up. He set a long wick to the cannon, and then lit it with flint and steel.

“Pull back!” Will yelled. “Hurry!”

The men around him ran back through the streets, seeking another place to stand further back. Will ran with them, hoping that they would be far enough away by the time the cannon went up. He ducked behind a wall, peeking over to see how close the enemy were getting. They were charging into the space he’d left, and he felt a wave of satisfaction, because he’d judged it right: they would be level with the cannon by the time it went off. The Master of Crows was at their head, and Will hoped against hope that he would be caught in the blast; that this would end.

Then the fuse went out.

“No!” Will said, banging his fist against the wall in frustration. They’d given up the most defensible position there for this. He’d risked everything. This couldn’t fail.

He wouldn’t let it.

Without hesitating, he ran forward, ignoring the musket balls that flew around him. He ran for the cannon, head down, determined not to stop for anything. A man got in his way and Will cut him down. Another was there and Will dodged past without slowing. If he could reach the fuse, he could still relight it.

Then the Master of Crows was there, those dead black eyes staring at him. Will didn’t have the skills to fight him, but if he could just get past…

The Master of Crows lifted a sword and stabbed him through the chest.

“Brave,” he said, “but foolish.”

Agony blossomed through Will’s chest as the Master of Crows pulled his sword out. His legs gave way, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. His sword clattered from his fingers, but it wasn’t his sword that Will was interested in. He clutched his flint and steel tightly, clawing his way forward.

More pain shot through him as the Master of Crows stabbed him in the back.

“You might as well be still,” he said, evenly. “My first blow pierced your left lung, while if I am any judge, my second has severed one of the blood vessels leading from it. You will be dead in less than a minute.”

Will rolled to his back, trying to form words.

“Ah yes, the boy who married Kate Danse. I am sure it will leave her quite heartbroken,” the Master of Crows said. “Tell me, do you have any last words of love for her, any final message? I’m sure it will distract her perfectly when I go to kill her. Nothing? No? Well, I will leave you to your death then. I have a child to retrieve, and many others to kill before the day is out.”

He turned away from Will, and Will forced himself to crawl again, heading for the cannon, not letting the pain stop him. It felt as though his heart was being sheared in two, and Will couldn’t tell if it was the sword blow, or the fact that he would never see Kate again.

Thoughts of her were what gave him the strength to keep going. Kate wouldn’t stop just because she was hurt. She wouldn’t let someone like the Master of Crows win, whatever it took. She would do whatever she needed to do to make sure that those fleeing were safe.

What it took was an effort that strained every muscle Will had. His body didn’t want to do what he needed it to now. Every inch forward was a battle with muscles that didn’t have enough strength left, a body that couldn’t take a breath without blood bubbling up in Will’s throat.

He thought of what this would do to Kate. She had it in her to be so happy and so vibrant, so free and so generous, but Will knew about the darkness in her too, the anger and the need for a fight. He’d heard what she’d done at the House of the Unclaimed, and he found himself sending up a silent prayer to any god who was listening:

Please don’t let this destroy her.

He felt the metal of the cannon underneath his hands, clambering up it the way a drowning man might pull himself from the water. Will fell back once, gathered his strength, and pulled himself up again. He climbed toward the firing hole of the cannon, poising himself above it with his flint and steel. There were men all around him now, the ranks of the New Army close in as they passed, ignoring him since he was already all but dead.

“Master of Crows!” he managed, with all the breath he had left. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have given the man any warning, but the truth was that Will wanted to see the look in those eyes when he did this…

The Master of Crows turned to him, and Will saw the shock in his face.

I love you Kate, Will thought, and struck sparks from the flint and steel. The last thing Will saw was the Master of Crows running for cover with more than human speed, and then sound and noise and steel consumed everything.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Hans felt the explosion rattling down to the depths of his bones. The smoke and the fire from it bursting up into the sky in a way that seemed to fill the streets before him. Walls tumbled in under the strain, rock dust and rubble adding to the confusion, so that for several seconds, it was impossible to see anything.

“Well done, Will,” Hans said, raising his sword in salute. Will had done more damage in less than a minute than his men could have done in twenty or more. Yet, as the smoke started to clear, he realized that Will had done even more than that: he’d blocked the way, so that the enemy would have to find a new route around as they left the city.

He’d bought Hans and his men a chance to withdraw.

“Pull back!” Hans ordered. “Retreat in order, and be ready to stand as they follow. Hurry!”

His men didn’t need to be told twice. They pulled back at the kind of loping run they could maintain for hours. Hans snatched up a musket and made to follow them, seeing the tall figure of the Master of Crows emerging from the wreckage even as he did it.

“Too much to hope that he’d be dead,” Hans muttered, and ran to join his men.

He hurried with them, making the best ground that they could from the city. In the distance, he could see several different groups of refugees, each heading in a different direction. It seemed that not everyone believed in Sebastian’s promise of safety in Stonehome. Several seemed to have noble carriages at their heart.

“Idiots,” Hans said, but there was nothing he could do to help any of them now. All he could do was to try to catch up with the main group, slowing the enemy down as much as possible as he went.

He and the others ran and kept running, leaving Ashton behind along the road westward. They reached a village that seemed like the shell of one rather than a living, breathing place, any inhabitants long fled in the face of what was coming.

“I want traps here,” Hans said. “If they’re worrying about tripwires and stakes, they won’t chase us as quickly as they could.”

His men had to be exhausted by now, but even so they hurried to obey the order. Tripwires would stop the Master of Crows from sending horsemen, at least.

“Do you want an ambush set?” one of the men who’d come from Lord Cranston’s men asked.

Hans shook his head. “Ambushes can work against the New Army if you avoid being spotted by the crows, but here?” He gestured upward, to where several of the birds were already circling them. Arrows flashed out to bring some of them down, but more came, and more, flying high out of reach. “Looks as though we’re the center of attention.”

“Better us than the little girl,” the soldier who’d spoken before said.

“That’s true,” Hans said. “And the more firmly we can fix the Master of Crows’ eyes on us, the less attention he has for the others. Time to move.”

He led the way from the village, continuing along the road leading west until they reached a wooded area. Looking around, Hans saw no crows in the trees, none daring to get close enough to watch them.

“This is where we start setting ambushes,” he said.

“Ambushes?” one of his men called out. “More than one, sir?”

Hans nodded. “The first group hits and runs, leading them into the second group, who leads them into traps, or broken ground, which is when the third group hits them. We leapfrog, and we keep going, slowing them down in space where his crows have to get close in order to spot us. Form up! Small groups, and get ready!”

“And what will you be doing, sir?” a man called out.

Hans smiled grimly. “I’ll be providing the first distraction.”

His men spread out as he’d ordered. They had to know what a desperate move this was, and how poor their odds of surviving were, yet every moment they delayed the enemy here was another moment Sebastian and the others had to get to safety. Hans saw a crow in the trees and shot it, producing a shower of feathers.

He ordered his men to spread out, and then sat down in the middle of the road. The Master of Crows’ ability to see through the creatures’ eyes was a big advantage, but it wasn’t without its limits. The man’s attention would dictate what he saw, so the key was to direct that attention exactly where it was least useful.

“Directly at me,” Hans said, as he waited.

The enemy came forward, and they must have found horses from somewhere, because the Master of Crows was riding at their head. He looked less like anything normal that way, his greatcoat billowing behind him as he rode, his birds following him in a flock that seemed more like a storm cloud.

Hans lifted his weapon and shot at him.

The shot went wide, taking one of the men next to the general, but at least it got him charging in. At least it meant that when the ambush hit them, the Master of Crows’ attention was completely on Hans.

A dozen or more men went down in the first volley of shots, and then Hans’s men were out of their hiding places, charging forward at the enemy and dragging more from the saddle.

“Back!” Hans yelled. “Retreat!”

He and the others sprinted back from the encounter, heading for the next ambush. They ran past another group of his men, settled into place further down the track, and started to load their weapons even as the enemy charged on.

The new group hit them just as hard as the first, blades and shot slamming into flesh.

“Back!” Hans ordered again, and the second ambush ran, moving past him and his group, while they leveled their muskets and sent out a second volley. Then it was time to run again, moving back to the next ambush, and the next.

“Enough of this!” the Master of Crows roared, and the words carried through the forest, croaked by a thousand crows, ten thousand. They clustered in the trees, staring down at Hans in numbers too great to shoot down, and he knew that they would be staring down at every one of his men too.

Then they attacked.

They plunged down at him, swarming him with wings buffeting, beaks and claws ripping. They were everywhere, pecking at his hands, his face, his body. Around him, Hans heard men crying out in pain, and he knew that the same thing must be happening to them, the crows feasting on them as much as attacking, giving their master power even as they defeated his enemies for him.

If Hans did nothing, they were all going to die.

He swung his sword blindly at the birds, feeling it connect with some of them, but it made no difference. They kept coming, black feathers seeming to fill the world around him. How much power was it costing the Master of Crows to do this? How much attention?

Attention; that was the key.

Brushing the birds away from his face, Hans glimpsed the Master of Crows ahead, dismounted from his horse and with his arms spread wide as he worked whatever this magic was. Fighting through the pain, gripping his sword tightly, Hans charged.

“For Ishjemme!” he yelled as he ran forward. The birds fell away from him as he did it, and he could only hope that they were doing the same for the rest of his men, giving them some brief moment in which to pull back, regroup, or just run.

Hans charged at the Master of Crows, and his opponent’s blade was there to meet him, the two weapons meeting with a ring of steel on steel.

“Another obstacle,” the Master of Crows said. “Ready to die like your brother and sister?”

Hans cut at him, then cut again. He was one of the finest swordsmen in Ishjemme. Probably only Jan was better, and yet the Master of Crows parried every attack with ease. Blood flowed from Hans’s claw wounds, dripping into his eyes, making it hard to see. Hans blinked, and the Master of Crows struck.

He parried the first few blows on instinct, giving ground. Defense was his only option. He’d told Will the truth when he’d said there was no way either of them could win against a man like this.

“You’ll die soon,” the Master of Crows assured him.

Hans smiled back. “Everyone dies, but every moment I live, my men and the people of Ashton are getting further from you.”

“Then die!” the Master of Crows snapped. He redoubled his attack, his blade seeming to be everywhere at once. It slipped past Hans’s defenses, catching him in the arm, the leg, the shoulder.

Hans ignored the pain. Every step was another moment the others had to run in. Every breath was a kind of victory in itself. By now, his men would already be fleeing the forest. That was—

Pain shot through him, and Hans looked down at the length of steel sticking out of his chest. He thought of Ulf and Freya, wondering if they’d found a good spot to hunt in whatever came next. He thought of his father, and hoped that he’d done enough…

“What are you smiling at?” the Master of Crows demanded.

“Victory,” Hans managed, as the darkness came up to claim him.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Rika walked at the head of a procession of her people, leading the way up toward Ishjemme’s castle. It was her home, and the place where she felt safest, but even so, she felt a little afraid. There was nothing to stop those loyal to Endi from shooting down from the walls at them; nothing to stop them from adding more killing to all that had gone before.

“Stand firm, little sister,” Jan said. “People are watching you.”

Rika nodded, forcing herself to be brave. She stood at the head of the crowd who had come with her, waiting before the doors to the castle, looking up to see if anyone was watching.

“This is the home of my family,” she called out, “and a place of welcome for the people of Ishjemme. Open the gate.”

She waited, and waited, putting her hands on her hips and tapping her foot like a mother waiting for a toddler to do as they were told. Finally, slowly, the gates started to swing open.

The people around Rika poured in and she went with them, leading the way to the great hall. She saw guards along the way stepping back cautiously or throwing down their weapons, but Rika mostly ignored them. When she reached the great hall, people were already thronging in it, obviously waiting to see what would happen next. The whole place had the feeling of expectation to it, but there was also a sense that too much remained unsettled.

Rika went to stand by the duke’s seat, turning to Jan.

“You’re older than I am, Jan, and you were the one who beat Endi. You should be duke.”

To her surprise, Jan shook his head.

“Sophia will decide, because she’s our queen. Until she does, I think the people would rather have you rule.”

“But—” Rika began.

“I would rather have you rule too,” Jan said. “I might have beaten Endi in a fight, but you stood up to him even when you couldn’t fight him. You were prepared to give yourself for the people. No one could ask more of a ruler.”

Rika looked around at the people there. None of them seemed to be contradicting Jan, or pointing out any of the ways in which she felt she would make a terrible ruler. Not knowing what else to do, she settled herself into the chair that had been her father’s.

The cheer as she did echoed through the hall.

Rika waited until it died down before she spoke. “There are a lot of things to do here,” she said, “and a lot of wounds to heal. I don’t know if I know how to do all of it, but I know what I want first. My brother Oli was going to confront Endi. I want him back, now, please.”

It was probably too polite a way for a ruler to put it, but Rika couldn’t bring herself to shout or demand the way Endi might have done. If Oli was hurt, though… she wasn’t sure what she would do then.

Guards ran off to find him, and Rika thought about all the other things that would need to be done there.

“Too many people have been killed,” she said. “It needs to stop. If people have been put in the cells for standing up to Endi, they need to be released. If they’ve been hurt, I want physikers found to help them. If they’ve been killed…” Rika felt the anguish of that thought pushing through her. Maybe it wasn’t what leaders should do, but she couldn’t help it, and she hoped it would make her a better leader in some ways, because a ruler should have compassion for her people, shouldn’t she? “If they’ve been killed, we’ll do what we can to help their families.”

“What about the people who killed them?” a woman called out. “They killed my husband! They should die for that!”

Voices rose up in support, the anger palpable.

“She’s right! My brother was in the crowd when they charged! Someone should hang for that!”

“My cousin was butchered in the night!”

Rika stood up, trying to stay calm. “My father was killed,” she said, not shouting, but still loud enough that people could hear us. “Does anyone know of a spell or a charm that can bring him back? Is there some ritual where all this blood will raise him from the dead?”

She looked around, taking in the people still muttering in their anger.

“I know you’re angry,” Rika said. “I’m angry too, and sad. Too many people have died and been hurt. My own brother locked me up, and tried to have me executed. Can you imagine how much that hurts?”

“And what are you going to do about it?” a man at the back yelled.

Rika had been hoping to put this moment off until she’d had more time to think about it. She’d hoped that, if she left it long enough, an answer would come to her that would make this better. Maybe Sophia would even come back and take the decision out of her hands. Looking around at the crowd, Rika could see that wouldn’t work. The people there wanted to see justice done, or they wanted vengeance; Rika wasn’t sure which.

“Bring Endi here,” she said with a sigh.

They dragged her brother forward, the bruises on his face from Jan’s fists already rising. It made Rika’s heart ache to see him like that, but it made it hurt even more to think about all the things that he’d done, and about what he’d been about to do to her.

It hurt to think about what she might have to do to him in return.

“So, Rika,” he said as he came to stand before the throne. “What are you going to do now? Are you going to kill me?”

He made a joke out of it, as if they all knew that Rika was too soft and too gentle to ever contemplate having her own brother killed. As if he knew, in spite of all that he’d done, that he would get away with this.

“I should, Endi,” she said. “After everything you did, I should.”

“It would make your little coup complete,” Endi said. “It would—”

“Be quiet,” Rika snapped back, raising her already hoarse voice so that her throat hurt. Her brother fell silent, a look of shock on his face. “Since you got back, everyone’s had to listen to what you say. I tried to tell you that what you were doing was wrong, and you didn’t listen. Oli tried to persuade you, and you ignored him. People tried to stand against you, and you had them killed, Endi. So now you’ll stand there and you’ll listen to me, and you can talk when I’m done.”

Rika wasn’t sure where she found the strength to do all this, but she found it. She kept going before she lost her nerve.

“I don’t know if you ordered Father’s death, if you knew, or if you just gave away so many secrets to the woman who had him killed that it was almost the same thing. I don’t care which it was. Just as I don’t care about your nonsense about making Ishjemme strong, and having to murder people to keep it that way. You don’t make a land strong by attacking the people who live there.”

Rika shook her head, blinking back tears.

“Do you know the worst part?” she said. “The worst part is that I think that you actually believed that you were doing the right thing. That you thought turning into a tyrant was what Father would have done. Well, what would Father have done with you? Do you regret any of it, Endi? Do you regret a single thing?”

Endi stood there for several seconds, and then murmured something.

“Say it so people can hear, Endi,” Rika said. “You owe them that. You owe them honesty.”

“I regret trying to hurt you,” Endi said, the sadness coming through in every word. “And Oli, and even Jan. I never wanted to hurt family. I never wanted Father to die, and I didn’t know, but you’re right, it doesn’t make a difference. I betrayed Ishjemme. I did it to try to save it, but I betrayed it.”

Rika shook her head. “It’s not enough, Endi. You should be sorry for all the other people who died because of you. I’ll ask again: what would Father do with you?”

Endi stood tall. “He had murderers executed. Traitors too. Do that, if you want.”

Rika’s hands closed on the arms of the duke’s seat… the duchess’s seat now. This was the moment when she found out if she had what it took to rule. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure if she did. Could she really order her brother killed, as he’d commanded her death?

Rika already knew the answer to that.

“I’m not Father,” Rika said, “and I’m not you, so I’m not going to have you executed, Endi.”

She could hear the murmurs of discontent running through the crowd.

“No!” she said. “I’m not going to have him killed, and I’m not going to have the ones who followed him killed either. That’s the easy option, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the right one.”

She stood up, touching the scar on her face. “I’ve suffered as much as anyone thanks to my brother,” Rika said. “But if we soak Ishjemme in blood, what then? It makes us no better than them.”

“So you’re going to let him get away with it?” a man at the back demanded.

Rika shook her head. “No. I’m going to take away the thing he loves most.” Rika gestured to the hall. “Ishjemme, Endi. You say you acted for it? Well, now, you don’t get to see it again. You have one week in which to gather what you can and leave Ishjemme. All the men who killed on your behalf are to leave as well. You will be given supplies, and may take what’s yours, but if you are found here after that, your life will be forfeit.”

She moved forward, wrapping him in the tightest hug she could manage.

“As a sister, I love you,” Rika said. “But as a ruler… my brother is dead.”

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Endi walked to the docks in stunned silence, still unable to believe what his sister had done to him. She could have, should have, sentenced him to death. That would have been a kinder end to things in a lot of ways. More than that, it would have told Endi that he was right, would have shown everyone who saw her hand the sentence down that Rika was doing nothing more than stealing power for herself.

Instead, Endi had this slow walk to the docks, and the exile that waited beyond them.

He had a pack of possessions upon his back, although not enough to weigh very much. A few clothes, enough money to keep him for a while or let him buy into a business in some foreign land, his sword, and very little else. Perhaps he could have taken the week Rika had offered him, but that felt somehow more painful than this quick farewell, swift and final, with no turning back.

“I did it for Ishjemme,” he whispered to himself, but it felt like a half-truth at best now. He’d done as much of it for himself as for the land where he’d grown up; had taken the power because it was there to take.

There would be men who had served him at the docks, but for now, Endi walked alone. He did so in spite of the crowds of people who lined the streets, there to watch his punishment.

They didn’t jeer. He’d expected jeering. Frankly, he’d expected to have things thrown at him as he passed. Instead, Endi’s walk through the tree-lined spaces of Ishjemme felt like a funeral, with him the one traveling to his rest.

“Say something,” he said to the watching crowd. “Curse me! Threaten me! You know I deserve it!”

It would make this easier if they did. It would remind him that he’d done his best in the face of a hate-filled people. Instead, they stood there as silent as statues, the only sound the click of Endi’s steps as he made his way down to the docks.

There were people he knew in the crowd, of course. In a place the size of Ishjemme, it was impossible for there not to be. He recognized the faces of people he’d laughed and spent time with, given commands to, received reports from. Not one of them reacted to his passage, as if they had all decided that it was the only way to keep the wounds he’d caused from getting worse.

He had caused wounds in Ishjemme. Endi hadn’t meant to, but he had; he could see that now. He’d thought that he could make things better, and instead, he’d only created a weight of pain that could only be held back through this silence. Men and women turned their faces from him as he passed now, as if even looking on him was too much to bear.

He reached the docks, where a ship stood waiting with black sails, and a flag devoid of devices. No crest of the Skyddar clan was there, no colors of Ishjemme. It proclaimed his exile as clearly as Rika had in the castle’s great hall.

She stood there with Jan and Oli by the docks, watching the proceedings, as silent and as still as any of the rest of them. Despite that, Endi walked over to them. He even bowed his head to Rika as his duchess.

“You don’t need to do that, Endi,” she said.

“I do,” he assured her.

Rika shook her head. “You aren’t a subject of Ishjemme anymore. You shouldn’t bow to me.”

Those words hurt the way a knife through the chest might have. Endi swallowed back the hurt, determined not to let it show.

“Even so, it will show anyone who supported me that I’ve accepted your rule,” he said. “It will help keep the peace, I hope.”

He did hope it. He didn’t want any more violence on Ishjemme. There had been more than enough for now; for a lifetime.

Rika hugged him, and this was a warmer hug than the one in the great hall.

“I lied before when I said you’d be dead to me,” she said.

“I love you, little sister,” Endi said.

“I love you too. I wish that changed any of this.”

Endi nodded. He understood. He went to stand in front of Jan.

“I have nothing to say to you, Endi,” Jan said, his voice hard.

“I guessed you wouldn’t,” Endi said, “but I have things to say to you, and if I’m never to see you again, I’d better say them.”

“I guess so,” Jan said with a shrug.

“You’ll need to be strong, for Rika and for Ishjemme,” Endi said. “I did things for Ishjemme and for our safety that… well, that I wish I hadn’t, but I couldn’t see another way. Rika is a lot stronger than I gave her credit for, but she’ll need a fine swordsman by her side.”

Jan gave another shrug.

“I’m proud of who you became, Jan,” Endi said. “Maybe if I’d spent a little more time wanting to be a hero, things wouldn’t have come to this.”

“But they did,” Jan said. Even so, he held out his hand for Endi to clasp briefly. His knuckles were still raw with the blows he’d rained down on Endi’s skull.

Endi went to stand in front of Oli.

“I’m sorry,” Endi said simply.

Oli smiled sadly, then held out something: a book, old and cracked, with yellowing pages.

“What’s this?” Endi asked.

“The story of Johan Talltrees,” Oli replied. “They say that he was cast out when he was young, and he sailed the world, seeking out new lands, building places that people could call home.”

“There aren’t so many new lands to find these days,” Endi said.

Oli tilted his head to one side. “I suppose all lands are new when you haven’t been there before. Goodbye, Endi.”

“Goodbye, Oli.”

It took all the strength Endi had to force himself up the ship’s gangplank, standing on the deck and looking back at his home. No, at what had been his home. Endi tried to remind himself of that, although even as he did it, he knew that home would always be here, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

“The men are aboard,” one of his former guards said. “Those who are still loyal to you. What now?”

What now indeed. Endi didn’t have a good answer to it. A part of him wanted to climb the mast and fling himself off it, because at least that would bring a swift end to this, rather than leaving him with a whole lifetime in which to carry around his regrets. If not the mast, then he could use his knife just as easily. He took it out now, testing the edge against his thumb and wincing.

“My lord?” the man said.

Blood would be one penance, but there were others. If Endi was going to start a new life, then he might as well leave behind all trace of the old.

“Bring water and soap,” he said.

To his credit, the soldier didn’t argue, just hurried off to obey the order. Endi knelt on the deck, waiting in silence until it arrived, and once he did, he began to lather it together, applying it to his head in a great, foamy mass.

Shaving his shock of dark hair with a belt knife like this would have been hard enough in his rooms in the castle, with a mirror and whatever help he needed. Here, like this, it meant that Endi nicked his skin with every other stroke, until the water ran red. He kept going, hacking away his hair and then scraping his scalp smooth, not stopping until he could only feel the smoothness of his skin under his hands.

Endi stood. “From this day, Endi Skyddar is no more. I am Endi Nameless, Endi the Traitor.”

“Yes, my lord,” the soldier said.

Endi shook his newly shaven head. “I’m no one’s lord now.”

He stood, standing at the rail. Some of the crowd had started to drift away, but his siblings were still there. Endi lifted a hand in farewell, and was surprised to see that all three, even Jan, waved back.

He had to turn away so that the tears he could feel building did not unman him. So that he didn’t run back to his sister and beg her to condemn him, throw him in a cell for the rest of his life, if only he could stay.

“Take us out of here,” he said, his voice catching.

“Where?” the soldier asked.

Endi looked at the book Oli had given him. “Wherever we can find.”

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Sebastian’s horse jolted as it crossed the moor, heading toward the mist that was thick in the distance. It wasn’t his horse, just the one that they’d put him on when they’d knocked him out, but even so it had carried him this far. Vincente and Asha walked on either side, as if making sure that he didn’t fall off his mount.

“Just a little bit further,” he said to the creature.

They were the words that kept them all going, moving in the long line that stretched out almost as far as Sebastian could see now. Just a little further and they would be safe. Just a little further, and the New Army wouldn’t be able to catch them. Just a little further, and they would reach Stonehome.

How far had those words carried them now? One look at the faces of the people around him told Sebastian that it was too far. The people trudging across the moor looked haggard and hungry, tired in a way that only came when there was truly no time to risk resting. Even as Sebastian watched, a small group broke away, heading north rather than continuing west.

“They’re making for the coast,” Vincente said with the certainty of a man who could read their minds. He was leaning on a long musket now as he walked, using it the way another man might use a stick. “They do not think that you can protect them.”

“And could I?” Sebastian replied.

“If we make it to Stonehome, we will be safe.”

The unspoken part of that loomed large in Sebastian’s mind. They had to hurry, because the New Army was slowly catching them up. The sounds of harrying battle in the distance, as their rearguard sought to slow the enemy, were no longer so distant. Every extra mile was another in which their foes might catch them.

Even now, a part of Sebastian wondered if he might have been able to delay things more if he’d stayed, if he might still be able to slow things down by taking a force and attacking the New Army.

“Doing so will not slow them,” Asha said, obviously not caring that it was rude to look into his thoughts like that, “and in any case, we are almost there.”

“If I’d stayed, I might have been able to help Will and Hans,” Sebastian said.

Asha shook her head. “All you could have done was die beside them. You could not have saved either of them.”

“Is that meant to make me feel better?” Sebastian asked. “Because it really doesn’t.”

“I am not responsible for your feelings,” Asha said, and walked down the line to hurry people along.

“Asha is not good with people,” Vincente said, “but she has a point. You are doing more good here than you could have by dying. This way, at least, your daughter will have a father.”

That thought made Sebastian sit up in the saddle, looking out for the spot where Cora and Emeline walked. Cora still held little Violet, and hadn’t let go of her for more than a few moments that Sebastian had seen. Sebastian might have gone over to take Violet and hold her, but he could see how much looking after her was doing for Cora in her grief, and in any case, he doubted that there was anywhere in the kingdom that she would have been safer right then.

“We will all be safe when we get to Stonehome,” Vincente said.

“You do it as well?” Sebastian said.

“In Stonehome, people do not normally intrude, but if you do not shield your thoughts, they assume that they are open deliberately.”

Sebastian looked along the line. “And there are a lot of frightened people here who have no way to do that, and who probably won’t react well if they think that everything they think and feel is being watched.”

“True,” Vincente said. “I will try to persuade my people to act with more restraint.”

“And Asha will agree?” Sebastian asked.

“I said ‘try’ for a reason.”

Sebastian let that go, because there were more important things now than arguing over how people would fit in together; things like getting to Stonehome in the first place. They were starting to enter the mists now, their thick folds spreading over the line of people like a blanket.

“I have sent a message ahead,” Vincente said. “Give it a second.”

The mist faded as if burned away by the sun. It gave Sebastian his first view of Stonehome ahead.

It was smaller than he’d thought, the size of a village or perhaps a small town rather than a city. Compared to Ashton, it was barely there at all, and as for defenses, the best it seemed to boast was a low stone wall with a ditch running around the main body of the settlement. It didn’t look like enough to hold back even a small body of soldiers, let alone the full might of the New Army.

Sebastian could hear that thought echoed in the sounds of disbelief that echoed up and down the line.

“Many people are considering running,” Vincente said. “You must tell them that they will be safe within, or you will lose them.”

“Will we be safe inside?” Sebastian asked.

Vincente nodded. “Stonehome is stronger than any other place in this kingdom. It will not fall.”

He sounded so confident about it, and the truth was that Sebastian couldn’t see any option for their long line of refugees.

“Listen to me!” he called out to the people there. “Stonehome might not look like a fortress, but it will be a safe place for us. For all of us. It stood up to my mother’s best efforts to bring it down for years. On the moors, you stand no chance. Within its walls, we can survive.”

It was enough to keep the line moving, and Sebastian hurried along it to the entrance to the settlement. When Cora and Emeline reached it with Violet, he dared to breathe a sigh of relief.

“We’ll take her to our home,” Emeline said. “She’ll be safe there, and you’re welcome to stay.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian replied. “Both of you.”

Sebastian watched them go, and kept watching people file into the settlement’s boundaries. They stood there, not knowing what else to do, as more came, and more. Their remaining soldiers followed, pulling back with the exhausted look of men who had fought for too long. Several were wounded, helped along by their comrades.

“Is that everyone?” Sebastian asked one of the last. He nodded mutely.

“It doesn’t matter if there are more,” Asha said, coming to stand by the perimeter. “There is no more time. Look.”

She pointed, and Sebastian saw the advancing mass of the army following them, fast horses first, but with a bigger body behind it that promised almost the full force that had come at Ashton. Compared to that, Stonehome seemed tiny.

“Are you sure this place can hold?” Sebastian asked.

Asha laughed, gesturing to a stone circle at the heart of the settlement, where a handful of people stood, concentrating. “They have to find us before they can fight us.”

A second later, and the mist started to billow up from the ground again. In a matter of moments, it was so thick that it was impossible to see the army beyond it, and Sebastian guessed that from the outside, Stonehome would be completely lost to sight.

“If they send in men to find us, those men will become lost,” Asha said. She drew a sword. “And then they will die. We will pick them off a few at a time. Even if he comes, there are many of us here.”

She sounded so certain of it that it was hard not to be reassured, and Sebastian was, at least until he saw the crows descending.

They came in a flock that darkened the mist, their wings beating a drum pattern in the air, perfectly synchronized, oddly powerful. The air those wings moved blew, and blew, turning into something stronger, pushing at the mist.

Sebastian didn’t have to see Asha’s face pale to know that it wasn’t good.

A cry came from the stone circle, and Sebastian saw a young man fall, blood coming from his nose. Even as he fell, the mist flickered and faded, blown away by the crows.

“The power that must have cost him…” Asha said in obvious disbelief.

“He’s just slaughtered his way through the country,” Sebastian said. “He has power to spare.”

The New Army was spread out before them now, rank after rank set ready for an assault. Even as Sebastian watched, the companies nearest to them started to move forward.

“What now?” Sebastian said, as the people he thought he’d brought to safety started to scream in terror.

“Now we stand,” Asha said. She looked grim, but determined. “We have prepared for this. More to the circle!”

“Mist won’t stop them marching in,” Sebastian said. “Not now.”

Asha shook her head. “We can manage more than mist.”

Men and women hurried into the stone circle, augmenting the exhausted people already there. While they did it, the New Army continued forward, its ranks marching to the beat of drums, its soldiers advancing with the certainty of the slaughter to come.

Then the air along the edge of the wall started to crackle, and Sebastian saw it glow golden, humming in ephemeral walls between the standing stones set on Stonehome’s edge. There was nothing ghostly about them when the advancing army poured over the ditch though. They slammed into the power and crashed back, men tumbling into their fellows, some crushed by the weight of the men behind them. The New Army ground to a halt, staring at those walls, and beside Sebastian, Asha smiled.

“Let’s see a few crows blow away that.”

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Henry d’Angelica walked the grounds of the Duke of Axshire’s estates, heading for the burials the family kept on their edges. It was a surprisingly quiet spot for the dead, given how the average noble house liked to shout about its ancestors: ringed in by rowan and ash trees, shielded from the rest of the estate by a babbling brook that looked as though it had been put in by the same landscaper who had felled the trees before the house proper.

As for the burial ground, it was a place of mausoleums and monuments in overwrought marble and black granite, ranging from the elegantly simple to the needlessly gilded and ornate. A statue of the Masked Goddess in her role as taker of the dead stood at its heart. It was the kind of place that should have made Henry feel disquiet, or at least disapprove of previous generations’ lack of taste, but to him, it felt peaceful.

“And of course,” he said in the silence, “it holds more than just the dead.”

“Henry? Henry, are you there?”

Imogen’s voice, as lovely as she was, just the sound of it making Henry’s heart dance. He’d thought it an easy thing to push old feelings aside, but there they were, every time he heard her voice. As for when he saw her…

“You’re a vision today, Lady Axshire,” he said as she came up. She was, dressed in cream and gold, her choice of dress far more simple than anything most of the ladies of the court would have chosen, but Imogen could have worn rags and still seemed radiant.

“Lady Axshire?” Imogen said. “That sounds far too serious, Henry. You’ll be having me call you Your Majesty next.”

“I’m sorry, Imi.” Now that was an old nickname. One he probably shouldn’t have used.

“You haven’t called me that since the night of the harvest festival before I got married,” Imogen said.

Henry could remember every detail of that night, from the shine of the moonlight on Imogen’s skin, to… no, he had to think about something else.

“What has you finding me all the way out here?” he asked. “I’d have thought you’d be in the drawing room, entertaining the ladies of the local town.”

That was what the dress was for, probably. Reminding burghers’ wives that true nobility needed none of the expense their husbands went to in order to achieve perfection, or maybe that was just the way that the dress…

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about,” Imogen said. “We have more visitors.”

That was enough to snatch Henry’s attention away. “Who?”

“Just about everyone in the kingdom,” Imogen said. “The town is filling up with people fled from Ashton, while all our rooms are filling up with nobles. Earl Jalland is back, and Lord Quinsby, and… well, you’ll have to see for yourself. Loris is entertaining them, and he would have sent a servant to fetch you, but I volunteered. I told him that I could probably find you faster than any serving boy.”

“You could when we were children,” Henry said, thinking of the games they’d played when they were small. They’d been so close. Did Loris know what he was doing when he sent Imogen like this? “Wait, if everyone is coming here…”

“It means that you were right, Henry,” Imogen said. “Ashton has fallen, and people are coming here to support you!”

Henry could feel the smile spreading across his face. He knew that Loris and Imogen hadn’t shared his certainty that this would happen. Even he’d had his moments of doubt, when he’d been left with nothing to do but look through the estate’s library and tour its halls. Now, though, he felt the joy that came with vindication.

Henry leaned back against the memorial to some long dead Duke of Axshire, breathing slowly as he tried to take in the fact that this was truly happening.

Imogen moved up next to him. “I’m so sorry that I doubted you, Henry.”

“You doubted me?” Henry said with a brief laugh. He’d known that part all too well.

Imogen put a hand on his arm. “Loris and I thought… well, we weren’t certain what to think, but this… if this is really happening…”

“It is,” Henry assured her. He’d worked out the possibilities as carefully as he could, and he knew what the presence of so many people would mean.

“Then what are we still doing out here?” Imogen asked, just a little coyly. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to the house? Unless there’s a reason you want to keep me alone out here?”

Henry swallowed, unable to keep his mind from following the path that Imogen’s tone suggested.

“I’m out here making preparations,” Henry said. “If Ashton has fallen, then it’s finished. I want to declare this the new seat of the kingdom’s rule.”

“Our little estate?” Imogen asked, raising one perfect eyebrow.

Henry laughed at that. “Little? It’s one of the largest estates in the kingdom. You have a house that’s only one step from being a castle, and a town nearby that could billet an army without a problem.”

“Will it need to?” Imogen asked, suddenly serious.

Henry nodded. “I can’t see another way to deliver justice.”

“Still so driven,” Imogen said. Her hand came up to brush his cheek. “You know, when I discovered that you were out near the family burial plots, I thought you might have done it for me. Do you remember the time we sneaked into your family’s crypt together while my family visited yours?”

Henry could remember every heart-pounding, breath-stealing moment of it. Goddess, but he wanted Imogen in that moment. He moved closer to her, her knowing smile saying that she knew exactly what he had in mind as they pressed back against the side of a mausoleum…

“I can’t,” Henry said, pulling back. “We can’t. Loris is your husband, and one of my closest friends.”

“I’m not sure he’d mind,” Imogen said. “I swear he spends as much time with the stable hands as with me. He must think I don’t know, and turnabout is fair play.”

Henry knew Loris well enough to know that there was every chance Imogen was telling the truth. Even so…

“It isn’t the same thing,” he said. “Not when it’s you and me. And I can’t afford to let anything get in the way of what I have to do. And this… it wouldn’t be right. You understand, Imogen?”

Her sigh said that she understood all too well. “Henry d’Angelica, the one member of his family cursed to actually do the right thing. I don’t know if it makes you tiresome or gallant. Still, the last thing I want is for you and Loris to end up fighting some kind of duel over me. But… you can’t deny what you want forever, Henry.”

“What I want right now is justice for my cousin,” Henry said.

“And how does being here get that?” Imogen asked, smoothing down her dress. “If you’re not out here to remind me of old times, I assume that you came out here for a reason? A good reason, if you’re not hurrying back to help Loris greet the lords and ladies who can offer you support.”

“There’s something here,” Henry said. “Something that’s part of the reason that I came to your estate.”

“You mean besides the size, the town, and the defensible walls?” Imogen said. “Don’t look so surprised. I was listening.”

“Apart from that,” Henry said.

Imogen shrugged. “I assumed it was because Loris and I were your closest friends, and you needed somewhere to go. I hoped it might have something to do with my being here.”

“All of that,” Henry said, not wanting to hurt Imogen’s feelings any more than he probably already had. “But there’s something else. Something I’ve been looking for that I think can help us to win this.”

“And you didn’t mention it before?” Imogen said. “I’d have thought somewhere around the time you were declaring yourself the rightful king would have done it.”

“I wanted to be certain,” Henry said. “I’ve been reading old books, looking at old paintings, and, well, about a dozen other things besides. I wanted to be certain that I’d found it before I did anything.”

“That you’d found what?” Imogen asked.

Henry smiled and went over to a mausoleum that looked both older and plainer than the rest. A plaque on the side declared it the final resting place of Lord Thomasin, cousin to the Third Duke of Axshire. Without waiting to see Imogen’s reaction, Henry lifted a foot and slammed it into the door.

“Henry! You can’t just—”

Henry kept kicking until he heard a crack from the door. He tore at it, wrenching it open.

“Henry!”

“I’ll explain in a minute, Imogen,” Henry said, throwing the tomb open to the light. The interior of the mausoleum was mostly empty, save for a figure on a slab, armor long since rusted, flesh reduced to bones. Only a spear by its side shone brightly, as unblemished now as the day it had been forged. Henry reached in to lift it out.

“Put that back,” Imogen insisted, looking horrified. “Henry, you’ve really gone too far. If Loris were here…”

“Then he might recognize the name of such a famous ancestor,” Henry said, lifting the spear. The balance was perfect, the head broad. “Although I must say that the name threw me off the scent a little. Lord Thomasin, the third cousin of the Duke? That’s a polite way of saying the family was so embarrassed by him that they wouldn’t even use the name everyone knew.”

Imogen paused. “All right, I’ll bite, but this had best be good. Who in the Masked Goddess’s name is Lord Thomasin meant to be?”

“He was better known as Thom Witchbane,” Henry said.

He saw Imogen’s eyes go wide.

“But that means that’s…”

“Witchsnare,” Henry said. “My parents obviously never told me the stories, but one of the servants used to until he was dismissed. A spear that could shield the wielder from the powers used against him, and slow a nearby witch to human speed. With this, a fight with one becomes a duel against an equal.”

Imogen looked at the spear as if she couldn’t believe it was there. “I thought those were just children’s tales,” she breathed. “But if this is real, we could kill the Master of Crows.”

Henry nodded, although it wasn’t what he was thinking. With a spear like this, he could do far more. It would be his instrument of justice. It would be the spear that killed Sophia Danse.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

The Master of Crows stood, furious at the impotence of his armies. Around him, cannons roared, muskets barked, and men charged forward at Stonehome. None of it appeared to make the least dent in the walls of power the place had conjured.

A raven fluttered down from its circling flight, landing on his outstretched arm. It croaked its displeasure in a tone that was all too easy to understand, even without the mental connection that he had to his birds.

“I know,” he said, switching to a tongue old enough that most of his soldiers wouldn’t understand even if they heard it over the sounds of the battle. “I know you’re hungry.”

The raven croaked again, and the need was there once more.

“I know,” the Master of Crows said. “What more do you want from me?”

In answer, the raven faced toward the settlement. Unexpectedly, the bird darted toward the Master of Crows as he stood there staring, pecking at his cheek, reigniting the agony of the burn there.

“You dare!” he said, flinging the bird from him and drawing a pistol.

The bird caught its balance and hopped away without even glancing at him. The Master of Crows thought about putting a lead ball through its heart, but that wouldn’t do anything about the great, hungry mass of other corvids there; wouldn’t stop the constant need they had for more power.

“They call me your master,” he whispered. “I have no more mastered you than another man has mastered the need to drink.”

The birds gave so much, but the demand from them was constant, pressing, never fading. Here and now, he could feel it gnawing at him, the presence of the child so close like leaving a feast near wolves. He turned to an aide.

“Summon my captains,” he demanded.

It took longer than it should, because he didn’t want to risk sending the message through his creatures.

“Tell me why an army that has just crushed a city with ease cannot take a glorified village,” he demanded.

“My lord, we could do so,” a captain of the horse said; the Master of Crows thought his name was Armand. “But there appears to be no way through that… barrier.”

“Walls can be broken, can they not?” he insisted.

“Not by any method we’ve tried,” Charlin, his commander of engineers, said. “Cannon shot bounces off. Mortars could fire over, but wouldn’t bring it down. We could try to undermine the wall, but there is no guarantee that it doesn’t go down to the bedrock, and on a moor like this, it’s poor mining conditions anyway.”

“Excuses,” the Master of Crows said.

“With respect, my lord,” Captain Nars, who saw that witches were brought to him, said. “This appears to be a matter of magic. Could you perhaps do something?”

“If it were that easy, don’t you think I’d have done it?” he snapped back. How could he explain the difficulty of pushing against the power of a whole community of those with magic? He’d been able to bring down the mist, but only by forcing his power against the weakest of those holding it. Even that had felt as though it cost too much.

All of this was costing too much.

“Go back to your units,” he commanded. “I will think on what to do next.”

The men went, and the Master of Crows went over to the spot where his aides were erecting his command tent. He went into it, sitting in a camp chair and trying to think. That was harder to do than it should have been, with his cheek throbbing as it was.

So much had gone wrong since the start of the attack on Ashton. There had been this wall, and the constant, harrying attacks on his forces before that. There had been the cannon blast that had forced him to fling himself into cover, and that had made him pick shrapnel out of his flesh even then. Before that, there had been the escape of so many of the people who were to be his prey, because he’d been overeager in his need to get to the child. Then there had been the child itself, and that burning, agonizing touch…

“You,” he snapped, pointing at an aide. “Fetch me a mirror.”

“My lord?” the man said.

“A mirror, now!”

The aide hurried to obey, coming back with a silver-handled hand mirror that he might have used to shave himself. The Master of Crows looked into its depths, ignoring most of what he saw there, because that never changed. His face was the same now as it had been when this began, so many years before.

Except for one thing.

The burn mark stood out an angry red against his skin, almost puce against his normal pallor. It was small, but it hurt like a thing a dozen times its size. A tiny dot of blood stood at the center where his raven had pecked him, while the overall shape of it was unmistakable:

A palm print. Sophia Danse’s child had marked him with its very touch, branded him like a common criminal, left the kind of mark that another child might leave with paint and paper and fingers, only with power and flesh and pain.

The Master of Crows roared, snatching up the mirror and flinging it to shatter on the other side of the tent.

“My lord, is everything all right?” the aide asked.

“Is everything all right?” the Master of Crows mimicked, like a mynah bird mocking someone. “Is everything all right?”

He stood, drawing a blade and stabbing the man, once, twice, a third time, the knife sliding in and out of flesh as easily as it might have cut through paper. The man fell, and the Master of Crows snapped his fingers, summoning birds to fall upon his dying flesh. As they fed, he felt the trickle of power from it, and he threw that power at the wound, willing it to heal.

He could tell without asking for another mirror that it made no difference.

“No one has wounded me like this,” he muttered. “And yet a child does?”

He had survived battles with foes who could have killed any lesser being. He had outlived the witch of the fountain in the long game. His birds had devoured armies. He had cut one of Lars Skyddar’s children to pieces with the sword and seen two more dead before him.

It wasn’t enough.

“Go to the officers,” he commanded. “Give the order that we will pull back to Ashton.”

None of the men dared to even express surprise, although they probably had every reason to. It was a decision that looked mad, but the truth was that madness would have been staying here, wasting his army and his power on a wall that could not be broken through.

“I’ve wasted enough time and enough power for one child,” he said.

One very special child. One child who even now shone like a beacon in the eyes of his crows. If he were able, the Master of Crows would devour that child’s power and hope it was enough to finally sate his birds’ appetites. He couldn’t, though, so the sensible thing was to withdraw, rule in Ashton, and marshal his power until he could think of a way to get what he wanted. He would rule a ghost of a city, until the time came when he could take the child.

Then he would feast, and nothing would stop him.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

“One of you must die,” the voice said, “or the door will remain shut, and the walls will remain in place. You will all die together.”

Sophia threw herself at it mentally, marshalling the power that she had, trying to reach past the walls. Nothing happened.

“You have a lot of power,” the voice said. “Enough to reshape the world for the better. Do you want to die along with your siblings? Do you want to never see your daughter again?”

Sophia hated that thought, but it wouldn’t leave her head, and the voice wouldn’t leave her alone.

“You were going to come here, find your parents, and go back to your child,” it said. “You do want to see her again? And Sebastian? Imagine what it would be like to see Sebastian again, to hold him…”

It was all too easy to imagine.

“Then choose, Sophia,” the voice said. “It shouldn’t be that hard. You’ve sent people to their deaths before.”

“In battle,” Sophia said. “And they had a chance.”

“Did they?” the voice asked. “You knew how dangerous it was, but you did it anyway. How many people died in Ashton just so you could see Sebastian again? What’s one more?”

“They’re my family!” Sophia said.

“Violet is your daughter,” the voice replied. “Do you think Kate or Lucas wouldn’t happily sacrifice themselves so that you could see her again? If some unbeatable foe ran at you now, wouldn’t one of them give their lives so that you could go back to your daughter?”

“That’s not the same,” Sophia said, feeling the agony as she stood there.

“It’s exactly the same,” the voice said. “You have so many people waiting for you, depending on you. Lucas has nothing. Kate can never be what you are. Choose, Sophia. Choose, choose, choose…”

“Me!” Sophia said, crying even as she made the choice. “I choose me! Kill me, and let them go through!”

Silence followed, stretching out. Sophia stood there, wondering what was happening, and how it would happen. Would it hurt?

She blinked, and the rainbow wall was gone. She, Kate, and Lucas were standing there, all alive, all healthy. Sophia ran to them and hugged them.

“It made me choose,” she managed past the sobs of joy that they were still alive. “It made me choose, and I chose…”

“Myself,” Kate said softly.

“Myself,” Lucas agreed. “I think that was the point. I think that was the test.”

Sophia might have answered that, might have told them just how sick she was of tests and obstacles, but a scraping sound caught her attention. She turned to the golden door, where the sunlight seemed to be reflecting off it now in a dazzling rainbow of colors that reminded her too much of the walls that had surrounded her.

Slowly, ponderously, it started to swing open.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

A CLASP FOR HEIRS

(A Throne for Sisters—Book Eight)

“Morgan Rice's imagination is limitless. In another series that promises to be as entertaining as the previous ones, A THRONE OF SISTERS presents us with the tale of two sisters (Sophia and Kate), orphans, fighting to survive in a cruel and demanding world of an orphanage. An instant success.”

--Books and Movie Reviews (Roberto Mattos)

The new #1 Bestselling epic fantasy series by Morgan Rice!

In A CLASP FOR HEIRS (A Throne for Sisters—Book Eight), Sophia, Kate and Lucas finally meet their parents. Who are they? Why were they in exile?

And what secret message might they hold for them about their identities?

Meanwhile, the Master of Crows ravages Ashton, Stonehome lies in danger, and Sebastian must find a way to whisk Violet to safety.

Will Sophie, Kate and Lucas return in time to save them?

Will they return at all?

A CLASP FOR HEIRS (A Throne for Sisters—Book Seven) is book #7 in a dazzling new fantasy series rife with love, heartbreak, tragedy, action, adventure, magic, swords, sorcery, dragons, fate and heart-pounding suspense. A page turner, it is filled with characters that will make you fall in love, and a world you will never forget.

Book #9 in the series will be released soon.

“[A Throne for Sisters is a] powerful opener to a series [that] will produce a combination of feisty protagonists and challenging circumstances to thoroughly involve not just young adults, but adult fantasy fans who seek epic stories fueled by powerful friendships and adversaries.”

--Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan)

A CLASP FOR HEIRS

(A Throne for Sisters—Book Eight)

NOW AVAILABLE!

A new series!

TRANSMISSION

(The Invasion Chronicles—Book One)

From #1 worldwide bestselling fantasy author Morgan Rice comes a long-anticipated science fiction series debut. When SETI finally receives a signal from an alien civilization, what will happen next?

“A great plot, the kind of book you will have trouble putting down at night. The ending was a cliffhanger so spectacular that you will immediately want to buy the next book just to see what happens.”

–The Dallas Examiner (regarding Loved)

“Another brilliant series, immersing us in a fantasy of honor, courage, magic and faith in your destiny..…Recommended for the permanent library of all readers that love a well-written fantasy.”

–Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos, re Rise of the Dragons

“A quick and easy read…you have to read what happens next and you don’t want to put it down.”

–FantasyOnline.net, re A Quest of Heroes

A 13 year old boy, dying of a rare brain disease, is the only one able to hear and decode signals from outer space. SETI confirms it is a real signal.

What is the message? How will the world react?

And most of all: are the aliens coming?

“Action-packed …. Rice’s writing is solid and the premise intriguing.”

–Publishers Weekly, re A Quest of Heroes

“A superior fantasy… A recommended winner for any who enjoy epic fantasy writing fueled by powerful, believable young adult protagonists.”

–Midwest Book Review, re Rise of the Dragons

“An action packed fantasy sure to please fans of Morgan Rice’s previous novels, along with fans of works such as THE INHERITANCE CYCLE by Christopher Paolini…. Fans of Young Adult Fiction will devour this latest work by Rice and beg for more.”

–The Wanderer, A Literary Journal (regarding Rise of the Dragons)

Book #2 in the series—ARRIVAL—is also available for pre-order!

Also available are Morgan Rice’s many series in the fantasy genre, including A QUEST OF HEROES (BOOK #1 IN THE SORCERER’S RING), a free download with over 1,300 five star reviews!

TRANSMISSION

(The Invasion Chronicles—Book One)

Did you know that I've written multiple series? If you haven't read all my series, click the image below to download a series starter!

Books by Morgan Rice

THE INVASION CHRONICLES

TRANSMISSION (Book #1)

ARRIVAL (Book #2)

THE WAY OF STEEL

ONLY THE WORTHY (Book #1)

A THRONE FOR SISTERS

A THRONE FOR SISTERS (Book #1)

A COURT FOR THIEVES (Book #2)

A SONG FOR ORPHANS (Book #3)

A DIRGE FOR PRINCES (Book #4)

A JEWEL FOR ROYALS (Book #5)

A KISS FOR QUEENS (Book #6)

A CROWN FOR ASSASSINS (Book #7)

A CLASP FOR HEIRS (Book #8)

OF CROWNS AND GLORY

SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN (Book #1)

ROGUE, PRISONER, PRINCESS (Book #2)

KNIGHT, HEIR, PRINCE (Book #3)

REBEL, PAWN, KING (Book #4)

SOLDIER, BROTHER, SORCERER (Book #5)

HERO, TRAITOR, DAUGHTER (Book #6)

RULER, RIVAL, EXILE (Book #7)

VICTOR, VANQUISHED, SON (Book #8)

KINGS AND SORCERERS

RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Book #1)

RISE OF THE VALIANT (Book #2)

THE WEIGHT OF HONOR (Book #3)

A FORGE OF VALOR (Book #4)

A REALM OF SHADOWS (Book #5)

NIGHT OF THE BOLD (Book #6)

THE SORCERER’S RING

A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)

A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)

A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)

A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)

A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)

A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)

A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)

A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)

A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)

A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)

A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)

A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)

A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)

A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)

THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)

THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

ARENA TWO (Book #2)

ARENA THREE (Book #3)

VAMPIRE, FALLEN

BEFORE DAWN (Book #1)

THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

TURNED (Book #1)

LOVED (Book #2)

BETRAYED (Book #3)

DESTINED (Book #4)

DESIRED (Book #5)

BETROTHED (Book #6)

VOWED (Book #7)

FOUND (Book #8)

RESURRECTED (Book #9)

CRAVED (Book #10)

FATED (Book #11)

OBSESSED (Book #12)

About Morgan Rice

Morgan Rice is the #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the epic fantasy series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising seventeen books; of the #1 bestselling series THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising twelve books; of the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a post-apocalyptic thriller comprising three books; of the epic fantasy series KINGS AND SORCERERS, comprising six books; of the epic fantasy series OF CROWNS AND GLORY, comprising 8 books; of the new epic fantasy series A THRONE FOR SISTERS, comprising eight books (and counting); and of the new science fiction series THE INVASION CHRONICLES. Morgan’s books are available in audio and print editions, and translations are available in over 25 languages.

TURNED (Book #1 in the Vampire Journals) ARENA ONE (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy)  and A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1 in the Sorcerer’s Ring) and RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Kings and Sorcerers—Book #1) are each available as a free download on Kobo!

Morgan loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.morganricebooks.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, download the free app, get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!