Kade took two thick gulps from his cup and winced. He’d never been one for wine, but it was the first thing he could snatch up when he entered the Council’s banquet. Much like the rest of the palace, the Arigelian hall rose to soaring ceilings, peaking in a brilliant glass dome. Despite the roar of his empty stomach, Kade couldn’t bring himself to swallow any of the succulent foods floating past—garlic and red wine roasted venison with rosemary carrots, parsley and peppercorn potatoes, baked pheasant with cranberry honey and cinnamon apples. Those he could eat. Kade eagerly plucked a red-skinned wedge from a platter and savored the warm slice, letting bursts of cinnamon fill the back of his throat, but his tongue soured as he swallowed. It was a feast enough for five hundred, and trays sat neglected on the tables.

Dalia wasn’t far. The shimmering fabric of her blue cloak whipped around her like a wave, her dark curls wild and free. She drained three goblets of wine with little care, her cheeks barely flushed, and tried to pull him to the floor, but he managed to rebuff her. Arigelian music was far heavier and more aggressive than the lilting melodies of Highan. Before he’d left Jarov-sal, Kade’s mother and brothers had held a banquet in his honor, complete with dancing and music, and Kade had played his sulisada for hours at their request. I have to listen as much as I can, his mother said, so I can replay the melodies until you return. The instrument now sat in a trunk in his room, wrapped in silk, tucked away for the journey so he would have a piece of home to keep him company.

At the next table, the Bermian envoy watched the partygoers with disinterest. Their Asyeri, Carmeille, sat in a highbacked chair next to her father, their king. Kade was shocked the river king had come at all. He’d suffered a paralyzing injury on the eastern front nearly six years ago and had retreated from public life ever since, delegating rule to his daughter, but that was less shocking: Bermians were holy soldiers, first and foremost, and when the king could no longer ride into battle, he considered his worth spent. And Carmeille was everything a Bermian heir was meant to be—skilled, devoted, unyielding—but it was her six-year-old brother who would inherit the riverland throne.

The Bermian turned her piercing blue eyes on Kade and stiffly jerked her head, summoning him to her table. Kade swallowed his dismay, picked his way through the crowds, and discreetly downed his drink before he approached. The Bermian king’s apathetic eyes livened when he spotted Kade.

“Fifth Prince!” He eagerly waved Kade closer and grasped the arms of his chair to hoist himself forward. Carmeille winced as her father struggled.

Kade bowed, “Aldeun Theodelus. How good to see you. My congratulations on your son’s birthday.”

The king smiled zealously, “Ayeerah’s blessings, he’s a strong boy like his forefathers before him, and you.” He pointed an enthusiastic finger at Kade, “You and your telash cut down an entire surge at the Sorayas front.”

Kade swallowed. The roga fires at Sorayas had been burning for three weeks when they finally summoned Kade to the front. At the head of his telash, Kade cut through the flames to flank the surge and push it back behind the river by day’s end. That night, as his soldiers enjoyed casks of Highalian wine, Kade wandered to the edge of camp to stare at the moonlit dunes. To the south was the greatest stretch of the Burn, and it tore through the Eilol to pierce the riverlands, but Kade found himself drawn east to the edgedunes, where sand turned to Arigelian hills.

“It was a collective effort,” Kade conceded. At that moment, a chime signaled the start of dinner and Kade bowed to the Bermian king before turning to rejoin his party.

“Condolences,” the Bermian Asyeri called out. Kade turned uneasily back to the table. The rest of Carmeille’s councilors looked on with nervous confusion.

Kade faltered, “Y-your highness…?”

“It’s also the anniversary of my mother’s death,” Carmeille pressed her golden cup firmly into the table. “Condolences are customary.”

Kade closed his gaping mouth and collected his thoughts. “Yes, of course,” he nodded with due solemnity. “My mother burns incense for her every year on the day. My sincere condolences.”

A massive table was laid at the head of the banquet hall, and the remaining kings and queens of Dalran took up their seats as the rest of the Council crowds tucked into the long tables running the length of the room. Kade pulled out his mother’s seat, then sat down beside her, the Majis framing them on either side. He cursed silently as the Bermians sat down across from him.

“Did you piss her off already?”

Kade startled as Dalia’s sly smile loomed over his shoulder. Beside him, one of the Majis gasped at her with wide-eyed shock. Dalia muffled a snicker.

“Forgive me, pouli,” she raised a conciliatory hand and draped her arm over Kade’s chairback. “You may want to be careful, Fifth Prince. I hear the priestess splits her time evenly between the front and the Bermian crusades in the east. It would seem not even the apocalypse can distract her from her holy duties.”

The Bermian Asyeri looked their way, and Kade quickly looked anywhere else.

“Embers for guts,” Dalia chuckled, and slapped his arm twice. “We’ll have to work on that.” Dalia offered Kade’s mother a gleaming smile and affectionate hug, drawing breathless shock from the Majis, before she took her seat down the table, her mother and father on either side.

The feast laid out before them made Kade’s stomach sour, as did Aleaneo. He hadn’t seen her since they’d crossed paths in the shadowed hall. She’d kept to her own most of the evening, sharing company with few beyond her brother, but they weren’t difficult to spot. Their mourning clothes hung like grim flags throughout the dining hall.

“How fares the Lord Payam?” Baellon called across the table, and Kade swallowed his venison. He’d never much liked venison, but they served it for almost every meal in Arigelsi.

“Very well, your majesty,” Kade replied. “He and his children have come to live with us in Jarov-sal.”

“How wonderful,” the king nodded, and smiled, “to have family around you. Your uncle is quite skilled in lunging if I recall.”

Kade smiled, thinking of the springs spent at his uncle’s stables in the Aislinn. “Yes,” Kade replied softly. “Quite skilled.”

“I hear he’s passed this skill to you and your brothers,” Baellon continued. “Cythralhi are famous for their mastery of horses.”

“Very kind, your majesty,” Kade dipped his head, “but we’d never call ourselves their masters.”

“Your brother, Aahran,” Prince Lereth interjected. Kade met the quiet prince’s gaze. “I trained with him in Yazdi. He’s well?”

“He’s well,” Kade offered an overzealous nod. “I’ll tell him you asked.”

Having satisfied whatever level of participation appeared to be required, the prince turned back to his sister. In the brief time that had passed since their cousin’s death, they both seemed improved. Aleaneo’s black dress held touches of green and gold with a smooth leather collar wrapped across her shoulders. She caught Kade’s gaze and he turned away to fill his mother’s cup.

With the distraction of dinner, Kade was able to observe the Bermian Asyeri more closely. They had never met. Though their two kingdoms held the fronts that defended the continent, as Kade sat across from Carmeille he felt like a rock beside a diamond. Arrayed in gleaming white fabric and a shining breastplate, Carmeille was laced with delicate triangles of shimmering metal that connected in a sunburst on each shoulder. These, along with the flat golden chains that crossed over her chest and wrapped around her waist, created a bizarre combination of armor and priestly robes, which was as synonymous with Bermia as the princess’s pale skin. From head to toe, she was immaculate. Perfectly stoic, perfectly poised. Not even a mindlessly chewed nail spoiled her spotless appearance. Kade scowled at his tattered fingernails and turned the wine pitcher to his own cup as hushed voices whispered across the table.

“Did you see the way they moved? Repulsive.” Two Bermians eyed the Spearians with unmasked disgust.

“Have they no sense of dignity?” one grimaced.

“And that’s their heir,” the other scoffed, and gave Dalia a demeaning once-over. “That she should bear the title of Asyeri…”

“You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you?” the first whispered. “They say she takes anyone to bed. Anyone. It’s abhorrent.”

Kade’s fingers dug into the wood of his chair and a faint line of smoke twirled from the scorch. Dalia was right; not even the apocalypse.

“I’ve read in the reports, Princess Dalia, that you have led the construction of an additional refuge on the island of Keilas,” Baellon called down the table.

Dalia turned from her parents with a smile. “As the second largest island,” she answered proudly, “it’s the most sensible location to build a new sanctuary. There are areas of habitable land and, though the stores are low, my father has arranged for portions of the royal reserve to be shipped to Keilas within the week.”

“It’s quite the endeavor you’re taking on,” Baellon commented approvingly. “We know how Spear has suffered since the Unraveling.”

“Perhaps,” the Bermian princess broke in, blue eyes fixed sharply on Dalia, “if the Spearian council more sensibly limited the number of outsiders flooding their borders, they wouldn’t be so thinly stretched.”

Silence blanketed the table as every eye turned to Carmeille, who cut her pheasant, slipped a piece into her mouth, and obstinately held Dalia’s narrowing gaze.

“The people of Santolos are hardly outsiders,” Dalia replied evenly, though the tendons in her neck tightened with each word. “They are Spearian as much as I am and have long been loyal comrades. To abandon them would be cruel and wrong, especially when they’re suffering.”

“It’s entirely practical, when infected and dying, to remove a failing limb,” Carmeille declared coolly. A member of her council tried to intervene, but Carmeille raised a stiff hand to silence him. The Bermian king hadn’t moved a finger to stop his daughter. Instead, he sat silently by, utterly unbothered, and Kade began to regret the river king’s past compliment.

“This isn’t a septic arm we’re talking about,” Dalia countered, her even tone rapidly losing its poise. “It’s thousands of people.” Beside her, the Spearian monarchs matched their daughter’s enraged expression, as did the rest of the Spearian council.

“When something becomes infested, it can no longer serve the greater good,” Carmeille proclaimed.

“How is the survival of the people not serving the greater good?” Dalia growled. “And what do you mean by infested?”

Wine trickled over Kade’s fingers as the drink in his cup rippled, and the pitchers on the table sloshed back and forth. The air shifted as if a front had moved in, a great wall to swallow the horizon, and Kade felt like a tiny boat in the middle of a vast ocean as the waters and sky turned dark.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Carmeille mumbled. Kade heard what she said next, the slur that flew from behind the rim of her cup.

Dalia’s eyes narrowed. “Say it again!”

The Spearians turned on the Bermians so quickly Kade half expected swords to be drawn. Beyond the Majis’ bewildered faces, Dalia’s nails dug trenches in the table as the pitchers throughout the hall turned and spilled.

“Councilors, please,” Baellon raised his hands. Carmeille stared at Dalia, a single pale brow arched in defiant expectation as the islander glowered across the table. Dalia squared her shoulders and Kade readied to enter the fray, but the legs of Dalia’s chair scrapped along the stone floor as she stormed from the table, dark eyes flashing a fierce blue as she glowered at Carmeille. Kade instinctually stood from his chair, but froze as Dalia turned her furious gaze on him.

The surrounding tables had stopped their meals to watch the confrontation, and they watched now as Dalia flew out the door. A loud crash echoed from the hallway and then another further off. Kade winced at each. Down the table, the Spearian monarchs stood livid at their seats, chests heaving and eyes burning as they glared at the Bermian king. He, meanwhile, sat indifferent in his chair as his daughter absentmindedly pushed around the asparagus on her plate. The Spearian monarchs looked expectantly to their Arigelian hosts—who sighed in exhaustion—before they stormed from the banquet hall, followed by their equally enraged councilors. Kade turned his burning gaze on Carmeille, who appeared undisturbed. Less than an hour later, her father excused himself from the table with untroubled ease and Carmeille dutifully followed, blind to the eyes that followed her.

Kade raged in his seat, but quickly swallowed the heat crawling up his throat as his nostrils began to burn. Even before the Unraveling, Bermia’s ivory banners had loomed over the continent and the other kingdoms had played a delicate game of placation with their fickle ally. No one wanted to be the next crusade. Now they played the same game, paying homage in the hopes that the Bermians wouldn’t abandon them to the hordes. Highan couldn’t fight on two fronts, and the Arigelians hadn’t stepped up yet.

His mother’s gentle hand brushed his sleeve as Kade gripped his chair. “Thirsty, leh alehas?” she asked and refilled his cup. Kade nodded stiffly and downed it. Always wine. He searched the table for water.

Slouched into a highbacked chair, Silas offered a sly smirk as Carmeille left. He poked at his pheasant with a spoon and, when he caught Kade staring, saluted with it, flourishing it in the air and sending tiny drops of gravy flying onto the robes of the oblivious noble seated next to him. Silas’ mouth tightened in feigned alarm, but the only one who seemed to notice was Ingrid, who sat quietly across from him with a circle of willow branches in her curls. Ingrid hadn’t spoken a word all evening, and instead watched Silas experiment with loft and distance.

The Arigelians rose to their feet as Baellon left his chair and calmly followed the path the Bermians had taken out the doors. Kade, too, rose and bowed.

“Go on,” Silas mumbled, and tilted his head back to watch the Arigelian king disappear through the doorway. “Go after them. Tell them how important they are, how much we need them.”

The banquet quickly dwindled. Kade’s mother left the Majis to their empty debates and offered polite thanks to the Arigelian queen. The two queens exchanged knowing nods as they conversed, and Aleaneo stood quietly beside her mother, alone. Kade hadn’t seen the Arigelian prince leave. Kade’s mother suddenly directed her gaze at him, and he quickly abandoned the banquet hall before he could be summoned.

Evening silence was a comfort, and Kade allowed his steps to slow so he could extend the peace. He wandered the torchlit halls of the Arigelian palace, stopping here and there to admire a painting, enjoy the view. Mostly, he tried to quiet the fire in his chest. Years of practice had taught him that walking was the best solution. As maddening as the Arigelian palace had first appeared, he’d figured it out easily enough. Circles nestled inside circles, both above ground and below, and he wandered toward the guest wing.

Kade didn’t see Ingrid at first, she was so small and slight, as she stood at an arched window and looked out onto a cozy garden. The sun had long since set and her face glowed with soft torchlight as she turned to greet him.

“I always liked wildflowers,” Ingrid smiled, arms tucked deep inside her robes so only her fingers peeked out to touch the railing. “Some people think they’re weeds, but that doesn’t mean they’re not flowers, too.”

They stood side by side in the window as the moon cast its pearly light on the silver leaves.

“What did she say?” Ingrid asked. Her head barely reached Kade’s shoulder as he turned to look at her. “I was too far down the table, and the voices were so loud I couldn’t really hear. What did Carmeille say to Dalia?”

Kade’s voice caught in his throat, the muscles of his windpipe tightening like ropes. For a moment he’d forgotten it all.

“I’m sorry,” Ingrid murmured as she turned away. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Kade shook his head, “It’s fine. The Bermians don’t approve of the Spearians’…way of life.”

“What’s there to disapprove of?” Ingrid replied, brows pinched in honest confusion. “The Spearians are a happy, open people.”

“I think it’s their openness that offends the Bermians,” Kade scoffed, and Ingrid’s brows furrowed deeper. “You can’t be so naïve as not to know,” Kade added, and his face grew hot. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

“No,” Ingrid replied with a small smile, “I’m not so naïve. Pandrylia and Spear share many customs. Spear was the first kingdom I ever visited outside Pandrylia. It felt so much like home, I left thinking all Dalran was just like us, until I visited a Bermian city and saw two men ripped from their children.”

Kade looked away as acid rose in the back of throat. “They don’t do that anymore.”

Moonlight poured into the garden, washing over every leaf and branch until the entire clearing glowed with soft silver light. Small torches burned a crown around the garden walls and created a string of flickering stars that outlined the break between roofline and night sky.

“There’s a saying in Spear,” Ingrid said quietly. “There are a million shades of sea, but they are all water. That’s how I’ve always thought of Spear—different faces, different faiths, different loves. One people. You still haven’t told me what Carmeille said,” she repeated. Smooth stone trailed under Kade’s fingertips as his hand fell from the railing.

“Duvye,” he finally answered. “She called her duvye.”

Ingrid pressed her eyes shut, her brows knit in a pained expression. “That’s not a word we hear in Pandrylia.”

“Nor in Highan,” Kade agreed. “I always knew Dalia was generous with her affections. I saw more than one suiter—man and woman—caught up in her swell. And it’s not uncommon in Highan either, though most set it aside for the sake of legacy. But to the Bermians, the Spearians are no better than buckets, catching anything that falls in.”

“I suppose,” Ingrid sighed with heavy eyes, “we don’t need to like each other. Though I had hoped we’d become friends.”

“War makes allies, not friends,” Kade observed bitterly. Ingrid’s face sank and Kade’s hand dwarfed her shoulder as he awkwardly touched it. “But I’d be glad to be your friend.”

Her smile was enough to make him believe they might overcome centuries of antipathy, that they might end this journey better than they began it and ease the kingdoms toward a truly united peace. Nevertheless, as the scars on Kade’s hands flashed in the silver light of the untouched Arigelian garden, his throat burned with resentment. It would take years to rebuild Highan’s cities, and centuries for the Skywood’s charred forests to grow back, yet here sat Arigel, peaceful and serene.

Kade escorted Ingrid to her rooms before retreating to his own, though he slowed his steps to allow himself a few more minutes of silence. Before he turned the corner, he stood quietly in the center of the hall, closed his eyes, and listened to the gentle flutter of curtains rippling in the night breeze. When he entered the sitting room, his mother was already there.

“Are you unwell, Rahin?” She dismissed her maid and patted the cushion next to her. Kade removed the silk fessi from his head and placed it on the table, running a hand through his hair as he sat beside his mother. “You were gone almost an hour. When you left the hall, I thought you had come here. You seemed unwell.”

Mesmerizing as the patterned rug beneath his boots was, Kade couldn’t avoid his mother’s knowing gaze forever. She looked at him with kind expectation.

“We’re wasting time,” Kade muttered and gripped his hands. “Aahran is at the front now. Soon, Khalan will join him. Then Rekyn and Talyn take their place next month. The more time we waste here, the greater chance they—”

The fire in his throat snapped past his tongue and Kade quickly pressed a fist to his mouth, eyes squeezed shut. He swallowed and felt the fire turn back, replaced by the soft warmth of his mother’s hand on his. She’d never flinched at her youngest son’s blessings, not once, even when a toddling Kade unwittingly set his mother’s drapes on fire, and she’d pulled them from the wall with her own hands and doused them in the nearby basin. Even then, as she calmly lifted a tearful, chubby Kade from the floor, she kissed his head and cheeks and tucked her blistered hands inside her silk shawl. Now, she looked at him with the same unconditional devotion.

Kade shook his head. “Years they’ve fought in my place, in a fight they cannot win. Every day I wondered if it would be their last, and now when we finally have the chance to free them from the horrors of this war, they—” he jerked his head toward the closed door and the empty banquet hall far beyond, “cannot stop squabbling!”

Tears stung his eyes and Kade clenched his mouth shut, gritting his jaw so tightly his ears throbbed.

“If they die,” he whispered, afraid to speak it into being, “what will it be for? A younger brother who should never have led in the first place.”

“Rahin,” his mother sighed deeply. “You’ve carried this weight all your life, and you may think you aren’t strong enough or worthy enough, but your humility proves you are. A mother sees the greatest in each of her children, and in you,” she ran a gentle thumb across his forehead, brushing the hair from his furrowed brows, “I see a heart to rival the stars.”

She absentmindedly touched the golden orchid at her wrist, the one Kade’s father had gifted her on their wedding day. “Your father loved you more than the sun in the sky, and he believed in you from the moment you were born. Your brothers believe in you, and Ayeerah knows I will gladly face all the Traitor’s hordes if it means I can hear you play your sulisada for me again when you return in peacetime.”

A stubborn chuckle escaped Kade’s solemn face, and his shoulders shook as he tried to muffle it, but his mother smiled beside him and cupped his face.

“That’s what we do, leh alehas,” she rubbed his cheek, “for the ones we love most. We fight. We live.”

#

Aleaneo wanted to fly more than anything. It never failed: when her mind wouldn’t rest, the sky was there. She could take to the sky and let the wind carry everything away, every heartache, every bleeding memory, but she didn’t want to forget Kasa. After so many years Aleaneo had hoped her heart would’ve died, and the infuriating pain would wither along with it, but it beat each morning, fresh with loss and anger. She looked up at the sky—crisp blue with streaks of white clouds, a perfect day—but couldn’t bring herself to shift. Every step could be the last in this hall, in that garden, through those rooms, but as Aleaneo passed each one, she felt no twinge of sadness. She grew up in that library, those gardens, but didn’t feel like she was there anymore, and walked through the halls silent and numb, like a page in a book, dry and flat, running her fingers along the wall and feeling nothing but plaster and stone.

“Your highness.”

Down the hall came the fifth prince, petite Ingrid at his side. The sage of her sweeping robes seemed nothing compared to the vibrant glare of Kade’s crimson cloak, tied around his neck with a golden clasp, never mind how he towered over her.

“Is there something you needed?” Aleaneo replied, eyes wandering to the blue sky. He hesitated. “Anything?” she prodded, much to his visible disapproval. She started off down the hallway, but their footsteps followed.

“May we join you?” Ingrid’s skirts swooshed into view. Aleaneo met her gold-trimmed gaze and nodded, and they walked in awkward silence. The palace bustled with the collective activities of the staff as they prepared for the evening meal, so Aleaneo led her impromptu guests to a more secluded garden where a servant quickly arrived with a platter of fruit and drinks, though it was the fifth prince who swiftly pulled out their chairs. He bumped Aleaneo’s shoulder as he presented her seat.

“I find myself remembering I hadn’t actually offered my condolences for your cousin,” he rambled and took his own seat next to Ingrid, far on the other side of the garden.

“Thank you,” Aleaneo forced a reply. The raspberry she’d plucked from the tray sat plump in her hand, but Aleaneo didn’t raise it to her mouth. Instead, she watched the Highalian prince’s cloak shake as his knee gently bounced. Beside him, Ingrid fussed with her robes. Aleaneo took a deep breath.

“We’ve all lost family,” she conceded. “Each one took me like a fall from a horse, but I kept getting back on. Just another year, just five more years, just reach twenty, then it’ll all be over. I always thought—Kasa was always so optimistic. If you’d known her. She always talked about what we would do when the war was over. I never imagined—” A nauseating burn inched up the back of Aleaneo’s throat.

“My parents,” Ingrid twisted her robe. “I was six when they died, and I was so scared I’d forget them. I cried every night, wishing and hoping they’d come back, that somehow it was all a dream, that I’d come home after it was all over and they’d be there. And every night my grandmother would come and rock me, even when I was grown. It wasn’t as often as when I was little, but I’d still knock on her door and she’d let me sleep beside her.” Ingrid sat for a moment, then reached forward, grabbed a glass of wine from the table, and downed it.

“I still worry,” Kade twisted the hilt of his scimitar, “about forgetting my father.” He stopped for a moment. “I have…nightmares.”

“But it’s like my grandmother always told me,” Ingrid offered eagerly. “As long as there’s someone to remember them, they’re never truly gone.”

Aleaneo’s heart darkened. “We never saw the Unraveling,” Aleaneo muttered, “but they certainly told us, didn’t they? Red storm clouds, blood like rain from the sky. Then the creatures appeared and the villages started to burn.”

How many had Aleaneo seen go up in flames? How many bodies piled like firewood as vargr packs ripped away oozing limbs? Farmers, crafters, musicians, farriers. Then soldiers, scouts, captains, and cousins. The raspberry sagged in her hand and its sweet juices pooled in her palm as though she’d pricked herself on its thorns. She grabbed it between her fingers and flung it into the bushes, where the bright red flesh was buried under the powdery dirt.

“We can’t remember everyone.”

#

“They are ready for you, ka-nahiral.”

The Highalian soldier bowed sharply and left at Kade’s command. When he was confident the door was shut, Kade slid his hand out from beneath the table and unwrapped his fingers from the pouch of sand, feeling the few loose grains between his fingertips. He closed his eyes again and gently rolled them back and forth, and the faint smell of sun and sand calmed his shaking lungs. Two knots secured the pouch back to its place around his neck, and Kade left with his scimitar on his hip.

His father’s Majis stood outside in the hall, arguing and shaking their fists as they waited for their Asyeri. Beside them, Kade’s mother waited patiently and met his gaze as he emerged. Kade still felt out of place among his father’s men, half expecting Rekyn to shove past him and send him back to his mother’s garden. He caught himself reaching for the pouch of sand again, but he raised his head and quickened his stride, and the Majis startled as he strode between and past them. You are a prince of Highan, his mother’s voice echoed. Do not shrink.

“Pick up the pace,” he called back as he looped his arm through his mother’s, grateful the Majis could not see his clenched hands. “We will not arrive last.”

The Bermians were the last to arrive as the six royal entourages shuffled into one of the many council chambers. A small wooden chest sat on a table at the center of the room. King Baellon sat quietly aside as his queen unlocked it and, one by one, placed three small rolls onto the table as three scribes came forward with flat trays. The Arigelian queen gently unrolled each scroll and placed it onto a tray for the scribes to carefully carry to each of the councils for viewing.

“I must ask you not to touch them,” Queen Malin told the gathered eyes. “They have seen generations and will see many more. Our scribes have studied these maps for years, recorded every detail a hundred times over, and still each year find more paths across the continent, all forged by the Pathfinder Sisters. I’m sure some will surprise even you.”

As soon as a scribe approached with a map, the Majis gasped. Dozens of tiny black lines crisscrossed the Jarov Hiv, from the Dunes of Huvahl to the Aislinn and even the famed Dancing Dunes of the western reaches. Others passed snuggly along Jarov-sal itself, whose deep walls had been built generations before any of them had been born. The idea that outsiders had trekked through the heart of their kingdom mystified, and terrified, the Majis, wise and ancient as they were. Kade smiled.

“We have identified several viable routes,” the Arigelian queen explained, “based on ease of travel, security, and threat populations.”

Across the circle, draped in a slim black jacket that dusted his knees, Silas studied a map. No royal entourage huddled around him; he stood alone among the crowd of eager councilors, intently examining the map before him as his eyes darted from one corner to the other, brows furrowed in focus. Kade blinked, then blinked again. Kade glanced at Silas every few minutes to confirm that he was still there. It still seemed unreal, as though he were a mirage and would vanish with the shifting of the light.

“The Salmas Ridge?” Dalia gaped, and the Arigelian queen nodded. Kade examined the map that had rotated to his party. Little lines traversed the southern foothills of the Drondu Mountains, near the slender isthmus that connected the Salmas Peninsula and the Kingdom of Spear to the rest of the continent. A few lines even leapt from island to island. Dalia and her parents laughed, impressed. “The Olerim were sailing behind our backs for generations.”

Carmeille and the Bermian ambassadors appeared equally shocked, though less impressed. The headwaters of the Endil River reached far beyond the Taure Raer, which wound its way deep into the Bermian riverlands before it dipped to touch the coast. Despite the ferocious grip they maintained over the river passages, the original Bermians had let several Olerim intruders slip through, even as far south as modern-day Lorgus. But impressive as the ancient Olerim’s network was, Kade knew the extent of the Burn. The ancient maps didn’t show it, but he didn’t need them to. Already his mind laid thick the blood red char of the Vysarian’s creatures, the arm of destruction that stretched from the old capital to Dacia and Cirellus, slicing deep into the belly of the Eilol Valley. Half the Olerim’s paths were buried beneath ash, the other half so far removed that Silas’ three-year estimate seemed generous.

“Several viable routes, you say?” Carmeille examined the map in front of her father, thick crowns gleaming on both their heads. “I see none, except the Ilas to the sea, and that’s been discarded.”

Silas drawled, “Three years…”

“The Burn is too great and consumes too much of the valley,” Carmeille glared at him. “The front at Theodia rages and the coastlands near Lorgus shrink by the day.”

“We can’t sail through the Dramoon,” Dalia interjected, hands pressed against the table. “Not unless you are content with vanishing into the mist. We must find a route through the mountains.”

“The mountains are unpassable,” Kade reminded her, the heat in his chest stirring as the voices rose. “None of our soldiers have been able to venture west of the Vashtis River for months. The ruins of Anhkara and Eskishir haven’t been seen in years.”

“Then the southern mountains,” Dalia offered, “near the Salmas Ridge.”

Ingrid shook her head, “The southern mountains are as burnt as the northern, even more near Old Vysarus.”

The councilors grew anxious; Kade felt their hearts begin to pound, heard their breath race as voices rose to irritated shouts. His chest burned and he clenched his jaw so tightly he could feel his teeth grinding against each other.

Carmeille reached past her father’s shoulder and pounded her fist on the table. “We must pass through the Dramoon Seas! There is no other way for us to reach Old Vysarus safely.”

“But it isn’t safe!” Dalia shouted back.

“No.”

Across the table, Aleaneo stared at a map as something stirred behind her eyes, sharpening with each moment. Kade watched it click into place.

“No, it isn’t safe,” Aleaneo repeated. “Not anymore. None of them are. We’ve taken too long. Now it’s not a matter of the safest path, but the fastest. We won’t be able to avoid the Burn, so we go where it’s narrowest,” she turned the map in front of her to face the group, “and pierce our way through.”

Her finger hovered over the mountains near Old Vysarus, where the range tapered to a narrow strip and where the Burn had first spread. Kade gaped.

“You’re mad,” Carmeille proclaimed. Aleaneo didn’t seem to hear her.

“The Burn cuts off every path there is,” Aleaneo pointed to the map, “but this is where it’s narrowest.”

“And darkest,” Carmeille countered. “You want to feed yourself to the Vysarian’s horde, go ahead, but I won’t.”

“We cannot avoid the Burn,” Aleaneo snapped. “Did you think we would travel the length of Dalran in this hell storm and not have to touch the Burn?”

The room fell silent. That was exactly what Kade had hoped. Even as the destruction spread, Kade still believed they would find a way around, find some way to knock down the back door of Old Vysarus and take the Traitor by surprise. Kade had lived the chaos of the western front for twenty years, but he’d never imagined diving into it.

“The creatures are drawn to dense populations,” Ingrid broke the unease. “It’s why Highan and Bermia have suffered so greatly. They swept over the valley’s small villages, but they didn’t stay. Look here.” She trailed a finger down the Kaelkyr Hills, south from Arigelsi toward the edge of the Jarov Hiv, then slipped nimbly between two arms of the Burn, a thin gap that led straight to the foothills of the Drondu Mountains and Old Vysarus. “There’s even a trail,” Ingrid observed as her finger traced the faded Olerim line. Kade leaned close to his mother as the councilors muttered.

“The Talashan villages were abandoned long before the war,” Kade whispered. “There’s nothing for the creatures there.” His mother nodded; it could work. The eastern dunes were practically unscathed, and the Vysarian’s hordes no longer cared for the tiny wreckage of scattered villages along the southern edgedunes. They’d long since turned their attention to the larger cities since nothing remained in the sliver of valley between the Jarov Hiv and the western Eilol. If the Asyeri were careful, they could reach the mountains undetected. Kade began to count.

“Eight months,” Silas beat him, chin held speculatively in his hand. “If we’re lucky. Eight months to the Vysarian’s front door.”

“How long to cross the mountains?” Aleaneo turned directly to Kade. It was one of the first times she’d willingly met his gaze, though the underlayer of animosity still simmered.

Kade swallowed, “A week.”

Seven days in the darkest of the burns, the ragged peaks where the Vysarian’s creatures had first emerged. The mountain pass narrowed to barely four leagues and had once been the only way for Vysarian traders to transport Dalranian goods over the range. There may yet be paths through the peaks, trails not yet crumbled by vargr and roga—and worse.

Beside Kade, Dalia confidently looped her hands through her woven belt. “If we can’t manage our way through these measly mountains,” Dalia grinned, “then we might as well curse these damned blessings.”

“Agreed,” Silas smirked.

Carmeille straightened her shoulders. “Bermia has held the Theodia front for years, day and night. A week will pass in the blink of an eye.”

Across the table, Aleaneo met Kade’s gaze again. It was their lands they would pass through, Arigel and Highan, and they knew better than anyone what devastation would await them before they reached the mountains. Plumes of smoke that choked the air and blocked the sun, wastelands of poisoned rivers and rotted soil that ate through even the thickest boots. But Kade knew it was their only path, and so did Aleaneo.

She turned to the scribes. “Have the maps prepared.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Five