Aleaneo watched her father leave, how the hobble of his gait made him appear to rock on one sturdy leg and shuffle on the other. He looked older than she remembered, but perhaps she hadn’t noticed how the years had changed him, only counted them down as barriers to her departure. The six Asyeri stood at the table, hair and robes rustling in the breeze spat through the gap of the doors. An unanticipated air of awkwardness descended, the result of years of sclerotic social contact. Kade and Silas lowered their heads as Aleaneo’s father passed, the red and black of their cloaks framing the door in stark contrast.

“We have birds ready to send any messages you’d like,” Aleaneo offered, receiving no response. Across from her stood Dalia Dorian, the island princess she’d met when she was six.

Aleaneo remembered how they had swum in the creek. “Good to see you, Dalia.”

The islander offered a crooked smile, “Been a while, yeah?”

“A bit.”

Forced. Years had passed since Aleaneo had seen or heard from any of the Asyeri, and they hadn’t been entirely pleasant before. It was for the maintenance of alliances, the preservation of the continent, nothing more. Dalia was entertaining, but Aleaneo doubted her maturity.

“It’s Ingrid, yes?” Dalia turned to the princess from Pandrylia.

Ingrid hid between her shoulders. “Yes.”

“My family used to travel to your festival every other spring before the war.”

Ingrid nodded. “Yes.”

She looked barely able to hoist a saddle onto a horse; hardly the muscle Aleaneo had hoped for with her tiny arms folded inside bolts of fabric. Aleaneo had expected someone bigger, and couldn’t help but look at Silas. He seemed like a more plausible earth Asyeri than Ingrid. Silas, however, appeared happily entertained.

“Anyone else care to give it a shot,” Silas posed, “or shall we skip this part?”

Carmeille scoffed. “Honestly?” she replied with a bite.

Silas mimicked her head tilt. “Honestly.”

Maniacal delight spread across Carmeille’s face. “Then honestly, I was thrilled when we received the notice of your untimely disappearance. In my opinion, one less stain marring a corner of the map.”

Aleaneo’s eyes widened.

Silas slowly smiled, “A pleasure as always, stone heart. Tell me, the I’las has been rather thin at our end. How are the riverlands faring since the droughts?”

“Flourishing.” Carmeille’s jaw tightened.

“I’m sure.”

“Enough,” Kade’s voice brought the room to silence, and Aleaneo scowled as she swallowed the burn at the back of her throat.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s more,” Silas eyed Carmeille.

Kade glared at him with burning eyes. “The past is past,” the fire prince growled, “and the petty arguments end now.”

“Princess Aleaneo,” Ingrid stepped forward. Beneath the folds of her soft robes, she gripped her hands nervously. “You have birds? I’d like to send a message if I could.”

Aleaneo nodded, grateful for the excuse. “Of course,” she motioned to the door. “I can take you to the tower now.”

For a moment Aleaneo caught the Highalian’s gaze, and was happy to turn away. She led Ingrid out the doors toward the carrier loft at the edge of the palace.

#

The sun set in a blaze over the Eilol Valley, its glow of orange and gold painting the horizon with fire before it faded to deep purple and blue. At last, the clouds cleared, if only for a moment. The Pandrylian princess stood for a long time in the tower and stared at the blank parchment in front of her as she held the quill loosely in her open hand. Ingrid had little family left, only a grandmother and a handful of others. After losing so many loved ones over the years, now she would say goodbye to all she had left, parted from them until their divine task was complete, with no guarantee that any of them would be there to welcome her home. Eventually, Ingrid scribbled a few short lines before she reached into her pocket, pulled out a small purple flower, pressed it gently to her lips, and placed it inside.

Lady Gardener, they called her. Little poppy. It was meant as an insult, a tiny house with little land and little power, noble only in history and blood, not where it really mattered. The Skywood was a speck compared to the riverlands or the plains, a cluster of ancient trees long since picked clean of any resource or riches. A throne of twigs and branches. It was a miracle they had lasted long enough to have an Asyeri born among them, and a miracle that they had ever been at all. Aleaneo and Ingrid stood at the window until the bird disappeared and, even then, the walk back was quiet, with only the swish of Ingrid’s robes to break the silence.

“Thank you for coming,” Aleaneo finally managed. “I know there was hardly a choice.”

“We all knew the day would come,” Ingrid replied shyly. “Though I’ll admit it came faster than I expected. How foolish of me to expect anything less.”

“I apologize I didn’t greet you when you arrived.” Aleaneo gestured around the corner. “There were matters that required my attention.”

“I’m sorry about your cousin.”

Aleaneo stopped in the hall, the slightest hesitation before she continued forward, and gave the Pandrylian a small nod before quickly turning away. She stopped again at Ingrid’s soft hand on her sleeve.

“My grandmother wasn’t able to join me.” Ingrid quickly tucked her hand away. “She can’t travel such long distances anymore. I wish she could have come, if only to know that I wasn’t alone.” The Pandrylian shook her head. “I shouldn’t say that. I’m grateful for every person that came with me. I’ll need their wisdom.”

“That’s very wise of you to say,” Aleaneo replied, impressed. “A good leader always heeds the advice of their council. I only wish the others thought the same.”

“You disapprove of the other Asyeri,” Ingrid said. It wasn’t a question.

“I hardly know them,” Aleaneo answered plainly, “and what I know hardly reassures me.”

Ingrid watched her expectantly.

“The little foal has four older brothers,” Aleaneo explained with a huff, “all seasoned soldiers on the field. The eldest holds the crown in confidence better than any wartime Highalian king, yet here he is, a lone icon of the Highalian throne. It’s plain to see his eagerness to make a mark.”

Ingrid smiled meekly, “There was hardly a choice. In the end, we all stand alone.”

Golden light blanketed the palace halls as Aleaneo delivered Ingrid safely to her rooms, then made her way toward her own quarters, footsteps echoing on quiet stone floors. She made a quick right to cut through a small hallway and the sunlight vanished as she entered the back corridors, torches already lit as the sun set outside. Aleaneo felt their warmth kiss her face as she passed each one, the pattern of heat on her cheek rhythmic and calming.

Another right turn, then a left. She was far beyond the main corridor now, and the arches of the ceiling rippled into firelight and shadow. Endless rooms hid away in the recesses, used by the Arigelian council for strategizing. Aleaneo came to a crossroad of two halls, the one ahead leading to a back door she’d used as a child to sneak out of her rooms after dusk, but she looked down the hallway to her left. Whispers. Maybe her brother was discussing patrol maintenance with the guards, or her father was speaking with the historians about preparing the Olerim maps. No matter how many explanations Aleaneo brewed, she couldn’t shake her suspicion.

The voices grew louder as she moved down the hallway, but the torches came fewer, and she ran a hand along the wall as she inched further into the darkness.

A voice suddenly echoed through the shadows: “No!”

Aleaneo pressed her body so close to the wall that she felt the individual grooves in her back. The voice quieted, and Aleaneo spotted the line of light left by a half-closed door. She inched closer as the voices returned.

“They are children,” a woman’s voice seeped into the hall. “They cannot go alone.”

“We were all children once, Mirieille,” a man replied. “Nothing is so innocent.”

Aleaneo’s breath raged in her ears and she knew they must be able to hear it. If not, they could hear her heart as it pounded in her chest. The voices escaped through a crack in the doorframe, and Aleaneo’s sandaled feet glided along the floor as she moved closer. The stream of light flashed across her right eye, then the left as she raised her face to the crack. Several people sat at a large table and Aleaneo angled her body to adjust her line of sight. A lady dressed in white stood seething in her chair, her bright blue eyes visible from the dark hall.

“You would let them cross the continent alone to fight a madman?” she fumed.

“Do you deny their purpose?” another responded across the table. “The darkness is spreading. They must go.” Aleaneo frowned; no council had been summoned.

“Yes,” the woman replied, “they must—with reinforcements, troops, supports.”

“Soldiers won’t stand a chance against the Vysarian, you know that.”

A man interrupted as the table grumbled, “There must be other options—”

“And we have exhausted them!” another shouted. “We can no longer afford to ignore the incontrovertible truth. The climate has changed. A legion of troops marching across the continent will only cause unnecessary bloodshed and slow them down. They face less danger if they travel discreetly. We have always known they would face this alone. It is their purpose, since before they were even conceived.” Chairs screeched across the floor.

“Then you are no better than the Traitor!”

“Enough, Mirieille!” The room hushed at her father’s voice. He sat amongst the gathered bodies, visibly exhausted.

The Bermian woman was undeterred, “That is my sister’s child. I love her as if she were my own, and I will protect her until my last breath.”

“What makes you think you can protect her from the Vysarian?” Aleaneo’s father demanded. “Your niece has a power greater than anything you will ever know and still you dare claim she’s not ready. Reject it if you will, but it’s time.”

Even as the councilors’ bickering intensified, their voices faded away as a faint heat crawled across Aleaneo’s cheek, the same as when she passed the torches far behind her. Her breath slowed and filled her head with a steady, rhythmic pulse, echoed by the blood in her veins. The feathers at the nape of her neck stiffened and the tiny plumes at her wrists began to poke their sharp quills through her skin as her heartbeat quickened.

A weapon unsheathed—cool, crisp, and clean. Not in the room by a manic council member, but in the shadowed hall outside. Aleaneo’s hand flew to the knife hidden beneath her tunic as she turned to the source. She knew it was him before she saw the outline of his face in the light from the door—angled jaw, freckled skin, and amber eyes not even the thickest darkness could cover. A knife sat ready in his hand.

“Fifth Prince,” she whispered. He looked as shocked as she was. “What are you doing?”

“Lost,” Kade replied bluntly. His eyes gave off an unnatural sheen in the darkness and the light from the door danced on the tip of his knife, its blade like the claw of a lion. They both lowered their weapons, but Aleaneo kept his knife in view.

“How long have you been here?” she asked suspiciously, her own knife still tightly clutched in hand.

“Long enough. My father’s advisors are in there.” He nodded toward the door. The light escaping from the room made the amber in his hair shine like a circlet. “I didn’t speak with them after the council. I had hoped they would support us.”

How quickly he had adopted their newly minted regiment—although, Aleaneo reflected, he seemed a man built for collaboration, for the structure of militaristic life, and for a house of five brothers.

“They will,” Aleaneo grimaced as the table of ancients bickered and shouted.

“What makes you say that?” Kade asked with a twinge of bitterness. “They still see us as children, no matter the prophecy. Without it I’m fifth to the throne, a boy among men.”

“You didn’t speak like a boy in the chamber.” Aleaneo’s voice betrayed her. In the shadows of the hallway, she felt her own blank expression, but Kade didn’t notice—or chose not to.

“This is different,” he looked to the door. Behind his amber-laced eyes, something churned. “They’ve held the reins all these years. Made every decision because we were too young. Now we’re not.”

The Highalian prince was a year older than Aleaneo. He and the Bermian priestess had come of age before the other Asyeri and had spent those years fighting on the fronts, waiting for the rest to catch up. That was the agreement the royal houses had come to, to wait until all six came of age. When Dalran blesses you with the perfect soldiers to defeat your enemy, you don’t send them to the battlefield as toddlers. Now they stood as paragons of their kingdoms—skilled, battle tested, commanders and leaders. The perfect soldiers.

A sting of pain pierced Aleaneo’s thumb as she scratched back the layers of her cuticle. The Highalian gripped the hilt of his dagger over and over as he stared through the crack of the chamber door. Round cheeks, unkempt hair, a blemish on his chin. The youngest of five. For a moment, she let the shadows hide her.

“Are you afraid?” she asked, and immediately questioned her own sanity. What did she care if the Highalian was afraid? She wasn’t afraid. Silence stretched between them and Aleaneo followed the grooves in the floor up the stone wall.

The Highalian’s gaze wavered for a moment. “Yes.”

A chill crawled up Aleaneo’s spine. “Yes.”

#

Aleaneo heaved open the study door, breathed in the familiar crisp parchment and dried ink, slipped her way inside, and gave the door a swift kick behind her. Her mother’s desk sat piled with papers, the bronze statue of a horse perched on the corner with its eyes ever watching. Aleaneo had spent countless days in this room, lying on the thick rug in the center of the floor, under the domed ceiling, making ridiculous scribbles for her mother to coo over before the priests would come collect her for another assessment. Now, her mother sat hidden behind the heap of empty ink wells and crumpled parchment, her dark hair peeking out over a tome of supply reports. Aleaneo took her place near the side of her mother’s great desk and watched as she furiously scratched away at a pile of reports. She shoved the papers aside with ink-stained hands and turned to Aleaneo.

“You wanted to see me?” Aleaneo asked.

“Yes,” her mother sighed. “How are you?”

Aleaneo frowned. “Is that why you called me?”

Her mother motioned for Aleaneo to drag over a small chair and pulled forward a large chest on the table, produced a key from her robes, and slid it into place. With a click the chest creaked open, years of disuse fighting each inch, to reveal a soft cotton-lined interior and tiny bundles of leather so thin the ink was visible through them.

“I thought you would like to see them first.”

Aleaneo leaned forward, eyes wide. “The Olerim maps.”

“Held by Traea, daughter of Tria and Maenar.”

“Traea Horizon-Seeker?” Aleaneo touched the rim of the chest. Centuries it had sat untouched in the royal vault, preserved for decades by generations of Arigelian sovereigns. Aleaneo wondered if her ancient ancestor had expected them to sit buried under the royal palace she had helped build, never to travel the lengths of Dalran again. Aleaneo’s thumb ventured over the side of the chest, inching ever closer to the delicate leather.

“It’s plain to see now that they’re meant for you,” her mother turned the chest toward her.

Aleaneo had grown up on stories of Traea and her pathfinder sisters, how they had pushed back the wilds of Dalran, the first Olerim to touch the glistening coasts of the southern seas. She remembered her mother, arms wide at the center of Aleaneo’s bedroom, weaving tales of the sisters’ mythic adventures as she bounced on the edge of her massive bed, legs kicking with excitement. How thrilled Aleaneo had been to learn the stories were true—a small consolation when faced with her own prophesied fate.

“Together?”

Aleaneo tilted the chest back, pushing aside crumpled parchment as she straightened it on the great desk. Her mother seemed taken aback at first and stared at Aleaneo for a few moments before smiling, and they both reached inside to lift out a bundle.

Aleaneo’s heart pounded as she unrolled the leather scroll, and her fingers shook as she smoothed it against the desk. The woodgrain showed through the thinning edges, and she doubted everything until the spool rolled back and she spotted the first tiny scrawls. Arigel, Sumac, Blue Earth. Each faint marking drew her down the map, town to town, river to valley to mountain, each labeled as though they’d been drawn up yesterday. From the Eilol Valley to the Skywoods to the great stretches of the Drondu Mountains, all the way north to the furthest reaches of the range. And across every hill and slope, from every crest to riverbed, hair-thin lines traced the ancient Olerim’s first trails. Little lines connected the dunes to the valley to the rivers of the east, down to the thick woods and glimmering coast. A beautiful net of careful footsteps taken by those who came before her. Aleaneo smiled and felt the weight on her chest ease.

“We should send them to the scribes,” Aleaneo insisted, “to have more copies made. The others can view them soon enough, but the scribes will need as much time as possible.”

“You aren’t taking copies.”

The map fumbled in her grasp and rolled along the desk as Aleaneo scrambled to reclaim it.

“You don’t mean…”

“It’s too great a risk for you to take copies,” her mother urged. “What if the scribes miss something? You need the best guidance possible. We’ll make copies, some to keep here and others to send with you.” Aleaneo stared at the pile of maps, only a handful in such a large chest. “Do you think she’d want them buried under the palace for another century?”

Aleaneo scoffed, “Traea rides again?”

Her mother placed a hand on her arm. “The Olerim ride again, with you.”

“We won’t fail,” Aleaneo vowed. She ran her thumb over the delicate leather, hoping to absorb some wisdom from her ancestors, some indication that Aleaneo was what they had foreseen all those centuries ago.

“We’ve never been disappointed in you, not once.” Her mother placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You’ve met every expectation we ever had, surpassed it all, but watching you in that chamber yesterday gave me the strangest feeling of regret.”

Aleaneo scowled. “Regret?” She turned back to the maps and pressed her shaking hand against the desk.

“Not in you,” her mother assured her, leaning down to catch her gaze. “In what you’ve been forced to take on. It was always too much to ask.”

“It’s not like you asked,” she reminded her mother. “And it’s not as if you could have changed the prophecy. But Asyeri or not, I’m still your daughter.”

Her mother smiled ruefully. “Which is why I’m so reluctant to relinquish you.”

“The time will disappear before you realize,” Aleaneo assured her mother, and herself. “No sooner will I step out the gate than I’ll be crossing back into it again.”

She felt her mother’s eyes on her, but Aleaneo couldn’t tear her own from the maps. The leather in her hands made it feel real: the prophecy, her ancestors, her part to play. Somehow a piece of tattered hide from centuries ago was more validating than the wind racing through her blood, and it filled her with something almost resembling faith.

“This is what I’m meant to do,” she ran her thumb along the soft hide. “I’ve felt it growing year after year, pulling me out there to finish this, and now I’m finally ready. I have to do this. I will do this—for grandmother and Byral and Misae and Kasa. For all of them.”

The corners of her mother’s eyes shimmered. “Don’t stay away too long.”

#

Kade swooped through the halls of the Arigelian palace, grateful for the clear skies and full burning sun. It would make his bird’s journey that much quicker, assuming vargr didn’t snatch it from the skies. Only ten days remained before they would leave the safety of Arigelsi’s walls and venture into the wilderness of the Eilol, and he hoped his message would arrive at Jarov-sal soon, so he might still receive a response before they left. After that, he wouldn’t hear from his brothers until he returned.

As much as he disliked admitting it, Kade enjoyed wandering the Arigelian halls. The distant, ever-present drone of the winds just outside the persistently open windows ironically allowed his mind to empty. Jarov-sal was far from the front, but still adopted wartime protocols. Curfews, blackouts, defense drills. There was rarely silence in the capital city, but Arigelsi’s palace reached far into the hushed clouds, leaving the bustle of the city streets far away.

The corridor beside Kade opened to a sun-drenched garden. He rested his hands on the stone railing and listened to the rustling of the windswept trees over the small pond. He missed his mother’s orchid garden. Since he was a child, Kade would escape to his mother’s garden and tuck himself into some shaded corner as the caretakers watered and pruned, enveloped by the sweet smell of flowers and the gentle trickle of the fountain. More than once, he fell asleep and bashed his head on the underside of a bench when his brothers discovered him. Kade slowed his breath; if he closed his eyes, he could almost believe he was home. He was tired. He hadn’t slept well, and the sun felt warm on his face. He let his eyes flutter shut and thought of home.

He rode the western flats with his brothers, shouting who would win in a race to Isabis once the Burn was gone and the city was visible again. They stopped at the top of the old river valley to watch another battalion of troops march toward the distant front, and their cloaks filled the old riverbed with a cascade of red. Kade followed the red river as it vanished behind the choking clouds of the western front, drowned by darkness as it crawled over the Drondu Mountains and rushed down the other side to flood the lowlands before it poured into the sea. The crash of water startled him from his daze, and he finally spotted a figure in the Arigelian garden.

Sunlight bounced off Ingrid’s hair and her cloud of curls glowed like a halo as she stood at the center of the pond. She’d wrapped her robes loosely around her shoulders and tied her skirts up with her belt and, beside the turquoise gleam of the ponds, her dark skin shone like a gem. She smiled down at the pond as she spun with delight and the water rippled in shades of orange and cream as dozens of vibrant fish trailed behind her. Ingrid looked up and caught Kade’s gaze; her delighted smile faltered. The swarm of fish paraded behind her as she hastily approached the edge of the pond.

“No, please,” Kade stepped through the archway, hands raised. “Ignore me. I was just enjoying the quiet.”

Ingrid hurriedly grabbed her skirts as she picked her way to the grass. “Fifth Prince,” she stammered with a shaky smile. “I didn’t see you.”

She hoisted the damp hem of her skirts and stepped from the pool as the fish slowly departed behind her, finding nooks in which to nestle and forage. Kade looked away as she adjusted her robes, but something in the grass caught his eye. Tiny lilac flowers opened fresh heads one by one to create a delicate collar of colorful lace all around the pond’s perimeter, and Kade’s eyes grew wide as he followed their spread, each tiny bloom reaching to the sun and opening new petals to the sky. As Ingrid dropped her skirts to the ground, her bare feet stood in a pillow of tiny flowers.

“Did you…?” Kade looked at Ingrid, then at the flowers, then back at Ingrid. She stood meekly beside a small bench, clasping one hand in the other. Kade closed his gaping mouth and cleared his throat. “Did you…keep fish at home in Pandrylia?”

Ingrid gave a surprised, slightly confused look. “Yes,” her eyes lit up. “The ponds are filled with them. It was my great-great-aunt who first employed them in aquaculture.”

Most of the fish retreated to the cool shadows at the bottom of the pond, but a single pudgy fish floated persistently near the shore. Ingrid plucked a handful of fresh blossoms from the grass and sprinkled them on the water’s surface. The little fish was far smaller than the rest, and it eagerly gobbled up the blossoms, flicking and twirling in the water before it hurried off to a shaded corner. As the fish disappeared, Ingrid examined her hand, brows pinched together as she turned it side to side and gently pressed the fingers together.

Kade motioned to the bench, “May I?”

She nodded and, after a moment, sat gingerly next to him. Kade placed his scimitar on the bench beside him and saw Ingrid glance at it. He tucked it against his thigh.

“Always within reach,” he chuckled awkwardly. “It feels like a part of me.” Ingrid picked at the seam of her robe. Kade’s face felt warm. “Forgive me if I disrupted your afternoon. I’m happy to—”

“No!” she raised her hand to stop him as he stood. Kade slowly returned to the bench and folded his hands clumsily in his lap. He considered himself a relatively friendly person, but now Kade wondered if people had only ever been polite.

“I wonder…” Ingrid chewed at her lip, “if I might ask your opinion on something. I’ve been hoping to catch you.”

“Of course,” Kade sighed with relief. “Of course, what is it?”

She glanced at his scimitar again. Whatever it was, Kade watched her wrestle with it. She wrung her hands, chewed her lip, picked at her skirts, all the while her heart pounded and skipped in her chest. He could feel the heat surge, then stumble.

“You’re a soldier,” her eyes settled on the pond. “You’ve seen battle. You’ve seen the front.”

He nodded, confused. “Yes.”

At last, Ingrid’s hands fell still and her face sank. She let out a weak sigh. “I’m not a soldier. We have soldiers in Pandrylia. Some, at least, but we’ve always relied on the trees to shield us. My parents’ councilors, they…they tried. I’m just no good at it. I’ll only be a burden to the rest of you. A liability.”

Kade shook his head in confusion. “You…you stopped the Burn from spreading past the Groves of Gloria,” he said.

It was the year Kade’s father had died, and Ingrid’s parents. No one had expected a surge, least of all near Attar. The tiny village was deep in the Eilol Valley, far from the Drondu Mountains where the Burn had stayed until that point, but the Surge of 646 wiped Attar from the map and took Kade’s father and Ingrid’s parents with it. It was the beginning of the Burn’s spread into the Eilol, a push that would eventually form the two fronts they held to this day. The Kastas River was the only reason the Highalians had held the creatures back, and Ingrid’s people had relied on the Skywood and its ancient trees, but the great giants burned like kindling in the roga fire. Reports came weeks later that the six-year-old crown princess had stopped the destruction by splitting the ground open. Kade hadn’t believed it, and almost didn’t believe it now as Ingrid shook her head.

“It was an accident,” she insisted. “I don’t remember how I did it. Since then, I’ve only tilled the fields for planting. Dug irrigation channels and defense trenches. That was…I don’t…”

The doubt that flashed across her face was familiar. It had twisted Kade’s own face and hands too many times to count. At every council meeting, every Majis examination, every audience with royal emissaries, Kade worried it was all a mirage. Part of him wished it was, if only to know he would never face a wall of disappointed faces again, but each time the thought crept into his mind, Kade cursed his own selfishness. He took a deep breath and let the sun warm his closed eyes.

“I remember when my father told me what I was.” He squinted against the light. In the shadows of the leaves, he saw his father’s study and the war map on the table. “I thought he must be wrong, that he meant Khalan or Aahran. I was only ka-nahiral. I wasn’t meant for something so important. But I had known before anyone ever told me. I think that only made me doubt it more.”

Ingrid remained silent as the leaves danced in the high breeze. She had no siblings; her parents had died before they could have more children. Even the luxury of speculation was beyond her, with no siblings to imagine taking her place. It was only her.

“Do you know Mount Gyr?” Kade asked. She nodded. “It’s the highest point in the Eilol Valley, but you don’t realize how high you’ve climbed until you stand at the crest and look out over it all.” Kade reached down and plucked a purple flower from the grass and placed it on the bench between them. “It seems foolish to judge by appearance when you might be standing on a mountain.”

“Ka-nahiral,” came a voice behind them. Kade turned to see one of his soldiers standing in the corridor. He didn’t even seem to notice Ingrid. “Your mother has asked for you.”

Kade lifted his scimitar from the bench and bowed to Ingrid before he crossed the garden. As he stepped through the door to follow his soldier down the corridor, Ingrid called quietly over her shoulder, “Thank you.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Four