“Your Highness,” he said.
“Walk with me. I wish to speak with you.” He nodded and she dismounted, slapping the side of her guanik. It lumbered forward, but at a slower pace, staying at her side as they walked.
They climbed the rise together. Once, Gat stumbled, but managed to use both hands to regain his balance. “You Phanecians aren’t used to the thick sand we have here,” Whisper said when they reached the top.
Gat chuckled. “It’s true. Our ground is hard and cracked and doesn’t move beneath us. Unless, of course, there’s a red pyzon moving through its burrow.”
“Come on, you can’t be serious. That’s something you’d tell a child to frighten them.”
He raised his eyebrows. “If you say so.” They started down the hill, half-sliding as the soft sand tumbled away under their feet.
Whisper skidded to a stop in the trough, looking up at the next rise, which was steeper than the last. “Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance?” she asked, not meeting Gat’s eyes. “My sister pardoned you. Your sister had come to reunite and return to Phanes with you. All you had to do was walk away. So why are you still here?”
“Because I realized something. My life is not my own—not anymore.”
Finally, Whisper turned to meet his gaze. There it was: the turmoil she’d seen in him when he’d tried to commit treason so she’d be forced to execute him. “Explain.”
He took a deep breath. “When I was captured and taken to Zune, I was a stubborn man who thought himself invincible. I refused to fight. Generally, that meant I would be killed, either by the pitmasters or by another competitor in the pits. Non-fighters weren’t good for business.”
“That’s madness.” Whisper would never have considered not fighting while in the pits.
Gat shrugged. “I was a man of principle back then. I refused to kill another who might not deserve it.”
“Not even in self-defense?”
“I didn’t see it that way. They were being forced to fight me. In another situation, we would’ve passed in the street and not given each other so much as a sideways glance.”
“Fair enough. What happened? Why aren’t you dead?”
“Viper saved me. She saw something in me. She created a new standard in the pits.”
“She built an army of traitors.”
“I—I know. But she also made us believe in her vision. We didn’t realize it was a false vision until later, until after we’d already helped her usurp the dragon throne.”
He wasn’t lying, of that she was certain. “Fine. And then you helped us, got your pardon, so why not leave while you still could? You didn’t owe Viper anything.”
“Just my life.”
“You already earned that ten times over by helping her.”
“Things weren’t so simple.”
Something in his voice flipped a switch of understanding in Whisper’s mind. “You were her lover.”
Gat nodded. “Yes. For many years. Everything she did was with such fervor. I loved that about her. I had to give her one last chance to change things. I thought maybe if she fought for the throne and Raven submitted, she would spare her life. I thought maybe it would make her realize that she had the chance to do it all over again the right way—the way she’d always talked about doing it.”
Whisper wanted to hate this man, but she knew the truth: Raven hadn’t died because of him. “Raven would’ve fought Viper even if you’d left,” she blurted out.
Gat stared at her, his eyes roaming across her face, as if searching for a hint of falsehood. “How do you know that?”
“Because I know my sister. She never backed down from a fight, and she believed in upholding Calypsian law to the letter. She was somewhat of an idealist.”
“And you? What are your core beliefs?”
The question caught her by surprise, because no one had really asked for her opinion on anything. They preferred to tell her what she should do. Gat had trusted Viper and followed her. Now he seemed to be trusting and following her without question.
“I believe in living. Yes, there are causes worth fighting for, but why leave our borders when we’re safer within them? If our enemies are bold enough to attack us directly, then we shall end them. Otherwise, let them do as they wish.”
“Fair enough, empress,” Gat said. He motioned toward the hill and she nodded. Then they started to climb.
Ninety-One
The Western Kingdom, the Forbidden Plains
Helmuth Gäric
He spurred on the Horde, tendrils of fear-drenched mist snapping like whips. He wouldn’t linger on these barren, forsaken plains. He had kingdoms to lay low, empires to trod under his feet.
The one known as Bane was becoming a problem. The young man was stronger than he’d thought at first. Slowly, Helmuth was wearing him down, but it was taking its toll. He had to be alert every minute of every hour, for he could feel Bane probing at his walls of mist, searching for weaknesses.
I could just kill him, he thought. It would certainly make his barbarians happy. They were constantly prowling around, sniffing the air, just waiting for Bane to die. No. Stay strong. He would make an example of Bane to break the will of the others. It was the smart move. Assuming his strength and numbers would be enough was a fool’s strategy. And he was no fool.
There it was: the push, the probe. Bane’s scalp glowed dully, his mark of power trying to pulse, to flare to life. Helmuth shoved back, his mist curling around his prisoner like great chains, snapping tight.
Bane screamed, his entire body going rigid. He screamed and screamed and screamed and then, mercifully, went silent. “Carry him,” Helmuth said in the language of the Horde. He was Klar-Ggra again, feared barbarian leader.
Two of his many obeyed, cringing when they entered the mist. They picked up the unconscious man and hefted him across their shoulders.
Helmuth relaxed at last, drawing his mist back inside him, his painmark winking out. He was exhausted and needed time to recover.
And then he would be ready for war.
Bane
He felt his body being lifted roughly, but he didn’t react, flopping his arms at his sides, as limp as a ragdoll.
His strength was sapped, but he thought he had enough to escape if he was quick enough while his captor’s guard was down.
It was tempting. The pain was…extraordinary, and not just the physical side. In many ways Bane preferred the agony coursing through his body to the nightmares flashing through his head. They were memories. Things he’d done. Things he regretted. Happy times, too, with Bear Blackboots. They hurt the most. He didn’t want to remember. He wanted only to end this journey, finish what he’d started when he first shoved his own father down the staircase, turning to find his sister watching him.
I will end this, he thought, determined not to slip away like a ghost in the night. No, he would bide his time a little while longer, the patient spider spinning a web, waiting for the fly to unwittingly run into it.
Ninety-Two
The Eastern Kingdom, the Eastern Trail
Annise Gäric
Amidst the thousands of eastern legionnaires, Annise felt their losses more than ever. Their small group of survivors was like a sapling next to a mighty iron-sheathed oak.
But we’re still here, she thought. We’re still willing to fight.
All they had left was to make the deaths of those they’d lost count for something. Now, we live for them. For her mother. Her brother.
For my father, she thought, catching herself by surprise. Her father had been a tyrant. He had ruled with a frozen fist, using fear as his weapon. She didn’t mourn him when he died. So why consider him now?
Because he’s a part of me, she thought, whether I like it or not.
The Eastern Trail wound away from them on a southwesterly course, where it would eventually find its way to the Bridge of Triumph. It was a narrow, rocky trail, and most of the soldiers were scattered well off to both sides else their train extend
miles in either direction.
“You’re frowning,” Tarin said from beside her. Clad in his black armor, he cut an imposing figure even more so because of the trio of spiked skulls dangling from his waist. His helmet was off, tucked under one arm.
“So are you,” she pointed out.
“Because you are.”
“Your mood depends on mine?”
“Mostly,” Tarin said.
“That’s sad.”
“Then I guess I’m sad too.” He smirked.
She wanted to smile, but she could hear her father’s voice in her head now, that arrogant, condescending monologue of instruction.
“Annise.”
“I’d rather not talk right now.”
“Fine. Then I shall hum until you cheer up.” Nearby, Zelda snorted, listening in on their conversation.
“Frozen hell,” Annise said as Tarin began to follow through on his promise. He wasn’t a good hummer.
“Shall I stop?”
“Please, but I still don’t want to talk.”
“Very well. Then I shall do the talking. I can picture our lives when this is over.”
The abrupt change to the conversation gave her pause. She could scarcely picture how the rest of the day would look, much less anything further into the future. “How does it look? Did they burn or bury us?” She’d meant it as a dark jape and Tarin grinned broadly. I love this man, she thought. He actually gets me.
“Neither, because we’re not dead,” he said. “You’re standing atop one pile of barbarian corpses, and me the other. Frozen gods of the north, you look…beautiful.” Tarin’s eyes widened theatrically. “In a mad, bloodthirsty warrior-queen sort of way,” he added. Annise felt her foul mood begin to crack.
“Maybe I can see that…” she said. “What else?”
“Wait ’til you see our house—it’s a castle!” He raised his eyebrows.
“Fancy that,” Annise said.
“And you’ll never guess what it’s filled with.”
“Is Zelda living with us? If so, I’d say pastries and apples. Lots of them. We’re swimming in them.”
“Least we won’t go hungry,” Zelda said. She bit into an apple, fruit shrapnel flying.
“Wrong,” Tarin said. “There are no pastries nor apples because the children ate them all.”
“Children?” Annise said. “Whose children?”
“Our children,” Tarin said. “Lots of them, all running around with strong jaws and broad shoulders, pale as the day is long with black protruding veins like their da. Ten, twelve, fourteen. So many you have to take off your boots to count them. Maybe more. It all depends on how often we…” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“If it’s based on that, we shall have an army,” Annise said, playing along.
Tarin laughed but then moved closer, lowering his voice as his expression grew serious. “And you’re my wife,” he said. “Which I guess makes me the king, but I’m not the ruler. Because you are. And you are the best damn queen the north has ever known. They throw flower petals at your feet everywhere you go. I trail behind and pick them up…”
She stopped, reached up to grab the back of his neck, and kissed him. “Was that a proposal, Sir?” she said when she pulled away, breathless.
“No,” he said. “But I see that too.”
Two days later they were encamped a stone’s throw from Hyro Lake, taking advantage of the large body of fresh water to refill their skins before they crossed the Bridge of Triumph into the west.
As each hour had passed, the group had grown more serious, the japes growing less frequent, as well as the marching songs.
Annise lay beside Tarin in their tent, listening to the low, muted conversations taking place around hundreds of cookfires. She couldn’t make out the words, but something about the sound gave her comfort. The north and east might not have seen eye to eye in the past, but now they were united in this one task. Maybe it would be enough.
Tarin combed her hair with his fingers. “Do you see the future yet?” he asked.
“No,” Annise admitted. “I see only the past. There are too many ghosts.”
Tarin drew her head against his chest. As a precaution, he was wearing his armor, but had placed a folded shirt on the iron for Annise to use as a pillow. “You will,” he said. “You will see it with your own eyes.”
“The gobs of children?”
A smile flitted across his lips. “Aye. And the husband trailing behind picking up rose petals.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
“I know. That’s why I said it. Speaking of which, do you remember the hope flower?”
“You mean the one you gave me after Bane almost killed you? Don’t tell me you still have it.”
“Of course not. It withered away months ago. But its message has not. Because since its passing, a thousand others have grown elsewhere. In the cold. In the snow. Surviving in the harshest environments. Just like us. We’ve survived.”
It was a nice thought, but… “Not all of us.”
“Not all of us,” Tarin agreed. “But like you said, we live for them now. But I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts. His head was close to hers, his breaths a whisper away. “When we catch up to the Horde…on the morrow or the next day—a week from now, whenever—who do you want me to be?”
To most, the question would’ve been cryptic, but not to Annise, who had spent countless hours with Tarin since they were reunited. She knew his heart. She’d spoken with his monster on multiple occasions. She’d seen the good in him—so much good—but she’d also seen the darkness. The darkness that had saved her many times. “We must emerge victorious, no matter what it takes.”
She didn’t say the rest because she knew she didn’t have to. He heard it anyway:
I want you to be the monster.
Ninety-Three
The Eastern Kingdom, the Bridge of Triumph
Gareth Ironclad
He watched the dark waters of the lake as they moved past. They’re like us, he thought. Never stopping, always somewhere to go. A constant cycle. But for what purpose? He’d always believed in what his father told him—that the east was blessed, and that their enemies deserved what was coming to them. He’d believed in the necessity of war.
He still believed in it when it came to a soulless enemy like the Horde, one that wouldn’t stop until they’d drowned the Four Kingdoms in blood. But the north?
Roan was right all along. We were fighting ourselves. He’d watched the northerners who were with them. They were just people—not good, not evil, just people. Like us.
A sound pulled him from his reverie in a rush and he spun around, sword already out and at the ready.
“Your Highness,” the enormous black-armored knight said. “My apologies. I couldn’t sleep.” In the dark, his face appeared less pale, more shadowed, and his large black veins were invisible.
“Tarin Sheary,” Gareth remembered. He was the northern queen’s protector and lover, a deadly combination for Annise Gäric’s enemies. “It is a hard night to sleep on.”
“Not for the queen,” he said, standing beside him to stare across the lake. “She sleeps like a babe on a cloud.”
Gareth chuckled. “She’s a…unique woman. I’ve heard many an exaggerated story.”
“The stories are understated, if anything,” Tarin said.
“Then she is a remarkable woman.”
“That she is.” There was a brief silence as they watched the silent current move past. “Thank you,” the knight finally said.
“For what?”
“For stopping the cycle of violence. For allowing us to fight with you. I know it wasn’t easy. I know it still isn’t easy.”
Gareth was surprised by the man’s candid words. “Something has to change, else we’ll all end up corpses.”
The knight laughed. “We all will anyway. But mayhaps we can delay it long
enough to have a bit of fun before it’s over.”
Gareth had seen this man fight during the battle at Raider’s Pass. He was a monster then, speckled with blood, killing at will. This side of him was as different as the stars from the sun, but Gareth would still rather fight alongside him than against him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, though I can’t promise an answer.”
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
“Frozen hell and all that?”
“The forest dwellers call it the Great Forest of Orion, but yes. Something like that.”
Tarin seemed to consider the question, his head cocked slightly to the side. “I believe there’s something after, though we are probably all wrong as to what it is.”
Gareth nodded. He’d often thought the same. “And if the people could see us, watching our actions, what would they think? Would they be proud or disgusted?”
Tarin’s eyes met his. “That depends on us. Right now? I’d say we’re somewhere in between. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still change things. You should get some sleep, Your Highness, we have a long march ahead of us tomorrow.”
With that, the knight turned and strode away.
Gareth still wasn’t tired, but after watching the lake for a few moments longer, he followed.
Ninety-Four
The Southern Empire, the Bloody Canyons
Lisbeth Lorne
The red canyon walls towered over them on either side. To Lisbeth, however, they were dark and soulless. She couldn’t see the bloodstains on the ground beneath her either, the lifeblood of the souls they’d lost having drained long ago. All she saw was a path forward.
She’d shown Zur and the Garzi everything she’d shown the others. For most of them, it had been enough. But not all. Hundreds of warriors had stayed behind. The rest, however, were now marching southward along the edge of a great, frozen lake, just as she had done what felt like an eternity ago. Back when the Sleeping Knights were her army and she believed they would destroy the world.