Not that I had much time for such things — and in the grand scheme of it all, my research seemed pitifully insignificant. When I was not fighting or training or studying, I was with the refugees. It was hard for them to acclimate to a country so different from their own. I’d had Max to help ease me into this new life. They were all alone. But, they were resilient. They adapted, albeit slowly.
Still, it was impossible to forget what hung in the balance of my bargain. Every time I visited, Filias or Riasha would pull me aside, handing me another request for help for someone’s brother or wife or long-lost child. For every soul I had managed to save, there were so many who still needed my help.
“I’ll try,” I always told them, and meant it. But my hands were tied. As long as Zeryth’s war raged on, I could not go fight mine. I kept each name carefully preserved in a wooden box beside my bed.
Right beside them were Max’s letters.
Max. I missed him so much that his absence was a constant ache, like the pain of a missing limb. I tracked his victories carefully. There were many of them. All the whispers had proven true: General Farlione was exceptionally good at what he did. It started with his triumph in Antedale and only grew more impressive from there. With so few deaths, he skillfully dismantled city after city.
Every time people spoke of him, I had to suppress a small, proud smile.
Of course he would be incredible. I’d never had a doubt.
Still, Maxantarius Farlione, acclaimed general, was nothing to me compared to Max, my friend. I didn’t receive letters from General Farlione — I received letters from Max, riddled not with battle strategies but inside jokes that only I would understand and quiet insecurities that I read in the spaces between his handwriting.
And while Max wasn’t one to pour his contents of his soul into words, there would always be a few dots at the end of the letter, dots that represented a pen that had lifted and pressed to the page, hesitated and jerked. Always right before he wrote, I miss you. Stay safe. Please.
In those six words, I heard all the others he left unwritten. I knew because I would do the same, my pen hovering and dripping over the page. What I wrote was never enough. I miss you. Stay safe. Please.
And so, that refrain went, passed back and forth over dozens of letters. Some days, the worry would eat at me so much that I could barely breathe. Worry for Max, yes, but also for the refugees, for Moth, for all the lives that were hanging in the balance, for the noose Zeryth tightened around my throat.
And then, one day, not long after I returned from one of my most exhausting battles, I was summoned to the refugee dwellings.
And that day, my worst fears came to life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Max
Like most things, it happened in a thousand little steps.
Zeryth gave me other orders quickly. There was no shortage of work to be done, after all. All across Ara, there were Lords who disputed Zeryth’s reign. After a few too-short, exhausting days in Antedale, we packed up and moved on.
I had already decided what I would do. I would repeat Antedale over and over again, as many times as I needed to. I would spin plans to minimize the death tolls as much as I possibly could. I used illusions to smoke out fortified strongholds. I cut off production and starved out cities. I assembled teams of spies and sent them to kidnap key figures instead of barreling through an army’s defenses.
Tisaanah, after all, had taught me that there was so much one could do with the right kind of performance and a little creativity.
I followed her stories closely. It became almost amusing, the divide between what I heard whispered in the streets and what I read in her letters at night. I’d hear the soldiers poring over the stories with hushed, amazed voices, speaking of her as if she was some sort of mythological creature. Some swore she practiced ancient Threllian blood sacrifices, others speculated to her lineage (“Those Threllians will fuck anything, I’m telling you!”), and a few seemed bizarrely set on the idea that she ate, specifically, a rare breed of Besrithian scorpion to gain her power.
I’d listen to these people speak of her with such awe, chuckle softly to myself, and then go to my tent and read her letters — letters filled not with mythological greatness but with her intimate, rambling thoughts (and, with few exceptions, at least one incredibly immature joke). And for my part, I would collect little stories throughout the day for her. I had grown so accustomed to having her near me, to sharing those things with her. Now I hoarded them like ravens hoarded shiny buttons, presenting them to her compressed in paper and ink.
It was never enough to describe everything that I really wanted to say.
For a long time, I tried to keep my distance from most of the soldiers. I was stuck with Moth — he rarely strayed from my side, and though I’d never express it, I preferred it that way — but the less I interacted with the others, the better. They had good leadership in Arith and Essanie, I told myself. I had little more to offer.
But then, one day, not long after we departed Antedale, I was walking through the camp only to come across a makeshift sparring ring, a few soldiers gathered around it. One of the men fighting was getting absolutely destroyed. I stood there for five minutes and saw him hit the ground as many times.
I watched, then paced, then left, then backtracked, growing increasingly restless.
What was I supposed to do? Sit here and let them do it wrong?
Eventually I couldn’t stop myself from swooping in, grabbing the losing soldier’s sword from his hands.
“This is an embarrassment,” I huffed. “Look, try this…”
And that’s how it started. A corrected technique here, a suggestion there, one or two throwaway demonstrations. But soon, they became organized lessons, and soon, more and more of the soldiers began to attend them. They extended beyond fighting, to encompass Wielding, too, and before long I found myself mentally planning entire training structures, identifying the army’s biggest gaps and figuring out how to close them.
One day, I blinked and realized I had taken over Essanie and Arith’s regular training duties, leading the troops through the drills myself. I now knew many of the soldiers by name, and beyond that, I knew their strengths and weaknesses.
I was good at this. I even enjoyed it. There was a deep satisfaction to it, to seeing it all come together — click, like a puzzle piece snapping into place.
But this was also the same thing that kept me awake at night, feeling the weight of all those lives pressing down on my chest. With every new name I learned, my resentment of everything that had led them to this moment festered.
The weeks wore on. I collected another victory, then two, then six. They didn’t have significant death tolls, all things considered, or at least that’s what others told me. I was never convinced. I composed every one of the letters to the families of those we did lose, and whether those letters took an hour or six or ten, they all weighed equally on me. I couldn’t look at the body of a twenty-two year old boy and pat myself on the back because there weren’t more in his grave.
I was acutely aware, at all times, exactly what was at stake.
Zeryth demanded a pace that was near-inhuman. But after many weeks of no rest, my soldiers were exhausted. Exhausted soldiers were slow or short-tempered. Slow soldiers got killed. Short-tempered ones killed others. Both things that I wanted to avoid.
And, we happened to be within a detour’s distance to Meriata. Meriata was Ara’s capital of sin and debauchery — exactly the kind of place that would welcome an army on leave with open arms.
But more importantly, it was the home to an old friend. One that might have answers, about the curse Zeryth claimed to hold over Tisaanah’s life.
That, I decided, would be worth the detour.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tisaanah
Serel’s message, asking me to visit the refugees, seemed urgent. I was exhausted when I received it. I’d only just returned from one of the bloodiest battles so far.
Reshaye’s dreams had been especially vivid the night before, and my eyelids were lead. Not that any of that mattered. Whenever any of the refugees called on me, I went. By the time I finished reading the message, I was already reaching for my shoes, casting a wistful glance to the bed.
Next time, I promised it.
As it often did, attention turned to me as soon as I arrived. The legends that everyone else whispered about me spread here, too. Even Serel looked at me differently than he once had, like there was another, foreign piece of me that he didn’t understand.
Sometimes, those looks made me swallow a bitter pang of loneliness.
A part of me had hoped these people would become my family. But just as I was not Nyzrenese enough, not Aran enough, not Valtain enough, I was not quite enough one of them, either. There was an unspoken rift between us, a certain distance to the way they interacted with me.
I was used to being looked at. But the stares I got when I arrived today were different. Everything was quieter. My magic tasted unease in the air.
Something was off.
“Tisaanah!”
Still, it was amazing how the sound of that familiar Thereni voice lifted my spirits.
I turned to see Serel approaching. He pulled me into a rough, quick embrace.
“Thank you,” he murmured in my ear. “I know you’re busy.”
“Never too busy for this.”
I surveyed the people who had paused to stare at me, a wrinkle forming between my brows.
“Is everything alright?”
Something dulled in Serel’s expression. “We’re fine,” he said. “But…”
My smile faded. “What? What happened?”
Over Serel’s shoulder, Filias appeared in an open doorway. Serel was at least trying to keep up a cheerful facade. But Filias? Filias’s face was hard with anger. Pinched between his fingers was a parchment letter.
“We need to talk, Nyzrenese witch,” he said.
The table, like everything else about the apartment, was run-down, rough boards simply nailed together atop uneven legs. The table itself was not notable. What was notable was what covered it:
Letters.
There were dozens of them, scattered across the tabletop, piled on top of each other. They all were crafted out of similar parchment, and all bore a seal in a certain shade of red that made a pit tighten in my stomach.
A group of people clustered around the table, silent as their gazes turned to me.
Filias gestured to the letters. “Read.”
“Which one?”
“Any one.”
I picked up a letter. It was written in a shaky hand, dotted with a darkened red.
My dear…
I did not want to write this… I do not want to worry you… I was not given a choice…
With every sentence, I felt as if my blood was draining from my body.
I put down that letter. Picked up another. And another. Different handwriting, different words, but all saying the same thing.
“They’re all the same,” Filias said, tension thick in his voice. “All make the same demands.”
“Apparently,” Riasha said, “the Zorokovs did not like the stunt you pulled at the Mikov estate.”
My knees were weak. I sat down in a rickety chair.
Shit. Shit.
They were all written by slaves. Specifically, slaves owned by members of the Zorokov family, one of the most powerful dynasties in Threll. Slaves that were loved ones of the refugees that now lived here, in Ara. And every one of these letters, written under clear duress, begged for only one thing:
Me.
My life, turned over to the Threllian Lords, to face “justice” for the slaughter of Esmaris and Ahzeen Mikov.
Justice. What a ridiculous term, to describe what it was that they wanted to do. Threllian society cared nothing for justice. If I were a Threllian man, what I did would be something to respect and fear. Well, they feared me, alright, and they feared the Orders. But I’d seen firsthand how Threllians reacted when power was wielded against them by people they didn’t think deserved it. I’d seen wives who took too many liberties with their husbands estates hung and gutted. I’d seen overly-ambitious second sons get their throats slit by displeased older brothers.
And what I’d done had been orders of magnitude worse.
They couldn’t dangle me from the gallows themselves. But they could threaten their own slaves, parents and siblings and friends of those now under my protection, in exchange for me.
Smart. Ruthless.
Suddenly, I felt so naive. I knew this was a risk. But I didn’t think it would happen so fast — while my hands were still tied.
“How did they find us so quickly?” I murmured.
Serel winced. “Many of the people here wrote to their friends and relatives as soon as we were settled. It would only take one intercepted letter.”
“Did you know about this?” Filias asked, and I snapped my head up.
“No. Of course not.”
“They would have threatened the Orders, too. Threatened those who now controlled the Mikov Estate. They’re just as afraid of the Orders as they are of you. The Arch Commandant didn’t tell you?”
Of course Zeryth wouldn't have said anything. Lately, Zeryth could barely construct a sentence without losing track of his own words. “No. He did not.”
“But you can get them out,” a small voice said, from one of the girls in the crowd. “Can’t you?”
“One of those letters is from my nephew,” another added. “He’s only seven.”
I closed my eyes. A headache bloomed behind my temples. “We will get them out. And the Orders will support us as we do it.”
“We shouldn’t have left,” someone in the group murmured, and though no one responded aloud, my magic could feel the pang of guilt in the air — a ripple of silent agreement.
“Let’s not pretend that the Arans will do anything to help us,” Filias said. “They have bigger things to worry about. If our kin need us, then we’ll need to go help them ourselves.”
My stomach fell through my feet.
“You can’t do that.”
“It may be the only choice we have.”
“Because the Zorokovs will slaughter you. And they will slaughter your loved ones.” I stood, eyes scanning the crowd. “Trust me, I want immediate action just as much as you do. But if you give me time, we can win this. Zeryth Aldris doesn’t win his war without me. He needs me, and I have bound the Arans to their promises. The minute their war is over, ours begins. With their resources, we won’t be throwing more corpses at the Threllians’ feet. We’ll be winning.”
“And how long will that take, for Aldris to pick off Sesri’s cousins one by one? Even then, they won’t surrender. That isn’t a plan. That’s a dream.”
I hated how much his words echoed my own insecurities. “It will be a quick victory. We just need time.”
But would it be quick enough?
I wished I could make that promise. But it wouldn’t be so simple.
“We need to trust her,” Serel said. “She came back for us when no one else would. She didn’t have to do that. If she says it’s the truth, then it’s the truth.”
A bitter laugh came from another corner of the room. “Bullshit.”
I knew that voice.
My head snapped up. And I saw a familiar face in the back of the crowd, far enough in the shadows that I hadn’t noticed him when I first arrived. He looked better than he had when I last saw him. The scars of his face had been repaired, revealing freckled, healed skin. But his lip was still split, and his nose still missing, leaving behind two gaping holes. A cane was clutched in his hand.
“Vos,” I choked out.
Vos, my old friend, whom I had betrayed at Esmaris’s estate the day that Serel had helped me leave. He had paid the price many times over for my escape.
He regarded me with a cold stare, a sneer twitching at his ruined mouth.
“Say tha
t to me,” he spat. “Tell me that they should trust you.”
I needed words — the right words — now more than ever. I needed words that were comforting enough to assure the refugees that I would be able to help them. I needed words that were strong enough to keep them from doing something stupid.
And above all, I needed words that were true.
In Esmaris’s court, my tongue had spun so many honey-sweet lies. But these people deserved more, deserved better. What did I have to offer them?
“We will find a way,” I said, but Filias was already shaking his head and Vos had turned away. And still, I couldn’t shake the cloying, nauseating taste of sugar.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aefe
When I woke, it took me several long seconds to realize that what we had witnessed in the House of Reeds had not been a nightmare. My memory came back slow. The monsters first. And then, the memory of what I had done — what I had let them see.
I lay there, unmoving.
I wasn’t ready to see how they would look at me. Siobhan already knew what I was, just as everyone in the House of Obsidian did. I had gotten used to that. But Caduan, Ishqa, Ashraia… it had been a long, long while since I had seen someone find out for the first time.
But I would need to face it eventually.
I opened my eyes. It was dusk. The others gathered around the fire, and every one of them turned to me as soon as I stirred. They had been waiting.
I sat up. Everything ached. There was a tenuous silence as Caduan offered me water, which I accepted, and food, which I did not. “Did you see?” I asked Siobhan, and I didn’t need to say what I was talking about. She told me that she, Ashraia, and Caduan had, too, been attacked by the strange Fey creatures. There had been hundreds, or even thousands, of them. Siobhan had sounded shaken when she recounted it.
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