The Winter King

CHAPTER 26

Strange Bedfellows

“How can she be the Heir? It’s supposed to be me! It was always supposed to be me!” Falcon paced back and forth across his father’s tent. Roland’s sword, still sheathed in Falcon’s scabbard, lay on a table against the side of the tent. Falcon had thrown it there in disgust earlier. “I’m the one who spent years reading entire libraries of books, tracking down every fragment of a lead. I was the one who followed the trail to Wintercraig and that damned Book of Riddles! I’m the one who spent the last three years traveling from one corner of Mystral to another, risking life and limb to follow the clues in that book! I risked everything to find that sword! It’s supposed to be mine! I’m the true Heir of Roland!”

“Yes, you are,” King Verdan agreed. “With my sword arm ruined, you are indisputably Roland’s rightful Heir.” He stalked over to the corner of the tent, where Khamsin was sitting, bound securely to a chair, gagged, and once more draped in a heavy lead-lined cloth. He grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks and jaw in a hard grip. “What vile magic did you work to make the sword recognize you instead of your brother, girl?”

She glared up at him. The thick wad of cloth tied over her mouth rendered her incapable of response.

Verdan loosened the cloth and let it fall to her chest. “Answer me, girl.”

“I did nothing. Clearly, Blazing judged Falcon and found him lacking.” She switched her glare to her brother, and added, “Maybe he should have spent more time trying to emulate Roland’s noble qualities—like honor, generosity, and self-sacrifice—instead of murdering, thieving, and whoring his way to the sword’s hiding place!”

“You traitorous little bitch!” Frothing with rage, Falcon lunged forward, fist raised.

Kham’s chin jutted out, and she braced herself for the blow. “Do it,” she dared. “My hands are tied, my magic bound. Hit me and prove once and for all what a fine, brave hero you are.”

Falcon swore, and his fist stopped midswing. Perhaps because he still retained the ability to feel shame. Or maybe, just because he remembered what happened the last time he assumed a lead cloak rendered her powerless.

“Do you see now?” Verdan said, waving a hand at Khamsin. “I warned you to send her to Hel with the rest of Atrialan’s lackeys. I told you she’d betray her family, her country, and her king at the first opportunity.”

“You aren’t my king, Verdan Coruscate,” she snapped. “And you aren’t my family, either. You lost all claim to that the day you dragged me into the depths of Vera Sola and beat me near to death. All the loyalty and devotion I would have given you, if you’d loved me even a little, belongs to Wynter now.”

“Love? You? I’d sooner love a plague on my own House! I should have drowned you at birth. If I had, my Rose would still be alive.”

“So you’ve said my whole life,” she scoffed, “but that’s just a cowardly lie.” For the first time, his hatred didn’t hurt. He had nothing she wanted, nothing she needed, and he had lost all power over her. “Tildy told me the truth. The doctor warned you to stay away from my mother, but you didn’t. You couldn’t. And do you know what? I don’t blame you for that. I know now what it is to love someone so deeply you can’t stay away. But do you think for one minute my mother would love the vile, corrupt monster you’ve become? A man who would plot to kill his own child—her child? She would despise you! She would cringe from you in revulsion. She would—”

Verdan’s fist shot out. Unlike Falcon, he didn’t stop midswing. His knuckles struck a hard blow to her jaw.

Her head snapped back from the impact. She and the chair she was tied to fell sideways onto the floor. Kham lay in the dirt, working her jaw, and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “That is the last time you will ever lay a finger on me.”

“Or what? You’ll call your weathergift, Storm?” Verdan laughed. “Go ahead and try. Did you truly think I would be fool enough to repeat Falcon’s mistake? This entire tent is lined with lead.”

She clamped her lips tight and watched in mute silence as he sauntered over to the table to pick up Roland’s sword with his left hand.

“It really is quite beautiful,” he murmured. He turned the sword from side to side, watching with almost hypnotic fascination as the light of the tent lamps reflected off the razor-sharp blade. “The weapon of a king.”

He closed his eyes and tightened his hand around the grip. When the diamond in the hilt flared with light, Verdan opened his eyes again and smiled.

“I don’t know how you could ever have thought this blade was anything but the true sword of Roland, Falcon. Could you not feel the power surging inside it? Trying to connect?” He pulled back the right cuff of his coat, revealing the dark red Rose birthmark on the wrist of his ruined arm. He laid his left forearm across it and gave a small, dazed laugh. “Even though my arm is frozen, my Rose is hot to the touch. The sword knows my blood, and my blood knows the sword.”

“Any amplification spell—”

“Would not breathe heat back into the lump of ice that is my arm,” Verdan snapped. Then the anger faded from his expression as he once again focused his attention on the blade. “But like you, I cannot access that power. It is blocked from me. Perhaps the sword only recognizes one Heir at a time. Perhaps, if you’d gotten to it first, it would have recognized you instead of her.” Verdan regarded Khamsin with cold eyes. “Maybe if she dies, the sword will be free to be claimed again. This time, by its true and rightful Heir.”

Falcon looked alarmed. “You aren’t seriously suggesting we kill her? You’ll call a curse upon our House.”

“She is the curse. She always has been. Killing her can only set us free.”

“Or make it ten times worse!”

Before Verdan could answer, a shrill, ear-piercing shriek rent the air. Another shriek followed the first. Then another.

Then the screams of men began.

Falcon ran to the tent entrance and shoved back a flap, revealing a scene of carnage and chaos. Falcon’s small party of men had met up with the rest of their army not long after Verdan’s arrival. An invasion force of many thousands of Summerlanders and Calbernans. But their overwhelming numbers seemed somehow smaller now, as half the camp was running and shouting in chaos while enormous, white garm darted through their midst, shrieking, spewing blue vapor, and shredding men into mangled bits of flesh and bone.

“Sound the alarm!” Falcon shouted. “To arms! To arms!”

“Free me!” Kham cried. She struggled and kicked against her bonds. “For Halla’s sake, untie me and give me the sword. Hurry, or we’re all dead!”

“One of us is going to die,” Verdan growled. “But it won’t be me or Falcon.”

Kham gasped as Verdan swung Roland’s sword, but instead of biting into her flesh, Blazing sliced through the ropes binding her to the chair. He shoved the sword into his belt to free his hand, then reached down and hauled Khamsin to her feet.

“Father, give me the—” Falcon broke off in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“The sword’s useless to us so long as she lives. Time to remedy that problem.” Verdan shouldered Falcon aside and shoved Khamsin through the tent flaps, into the path of an oncoming garm.

Kham screamed and fell backward, clutching at her father’s arm as she tumbled. Her feet slipped on the icy ground, and the sole of her boots caught Verdan in the ankles, knocking his feet out from under him.

With a hoarse shout, Verdan fell on top of her.

She tried to roll free, but he landed on the edge of her leaden cloak and pinned her. The ties at her throat pulled tight against her neck. As Verdan scrambled to his feet, each frantic motion pulled the strings at her neck tighter. Choking, gasping for air, Kham ripped at the ties of her cloak with her bound hands. She managed to free herself and push up to her hands and knees in time to see a glint of malevolent red in a blur of onrushing white. Terror shot through her veins.

Verdan saw the garm, too. Shouting, he scrambled to free the sword stuffed in his belt.

The garm leapt. Its paralytic scream ripped through the air, and a cloud of blue vapor spewed from its mouth. Khamsin rolled instinctively onto her belly, dragging the leaden cloak atop her as the cloud of freezing cold enveloped them.

Frost crackled in her hair and numbed her legs, and the leaden cloak turned stiff as a plank of wood, trapping her inside a frozen cocoon. She heard her father shout, heard the garm scream. Then there was a loud thud, and Verdan collapsed on top of her, his body jerking like a trout on a string. Something hot and wet rained down on the back of her head. She opened her eyes to see blood spurting onto the snow in great, pulsating ruby jets. Roland’s sword lay gleaming in the snow several feet away.

Broad, taloned paws pounded the ground as an entire pack of garm raced past. More paralyzing shrieks rang out, and the screams of the fleeing Summerlanders and Calbernans cut off in midcry.

Kham pushed against the frozen lead cape and the crushing weight of her father’s armored body, barely able to breathe, let alone move. Her struggles caught the attention of a second pack, and two of the garm broke from the group to stalk towards her, heads lowered, red eyes glowing with malice.

“Falcon!” Her brother was standing in the tent entrance, watching her struggling to crawl free of their father’s corpse. “Help me!” she screamed. “Help me get the sword!”

But instead of rushing to help her, Falcon ducked inside the tent. The flaps fell closed behind him.

“Falcon!”

The scene was far too familiar for her liking, and this time there would be no Wynter riding in to save the day. Panicking, Roland’s sword well out of reach, she shoved and pushed against the heavy, immobile weight of her father’s body, but it wouldn’t budge. Her heart pounded faster than Hodri’s galloping hooves. Think, Khamsin! Calm down, and think! You haven’t been helpless a day in your life—for Halla’s sake, don’t pick now to start!

The closest of the approaching garm growled. Blue slime dripped from its fang-filled mouth.

Kham clawed and kicked at the ground, grunting with effort as she raised herself up on her elbows. Her father’s body shifted, sliding down her back and freeing her torso. Now only her hips and legs were pinioned beneath its deadweight.

She reached out a desperate hand towards Roland’s sword, hoping the sword’s proximity would aid her. A trickle of energy flowed into her veins—a far cry from the heat she could channel from the sun—but it amplified her weather magic, so she wasn’t about to complain. The wispy clouds overhead plumped and grew dark with gathering moisture. She fed more energy into them.

The garm crouched, hind legs tightening as it prepared to pounce.

Khamsin swore a long string of inventively foul curses she’d learned from Krysti. There wasn’t even a hint of the lavender glow around her hands that preceded her ability to summon lightning. And the electrical charge she could generate without tapping into the power of a storm might have tossed a man off his feet but probably wouldn’t do much to a garm.

Still, it was all she had until the storm brewing in those clouds got going.

Kham focused the energy in her hands until sparks crackled and popped between her fingertips, then let it fly. The electrical charge zinged the short distance to the garm and zapped the creature in its nasal slits.

The garm yowled in surprise and vigorously shook its massive head. But instead of convincing the garm that Kham was more trouble than she was worth, the zap only seemed to anger the beast. Red eyes fixed on her with renewed malice.

She grimaced. Well, that wasn’t exactly the result she’d been hoping for.

The garm charged. Its gigantic mouth, with all those rows of jagged, dagger-sharp teeth, gaped wide. The long, curved claws dug into ice and gravel. The creature leapt, and Kham braced herself for the killing blow.

To her shock, in the middle of its leap, the garm suddenly and inexplicably froze. Literally. The furry body fell out of the air and slid across the frozen ground, crashing into her with a brittle crack. The jolt knocked Verdan Coruscate’s body to one side. Kham kicked free and scrambled to her feet.

Only then did she see the ice white spear protruding from the creature’s side and the young boy five yards away, bent over, hands on his knees, as he tried to catch his breath after throwing a spear more than twice his size.

The second garm, which had been stalking towards her, now fixed its scarlet gaze on Krysti and began to charge.

“Krysti, run!” she cried. He bounded for the closest tree while Kham dove for Roland’s sword. Her fingers closed around the sword grip. She rolled to her feet, and cried “Fire!” just as the garm shrieked.

Flames engulfed the sword. She swung at the garm with all her might. The searing blade of fire halved the garm’s body and cut off the cloud of freezing vapor in midexhalation. The small, abruptly terminated cloud of blue vapor wisped harmlessly away on a puff of wind.

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.” Krysti, who had leapt up a nearby tree with his typical agility, dropped back down to the ground and ran to her side. “I thought you were done for.”

“Me, too. If not for you, I would have been.” She pulled him close for a quick hug. “How did you get free?”

The boy grinned. “It’s a gift.”

Despite everything, she laughed. “A darned useful one, too.” She ruffled his head. “And the spear?”

“The Summerlander holding it was distracted when the garm attacked. I hit him on the head with a rock and took it. I figured we needed it more.”

Kham’s smile faded. “That we do.”

Together, they turned to face the carnage taking place around them. Screams and shrieks rang out from every direction, and blue vapor hung like a mist in the air. A knot of Calbernans were huddled back-to-back, throwing spears at a circling trio of garm. A group of Summerlanders were firing arrows on the run. And everywhere, the fallen were rising again, covered in ice.

“We should just leave them to the garm,” Krysti said. “They came here to kill us.”

“They came here because of Falcon and my father. I can’t leave them all to die.” Invaders the Summerlander and Calbernans might be, but there was no way she could just walk away and let the garm slaughter them. And not just because the fallen were rising again as ice thralls.

“They’d leave us in a heartbeat.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t make it right.” She took a deep breath. “Stay here. Find a place to hide.” She pulled Thorgyll’s spear out of the fallen garm and handed it back to Krysti. “Keep this. If the garm come back, use it.”

“I’m not letting you go off to fight garm without me,” Krysti protested.

“You’re not letting me do anything,” Kham snapped. Then she winced. She hadn’t meant to bark at the boy. “I’m sorry, Krysti. It’s too dangerous. I need to know you’re safe.”

“Safe? Do you see what’s out there?” Krysti pointed to a pack of ice thralls attacking two Summerlanders while a garm leapt up a tree in pursuit of a third. “I’m a million times safer near you and that sword. And you’re safer with me guarding your back.”

He looked so small, so young, holding a spear more than twice his size, but so determined and brave as well. She wanted to kiss him. More than anything, she wanted to keep him safe. But he was right. There was no such place in this forest. Not now.

“All right,” she conceded. “But don’t stick too close. My lightning is dangerous, and I really don’t know everything this sword can do.”

“Agreed.”

“Then let’s go.” Kham gripped Blazing in one fist and started running towards the knot of Calbernans battling the circling garm.

With Blazing in hand, the power that had tingled so tantalizingly out of reach when she was pinned beneath her father’s body now came in an effortless rush. It filled Khamsin and the sword in an instant, warm and revitalizing. Heat filled her and radiated out on all sides, melting the snow for six feet on every side. She seized the warm, moist air swirling around her and drove it up into the dry, cold winter skies above. Clouds blossomed and began darkening rapidly, and she laughed at the familiar cool, fresh, electric taste on the wind.

“Stand your ground!” Kham shouted to a half dozen fleeing Summerlander soldiers. “These creatures can be killed! Use ranged weapons! Bows, arrows, spears! Don’t let the vapor touch you—and cover your ears against their screams! Fight, sons of Summer! Sons of the Isles! Fight!”

The storm overhead was brewing with power. Lightning crackled and raced across the clouds. The purple glow of plasma gathered around Khamsin. Ahead, one of the garm circling the Calbernans froze. The long receptor hairs pointed her way by the dozen.

The garm spun and leapt for her, teeth gnashing, blue froth flying from its snarling maw.

“Burn!” she cried, and thrust Blazing towards the beast.

Three bolts of lightning shot down from the sky. In less time than it took to blink, the electric charge passed through her, down her arm, then shot out from the tip of Roland’s sword into the garm as a single, concentrated flow of power. The lightning slammed into the garm, lifting the massive creature off its feet and sending it flying backward through the air. The garm burst into flames and landed at the feet of the Calbernans. The flames promptly turned inward, and within less than two seconds, all that remained was a pile of garm-shaped ash that collapsed in upon itself and blew away in the next gust of wind.

The second of the dead garm’s companions now turned its attention to her, and she dispatched it with similar ease, while the large, blue-tattooed Calbernans threw their viciously barbed tridents at the third, pinning it to the ground. Another island warrior—this one a huge, broad-chested man with long ropes of black-green hair and massive biceps circled by bands of hammered gold—brought an enormous sword arcing down and decapitated the pinned monster with a single, mighty blow. Blue blood spilled out across the snow.

Behind her, Krysti skewered first one, then a second ice thrall with Thorgyll’s spear. The thralls froze solid as stone and didn’t move again. Just to be sure, Kham stabbed each of them with Blazing’s fire and reduced them to ash.

“The garm will die,” she told the Calbernans, “but you have to burn the ice thralls with fire.”

The huge Calbernan who had decapitated the garm gave her a savage grin and whirled to slice an ice thrall in half, then dismembered what was left with a few enthusiastic chops of his blade.

“I guess that will work, too,” she muttered. A flash of white darting through the trees caught her eye. “Watch out!” she cried to the huge Calbernan. She guided a crackling bolt of lightning that incinerated the garm just before it struck the Calbernan’s unprotected back. The shower of hot ash washed harmlessly over the islander, turning his blue-tattooed skin a dull, dusty gray. The man’s golden eyes blinked, and he lifted a hand in a wordless salute of gratitude.

She pointed to another knot of the embattled Calbernans not too far away. “Your friends over there look like they could use some help. I suggest you grab a few of those bows and quivers over there if you know how to use them. They give a better range than those tridents.”

The big, green-haired man barked something in musical Calbernan. The rest of the group plucked their tridents from the dead garm and ran to help their comrades, several of them grabbing bows and quivers as they went. The big man sheathed his sword and snatched up four quivers and a long bow.

“Many thanks, myerina. Good hunting to you.” With a smile, he bowed his head in her direction, gave a graceful, waving salute of thanks, then sprinted after his men.

Kham and Krysti headed off in a different direction to find another target of their own. It didn’t take long. All around the camp, the scene was like something from a nightmare. Bodies strewn everywhere. Blood and blue garm slime mixing together in noxious purple puddles. Frost prickled across every surface. Garm were leaping, shrieking, and spewing blue vapor at everything that moved. Ice thralls were hacking at the living.

The storm overhead boiled with energy. Kham called the lightning and incinerated garm and ice thralls left and right. The ease of it stunned her. The storm was so strong now, she should have been fighting desperately to control it, but she wasn’t. She could feel and shape the flows of air, summon the lightning or disperse it. The diamond in the hilt of Roland’s sword shone like a beacon, and she knew the power of the sword was helping her maintain control over the wild power of her weathergift. With Blazing in hand, she truly was the master of storms.

She and Krysti fought their way across the encampment, dispatching garm and thralls with sword and spear and bolts of lightning. Along the way, she caught the scent of another magic on the wind. Bright flashes that had nothing to do with lightning illuminated the bottoms of the dark clouds to her left.

Kham followed the scent of magic and the light flashes to their source, bracing herself to dispatch whatever was there, only to stop in surprise at the sight of her brother engaged in battle.

She’d thought, when he’d left her to face the garm, that he would remain hiding in his tent. Instead, he’d retrieved his bow and quiver and was shooting Sunfire arrows at Rorjak’s minions. Despite everything, she could not help but feel a measure of pride as each of Falcon’s magic-imbued missiles found their targets, exploding garm and thralls as his fire clashed with their ice. Grimly handsome, deadly, full of grace and skill, he fought like the Hero of Summerlea she’d always thought him to be.

A tug on her arm pulled her attention away.

“Come on,” Krysti said. “Doesn’t look like he needs our help. Not that I’d want to give it to him even if he did.”

Kham’s throat tightened a little. Why couldn’t Falcon have been the admirable man he should be? The noble man she’d thought he was? Was it a weakness in the Coruscate blood that made first Verdan, then his son, lose all sense of right and wrong? Though nothing in her mourned the death of her father—the wounds he’d inflicted were too deep, too many, and far too painful—every part of her wept at the realization that the heroic brother she’d adored and idolized her whole life no longer existed. If, indeed, he ever had.

“Kham?” Krysti’s small, white-freckled face looked so earnest. So concerned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s all right.” She forced a small, reassuring smile and ran a hand over his spiky white hair. “I love you, Krysti. You are the brother to me Falcon should have been.” She bent down to give him a hug and a kiss.

When she pulled back, Krysti’s eyes were suspiciously bright, but the boy merely cleared his throat and declared like a true, gruff Winterman, “Well, come on, then. I see more garm in need of killing.”

Despite everything, she laughed, and a little bit of the heaviness pressing down on her heart lifted. “Lead the way, noble warrior.”

Between Falcon’s Sunfire arrows, the ferocity of the Calbernans, and the power of Roland’s sword, the remaining garm and ice thralls were soon dispatched. In the carnage that remained of the invaders’ camp, the survivors burned the remains of the dead and tended the injured. There weren’t many wounded to speak of. Garm were lethally efficient killing machines, and the freezing wounds inflicted by ice thralls sapped their victims’ strength and speed, making them easier to kill.

Kham didn’t have any idea how many men Falcon and his Calbernan allies had lost, but judging by the grim faces and piles of corpses, the garm had winnowed quite a few.

“We should go,” Krysti whispered. “Now, before they decide they don’t need us anymore.”

“Where would we go?” she asked. “Rorjak has returned. And if the number of garm that just attacked us is any measure, he’s already got a formidable army. There’s no way we can face him on our own.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that we convince Falcon and his allies to join forces with us and confront Rorjak.”

Krysti gaped at her. “Are you crazy? They tried to kill us! They came to conquer Wintercraig, not to save us!”

“That was before. Now they’ve seen for themselves what Rorjak can do. He’s not just our enemy. He’s the enemy of every living soul on Mystral. He’s got to be stopped, even if I have to ally with the enemies of Wintercraig to do it.” She pulled up the hem of her skirts and cut off a long strip from her white underskirts. She looped the strip around her neck like a scarf. “Come on. And stay close. If they try to use you against me again, this won’t end well.”

With Krysti at her heels, Kham strode over to a group of Calbernans who were dragging corpses into a pile to be burned. “Take me to your commander. I wish to negotiate with him under the white stole of peace.”

The Calbernans paused in their grim work. Several reached for their tridents. They were an intimidating lot, as tall as Wintermen, their bronze skin covered in iridescent blue tattoos. Their muscular physiques were put on impressive display in the blue-green loincloths that hung down to their knees, with gleaming plates of scale-shaped copper armor strapped to their chests, shins, and forearms. Unlike the Summerlanders, who were bundled up against the cold, the Calbernans appeared quite impervious to ice and snow. Somehow, that made them even more intimidating.

Kham stood her ground and kept her expression calm, her gaze steady. Her fingers, however, tightened around Blazing’s grip. It was just as well the sword’s sheath was still in Falcon’s tent. Not having it with her gave her an excuse to keep her weapon drawn and ready for a fight. For all her brave, reassuring words to Krysti, Khamsin’s heart was pounding like a hammer. She was taking a huge risk. Just because she helped save these men’s lives didn’t mean they would feel any debt of gratitude.

Two Calbernans whispered something to one another. The larger of the two, a warrior with a scar running the length of one cheek, and a large quantity of blue blood spattered across his body, stepped forward and waved her over. “Come. I will take you.”

Girding herself, Khamsin followed the Calbernan. The rest of the islanders abandoned the burial detail, picked up their tridents, and fell into step around her, effectively boxing her in.

Word traveled quickly as the Calbernans escorted her across the remains of the camp. Curious Calbernans and Summerlanders began to follow them. By the time the Calbernans stopped beside a large bonfire on the other side of camp, Khamsin and Krysti were surrounded by the remaining army of invaders. The man leading them gestured for them to wait while he ducked inside a Calbernan tent. A few moments later, he reemerged. Directly behind him came the enormous Calbernan in the golden armor whose life she had saved at the beginning of the attack. Hope stirred in Khamsin’s breast, only to falter when the tent flaps parted again, and her brother Falcon stepped through.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Krysti muttered.

Kham clutched Blazing so tight, her fingers went numb. “You may be right.” But it was too late to change her mind now.

“Falcon.” Kham acknowledged her brother warily. “I’m glad to see you survived the garm.”

“You should have escaped when you had the chance, Storm.”

“You mean after you left me pinned and defenseless when the garm attacked? I wouldn’t leave my worst enemy to face that fate—which I proved when I stayed to help the very people who came to destroy my home and kill my people. But even if I could be as self-serving as you, Falcon, there is no escape anymore. Not for me. Not for you. Not for any of us.”

“Drop the sword, Kham. If you don’t, you won’t be leaving this place alive.”

Her eyes narrowed. She took a deep breath, then said very clearly, very deliberately, “No.”

“Archers!” he rapped out. “Target the boy.”

Kham stood her ground. “That won’t work this time, Falcon. If you kill Krysti, I will destroy every living thing in this valley.” In her hands, Roland’s sword went hot, and the diamond in its hilt grew blinding bright. “You know I can do it.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Not this time.” Her steady gaze never wavered. The light in Blazing’s hilt grew brighter. “Did you not see what just happened here? The garm? The dead arising to fight again? I warned you that Rorjak was coming, and this battle proves it. Carnak is upon us. If any of us hope to survive, we have to stop fighting each other and start working together to defeat the real enemy: Rorjak, the Ice King.”

“I came here for that sword, Storm, and I’m not leaving without it.”

“It isn’t yours, Falcon. It will never be yours. Even if you kill me—even if you kill every living member of our bloodline—Blazing will never answer to you. You are not Roland’s Heir.”

“Liar! I bear the Rose. I’m as much an Heir of Roland as you—and the rightful King of Summerlea.”

“Once, perhaps, but no longer. You threw everything away to go searching for the sword. You betrayed everything Roland ever stood for. Now you are a man without a country, and a prince without a crown. Your weathergift and that Rose on your wrist are the only gifts of Helos you’ll ever possess.”

“Archers, fire!”

Kham gripped her sword, and cried, “Shield!” A dome of white-hot flame sprang up around her. Every arrow that flew into the fiery wall disintegrated instantly into ash. She fed more power into the shield, pushing it out along its circumference until the gathered Calbernans and Summerlanders fell back to avoid being incinerated. Within the bright shield, Khamsin turned slowly in a complete circle, targeting each bow aimed her way.

“Burn,” she breathed and carefully orchestrated flows of superheated air snaked out from her shield. Summerlander archers screamed as their bows burst into flames.

Kham dropped her shield. A barely caged inferno burned in her eyes as she met her brother’s stunned gaze. “I meant to offer you a chance to make amends, to recover some part of the honor you threw away, but if death is your choice, then death it will be. Fire.” Flames burst to life along Blazing’s shining length. She drew back her arm, keeping the sword pointed at Falcon. “Good-bye, brother.”

Before she could loose Blazing’s deadly fire, the Calbernan leader standing a few feet from Falcon began to laugh.

“Gods, what a woman!” The Calbernan slapped one massive paw against Falcon’s back with enough strength to make him stagger. To Khamsin, the Calbernan said, “I like you, myerina. So much more than I like your brother. I will be sad to end your life. Throw down that weapon. Surrender to me now, and I will take you as my liana and fill your belly with my offspring.”

Khamsin did not take offense. She remembered the lessons Tildy had drummed into her head about the customs of neighboring kingdoms. The Calbernan’s threat about killing her was a bluff. Calbernans revered women, having so few females of their own kind. And his offer to take her his liana—his wife—was an invitation to live in wealth and comfort beneath the powerful protection and devoted care of a fierce warrior of the isles.

“Regrettably, I must decline your gracious offer, Sealord, and extend instead an offer of my own. Wintercraig has long lived in peace with Calberna. You made yourselves our enemy when you joined forces with my brother and invaded our lands. That foolish act can either end in the slaughter of your army and the destruction of your homeland, or you can renounce your alliance with my brother and join forces with me instead to fight an evil that threatens us all. Do that, and the peace between our kingdoms will continue as if this invasion never happened. You have my word, as Queen of Wintercraig.”

The Calbernan cocked his head to one side. The long, dark strands of his hair, wound in dozens of inch-wide ropes slid across his bare, impressively-muscled chest and shoulders. “Death stalks Calberna every day. We do not fear it. But to return home with so many lives lost and nothing to show for our troubles, this would not make my people happy. Besides the prince, your brother, tells me you are queen against your will and for only a year. Forgive me, myerina, if I do not consider your word as Wintercraig’s queen a reliable star to sail by.”

“The Calbernans are circling to our left and right,” Krysti whispered.

“I see them,” Kham confirmed. In a louder voice, she said, “You have not yet made yourself my enemy, Sealord. I implore you not to do so now. My brother has—unintentionally, I’m sure—misled you about my situation. I am quite happy here, I have a husband I love dearly, and his child already grows inside me.”

Falcon regarded her in shock. “You are with child?”

Khamsin ignored her brother and continued addressing the Calbernan. “So you see, Sealord, I will be queen of Wintercraig for much more than a year. Thus, I cannot and will not surrender myself, my husband’s child, or my kingdom. Not even to a very handsome and clearly powerful foreign prince, whom I fear has been steered far off course by the counsel of a poor navigator. But I am not an ungenerous woman. Join me to defeat the Ice King, and I will not send you away empty-handed. You shall have wood enough to build twenty ships, and two thousand of Wintercraig’s best furs to trade.”

“Tsk. Tsk.” The Calbernan clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Falcon, you never told me what a treasure this sister was.” He inclined his head towards Khamsin. “Such an offer is indeed tempting, myerina, but I did not lead my people to this land seeking merely ships and riches to trade. Your brother promised me wealth, it is true. But he also promised me an unbreakable alliance, bound by blood, and a treasure of treasures to grace the House of Merimydion.”

“He promised you a Season of Summerlea, did he?”

The golden eyes gleamed. “Calbernan blood rules the sea. A liana with power over weather is worth more to me than two hundred ships and ten thousand furs. I am of age and have earned my right to claim a liana, and the Seasons are known to be as gifted as they are beautiful.”

The promised bride was for him, which meant he must be the prince of House Merimydion, the royal house of Calberna. What was his name? Kham racked her memory for names of foreign leaders Tildy had drilled into her head. Dilys? “You are Dilys Merimydion?”

The Calbernan inclined his head.

“You are aware, Sealord Merimydion, that the weathergifts of my family do not pass outside Summerlea’s direct royal line. Even with a Season for a wife, it’s unlikely your children will inherit the gift—or pass it on, if they do.”

“Such is my understanding although your brother made no mention of it.” She could see her honesty had earned her a measure of respect. “This does not concern me. Any child of mine will have formidable gifts of his own.”

Khamsin’s mind raced. As princesses of a still-independent Summerlea, her sisters had never expected a future that did not include being married off to the royal scions of other lands for the benefit of Summerlea. As the daughters of a deposed, enemy king, their future could easily be much less comfortable. They lived at the pleasure of Wynter Atrialan, and they knew it. Still, Khamsin had been given into marriage to a stranger, and she would not force her sisters into the same situation.

“Calbernans hold their wives in great esteem, do they not?”

“The highest of esteem, myerina.”

“Did Falcon promise wives for your men as well?” Only one of every hundred Calbernan children were female. As a result, the renowned seafarers frequently bought their wives from the slave markets in Lukerne or raided weaker lands across the sea and took women captive to be their brides. She had hoped her first bribe would be tempting enough on its own. So much wealth and so many ships would buy many wives.

“He promised them their pick from the whole of Wintercraig.”

Of course, he had.

“That is not going to happen,” she told the Calbernan king bluntly. “But, the war between Summerlea and Wintercraig has left many women widowed, their children fatherless. I am sure there are many among them who would look favorably on the offer a union with a man of the Isles if the union offered security for themselves and their children.

“So here, then, is my offer, Dilys Merimydion, Prince of Calberna: If you and your men join me now to fight the Ice King, Wintercraig will provide you wood enough for fifty ships and five thousand of Wintercraig’s best furs to trade. You and every Calbernan in this army will also be invited to return, in peace, to the royal palace in Konumarr next summer. There, you, Sealord Merimydion, will have three months to court the Seasons of Summerlea and convince one of them to be your bride. I will also invite any woman of Summerlea or Wintercraig willing to take a Calbernan husband to come to Konumarr as well, and your men will have the same three months to win wives of their own.”

The Sealord smiled. “This offer is most generous, myerina, to be sure, but why would I or my men sacrifice the certainty of a liana now for the possibility of a liana later?”

“Trust me, none of you would want an unwilling Summerlea or Wintercraig wife.”

“Ah, but any liana of a Calbernan would not be unwilling for long.” The way he said it sent an unmistakably erotic shiver up Khamsin’s body. If she weren’t irrevocably in love with her own Winterman, she might actually have considered throwing down her sword and taking Merimydion up on his offer.

Instead, she gave him a sweet smile, and said, “In that case, my lord, three months should be ample time for you and your men to win the consent of your chosen brides. Or,” she added when he didn’t immediately accept, “I can call upon the deadly power of this sword, and we can all die today in a blaze of Sunfire. And there will be no children and no future for any of us.”

The Calbernan Sealord began to laugh again, slowly at first, then with increasing gusto. There was a pleasing, honest sound to his laugh. The kind of sound that said he was a man who lived life to its fullest and enjoyed every unpredictable moment of it. She knew then that she had won. And she knew that her sisters could do worse than to be courted by such a man.

“Well, Sealord, do we have an agreement?”

“That we do, myerina. That we do. And if your sisters are half the woman you are, then I am a very lucky son of the sea.” Still laughing, his smile dazzling white against the shimmering, tattooed darkness of his skin, the Calbernan called out in the fluid, musical tones of his native tongue. His men lowered their weapons.

“What?” Falcon lunged towards his former ally. “Merimydion, you bastard, we had a deal!”

The Calbernan prince turned swift as a shark, the points of his trident halting inches from Falcon’s face. No longer laughing, golden eyes cold and deadly, Dilys Merimydion said softly, “Our deal is done, Falcon Coruscate. Yours are not the only eyes in this forest. I know you struck this brave myerina. I know you left her to die. I know she offered you mercy, and still you would kill her if you could. A man who treats a woman—his own sister, no less—with so little care or honor is a man who cannot be trusted. Myerina”—the Sealord’s cold, predatory gaze never left Falcon’s face—“say the word, and this krillo will never again pollute your radiance with his presence.”

“No. That won’t be necessary.” To her brother, she said, “You are not the man I once thought you were, but you are still an Heir of the Rose. I will need all the help I can get to defeat Rorjak. Fight with me, Falcon, and I will guarantee you safe passage out of Wintercraig on the condition that you never return and never again conspire against Wintercraig in any fashion.”

“Surrender everything . . . for what?”

“For your life, Falcon. That’s more than Verdan Coruscate has. More than Elka has. More than the thousands of people who died because of you have. And for a chance to regain at least some of the honor you spent the last three years throwing away. For a chance to be the Prince of Summer you should have been.”

Leaving him to mull over that, she turned to the forces gathered around her. “To the Summerlanders among you, I offer amnesty for your rebellion against the King of Wintercraig. I am Angelica Mariposa Rosalind Khamsin Gianna Coruscate Atrialan, princess of Summerlea, Queen of Wintercraig.” She rolled her cuff back and thrust her arm into the air, displaying the red Rose on her inner wrist. “I am an Heir of the Rose, Master of Storms, and the wielder of Blazing, the legendary sword of Roland Soldeus. I offer you a chance to return home not to a traitor’s death, but to a hero’s welcome.” She turned in a slow circle, gauging the response. Most of the men looked uncertain. A few remained hostile.

“The monsters that just attacked us? There are more where those came from—as well as an entire army of other creatures whose only desire is to destroy all life and plunge the whole of Mystral into eternal winter. If we don’t stop them now, their numbers will only increase. You saw what happened to your comrades when the garm’s blue vapor froze them. It will happen again and again, to every man, woman, child, and beast, until the largest army in the world could not hope to defeat them.

“All I ask is that you swear fealty to me and that you follow me now, into battle, as you followed my brother and King Verdan. Do this, and your crimes against Wintercraig’s crown will be forgiven. Do it not, and every last one of you will perish in fire and blood. This I swear on the sword of my ancestor, Roland Soldeus.”

Wynter lay on his cot, staring up at the roof of his tent. The material was a blank slate of uninteresting tan canvas, unlike the soothing, tattooed beauty of the tent he’d used throughout the three long years of his war with Summerlea. But the very blankness of the canvas was almost hypnotic in its own right.

His eyes unfocused, and his mind wandered through the various scenarios that might unfold in the coming days. He thought about Wintercraig, his childhood, about Garrick. He thought about the day he’d looked up and seen Khamsin watching him from the oriel in the King’s Keep, and about their wedding day, the moment when her Rose had first touched his Wolf, and awareness had struck him like a lightning bolt.

Had she gone to her brother willingly? Surrendered to him the greatest weapon the world had ever seen? Or, as Tildy suggested, had she been taken against her will?

He knew what he wanted to believe. His heart ached for Tildy to be right.

Yet some little voice in the back of his mind kept whispering, Falcon is her brother. The one she loved as much as you loved Garrick. She would never betray him. Not even for you.

What had he done to ever win her love or loyalty? He’d wed her against her will, all but raped her on their wedding night thanks to that cursed arras leaf, then taken her from everything she’d ever known and everyone she’d ever loved. Yes, he’d made her his queen, but he’d practically abandoned her on his own doorstep, using her body at his convenience, while leaving her alone to face the mockery and derision of his court for weeks on end.

He’d tried to make amends these last months, tried to give her a measure of the care and happiness any wife of his deserved. But how could a few weeks of kindness and attention outweigh a lifetime of love?

Falcon was as much her hero as Roland Soldeus. And with Roland’s sword in their possession, the two of them could reclaim Summerlea—or even conquer Wintercraig for that matter. She didn’t need Wynter. And considering that she’d incinerated two garm even without the added power of Roland’s sword, she didn’t need to fear Wynter’s Gaze either.

Why would she ever choose him over Falcon?

He’d asked the wolves watching her brother’s camp, but if any of them had seen her, they’d been slain before they could pass on the knowledge to their pack.

The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Khamsin had gone with Falcon of her own accord. A deep chill rippled through him, sending tremors shuddering through his body. Wynter sat up and swung his legs over the side of his cot.

Just the thought of Khamsin’s choosing her Falcon over him made the blood in his veins turn to ice. The cold mass of anger and hate in his chest throbbed like a bass drum made from his living skin stretched over a barrel carved from his bones. If she betrayed him . . .

He leapt to his feet. Tension coiled inside him. He clenched his jaw so tight his teeth ached, and his fists so tight the knuckles cracked.

Shake it off, Wyn. Get hold of yourself.

He ducked through the tent flaps. The fire outside was mostly embers now. Except for a handful of White Guard standing watch, the camp was empty, everyone having sought their cots for the night. Overhead, the sky was dark and moonless, the stars shining bright in the clear blackness of the winter night. The forest was silent. Perfectly still. The trees shadowy sentinels standing watch in a star-silvered sea of snow.

Wynter skirted the tent stakes and walked into the dark welcome of the forest.

The night was cold. Even a Winterman might call it bitter. Wyn did not feel it. He just knew that it was so. Cold as snow. Cold as ice.

Cold as death.

His breath did not fog. His feet made no sound as he walked through the powdery snow. No birds in the trees called out as he passed. No creature scurried in the brush.

All around, the moonless dark of the night, the shadows of the forest, the pale silver of the snow enveloped him in still silence. As if he walked alone in a world in which all other life had ceased.

He walked without conscious thought or direction. Putting one foot in front of the other. Breathing in a slow, unhurried fashion.

Gradually, he became aware of something stalking through the trees on either side of him. Furry white shapes, slipping through the silhouetted trees of the forest, their paws as soundless on the snow as his feet. The white wolf on his wrist burned in recognition. The wolves had come to give him escort.

He took comfort from their presence and wished Khamsin had not left. Her absence made him ache, as if some invisible but necessary part of him had stopped working or had gone missing entirely.

When he faced the armies of Calberna and Summerlea, would he find his wife there, on the side of the enemy, taking up arms against him?

His heart wanted to believe she would never betray him after saving his life. His mind, however, kept whispering that he should remember her Summerlea roots, the falseness of her father and brother. Summerlanders weren’t to be trusted.

Whether Khamsin had gone to her brother willingly or not, she was still gone. And he was struggling with the idea that he would die without ever seeing her again, without having the chance to tell her—

A twig snapped to his left, yanking Wyn out of his thoughts.

“Who’s there?” he called. He scanned the forest, looking for movement, but the night was perfectly still and quiet.

“She has betrayed you,” the voice whispered through the trees.

He turned to the right, seeking the source of the voice.

“What you feared has come true.”

Wyn spun around. This time the sound seemed to come from his left.

“You gave her kindness, warmth, friendship she did not deserve. You gave her trust. You made her your queen. And in return, she conspires with the enemy.”

“Reika.” Wyn’s lips flattened. “Show yourself, woman. And silence your poisonous words. Do you think I don’t know how you hate her? How you plotted to kill her during the Great Hunt? You nearly succeeded in killing us both.”

“Is that what she told you? And you believed her?”

Now he could see her, her tall figure shrouded in a hooded cloak, watching from a stand of trees on a rise a hundred yards in front of him.

“You lured her out of the palace. You attacked her and left her wounded and bleeding. You knew the scent of fresh blood would draw the garm to finish off what you started. I’m only alive now because she saved my life. Why would she do that if she meant to play me false?”

“Do you think Valik would have let her take another breath if you had died? Of course she saved you. It was the only way to throw off suspicion until she could attempt another escape.” Reika kept her distance. Each step he took towards her, she glided farther back through black-and-white hardwood trunks. “That’s the same reason I didn’t come to you myself. I knew you would not believe me without proof, so I hid in the forest and waited. I knew she would find a way to escape and go to her brother, and I was right. I followed her to his camp.”

Ice stabbed Wyn’s chest. “You lie.” But even as he protested, a little voice in the back of his mind whispered, Does she? Reika was many things, but not stupid. She wouldn’t make such claims without some sort of proof.

“Ask the wolves if you don’t believe me. She rides now, at the head of her brother’s army. She leads the invaders against you.”

Wynter didn’t want to believe it. Khamsin had risked her life to save him. He remembered the sight of her rushing out, barehanded, to save him from the garm. Why would she do that if she meant to betray him? It made no sense.

And yet the little, niggling doubt was there. The chilly, whispering voice in his mind that warned him Summerlanders were not to be trusted, women were not to be trusted. Khamsin was not to be trusted.

He pushed back hard against the terrible suspicions of betrayal. Khamsin was headstrong, stubborn, and temperamental, but she wasn’t false.

She has lied from the day she first met you, the voice whispered again.

No. She’d never claimed to be anyone other than who she was. She might have passed herself off as a maid—and yes, she’d hidden her identity at their wedding—but she’d never lied. At the most, she’d encouraged him to make wrong assumptions. But she’d never actually lied. She was too direct, too honorable, for that. Her idol was Roland Soldeus, for Halla’s sake—the most unswervingly honorable king Summerlea had ever known.

Roland is a legend. Falcon is flesh and blood—her brother—and she has idolized him every bit as much as she idolizes Roland—probably more so because he protected her from her father. He gave her love when she had none. Do you honestly think there’s anything she wouldn’t do to help her brother find Roland’s sword and reclaim his kingdom?

“Talk to the wolves,” Reika insisted. “Open your eyes to the truth before it’s too late.”

Wyn didn’t want to hear anymore. He didn’t want the wolves to confirm Reika’s accusations. If they did, Khamsin’s betrayal would break him as he’d never been broken before.

He had tried to keep an emotional distance from his wife all these months to protect himself from such a possibility. When he’d been just a man, the heartbreak would be difficult enough. But he was a man who’d drunk the essence of a god—a dark, soulless god who thrived on rage and pain the way an infant thrived on mother’s milk.

He knew he shouldn’t look. A little more rage, a little more pain and hate, and Rorjak would have all the fuel he needed to overpower Wynter’s will, take control of his body, and unleash his evil upon the world.

But when he tried to turn away, he found he couldn’t. Perhaps Rorjak had already subsumed Wyn’s will to his own. Or perhaps Wyn couldn’t deny his own need to know the truth.

He reached out to the wolves.

The invaders broke camp hours before dawn. Falcon rode by Khamsin’s side.

“I would never have killed you, Storm,” he said as they rode. “I never would have done that. If I’d wanted you dead, I would have killed you at the temple.”

“You let our father throw me to the garm, then you left me there to die.”

“I didn’t leave you there to die. I went to get my bow. By the time I came back, you were already gone.”

“Even if that’s true, you still tried to burn me with Blazing’s fire.”

He grimaced and bowed his head. “I was out of my mind. I think I’ve been out of my mind for a long time. If I’d actually hurt you—really hurt you—I could never have lived with myself.” He looked at her with solemn sincerity, his eyes so earnest, pleading for understanding. “All I wanted was the sword, Storm. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I know.” Finding it impossible to steel herself against Falcon’s eyes, she turned her attention back to the road ahead. “All I ever wanted was to be loved.”

“I do love you, Storm. I always have.”

“No,” she said. “You never loved me. Not really. You loved my adoration. You loved the way I idolized you and hung on your every word.”

She looked at the man who had been her childhood idol. The handsome, adventurous older brother—she’d thought him so perfect in every way. It hurt so much to realize how wrong she’d been about him. How blind she’d been to the truth.

“But I did love you. I loved you so much I cried myself to sleep every time you went away. You were everything to me. My father, my brother, my friend, my hero. I loved Roland because you did. I wanted to be like Roland, because I thought you were. I tried to be everything you admired because I wanted you to love me and to keep loving me. I even used to tell myself if I was as good and noble and courageous as you, maybe one day our father would love me the way he loved you. I loved you so much I refused to see a single weakness or shortcoming in your character.”

“Storm—”

“I didn’t even believe Wynter when he told me what you’d done to start the war. I tried to make excuses for you, the way I always made excuses every time you did something selfish or cruel. But no longer. When this is over, you’re going to leave Wintercraig and Summerlea. You’re going to sail back to Calberna or whatever other land will have you and never come back. If you do that, you can live out the rest of your life in peace, without fear of Wintercraig retaliation for your crimes.” She leaned towards him and let her eyes and the diamond in Blazing’s hilt spark with deadly power. “But I swear to you, brother, if you ever again threaten my people, my kingdom, or the ones I love, there is no corner of this earth where you will be safe from my wrath. And you know that is no idle threat.”

The army of the invaders rode through the predawn forest. Brown-skinned Summerlanders. Iridescent-blue-tattooed islanders in their loincloths, armbands, and protective armor plates, as oblivious to the cold as a pack of Frost Giants. At their head, riding between a massive Calbernan and Falcon Coruscate, unbound and clearly not a prisoner, was Khamsin.

She had gone to her brother.

Something squeezed Wynter’s lungs tight. He was choking, unable to catch his breath. Terrible pressure gripped his heart as well, tight, burning cold, painful in the extreme. He fell to one knee, clutching his chest. The pain spread out across his chest, down his arms and torso.

He reached out to grab a nearby tree trunk to stop himself from falling over.

Wyrn have mercy. Khamsin’s betrayal struck deeper and hurt more than any wound he’d ever known. It twisted and writhed inside him, burned and froze, broke him from the inside out.

A low, keening moan ripped from his throat, the cry of a wounded wolf. Tears, freezing into chips of ice as they fell, tumbled down his cheeks, and he slammed his forehead repeatedly into the tree’s rough bark, welcoming the physical pain, hoping it would alleviate the other.

“No. No! Nooooo!” His head flung back, and he loosed the howl into the night sky. A flurry of startled birds took flight.

“She has betrayed you.” Each word was like a needle, burrowing under his skin and digging deep into his bones. “There’s only one way to stop her. Only one way to make her pay for what she has done.”

“No,” he whispered.

Reika continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Embrace your power, my king—”

“No.”

“Claim what is yours by right—”

“No . . .”

“Punish her for the wound she has dealt you. Punish them all! Make them suffer! Make your enemies cower before you! You are no weakling! You are the Winter King, and you carry inside you the strength of a god! Use it! Unleash your wrath! Wipe your enemies from the face of this earth!”

The words that had started as sharp needles digging into his skin had now become spikes, each one hammering home with brutal accuracy. Anger built inside his heart, pressing outward against the crushing pain of betrayal. He squeezed his eyes shut and flung an arm over his face to stop the wild winter fury raging inside him from breaking free.

“No, damn you! No!”

“She has found the Sword of Roland. She has brought it to her brother, so that they might slay the forces of Wintercraig with its great power!”

If every other claim was a knife driven into his body, that one was the death blow.

Roland’s sword. The sword Khamsin coveted as much as her brother. The sword that was the source of all his pain.

Khamsin had taken that sword to her brother.

His head lifted. His arm shielding his face dropped to his side.

He had gone completely numb. The hurt over Khamsin’s betrayal was gone, as were the tenderer emotions she roused in him. He couldn’t feel anything except a freezing, ice-powered fury that spread rapidly to every cell of his body. Everything left of his humanity—his consciousness, his emotions, his memories—seemed to shrink, concentrated into a tiny speck of life buried deep inside a vast, impenetrable ocean of ice.

Like an observer trapped inside a body not his own, he felt the form he occupied push off the tree, felt its spine straighten and stand tall. He opened his eyes. The world had taken on a pale blue tint, as if he saw through colored glass. He glanced down at his hands. A coating of clear ice covered his skin. He flexed his fingers, and the ice cracked and fell away, only to re-form an instant later.

He was frozen, inside and out.

Reika stepped out of the shadows of the trees and pushed back the hood of her cloak. Her lips had gone blue, her eyes the color of Wyrn’s sacred, heatless flame, and when she smiled, he heard the faint sound of ice breaking. To her left and right, an army of garm emerged from the depths of the snow-covered forest, and behind them, moving with surprising silence in spite of their size, came a company of fearsome, blue-skinned Frost Giants. In unison, Reika, garm, and Frost Giant alike bowed down before him.

“Welcome back, my lord Rorjak,” Reika Villani greeted. “Long have we awaited your return.”