The village below us is a picture of devastation, every building reduced to smoking ruins. The ground is as black as charcoal, and the unmistakable shapes of bodies litter the grass—corpses charred beyond recognition.
I don’t need anyone to tell me who or why. This is the work of raiders from Penrith. The Usurper’s shadow army is here, inside the borders of Loegria.
War has arrived in my kingdom.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dietan
A pit of dread like an icy maw swallows my heart.
Marcus swears. Aren leaps down from the cart and grabs her rucksack, as if she means to rush in to help. “What happened here?” she asks, her voice small.
“Nothing good,” I say as I lead the way toward the village. “Get back in the wagon,” I add.
She doesn’t.
We search for survivors, but all is deathly quiet except for the occasional sound of popping wood. Embers glow beneath piles of rubble. Smoke lingers in the air, and the stench of burned flesh turns my stomach. I clamp my mouth shut.
Marcus kneels in the soft earth, one hand on his blade as he studies a set of boot marks in the mud. He locks eyes with me, and a quick nod tells me all I need to know. We can’t stay here long—the prints are fresh.
Whoever did this is still around.
But we can’t leave until I’m sure there’s no one alive who needs help.
We stumble through the ruins, upending fallen carts and charred barrels. Warehouses of wattle and daub have collapsed. My men thrust logs beneath fallen rafters, lifting what they can to crawl under the wreckage, searching for survivors.
Where the streets narrow to the width of a man, a large house has toppled over onto the smaller one next to it. Marcus and I slip through an open doorway. Aren follows close behind instead of remaining with soldiers standing guard outside.
Inside, the air is thick with dust. Shafts of sunlight pierce through a jagged hole in the ceiling. My boot comes down hard on a charred beam, splitting it in two.
A rattle echoes from the back of the room. Whispers drift through the air.
I stiffen, my hand reaching for my sword, ready for an attack. But then I see a family—a woman and her children—huddled in the dark.
“Please, come out. You’re safe now,” I say, lowering my blade. “We are Loegrian soldiers, not raiders from Penrith.”
From the shadows, the woman stumbles forward, her face caked in ash, eyes wide. She gasps when she sees me, flanked by Marcus in his well-worn uniform. “Are you…?”
“Prince Dietan,” I say with a dip of my head.
She curtsies as her children hide behind her legs.
“What happened here?” I ask.
The woman shudders. “They came without warning—so many of them, in black armor, wearing the Usurper’s emblem. Our village tried to fight back, but any man who survived was rounded up and herded into the woods. You could hear their screams. I think—I think they burned them alive.” She starts sobbing but wipes her eyes and forges on. “Then they—they took the remaining women and children. My children and I hid in a secret compartment in the wall that was built during the wars between the four kingdoms.”
I think fast. “My soldiers will take you and any other survivors to Lundenwic, where you’ll be safe,” I say, nodding to Marcus. “Is there anyone else left?”
She shakes her head. “It’s been quiet. I went out—I tried to find others. There’s no one. We were going to leave, but…”
“But?” I press.
“But it wasn’t just the Usurper’s raiders who did this, Your Highness,” she whispers. “There was something else.”
“Tell me.”
She trembles, terror etched into her face. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t human.”
