There’s a mutter and rustle at my side, and I glance over to see Caleb moving through the crowd, his face streaked with ash beneath his wild, tousled hair, his tunic torn. But there’s no denying the grin of fierce satisfaction as our gazes meet and he strides up to stand beside me. Today, we have held the line against Rihad—who can no longer command the darkness or the light. Today, we’re finally safe.
The moan of a man who looks like a prominent soldier in the Imperial delegation draws my attention sharply as Fortiss helps him to his feet.
“Snakes,” the soldier gasps, his voice sounding a little shrill, and Fortiss nods, taking the man’s weight as he lists to the side. “Monsters…” The soldier shakes his head, then catches himself, pushing off Fortiss to stand straighter. His face flushes with outrage as he takes in his diminished troops. “Those were the great Divhs of the Protectorate we have been told over and over again still honor and obey the Light. And they attacked us—attacked the Imperialguard. “
“Did they?” Fortiss’s words carry a strange resonance that makes the man stiffen and stare at him—all his soldiersfollowing suit. Fortiss smiles easily and the warrior blinks several times, then shakes his head.
“They were called to save us,” he corrects himself. “And you directed them.”
“I did.” Fortiss bows stiffly at the waist, a sign of formal deference to a respected ally. Then he reaches out an arm to stabilize the soldier when he falters again. His right hand squeezes the arm of the man as he speaks. “Lord Protector Rihad fell in the melee, and I am his second, and the new lord protector of these lands. You can trust me.”
“But…” the man frowns, shaking his head again in clear confusion. Fortiss doesn’t remove his hand from his arm but bears down ever so slightly more.
“Lord Protector Rihad fell. All that he said to you before was meant to protect you in the face of a coming attack. Now, all thatIsay is actual truth, and you can believe it not merely for your protection, but because it is that truth.”
“We don’t want to beprotected.” The soldier curls his lip. “That is not your place.”
Another squeeze of the arm, another glance over the men. I feel the power of Fortiss’s magic and the hum of the crowns in my satchel. “We honor the Imperium and stand ready to protect and defend you. The Protectorate remains steady in the face of all enemies.”
“Steady.” The soldier blows out a hard, gusting breath. “Those things…skrill, you called them? What in the blighted path are they?”
Tools,I think to Fortiss, but to my surprise, he pays no attention.
“Agents of darkness,” he says succinctly. “Seeking the Light and all that is great and good in the Imperium. But as with the original Great Conflict, the Light prevailed this day. The agents of the Western Realms found a way in after five hundred yearsof safety, but they were turned back, as they must ever be. We in the Protectorate continue to keep the Imperium safe. As we have for the past five hundred years, as we will for centuries more.”
The soldier stands tall. “And the Imperator salutes you, Lord Protector Fortiss. By the honor of the Imperium, we thank you too. Your valor will be heralded.”
“Not my valor, yours,” Fortiss corrects him. “You will return to the Imperium with the tale of your strength in standing with us against the fell attackers. You—and all your surviving men—are the heroes as much as any of us here. I will send a sealed letter of my commendation for the Imperator to know the truth of this day, explaining how you honored him and all the Imperium with your acts of courage. Together we have served, for the glory of the Imperium.”
“For the glory of the Imperium!” the soldier agrees.
Then he faints dead away.
I press my lips together as Fortiss glances up to me, catching my eye across the fallen soldier. A flicker of wry humor passes between us. Even with the danger past, our bond holds firm.
I pray to the Light it always will.
The process of clearing the battlefield proves almost as grueling as the fight itself. The skrill bodies begin to dissolve within hours of their deaths, leaving behind only dark stains that smell of sulfur and ash. Teams of villagers work to scrub these marks with clay and sand, sweeping them away before the poison can seep into the earth, while others gather the fallen soldiers, separating the dead from those who still draw breath. The air fills with the sounds of mourning mixed with barked orders as healers rush between the wounded, their yellow-and-black tunics stained dark with blood.
Inside the hastily erected medical tents, the soldiers who faced the skrill writhe in their cots, lost in the throes of poison-induced hallucinations. The healers work tirelessly, applyingpoultices and chanting prayers to the Light, while scribes assigned by Fortiss record every rant and moan that the fallen utter. By now the healers have all heard tales of the skrill’s poison, how it corrupts not just the body but the soul—yet none have treated such wounds in living memory, and there is so much we still don’t know about the magic these creatures have brought to our lands.
As the sun begins to set, we finally begin the slow procession back to the First House. Those who can walk help support those who can’t, while the most grievously wounded are carefully loaded onto wagons padded with straw. The remaining Imperial soldiers cluster together, their earlier bravado replaced by dazed silence as they process what they’ve witnessed. I notice how they flinch at every rustle in the undergrowth, every shadow that falls across their path. They’ve seen the truth of what lurks in the darkness beyond the Imperium’s borders, and that knowledge has marked them as surely as the skrill’s fangs marked their fallen comrades.
There is no victory dinner at the First House this night. Now, simply being alive and safe is celebration enough…and there are still lies to be told, it seems, newly stitched tales to embroider further. Our story is not yet done.
The following day, we set out again for the coliseum.
Chapter 50
The funeral procession for the fallen former Lord Protector Rihad, champion of the Protectorate, hero warrior of the Imperium, is a stately masterpiece that will go down in the history books and become a staple of bardic tales for centuries to come.
And perhaps, one day far in the future, it will be footnoted as the total farce it truly is.
I ride stiffly behind Fortiss and my father, struggling vainly to keep Darkwing from prancing at my tension. Despite my impatience, I feel Fortiss’s steady presence like a physical touch. Our connection through the crowns has only amplified what was growing between us—this understanding that transcends words, this shared vision of what could be.
Behind me, Lord Tennet and Syril ride silently, and behind them, an honor guard of the surviving delegates of the Imperium ride in a position of honor with the few house lords still in Trilion who we’ve conscripted for this unlikely pageant.
Following after all these noteworthy souls, Nazar the exalted priest of the Light leads a twin procession of mourners—half dressed in bleached-white robes, half in deeply dyed black. A cluster of white-garbed attendants leads the two lanes, and afinal cluster gathers at the end, as the procession snakes its way all the way from the First House to what we’ve convinced the representatives of the Imperium is our primary holy ground—the coliseum.
