The weather shifted constantly, the days swinging from damp and chilly to bright and overcast, the wind catching the scent of salt from the distant shores. I kept the mare’s pace steady, stopping only when I needed, pushing farther with each passing day, determined to reach the camp before the supply lines caught up. By the time I was five days out, the landscape had changed. The ground grew sturdier, the trees thicker, the air rich with the scent of damp earth and wildflowers. The closer I got, the more the land rose gently beneath me, the Weaver’sDowns spreading out, a rolling expanse of grassy hills and ancient, gnarled trees. I pushed on until I could no longer ignore the growing fatigue that settled like lead in my bones. I set up camp for the last night before I would finally join my forces and friends. Before I could finally join Benni.
The fire burned low, its crackling warmth licking the edges of the night as the wind picked up, a distant whisper threading through the trees. The air was colder now, crisp and carrying the scent of rain, though it hadn’t yet fallen. My fingers absently traced the daggers’ hilts again, the pearl smooth beneath my skin.
I leaned back against the oak, its bark firm at my shoulders, and closed my eyes for a moment. The night felt poised, as if it were suspended in time, just before surrendering itself entirely to the dark. The wind in the branches carried a restlessness that hadn’t yet broken into a storm.
The shadows stretched long as the fire flickered, throwing jagged shapes across the ground, twisting and shifting in the flickering light. The branches of the oak above me swayed with the breeze, and I could hear them creaking, the soft rustling of leaves brushing one another like whispers. It should have been comforting. But that unease, that prickling feeling, hadn’t let go, wrapping itself tight around my ribs, reminding me that no peace was ever lasting.
The wind gusted again, stronger this time, pulling the branches in a shuddering bow. I felt it before I saw it – a sudden snap, like the sound of a whip, sharp and quick.
A massive branch, thick and long as a spear, tore loose from the oak’s reach, its weight catching the wind before it fell.
It happened so quickly that I had no time to move, no time to react. The branch came down, faster than any reflex, striking me across the temple with a sickening crack that shattered the world into fragments. The force of it spun my vision, a dizzying whirl of light and shadow,and the ground rushed up to meet me. The last thing I felt was the cold earth against my cheek, and then… nothing. The world went black.
Chapter Fourteen: Mathias
Mathias had thought himself prepared for what he might find here.
In the days it had taken him to reach Irongate—first on foot across the marshes and low fields of Weaver’s Downs and through the quiet villages of the Queen’s Land, then in the saddle of the pale, sharp-boned horse he had bought with the last of his coin—he had rehearsed a hundred times how he would slip through its gates, how he would vanish into the city’s underbelly like a piece of silver lost to the gutter, and how he would watch, listen, and leave again without ever even drawing breath too loudly.
He had arrived before the flames, but not before the crowd.
From where he stood beneath the crumbling eaves of the old wall – half-swallowed by a vine that hadn’t flowered in years – Mathias watched the square fill the way a tide claimed the shore. They came in lines, then clumps, then waves, settling into the spaces carved out for them as if drawn by instinct, habit, or ritual. There was nothing tentative in their movement. No confusion. No hesitation. They knewwhy they were here.
The platform at the heart of the square was ringed in iron, and the pyre built upon it was unlike any he had seen – shaped not for heat or haste but for spectacle. Wide, tiered steps rose toward a crown of scorched wood and dark-veined stone, its peak already stained with old soot.
And still they came.
The crowd swelled and pressed, packed into orderly ranks, sorted by creed and wealth and standing – nobles beneath the awnings in silks and brocade, tradesmen in the middle ring, and those with nothing attached to their name at all pressed up against the edge of the square, their children lifted onto shoulders to see. There were guards, too, stationed like punctuation between the living lines – not holding them back, but fixing them in place, as if their presence alone was enough to keep the crowd from shifting.
And then, without fanfare, a man was brought forward.
It was as if he simply emerged – walking between the split ranks of soldiers, alone, his wrists bound and trailing a length of dark chain that scraped softly across the stone. His mouth was sealed with iron, curved and black, hiding whatever he might have said behind the weight of metal. He did not look to either side. He did not stumble.
He climbed the steps as if the fire were already burning.
From where Mathias stood, the Queen’s voice carried like a low bell across the square – not the words themselves, not all of them, but enough to understand: this man was an enemy, and his death was an offering. There was no reading of his name or crimes, no heraldry to soften what was about to come.
Mathias shifted, just enough to see the man reach the summit, to see the guards affix the final lengths of chain. He could not see his face – not clearly – but he saw the tilt of his shoulders, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the calm with which he stood before a city that hadalready begun to cheer.
Not all at once.
It began in bursts, ripples of sound rising from the front, then spreading backward like wildfire – call and reply, shout and echo. It was not the wild joy of a crowd set loose, but a rhythm measured and deliberate, as if every voice knew its place. Children clapped their hands. Old men raised their fists. Somewhere, a banner lifted, and the firelight struck it, bright and sharp. They were not bloodthirsty. They were devout.
Mathias felt a knot form low in his stomach. Not fear, but the beginning of it – the first coil of something that would only bare its teeth with time.
The flames were rising now, not feral or bright but slow and black, thick-edged with a gold that did not flicker so much as pulse. They did not leap or dance – they consumed, steady and unflinching, climbing in slow spirals that held to the air as if bound to it. The smoke dragged low over the square, and even from where he stood, half-veiled in the ivy-choked edge of the ruined wall, Mathias could feel the heat gathering – not on his skin, but behind his ribs, pressing inward. The bound man stood unmoving at its centre, framed by heat and shadow, the metal across his mouth glowing faintly as if it too had begun to burn.
Then, as the crowd shifted in front of him in their fevered veneration, he saw them. Two figures, high on the dais, still as statues cast in ash.
The one on the left wore armour that had not dulled with age or wear—made not for use but for ceremony. At her side, the hilt of a sword caught the firelight once, a brief and silent flash. Her hair was fair, bound back from a face set in steady, pensive focus, as if every thought behind her eyes was weighed and measured. Mathias had never seen her before. But the way she stood – apart, unflinching – marked her out more clearly than any title. This, then, was the General.The one whose name struck fear into the hearts of the only free cities left, his home one of them.
And beside her, beside the General, the Sorcerer Queen.
He had never seen her in the flesh. Most never had. But he knew—knew before his gaze fully found her, before the red stones in her circlet caught the firelight and burned like banked coals. She stood without expression, her hands folded before her, her gaze fixed not on the fire, nor the crowd, nor the prisoner, but on something only she could see. Her presence did not demand the square. It defined it.
As Mathias looked at her, a sharp and certain pressure tightened in his chest, fracturing something inside him.
The sound of the crowd fell away. The heat, a moment ago too hot on him, drained from his skin. And just as he thought to close his eyes, to steady himself in the simple rhythm of breath and pulse… the Sight took over him.
