I bit back a smirk. “Then I am pleased that you are pleased, Mother. I live to serve.”
“Frejara…” Her tone was a warning, and I heeded.
“Yes, Mother,” I replied, keeping my voice steady and free of mockery. “The city has fallen. The prisoner has been secured, as you commanded.”
Her lips curled into a faint, humourless smile. “Good. And yet, you linger. Why?”
I hesitated, then spoke, choosing my words carefully. “If Haedor burned to take the prisoner, why press on? You have what you came for.”
I didn’t ask to challenge her. I had long stopped pretending the reasons mattered.
Her eyes burned brighter, the fire in them flaring as her expression hardened. “You think so small, Frejara. Haedor was only a spark. The Twin Cities will be the flame.”
I frowned, my gaze narrowing. “And what, exactly, do you intend to burn?”
“Haedor is incidental. There are fires rising in the north. Whispers gathering in places long forgotten. The world forgets itself, Frejara, and I –” Her voice faltered, just for an instant, as if she were struggling to hold back something darker. “I am merely… reminding it.”
“Reminding it of what?” I asked before I could stop myself. I didn’t know what she meant, but the words sat wrong in my bones. It did not sound like the kind of thing you said about rebels and roads and taxes.
She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she stared at me through the Glass, unblinking, her eyes unreadable. For a moment, I thought she might say nothing at all. But then, with a flick of her wrist – as if the question itself bored her – she did.
“Veldrith and Drannoc have harboured sedition for too long,” she said, her voice low and cold. “Whispers become beliefs, and beliefs… they become blood.”
“You’re razing cities for whispers?”
Whispers. Beliefs. The way she said it – like ideas were more dangerous than armies. And if they were, then what exactly was it we were fighting?
“I am razing cities for certainty,” she snapped, and there it was –just for a moment – a flicker behind her eyes. Not anger. Not pride. Something else entirely. And it looked a lot like fear.
But it vanished as quickly as it came, hidden behind the iron of her gaze.
“The Twin Cities have long since defied me,” she said, her voice sharp with disdain. “To leave them standing is to invite defiance from every corner of Eryndia. Veldrith and Drannoc guard the Ironvein River, the continent’s lifeblood. Control the river, and we control trade, supply lines, and the flow of power itself. Without it, their walls mean nothing. No kingdom can rise against me.”
And then, as if an afterthought, “Against us.”
Her words lodged in my mind like splinters, and in their wake, the image of the Twin Cities began to form – immovable and stern, winding and watchful.
Veldrith, the “Unyielding Stone”, perched defiantly on its jagged cliffs. Its towers clawed at the heavens, and its people were like the rock their city was carved from: unrelenting and tough to crack. Every story I’d ever heard about Veldrith was about survival – about clinging to life when the odds crushed you under their weight. It had been a long time since a victory that made a city like that kneel.
And Drannoc, its twin, the “Cunning River”. Where Veldrith stood solidly, Drannoc flowed—adaptable and wily. Its walls and traps made a mockery of invaders; its labyrinthine streets bred cleverness in its people. Their loyalty was no birthright – it was bought and bartered, just another deal to strike. Between the two, the Ironvein River churned and glittered like liquid steel, as treacherous as the cities it divided.
How to take the Twin Cities was a riddle we’d have to solve if we wanted to claim the last free cities of the continent. But they were not the end.
No, the end was farther still. The “Guardian of the Tide” – Tirn’vahl.
A place so battered by storms and salt it seemed the stonesthemselves had given up, crumbling into jagged remnants of their former glory. Its marshlands were a trap no invader could cross unscathed, and its people were as relentless as the waves that crashed against its cliffs. Tirn’vahl didn’t just resist – it endured.
Beyond it, the Last Sea stretched out into the unknown, its waters dark and restless. I’d heard stories of its depths, of ancient things hidden beneath its waves, things best left undisturbed. Tirn’vahl stood like a sentinel, daring anyone to approach the edge of the world.
“Frejara!” My Mother’s voice snapped like a whip, dragging me back to the present. I blinked, her fiery gaze locking onto mine with the sharpness of a blade. “Do not let your thoughts wander. Your distractions are not a luxury I intend to entertain.”
“I linger, Mother,” I said at last, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “Because the soldiers are weary, there is still much to do to secure Haedor, and our way to the Twin Cities and the Last Sea is not yet clear. If we press forward too quickly – ”
“Do not lecture me on war,” Mother interrupted, her voice sharp as a blade. “The Twin Cities and Tirn’vahl will fall just as Heador has. If her walls could not keep my armies out, neither could a few rocks, crooked roads, or salt-burned walls.”
“Mother, I don’t…”
“I want you to bring the prisoner to me. I want you to lead the escort who delivers him. And I want you here in time for the Feast of the Black Fire.”
