They can’t reply; they’re cooking in their armor. Even their screams are lost to the sizzle of hair and flesh.
“I will protect him.”
The soldiers fall to the ground, their armor now caskets for charred bone.
“I will protect everyone.”
Stepping over the bodies and into the alley, warmth from the Green Flame floods my chest, my heart, my eyes.I will protect everyone, I think again, and this time, my words are layered with a second voice, deep and haunting.At all costs.
2
Ezryn
Each step I take into the Hall of Vernalion is quicker andlighter than the last.
My boots are the only sound, for I wear no armor, no metal, only cloth. The crevasse created from the battle waged between me and my brother still mars the ancient stone, though planks of wood form a makeshift bridge. I cross, unhindered.
Our plan succeeded. At least this far. Dayton and Farron’s forces were able to distract the armies left occupying Florendel and emptied Keep Hammergarden of its defenses. Tilla and her team took care of the guards posted on the wall. What soldiers I did encounter on my way here, I dispatched easily.
But one remains. One entity between Spring and its liberty.
The Sapphire Knight stands at the base of the throne, his armor glinting blue as his namesake. The token of Winter, a crystal snowflake, hangs like a medal across his chest plate. Haphazardly, he swings the Sword of the Protector—Keldarion’ssword—as if testing out its range. The whole act is a cruel mockery. I can only imagine how many of my people he’s cut down with that holy blade.
But everything that was once sacred in Spring has been ripped open. The monastery. The grove. Our family.
“Well, what do we have here?” the Sapphire Knight calls, his voice reverberating from behind the helm. “If it isn’t Ezryn, the exiled prince, seeking more Spring blood!”
I don’t respond. There’s no point. Words can’t reclaim a throne.
“I’m surprised you dare to show your face here, Ezryn. Every citizen can mark you by those raggedy ears. Failure. Traitor. Mother slayer.”
Slowly, I continue to close the distance between us, the weight of my mother’s sword on my back.
“Banished by your own brother! Humiliated, cast out. Your people don’t want you here, Prince of Blood. They chose Emperor Kairyn.”
The sound of Kairyn’s scream rattles in my head as I picture him hanging below Solonius’s Spine, trapped in vines of his own making. The hate and grief and love that warred within me. That still war.
Other images flash through my mind. Faces. The former members of Kairyn’s Green Rule, renewing their vows of allegiance to the Queen’s Army. Delphia and Nori, reminding me who I am and what I stand for. The bright shine of Rosalina’s eyes as she promised to protect the token of Spring.
“You’re really going to do this?” the Sapphire Knight says. “The last time you faced me, you and your dear friend Keldarion were like children, playing with sticks.” He holds up the sword, examining it. “Does the High Prince of Winter miss this? It’s quite the blade, though insatiably thirsty for Spring blood. I get such a thrill when one of these Spring sheep acts out of line. It’s immensely satisfying cutting through them.”
I wonder who this Sapphire Knight was before he and my brother disposed of the high clerics and set their sights on thesacred weapons. Were they friends? Did he like to read? Did he wish to do good at first?
That’s the only way I make sense of it: knowing Kairyn wanted to do right by our people. But the allure of power was too much for him, as it is for the Sapphire Knight.
And that sword belongs to the Sworn Protector of the Realms.
I draw my mother’s blade and stop several feet away from the knight.
He scoffs. “How do you intend to beat me, Ezryn? Look at the steel I wield!”
He’s right. There is no blade in all the Vale like the Sword of the Protector. My sword will never be able to pierce his armor. Regardless, I take a defensive stance and wait.
The Sapphire Knight lunges first, faster than I expect for such heavy armor. His sword slams down, sparks bursting as it gouges the stone where I stood a heartbeat before. He wheels, snarling, striking again in a savage arc.
I lift my mother’s blade to parry. The shock jars my arms, steel shrieking against steel, but my pulse stays steady. He strikes again, harder, driving me back a pace, then another. Each blow rains down like thunder, but I let them come, let him exhaust himself like a rainstorm against a mountain.
“Fight me, coward!” he bellows, hacking sideways. I twist away, his blade crashing into a pillar with a crack that showers the hall in shards of stone. He staggers to recover.
