Nobody moved.
Two hundred lancers sat their horses at the south end of the bridge with their lances leveled. On the cliffs, Vex's crossbowmen knelt with their weapons aimed down at the stone arch. And on the arch, two hundred and sixty filthy, bleeding, exhausted soldiers of the Ninth stood shoulder to shoulder with their swords raised, and didn't lower them.
Ren could feel every one of them through the bond. Not a single candle was flickering.
Vex's face had gone a dark, mottled purple. "Lower your weapons," he said, "or I'll have every one of you hanged."
Nobody lowered anything.
"Warden." Vex's voice was shaking now. "Order them to stand down."
"No," said Ren.
He could hear his own heartbeat. He could hear the river roaring sixty feet below. He knew exactly how this ended if anyone flinched. Two hundred lancers charging into a battalion that had just fought for two days. Crossbow bolts from above. Even with the Black Banner, even with every sworn soul he had, the Ninth would lose.
But they'd take a lot of Vex's men with them. And Vex knew it.
The Marshal opened his mouth.
A horn blew.
It came from the south, from the road through the trees. One long, high, clear note. Every head turned.
A dozen riders came out of the forest at a gallop. They wore black armor trimmed in dark red, and they rode in a tight wedge with a banner at the center. Not the black flame of the army. Something different. A crowned black flame on red.
At the point of the wedge rode Seo Hana, with her huge headsman's sword across her back.
She reined in between the lancers and the Ninth and looked at both of them. Then she looked at Vex. Then at Ren.
"Well," she said. "This looks fun."
"Headsman." Vex's voice was tight. "This is a military matter."
"I know. That's why I'm here." Hana pulled a rolled paper from her saddlebag and held it up. The seal on it was red wax, pressed with the crowned flame. "The Empress summons Warden Kuroda and Marshal Vex to Kharos. Both of you. Today." She looked around at the crossbows on the cliffs. "Her words. Anyone who spills blood here before she hears both sides answers to her personally."
The silence stretched.
Then, slowly, Gorran Vex sheathed his sword.
"Lower your lances," he said, without turning around.
The lances came up.
Ren let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He looked back at the Ninth.
"Stand down," he said quietly.
Two hundred and sixty swords came down at once.
***
It was three days' ride to Kharos.
Ren rode in the middle of Hana's escort, with Brannoc on a horse beside him, his hands tied to the pommel of his saddle. Vex rode far ahead with his own guards and never once looked back. The Ninth stayed at Greywater, under Hob, to hold the broken bridge until the real Second Army came.
"She got your letter," Hana said on the first night, by the campfire. "The one about the Second Calling. She read it three times. Then she threw a cup against the wall."
"Is that good?"
"For you, yes." Hana poked the fire with a stick. "For the cup, no."
Brannoc talked on the second day.
He hadn't said a word since the bridge. He'd sat his horse with his tied hands and his eyes on the road ahead and eaten when they fed him and slept when they stopped. Then, on the second afternoon, riding through red stone hills under a hot sun, he spoke without looking over.
"They chain monsters in the yard now," he said.
Ren looked at him.
"In Solenne. The training yard. The Church buys them from hunters. Wolves, boars, things out of the Thornwood. They chain them to posts, and the heroes kill them one after another, all day long." Brannoc's jaw tightened. "Feeding them experience like you'd feed a pig. The Holy Maiden is Level 25 already, they say. She's never fought anything that wasn't tied up."
"Yui," said Ren.
"They call her the Saint of Solenne now. The people line the streets when she goes by." Brannoc shook his head slowly. "And the other one. The prosecutor. Kanzaki. He came back from chasing you with a face like a stone. He doesn't train in the yard with the others anymore. He spends all his time in the Church archives." He paused. "And your lawyer."
Ren's hands tightened on the reins. "What about her?"
"She's watched. Always. The High Seraph doesn't trust her. Nobody's proved anything yet." The old knight finally turned and looked at him. "She was well when I left. That's all I know."
They rode on for a while.
The published chapter on NovelPhoenix.com supports its author; this version was copied from it without consent.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Brannoc asked. "On the bridge. The Marshal would have thanked you for it."
"You told the truth in the Hall of Judgment," said Ren. "When it cost you."
"That's not enough reason to spare an enemy."
"It is for me."
Brannoc looked at him for a long time. Then he turned back to the road and didn't say anything else for the rest of the day.
***
Kharos was a city built for war.
It sat on a red stone mesa above a dry river valley, ringed by three walls, each one higher than the last. Everything was red. The walls, the towers, the streets, the houses with their flat roofs and narrow windows like arrow slits. The palace at the center was a fortress, square and massive, with a black flame banner on every tower snapping in the hot wind.
They called the throne room the Hall of Embers. Ren understood why the second he walked in.
It was long and dark, with no windows at all. The only light came from braziers. Hundreds of them. Iron bowls of coals lined both walls from end to end, so many that the air shimmered with heat, and every face in the hall glowed orange. At the far end, on a dais of black stone, sat a throne made of iron.
Iskra Ardent sat on it in black and red. She didn't look like she'd been eating apples on the edge of a map table. She looked like the Empress.
The hall was full. Nobles in silk and jewels along both walls, whispering behind fans. Officers in dress armor. Clerks. Courtiers.
And beside the throne, one step down on the dais, a young man in silver gray. Tall, handsome, with the same dark red hair as Iskra worn long and loose over his shoulders. He was smiling at Ren like they were old friends.
Lucan Ardent · Silver Tongue (Rare) · Level 27
Title: Prince of the Ardent Empire
"Marshal Vex," said the Empress. "You've accused my Warden of treason. Make your case."
Vex made it.
He did it well. Ren had to admit that. The old man stood in the center of the hall in his battered armor and listed everything. The refused order at the gate. The peasants. The late return from Halden's Ford. The prisoner. And the bridge. Two hundred and sixty soldiers of the Empire, raising their swords against the Marshal of the Empire.
"He has turned the Ninth into his private army," Vex finished. "They don't answer to me. They don't answer to you, Majesty. They answer to him. He's done in three weeks what Varenhal couldn't do in eighty years. He's split your army in two."
The court murmured.
"Warden Kuroda," said Iskra. "Is any of that untrue?"
Ren stepped forward.
"No, Majesty," he said.
The murmur got louder.
"I refused the Marshal's order at the gate," Ren said. "I kept the villagers. We came back late from Halden's Ford, because they couldn't walk fast. I took Ser Brannoc prisoner after he yielded, and I refused to let the Marshal execute him. And when the Marshal threatened to kill us both, my soldiers raised their swords." He paused. "All of that is true."
Lucan laughed softly from the dais. Someone in the crowd gasped.
"Then why," said Iskra, "should I not hang you?"
Ren reached into his coat and pulled out the manifest. He held it up so the braziers caught the gold sunburst.
"Because the Marshal also ordered us to hold Greywater Bridge for three days against two thousand men, with no reinforcements," he said. "And we held it for two. And we brought it down with the enemy on it. And the column that would have taken Fort Calder from behind is still sitting on the far side of the gorge." He held the paper higher. "And because I found this. The Church of Radiance is preparing a Second Calling. They're paying for it with Imperial lives. Forty three of them were in chains at Halden's Ford. I don't know how many more are on the road."
He walked forward and held the manifest out toward the throne.
Hana came down the steps and took it from him, and carried it up to Iskra.
The Empress read it. She read it slowly, and her face didn't change at all.
Then she held it up to the court.
"Under the old Accord," she said, "every kingdom on Eridane agreed. No more than a handful of heroes at once. Never again a great Calling. Never again what happened five hundred years ago." Her voice was quiet, but it carried to the back of the hall. "Varenhal summoned twenty this spring. Now they're preparing more. With our people as the price."
The hall had gone completely silent.
"The charges against Warden Kuroda are dismissed," said Iskra. "The Ninth stays with him. The prisoner stays with him." She looked down at Vex. "Marshal. You sent three hundred men to hold a bridge against two thousand, and they held it. If I were you, I'd be grateful."
Vex's scarred face went perfectly still. He bowed, very low.
When he straightened up, he looked at Ren. Just for a moment. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Ren had seen a lot of people hate him this year. Strangers on the train. His own father. Kenta, screaming at the ferry. But he'd never seen anything like the look on Gorran Vex's face.
***
Prince Lucan found him in the palace gardens that evening.
They weren't much of a garden. Red gravel paths between beds of tough gray desert plants, and a dry fountain in the middle. But they were outside, and they were quiet, and after the heat of the Hall of Embers, Ren had needed the air.
"Magnificent," said Lucan, strolling down the path toward him with his hands clasped behind his back. "Truly. I haven't seen old Gorran look like that in years. Not since my father took his command away after Tollan."
"Your Highness."
"Lucan, please." The prince sat on the edge of the dry fountain and smiled up at him. He had an easy, warm smile. It went all the way up to his eyes, which was more than his sister's ever did. "May I give you some advice? Free of charge."
"You can give it."
"My sister likes you. I can tell." Lucan's smile didn't change. "She liked Hana once too. She liked all twelve of them, when they came through. She gave them rooms in the palace and titles and lovely armor." He tilted his head. "Have you noticed what Hana wears around her neck?"
Ren said nothing.
"My sister uses people, Kuroda. She's very good at it. She'll use you until Varenhal falls, and then she'll put iron on you, and you'll spend the rest of your life standing behind her throne looking frightening." Lucan spread his hands. "Unless you had a friend. Someone close to the throne. Someone who could make sure that didn't happen."
"You," said Ren.
"Me." The prince smiled. "Think about it."
"No," said Ren.
Lucan's smile didn't even flicker. He stood up and brushed off his silver clothes.
"Everyone says no the first time," he said pleasantly, and walked away down the gravel path.
***
They'd given Ren a room in the east tower. It was small and plain and hot, with a narrow bed and a window that looked out over the dark valley. He was standing at the window when the knock came.
It was after midnight. He thought it was Hana.
It was the Empress.
She'd taken off the black and red. She wore a plain dark shirt and trousers, like any soldier off duty, and her short red hair was damp like she'd just washed it. She carried the flat wooden case under one arm. She came in without asking and closed the door behind her.
"You did well today," she said.
"You said that in the hall."
"In the hall, I was saying it to the court. Now I'm saying it to you." She sat down on the edge of his bed without being asked, the way she'd sat on the map table that first morning. In the lamplight, her gray eyes looked almost silver. "You know what my brother said to you in the garden."
"Yes."
"Some of it's true."
Ren waited.
"I'm not going to apologize for Hana," Iskra said. "I didn't put the iron on her. My father did. But I haven't taken it off." She looked down at the case on her knees. "And I'm not going to promise you I never will. You'd know I was lying."
"I would."
"So instead," she said, "I'm going to give you something. On account. For Greywater."
She opened the case.
The torn page lay under its sheet of glass, red ink faded to brown. She didn't take it out. She just tilted the case toward the lamp, and ran her finger along one line near the bottom, and read it out loud in a low, steady voice.
"He was not slain by three hundred heroes," said Iskra Ardent. "He was slain by those who called him."
The room was very quiet.
Ren looked at the red writing. He couldn't read a word of it. He looked at her face instead.
"That's one line," she said. "When you give me Varenhal, you can have the rest." She closed the case and stood up. At the door, she stopped with her hand on the latch, and spoke without turning around.
"Every kingdom on Eridane summons, Kuroda. Not just Varenhal. Mine too. My father brought twelve of them through, six years ago."
She opened the door.
"Ask Hana what happened to the other eleven."