“Then I will trust your wisdom, Ana’Mere,” he said in the steady voice expected of Boreal’s mighty Clann Darragh. Meaning Great Mother, it was a word chosen out of affection, not duty, for his rank did not require he use it.

With that, Orien took his leave, descending the steps that led from the lookout back into the fortress, where Roüwen’s citizens continued to celebrate the Ascension of their new al’Haidren. Alora remained behind, staring out at the city that had been her home since birth. Her long, glittering skirts shuffled against the ground, and a small quirk of her lips was the only proof she’d felt the presence of the cloaked figure.

“You can come out now, if you wish,” Alora said quietly. There was no need for her voice to be louder than a murmur. A trait now shared between them.

She remained stoic as he approached, apart from the tiny grin—a gift he recognized, given for his pleasure. Emerging from the brush, he adjusted the fabric further to hide his gruesome appearance.

He was almost beside her when she gracefully trapped him with those eyes, bright in the darkness as they reflected an unearthly radiance. The left was a shade of sky he could only vaguely recall after so many years sentenced to darkness; the right, grey as the iron he could never touch. A living set of truths that told the story of how far he’d fallen.

“If you insist on hiding from me during our conversations, then I must ask why we continue to have them,” she said grimly to the figure. “The least you can say is hello.”

“Allöh, my lady,” he complied, receiving a cross look in return.

“How are your sores? I have the next vial of elixir. And the fever—has it returned?”

He restrained himself from madly seizing the satchel set upon the ledge. The blisters had worsened, of course, along with the aches, but it would take quite a bit more interrogation on her part to evoke any admittance of it. Especially when those vials came at the expense of a wound, now entirely healed, somewhere along her porcelain skin.

“I bring news from the towns you had me observe. Two of your traders were murdered, brutally, and a Boreali cross-caste child is missing in Port Tadeas,” he said, speaking calmly and succinctly. “You’ll need to stop there on your journey to Bastiion.”

Alora tended to internalize the burdens of her people, so he’d found it best to deliver these reports pragmatically, to help her accept them as impersonally as he did. Despite that, she pressed a hand against her stomach, whether to keep from being sick or to comfort herself, he couldn’t tell.

“We were hunted before the time of Tiergan, in the days of old,” she whispered. “What if the lumin…”

“What would you have me do, my lady?” he asked hurriedly.

Alora’s eyes anchored onto his. Mastering her features to resemble the cool slate they stood upon, she ordered, “Follow Luscia. Remain unseen. Protect her at all costs.”

He studied the planes of her face for the thousandth time, committing them to memory. The figure then gathered up his inky cloak and retreated into the mist of the tree line. He’d taken a mere ten steps before she spoke his name into the night, as was their custom. He stilled with his back to the moonlit woman as she whispered for his ears alone; a promise that betrayed all hope, for it hinged upon the irreparable.

“There is still hope for redemption.”

The figure crushed his lashless eyes shut and carried the sound of her voice into the darkness he now called home.

ONE

Luscia

   Luscia stretched her neck until she felt a sharp pop of relief. Only four days on the road to Bastiion, and her bones were already weary. But as the distance ahead stretched farther than that behind, Luscia chastised herself for the silent complaint. They were still a week’s journey from the lowlands of Hildur, and her neck would just have to accept it.

“Captaen!” a man’s voice shouted. The greenery by the side of the road parted, revealing Declan, the brawny Najjani warrior who’d been sent to locate the next stage of their route.

Declan brought his horse up to address the handsome man riding beside Luscia. Bright, unruly copper hair fell out of the disheveled knot he’d tied at the crown of his head. Swatting it out of his eyes, Declan wiped away the beads of sweat trickling down his slightly crooked nose and paused, as if suddenly remembering protocol.

“Ana’Sere,” he huffed in reverence, bowing his stocky frame to Luscia before turning toward Marek Bailefore, the captaen of her guard. “Captaen, the structure we recalled is just a mile south. You’ll find the same broken tree marking the hidden turnoff.”

“Waedfrel, well done,” Marek answered, a hint of relief in his deep voice. “Declan, take Noxolo and scout the area for dinner. We’ll reconvene at the ruin.”

Luscia watched the two warriors disappear into the surrounding wood, the shock of Noxolo’s off-white hair trailing in the wake of Declan’s horse. Her sharpened hearing caught Noxolo attesting to the distinct flavor of possum, and a faint grunt of exasperation in response.

“This way, Ana’Sere,” was the captaen’s only directive before moving on.

It was nearing dark when they arrived at the place Marek and Declan sought. They’d ridden farther that day than expected, certainly farther than Luscia’s sore limbs would have preferred. Dodging contorted branches and jutting limbs, they carefully approached a ruin comprised entirely of materials from the Lost Ages, which could have once been anything from a meetinghouse to a place of trade. With half the walls in a crumbled heap, overtaken by the elements, the remnants were beyond recognition. Arms of the nearest trees embraced the ruin, leaving the rest clothed richly in emerald moss where the jaws of nature had consumed it.

Evidence of the Lost Ages was uncommonly discovered in Orynthia. After the Forgotten Wars desolated the ancient world, the generations of survivors had only fragmented structures such as this to piece together a conclusion for what had been committed against the earth and her inhabitants. A muddied, empty conclusion about the evils of men taught still, even a thousand years later.

Instantly, Luscia understood why Marek thought it wise to make camp here. With so much of the ruin intact, the walls would block a fire from sight, as well as dull the evening’s inevitable chill.

Tonight may actually provide a decent rest, she pondered optimistically.

Following Marek’s lead, she dismounted the dappled mare in a graceful leap, cushioning the impact with a slight bend of the knees. Luscia wasn’t a tall woman by any standard, so it was a fair distance from the saddle to the ground. She’d always resented her small stature, as men rarely took seriously a woman whose height resembled that of a large child. Blessedly, the rest of her body hardly looked like a child’s. Boreali women were known for their shapely figures, and Luscia was no exception. Though, from a defensive standpoint, longer limbs would’ve offered a useful advantage in combat.