It was through the Ethnicam that Orynthia maintained a careful alliance between the four Houses that ruled each corner of the realm. After the Forgotten Wars, the remnants of humanity found solace in their respective territories and cultures, struggling to survive in a land of famine and war-taint. Those who hadn’t starved were either clean or unclean. Residual war-taint disfigured and drove the afflicted into grotesque madness, while mortal disease threatened the rest. Focusing inward as the land’s natural resources began to dwindle, skirmishes broke out amongst the outer territories of Boreal, Pilar, and Darakai. But instead to the east, Bastiion reached outward to neighboring tribes to bolster their numbers, sacrificing their heritage to become something new and in doing so, thrived. Together, the emerging Unitarians built the strength and military might of the Orynthian forces.

It was the House of Bastiion that ultimately united the four territories, hundreds of years after the Forgotten Wars. In exchange for protection, the outer territories of Boreal, Pilar, and Darakai formed in an uneasy treaty with the prosperous Unitarians and therefore, each other. Although Boreal’s history with Orynthia dated further than that of Darakai or Pilar, all owed their survival to the crown. Over a thousand years after the earth shed its taint and began to bloom, the Houses continued to pay homage to Orynthia’s founding epicenter, Bastiion.

In signing the Accords, the ruling powers of each House founded the Ethnicam, solidifying their allegiance under a unified Orynthian banner. From Bastiion were the Peerage of the nobility; from Pilar, the Shoto Collective; from Darakai, the tribal chieftains; and from Boreal, the clan elders. All four owed fealty to the Royal Line of Thoarne, whose descendants sat upon the Orynthian throne. This balance of power worked to ensure that, through domestic faculty and trade, service was paid in full for the benefit of all Orynthia, the central kingdom. As the Houses retained enough independence to govern their own territories, the Ethnicam provided accountability against partiality—or so it claimed.

However, during the last century, friction had escalated within the Ethnicam when the House of Boreal suspended all trade beyond standard weaponry with the rest of the realm. Their territory was famous for its deadly luxiron blades, forged with the aid of lumin and unparalleled in battle. The Boreali guarded the secret of luxsmithing carefully, and trade of these special weapons with the rest of Orynthia had always been rare, even before Luscia’s ancestors forbade their sale outside Boreal’s borders. Luscia privately found the Ethnicam’s resentment to be ridiculous, as Orynthia’s grudge with Boreal was over the monopoly of trinkets. Corrosive and bewitching trinkets, but trinkets nonetheless. It was the Najjani warriors who were the true weapons of Boreal. It was in their blood, their very nature.

By belonging to the line of Tiergan, it was a nature that segregated Luscia even further from her five.

With some surprise, Luscia realized that she’d finished her plate of venison while studying her men so intently. She rubbed her tired eyes, then rose to her feet with a groan, making her way over to the well-made tent of Orallach hide that Creyvan had erected for her.

“Thank Aniell for privacy,” she murmured as she slipped inside.

With a sigh, Luscia peeled off her layers of traveling gear, desperately wishing for a hot bath. It’d been days since her last true wash. When all that remained was the thin layer of her linsilk shift, simpler than the others she possessed, Luscia lay back against the bed of lush furs and combed her fingers through an untidy cluster of sandy knots.

As she finished fighting with the last of the tangles in her waist-length hair, a wet muzzle parted the opening of her makeshift quarters. Aksel waited until Luscia obliged him with a warm, “Well, come in, you brute.”

The lycran’s huge form shook the tent as he made an obnoxious attempt to lie down. The tent was good stock, but it was never intended to house a woman and her overgrown wolx. Regardless of his enormity and the rank stench of his latest conquest, Luscia welcomed Aksel’s company as well as his warmth. She had slept safely with the animal for three years, since he was a pup. Even now that he was considered fully grown, she didn’t intend to stop.

Nestling closer to Aksel’s thick coat, she listened to the distant tinkling of metal as Declan rewrapped his luxiron blades. Breaths later, she heard his voice rumble in the night. Gently, barely audible to most, he sang to the unseen threads of lumin in the darkness. Luscia was nearly asleep to the sound of his melody when the twins began to accompany the native Boreali hymn, forming a soothing blend of masculine tones that rose to greet the wind stirring the leaves. They sang for no one in particular, except the moon and her maker.

Taken in by the music and its simplicity, Luscia repositioned her head at the opening of the tent. She fastened a flap to the side to better appreciate the old song branded in their northern hearts. With eyes closed, she intertwined her offering with that of her warriors.

From the mounts of Orallach we sing,

From the crest of Aksel’s Keep we bring,

A song of Old, a song of some.

For those who’ve lost what Tiergan found,

My soul turns ear to hear such sound,

Of Dönum’s light and Lux’s stream.

Though ash and flame and darkness came,

New life and burnished day remain,

Resilient against horrors sought.

’Tis in the wind, between the trees,

Whispers proof of everlasting.

Though in their absence I will hold,

Aniell’s delight in Boreal.

Her harmony trailed off as she felt compelled to look toward the heavens of Aurynth and its watchman, the moon. For her vow to Aniell and the children of Boreal, her life was no longer her own. Luscia knew the day would come when she’d be asked to sacrifice everything because of it.

Summoning all the bravery she could, Luscia Darragh Tiergan accepted her fate. She was, and would forever be, al’Haidren to the House of Boreal.

Luscia’s eyes flashed open.

Rotating her neck in a slow, controlled motion, she locked eyes with her lycran. The eerie gleam of Aksel’s irises flicked to the front of the tent, then tracked some unseen movement around the side of the cramped space.

Luscia reached for the dagger under her pillow and soundlessly pushed herself off the ground. Balancing on the ball of each foot, she inhaled deeply, but the air smelt only of moss and pine. She crept outside, listening intently all the while. The darkness was devoid of sound—even the animals had gone quiet.

“Ana’Sere?” Böwen advanced from his post behind the edge of the ruin. “Are you well?”

Aksel circled her legs, bare beneath her shift, sniffing the undergrowth.

“It’s nothing,” Lusica started to murmur, but froze when the lycran yipped at the base of the tent. Along the side, a deep gash scored the stretch of hide, ending exactly where she’d laid her head. From the laceration, a beetle writhed out between the fibers and scurried back to the earth.