The light of waystone travelled faded, and Millie blinked away the hallucinations of the dark places in between. Around her, a dozen soldiers of the Lucanian Royal Guard crowded the receiving stone of the Falcon’s Roost. She nearly rolled her eyes when she noticed how many of them held the hilts of their swords: there was no threat to her in Courland.

The waystone was walled in by a hexagon of brick parapets twenty feet high, manned by crossbowmen who could shoot in at arrivals just as easily as they could defend the location against assault from without. An open gate led to a stone bridge walled in the same style, which was the only means of access to Lord’s Island, and two separate formations of mounted soldiers waited side by side there. A second gate led into the city of Courland, though it was closed at the moment.

Millie’s betrothed, Bennet Howe, nudged his black gelding forward without acknowledging either the Royal Guards, or the Falkenrath troops led by an aging knight who waited to receive her. Unable to keep a grin from her face, the princess brought her own bay mare, Daphne, forward until the two horses were nearly close enough to touch, nose to tail and saddle to saddle.

“Your royal highness,” Bennet greeted her, loudly enough for everyone in the fortified travel yard to hear. He accepted her offered hand, and bowed over it, though he did not bother kissing her knuckles through the glove of fine lambskin she wore against the winter cold.

“I’m surprised your father let you come to the front lines,” he continued in a lower voice meant for Millie’s ears alone.

“How can a war that hasn’t even begun yet have a front line?” Millie teased him, then stepped Daphne to the side so that Bennet could wheel his horse around and ride next to her. “That upjumped bastard doesn’t even know we’re coming, I’m sure. And even if she did, there’s no way she could ever mount a winter assault on Courland. Isn’t that right, Cecily?”

Millie’s two ladies-in-waiting, Cecily Falkenrath and Evangeline Howe, rode up to within conversational distance. “Quite right, your highness,” Cecily agreed. “My grandfather spent a fortune to refit the Falcon’s Roost. Our castle is the greatest defensive fortification in the north half of Lucania.”

“I hope he remembered to refit the bed chambers, as well,” Millie remarked with a sigh. She’d already been forced to travel light by her father’s insistence she come under full guard, which meant that she was going to have to rely upon the bed fittings she found. She hated travelling without her own pillows.

“It’s good to see you again, little brother,” Evangeline called over to Bennet.

“Little! You’re half my size,” Millie’s future husband complained. Still, she could tell it was in good humor, and he leaned over to kiss his sister on the cheek once she’d brought her horse close enough. Millie would have preferred that she be the one being kissed, but Evangeline had the most wonderful knack for making a good cup of tea, and they were going to be sisters, after all.

“On behalf of Duke Thomas, welcome to Falkenrath,” the old knight called out, finally riding forward and interrupting them. “We are honored to host your royal highness.”

“Thank you, Sir...?” Millie waited for the ancient soldier to supply his name. She hadn’t the slightest idea whether they’d ever met before, but she doubted it just as much as she doubted the old fossil’s effectiveness in battle. Really, it was almost an insult that the duke had sent someone like this to escort her.

“Sir Elias Lane,” the knight responded. In contrast to the modern jack-of-plate that Bennet wore, in the royal colors of gold and purple, Lane wore a battered old steel cuirass with a full set of pauldrons, vambraces, and all the rest. Perhaps he didn’t know how easily windlass crossbows could punch through that sort of antique armor or, more likely, he was simply too poor to afford to replace it.

“Thank you for the reception, Sir Ellias,” Millie said, nonetheless. It was important for royalty to be gracious with their lessers, particularly in public. After all, it was likely the old soldier would be giving his life for them against the traitors up in Whitehill. “If you will lead us to the castle, I’d like to get settled into my apartments and out of this chill.”

“Of course, your highness,” Lane said, inclining his head. “And allow me to be the first, Lady Cecily, to welcome you back home.” He stepped his horse around to greet Millie’s lady-in-waiting.

“Elias!” The dark-haired noblewoman leaned out of her saddle to kiss the old knight on his weathered cheek. “You know, Millie, it was Elias and Sir Talbot who taught me to ride? How is your daughter, Sir Lane?” Cecily Falkenrath, Millie decided, appeared entirely too pleased to see the old man, and treated him with too much familiarity as well.

“In her second year at Coral Bay, m’lady,” the old knight explained. “Let’s get her royal highness inside the walls where it's warm, and then I’ll tell you all the news.”

The party, surrounded now by so many armed men that Millie figured they could practically win the war themselves, rode up onto the walled bridge. Behind them, the soldiers who manned the walled in courtyard set their backs to the crank and closed the gates, securing the waystone.

This close to the sea, the Aspen River was broad, and if there hadn’t been an island in the center, Millie didn’t see how anyone could have bridged it. Thankfully, the Falkenraths had long since claimed Lord’s Island as their own, and the entirety of it was encompassed by their castle, fancifully named The Falcon’s Roost. It all showed a bit more self-importance on the part of the Dukes of the North than Millie was quite comfortable with, but she supposed it was to their advantage now, as the complex would make for a very suitable headquarters from which to conduct the destruction of Whitehill.

However much Cecily’s departed grandfather had spent - and every rumour was more outrageous than the last - the indulgence now struck Millie as well worthwhile. The Falcon’s Roost was walled in granite at the base, and then limestone above, all supposedly mined from the mountains and then shipped downriver.

The curtain walls were forty feet high, with their foundations built right up to the edges of the island itself, providing little ground for anyone who tried an assault by boat to land on. An even greater gate controlled access from the bridge to the castle itself, though it was open at the moment in anticipation of Millie’s arrival.

“Your army is coming together well?” Millie asked Bennet as they rode, though she had about as much interest in the inane details of soldiering as she did in precisely how her boots were made. Still, she understood from her mother that it was important to show interest in the things her husband cared about. While they weren’t actually married yet, she had no intention of sabotaging her marriage before it even began.

Bennet nodded. “Guild Mistress Arundell’s assistance has been invaluable on that front,” he admitted. “There’s no way that we could organize this kind of troop movement in winter without using the waystone network. If we had to march our soldiers overland, we’d have desertion, frostbite, starvation, and Trinity knows what else to contend with.”

Millie knew there had been some grumbling among the mages guild at how many culling mages had been drafted into service to operate the waystones, but she was pleased that the former royal court mage had come through for them.

Once past the gate, they entered a great mustering ground. The actual inner buildings of the Falkenrath’s castle only took up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the island, and even adding in their gardens left half the space unaccounted for. It was this area which was now crammed with tents, horse-lines, cookfires, and a great mass of soldiery.

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The sheer size of the operation was, frankly, astounding, and Millie couldn’t help but gape for a moment before her etiquette training reminded her to close her mouth. Bennet began reeling off numbers proudly, as if he’d brought back a particularly impressive buck after a hunt, and was waiting for her approval.

“The core of the force is the new model royal army, of course,” her betrothed began, pointing with one arm while he held the reins of his gelding with the other hand. “Four hundred trained infantry, all equipped with pikes and pott helmets, buffcoats and cuirasses over that. Another hundred archers in the old style, and another hundred with windlass crossbows. The engineering corps has three rams, four siege towers, and three wheeled catapults, all disassembled for transport. They can make ladders from nearby trees when we arrive.”

This part of the encampment was impressive as much due to its uniformity as anything else, in Millie’s mind. The rows of tents were straight and organized, and the equipment of the new army all matched in color and style, making them appear of a singular purpose and function. It was very impressive, and she felt that she was beginning to understand why her father had insisted upon making the changes he had. And, of course, they would all be loyal to the royal family itself, rather than dozens of feudal lords.

As they rode down the trampled and muddy lanes between the tents, Millie’s presence was inevitably noticed. She doubted many of these men, uneducated as they no doubt were, would have been able to recognize her by sight, but the presence of the royal guard must have been clue enough even for the most ignorant.

“The princess!”

“Your royal highness!”

“Princess Milisant!”

“Long live the king!”

Their procession through the encamped soldiers became something of an impromptu parade, with even hard, veteran men lining up to either side, waving and shouting. Millie raised one gloved hand to acknowledge them, plastered a serene smile on her face, and wondered just how long this was going to take.

“How many barons have answered the call?” she asked her future husband. She had to speak up, and crane her head closer to his, in order to hear and be heard clearly in turn over the noise of the crowd.

“Ten, so far,” Bennet explained. “The two dukes, of course; neither one of them could really afford not to show support for the crown against a rebellion like this. Past that, about what you might expect. My father sent what he could, as did the Erskines and Arundells, along with their cadet house, the Fanes. Apparently Julianne’s Eldish witch murdered one of their sons at Coral Bay, and they’re all chomping at the bit for vengeance. House Seton was a bit of a surprise to me, but I expected the Wards and of course the Sherards - Queen Artemisia and the dowager queen made certain of that.”

“Only ten?” Millie kept a frown off her face; she couldn’t afford to project anything but confidence in public. There were a hundred and forty-two barons in the kingdom, though some of them commanded little more than a hill, a single, crumbling tower, and a toothless knight or two. A hundred and forty, with the Summersets and the Crosbies practically in open rebellion together, and united by a marriage alliance. Nearly the entire aristocracy of Lucania was sitting the conflict out.

Bennet shrugged. “Your father relieved the barons of their obligation for military service,” he reminded her, “in exchange for the creation and funding of this army. That means the houses who have come truly did so as volunteers.”

He led her out of the royal army’s camp, now, and into a motley assortment of colors and banners, each group around their own separate island. Knights in the colors of their lords stepped forward to cheer Millie’s passing just as eagerly as the commoners of the new army had, just moments before.

“How many, all told?” she asked.

Bennet hesitated. “We’re still mustering,” he hedged. “And all of the peasant levies have been encamped separately, outside the city on the south bank of the Aspen."

“Just tell me, love,” Millie pressed, using the endearment tactically so as to soften the demand.

“Two hundred and fifty knights, all with their own mounts,” Bennet said, beginning with the most important troops. “Four hundred pikemen. Around four hundred crossbowmen, with another hundred archers. Some sixteen hundred levies, from all around the kingdom. Combined with engineers, scouts -”

“The total,” Millie asked again.

“Perhaps two thousand and eight hundred,” Bennet said. “Perhaps nine hundred. Not three thousand yet, I don’t think.”

That made Millie feel a good bit better, though it still wasn’t nearly what she had wanted to hear. “Baron Erskine told my father that Whitehill didn’t have more than two hundred and fifty fighting men,” she recalled. “A mix of knights, city guard, and castle guard. Valegaard has about the same, but they can’t afford to send all of it. That means we’ll outnumber them nearly six to one.”

Bennet turned them past the last of the knight’s tents - a group of Talbot men, by the look of the black and gold colors, who’d put a bit of distance between them and the next nearest camp. The sound of the cheering soldiers faded behind them as they rode toward the inner court, with its enormous great towers and halls.

“Not by so much, I’m afraid,” Bennet corrected her. “They’ll have pressed their own peasants into service, and hired any mercenaries they can find. But even if they scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel, I can’t see them fielding more than a thousand.”

“Nearly three to one, then,” Millie said. “And I’ll get you more at our wedding.”

“You will?” Bennet asked, with a frown.

“Of course.” She nodded. “It will be the event of the year; I saw to the invitations going out before I left Freeport. Every single baron - well, all but two.” She scowled. “They’ll all want to be there, you can count on it. Being absent would make it look like they’re loyalties are wavering, and none of them will want that. Once I have them at the palace, I’ll use the houses who’ve already sent support to help me pressure the rest.”

Bennet smiled, and shook his head. “You’re going to make a great queen one day, Millie,” he said. “The kind that history books are written about. I’ve got a good head for tactics, but the sort of political thinking you can do is beyond me.”

She reached over to pat his arm. “Well, I’ve been trained for it since birth, after all,” she said, to comfort him. “And I wouldn’t know how to get this great mass of soldiers moving in the same direction, nevermind following any kind of plan. That’s what I have you for.”

Millie allowed her smile to slip from her face, now that they were away from the gathered army. “My grandfather should never have let his bastard live,” she said. “That was a mistake. I couldn’t say it while he was still alive - none of us could, he wouldn’t hear of it. But grandmother always knew she’d be trouble.”

“And the dowager queen was correct,” Bennet agreed. “Clearly.”

“They’ve proved everything we always suspected,” Millie confirmed, with a nod. “Hiding that criminal they adopted. Erskine says they’ve built a wall at the north pass.”

“My scouts confirm that,” her betrothed said. He reined his gelding in before the entrance to the great hall, where Millie could already see Duke Falkenrath’s court gathered to welcome her. “I’ve already had them up that way, and the entire pass is blocked off, with a gate and parapets. The wall is already manned, and they’re questioning everyone who tries to pass.”

Millie accepted his hand down from Daphne, and waited while Sir Elias helped down Cecily. Bennet, of course, moved to aid his sister Evangeline once Millie was secure on the ground, with her boots under her. Grooms rushed forward to take the horses away, while the royal guardsmen fell in all around her.

She took a moment to scan her eyes over the welcoming party. Duke Thomas Falkenrath was there, of course, along with his son Thurston and a handful of knights. The Falkenrath men were both dark-haired, just like Cecily, with pale skin and dark eyes. While the duke sported a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, his son was clean shaven and rather handsome - though Millie recalled that he was a terrible dancer, and had once been friendly with Matthew Summerset.

There was a man who she guessed was a court mage as well: he was the tallest one present, with thinning, close-cropped hair, a beard, and spectacles. Millie didn’t know his name, and resolved to find out whether he was a part of Genevieve Arundell’s faction, or if he would bear watching.

“It was a great mistake,” Millie murmured. “The greatest mistake of his entire reign, and now we’re paying for it. Bastards always cause trouble, sooner or later.”

Lord Commander Bennet Howe stepped back up to her side, and offered Princess Milisant his arm. She placed her gloved hand atop it, displaying the perfect poise she’d been trained in since the time she was a child.

“But we’ll settle all this together, my love,” Millie told Bennet, looking up to meet his eyes. Was it weakness, to take comfort from his presence before she dove into the waters of Duke Falkenrath’s court? If it was, it would be the only one she allowed herself.

“We can’t allow a challenge like this to stand,” she said, as much to herself as to her future husband. “I can’t. I refuse to inherit a kingdom that’s been crippled by civil war. When the spring comes, we’re going to end this. We’re going to rip the Summersets out of their valley, root and stem. The Crosbie’s with them, and everyone who supports their petty rebellion. If we have to hang every single person who lives in those mountains, so be it.”