By early afternoon, near seven hundred people marched south from Whitehill to Fairford.

It turned out that only those within Castle Whitehill itself had been trapped in dreams, as Liv had been. Outside of the castle, the rest of the city had instead been affected by a sort of widespread but less potent malaise. Early risers found themselves sleeping in unexpectedly late; those who intended to roll out of their beds instead rolled over into their pillow and found they had drifted off.

When Liv had taken control of the dream wards and flared them with her own mana, the lingering spell had snapped like a fraying rope stretched under too much weight. With something verging on panic, almost the entire city had woken simultaneously.

There followed two hours of mad rush. Nothing had been cooked for breakfast in the kitchens; the horses in the stables had not been fed; the guards meant to relieve the overnight watch scrambled out of the barracks and across the courtyard, jack of plate armor pulled on in haste and eyes bleary.

Down in the market, where the troops from Mountain Home had been encamped with the survivors from Ashford, the Eld had roused first, and immediately known that something was wrong. They were strangers in Whitehill, however, and not all of them even spoke the language. Sohvis had first sought to rouse Sir Gervase, the commander of the Ashford contingent. When shaking and shouting at the man led only to him snoring on in his tent, Keri’s cousin had then climbed the main street of Whitehill up to the castle gates, only to find them still closed for the night. Only after Liv had broken the spell had he finally found admittance.

All of these stories came out only later, of course - most along the long line of march, as they pushed south nearly until sunset. In the immediate aftermath of Genevieve’s magical assault, there had only been a frenzied rush of action to get the army on the move.

Liv’s mother had entirely thrown out the menu she had planned for the morning of her daughter’s departure, directing her newly expanded staff to make only food that could be produced quickly and in bulk. Potatoes, for instance, had been put entirely aside - great iron skillets of eggs, mixed with milk, cheese, smoked sausage and whatever onions and peppers could be found were cooked in a rapid rotation. No sooner had a messy pile been scraped out of the skillets onto a platter for the footmen to carry up, then new eggs were being cracked into the still-hot pan.

The entire time, Liv could hardly sit still for nerves. Genevieve had clearly intended that the crown forces should steal a march on them, and no matter how much Matthew insisted that the south pass would not fall so quickly that they would not reach it in time, Liv couldn’t stop imagining the worst. Her friends had to talk her out of simply conjuring a gyrfalcon and flying south.

“It will make a lot more of a difference to show up with the reinforcements they’re expecting, than all by yourself,” Sidonie pointed out, as Liv paced around the courtyard, waiting for their horses to be saddled.

Rose actually caught Liv by the shoulders, turned her around, and dug into the back of her neck with strong fingers. “Blood and shadows, you’re as stiff as a tree. Look. You couldn’t save Ashford single-handedly, could you?”

“No,” Liv admitted. “But we got a lot of people out who would have died otherwise.”

“That wasn’t even their main force,” Sidonie reminded her. “We’ll get there as soon as we can. Just trust Baron Henry to hold until then. It isn’t like he’s alone.”

“That’s right,” Rose said, perking up. “Keri’s down there already, and Ghveris. Your great-uncle, and Brom. Hundreds of Eld, all of which can use magic. Half a day’s delay isn’t going to lose us the war.”

It all made perfect sense when someone else said it, but Liv still would have felt better if she could see what was happening. She even considered trying to throw her spirit out on the currents of mana, like Genevieve must have done, but without her father to guide her in the process, she worried she wouldn’t be able to manage it - or that she might not make it back in time to march.

When the stablehands brought the horses out, Liv was surprised to see Ember among them. Master Grenfell’s gelding was looking quite a bit older than when Liv had ridden him to the Cotter Farm on the Day of Blood, and she doubted he’d had more than the occasional light exercise in years.

Kazimir Grenfell himself appeared a moment later, emerging from the keep wearing a thick, fur-lined cloak of wool. When the folds of fabric shifted in time with his stride, Liv was able to catch a glimpse of the old man’s wand of dark wood, secured against his thigh in a leather sheath hanging from his belt.

Liv gently removed Rose’s hands from her neck, and stepped up to face her master. “I thought the plan was for you to remain here,” she said.

Grenfell shook his head. “That was when my nephew was sending me reports by dreamstone,” he said. “There’s no longer any use in it. I’ll ride with you.”

Liv chewed at her lip, and then decided there was no point in being anything but blunt. “You haven’t really fought anything or anyone for twenty-five years,” she pointed out. “How old are you now, Master?”

“Sixty-seven years,” Grenfell said, placing a boot in Ember’s stirrup and hauling himself up into the saddle. “But I can still mount a horse, as you can see.”

Liv took a step closer, and put her hand on Ember’s neck. The gelding shoved his nose into her chest, but she refused to let him distract her. “I’d feel better if you stayed here,” she said, holding her old teacher’s eyes with her own. “Matthew and Triss are going to need someone they can rely on for good advice.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Liv. To take care of an old man.” Grenfell raised his hand, and the leather of his glove creaked when he clenched his fist. “They killed my nephew. I am going south - unless you’re willing to hit me over the head and tie me up in my chambers, that is?”

“No.” Liv let out a sigh. “I’m not willing to go that far.”

Farewells were rushed. Liv made certain to hug her mother, Matthew, and Triss - to whom she slipped the crown of Celris. There was no point in wearing it away from a rift, and quite a bit of risk of losing it.

She said her farewells to Guildmistress Every, who, with Elenda Fisher’s assistance, had somehow gotten their students lined up in orderly rows to see everyone off. Liv nodded to Semila, and was pleased to see that the young scullion, Molly, was standing with the students, and not the servants. Thora wasn’t with the servants, either; instead, she’d packed far more clothing and supplies into two trunks than Liv thought at all reasonable, and was accompanying them south perched on one of the supply wagons.

In the end, she rode in a tight knot with Rosamund, Sidonie, Arjun, Grenfell, Vivek Sharma and Julianne. Kaija lingered near Liv at all times, with the riders from Kelthelis arrayed out to either side, in front, and behind them, constantly on guard. The line of march followed, primarily organized by Sir Gervase and Sohvis. Once the Ashford men and women were marching, however, Liv was surprised to find another two riders joining their group.

“Mind if we join you?” Bryn Grenfell asked. She sat her mare more easily than Court Mage Fulke, who rode an enormous, shaggy-legged gelding better suited to pulling wagons or fieldwork than riding. Still, Liv wouldn’t have wished the man’s great bulk on any smaller horse. Somehow, he was red and sweating despite the fact his horse was doing all the labour of travel for him. Perhaps that was simply his natural state.

“Not at all, Lady Grenfell,” Julianne said, dipping her head in acknowledgement. Liv’s adopted mother seemed almost giddy with energy, now that they were all finally moving. She’d had her hair braided back, and wore a duchess’s coronet over it. Her riding doublet was in Loredan purple and gold, rather than Summersett green and white, and Liv saw that she wore her bone wand openly at her waist.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

It was, Liv reflected, as if after a lifetime of diminishing herself or hiding, Julianne was finally free to be exactly who she was: the daughter of King Roland III. Everything she’d done to avoid a fight, to hide, to not present herself as a threat - in the end, it had come to a war anyway, and there was no longer any point in pretending. Perhaps, in the not-quite-princess’s place, Liv might have felt a sort of strange relief, as well.

As it was, however, she could only see the gray in the duchess’s hair, and the lines in her face.

☙

They heard the battle at the pass well before actually arriving.

Years before, Liv and Matthew had made the ride to the Sign of the Terrapin from Castle Whitehill in a single night, with time enough to spare to listen to a travelling storyteller, and then - if their youthful indiscretion hadn’t been interrupted - to sneak back before dawn. Moving columns of marching troops was significantly more cumbersome.

The crown army had taken advantage of their delay; by the sound of it, the enemy trebuchets had been hurling stones against the newly-built wall across the pass for some time. Smoke rose from the south, trailing up into the painted and glowing clouds so that it was visible long before the fortifications themselves.

Liv, who’d been nursing a headache and the gnawing fear they wouldn’t arrive in time for the entire duration of the march, stood up in her stirrups and reached for her wand. It was Julianne who took her by the arm and wouldn’t let go.

“Unless you’re ready to fight an archmage right this moment,” the Duchess warned her, “wait.”

“Keri might already be fighting her,” Liv growled back. “And I give myself better chances than I give him.”

Julianne shook her head. “They’ll be waiting. Lord Inkeris isn’t her target - she’ll be watching for you, and she’ll be watching for me. And she won’t come at us right away; they’ll try to tire us out by throwing a few mages they don’t care about at us, first. She’ll swoop in fresh, once we’re overextended. Trust me, Liv. Most of this battle is going to be about which side can lure the other’s best mages out into a trap.”

With exasperated huff, Liv settled back into her saddle.

What they did do, however, was to ride forward in a group, leaving the column behind and taking only the riders of House Syvä. It occurred to Liv that, between the mages and the Eld, there was enough raw magical power in just over a score of riders to devastate an army.

Here, the mountains looked like a woodsman had taken a great axe and, in an overhand swing, cut a gash directly into the rock, leaving it to rise sharply on either side of the road that connected Whitehill to the rest of Lucania. The Sign of the Terrapin remained, three stories tall with both a stable and a courtyard, but it had been joined by rough outbuildings and horse-lines, latrine trenches dug into the earth, and row upon row of tents set back to either side of the road.

South of it all was the wall that Julianne and Henry had spent months - and more gold than Liv preferred to imagine - practically willing into existence. It was built of great blocks of mountain granite, and spanned the entire pass with only a single gate situated directly at the road.

Liv couldn’t get a good enough look to guess how wide the barrier was, but it must have been thick enough, for she counted half a dozen siege engines perched there - a mix of catapults and scorpions, worked by crews of shouting men. She saw lines of Elden archers and Lucanian crossbowmen, in between the siege crews, firing volleys southward.

No sooner had they swung down out of their saddles then they were greeted by a young-seeming Elden woman with blue hair cut short to her chin, in a severely angled cut that, Liv reflected, must have been a lot easier to manage beneath a helm than her own braids. The woman had a longer bow on her back, along with a quiver of arrows, and carried her helm in her left hand as she rushed over to them.

“Baron Henry’s waiting up on the wall with the command group,” she called, in only lightly accented Lucanian. “We looked for you all hours ago. What happened?”

“Genevieve Arundell put half the army to sleep,” Liv grumbled, already striding toward the wall, glancing about for a staircase up.

“How long have they been hitting you here?” Julianne asked.

“Since first light of dawn,” the blue-haired woman said, steering them to the right. “Steps are this way. They must have marched through the night, and used some kind of magic to conceal their van, because they had the siege engines set up before we even knew they were here.”

“Thank you...” Julianne trailed off.

“Miina tär Eilis, of House Däivi,” the woman said, tugging her helm back on as she scampered up the stairs ahead of them. “And I’m guessing you're my little cousin?” she called back to Liv, with a grin and a twinkle in her eye.

“Livara tär Valtteri.” Liv hurried up the steps, taking them two at a time. She could have flown to the top of the wall, or conjured a disk of mana to raise them all up - but every ring of mana she used now was a ring she couldn’t throw at the enemy army. Rose, Brynn, Kaija and all the others hurried up the stairs behind her and Julianne, amidst the rustle of winter cloaks the the clomp of boots on stone.

When she stepped out onto the rampart, Liv couldn’t help but stop for a moment. If she’d thought that she’d seen a battle at Ashford, it was nothing compared to this. Along the wall to either side of her, hundreds of men and women loaded siege engines, loosed volleys of arrows, or dragged the wounded back from the crenellations. The ruddy light of the setting sun painted all of their faces bloody, whether they were wounded or not. The reek of blood, smoke, sweat, and emptied bowels filled her nose and throat until she could smell nothing else, and thought she might be sick if she couldn’t get a breath of fresh air.

Spread out before the wall was the enemy army - the army of King Benedict, the crown forces of Lucania. Without thinking, Liv found herself walking forward, eyes wide, as she looked out over the opposing battle line.

There were catapults - three of them, at least, that Liv could see, built atop great wheels that allowed them to be moved. No less than four siege towers, as well, and she saw covered rams waiting, back from the front ranks. For every volley that fell from the northern archers and crossbowmen, as many or more bolts and arrows rose from the crown forces. They’d brought forward rough wooden palisades to shelter behind, which were now riddled with fletched shafts from the wall.

Liv recognized banners in the colors of nearly a dozen houses: the purple and gold of the Loredans, of course, but also Arundell banners, the blue and gold of the Howes, and there the colors of Carinthia, Erskin, Fane, Seton, Sherard, and Ward. Her eyes were drawn to the black and silver banner which marked the troops of House Talbot, and she wondered if Cade was down there right now, among the thousands of soldiers who had come to kill everyone she loved.

“This way, Liv,” Rosamund said, taking her by the hand and tugging her along in the wake of Julianne, who was already following Miina to where the northern commanders had gathered to observe the battle.

Baron Henry’s wheeled chair had been brought atop the wall, somehow, and he sat surrounded by his knights, along with Keri, Ghveris, Liv’s great-uncle Eilis, and to her surprise Brom. It made sense, however: any guild-trained mage was an asset worth keeping close, Liv supposed.

“A bit delayed, were you?” Henry shouted, over the cacophony of the battle. There was a light in the crippled man’s eyes that Liv hadn’t seen in years - perhaps not since the day he’d left to cull Bald Peak, the last time she’d seen him stand on his own two legs.

“Genevieve Arundell tried a bit of trickery, but Liv dealt with it,” Julianne said, leaning down to embrace her husband and kiss his cheek before standing straight again. Keri and Ghveris, in the meanwhile, shifted about to stand with Liv and her friends.

“Lady of Winter,” Ghveris rumbled, inclining his head.

“It’s good to see you both in one piece,” Liv said, raising one hand to pat the ancient war-machine on his armored forearm. To her surprise, Keri came up on her side and slipped an arm around her for a brief embrace.

“You look tired,” he murmured, brow furrowed as he examined her face.

“It’s nothing,” Liv said. “We’re here now. What’s the plan?” she asked, slipping away from Keri to address her adopted parents.

“We’ve nearly lost the light,” Henry said, glancing west toward the sunset. “Their surprise hasn’t got them what they’d hoped. Let’s leave them with a parting gift before night falls, to let them know it won't be all that easy. Lord Inkeris, Lord Eilis?”

The two Elden men shouted orders in Vakansa, and all along the wall the northern archers put down their bows. Liv felt it a moment before it happened: inside her, Dā stirred, as if in sympathy, while a hundred men and women of her grandmother’s house shouted an invocation as one.

At the front of the enemy lines, the wooden palisades crumbled to dust, rotting away in an instant as if decades had passed. The crown crossbowmen and archers recoiled in surprise, and shouts of panic echoed up to the top of the wall from below.

Then Keri shouted again, and twenty lines of brilliant light stabbed down from atop the wall into the army below.