Modina rolled her eyes. “You are a pair of monsters, aren’t you?”
Lena began to cry and put her arms around Russell, who held her.
“What?” Modina asked, going to Lena.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Russell spoke for her. “The girls—you know—she misses the twins. We almost lost Tad too, didn’t we, boy?”
Tad, who was still looking out the window, turned and nodded. He had not said a word, and the Thaddeus Bothwick Modina remembered had never been quiet.
“We survived all those terrible nights in Dahlgren,” Lena said, sobbing. “But living in Alburn killed my little girls and now—and now…”
“You’re going to be all right,” Modina told her. “I’ll see to that.”
Russell looked at her, nodding appraisingly. “Damned if you ain’t your father’s daughter. Theron would be real proud of you, Thrace. Real proud.”
Renwick had no idea what to do. For the third day in a row, he was confused and uncomfortable. He wanted to return to Amberton Lee, but the empress forbade him. The elven army would be between them now. He tried to resume his castle page duties only to discover he was not wanted, once more due to an edict from the empress. Apparently he had no assigned duties.
He wore a new tunic, far nicer than any he had ever had before. He ate wonderful meals and slept right under Sir Elgar and across from Sir Gilbert of Lyle, in a berth in the knights’ dormitories.
“You’ll get work plenty soon enough, lad,” Elgar told him. He and Sir Gilbert were at the table, engaged in a game of chess that Gilbert was winning easily. “When those elves arrive, you’ll be earning your keep.”
“Hauling buckets of water to the gate for the soldiers,” Renwick said dismally.
“Hauling water?” Elgar questioned. “That’s page work.”
“I am a page.”
“Hah! Is that a page’s bed you sleep in? Is that a page’s tunic? Are you eating page meals? Slopping out the stables? You were a page, but the empress has her eye on you now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are in her favor, and you won’t be hauling no water.”
“But what—”
“Can you handle a blade, boy?” Gilbert asked while sliding a pawn forward and making Elgar shift uneasily in his seat.
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Sir Malness never let me—”
“Malness? Malness was an idiot,” Elgar growled.
“Probably why he broke his neck falling off his horse,” Gilbert said.
“He was drinking,” Renwick pointed out.
“He was an idiot,” Elgar repeated.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gilbert said. “When the fight begins, we’ll need every man who can hold a blade. You might have been a page yesterday, but tomorrow you will be a soldier. And with the eye of the empress on you—fight well, and you may find yourself a knight.”
“Don’t fill his head with too much nonsense,” Elgar said. “He’s not even a squire.”
“I squired for Sir Hadrian.”
“Hadrian isn’t a knight.”
A horn sounded and all three scrambled out of the dormitory and raced past the droves of refugees to the front hall. They pushed out into the courtyard, looking to the guards at the towers.
“What is it?” Elgar called to Benton.
The tower guard heard his voice and turned. “Sir Breckton and the army have returned. The empress has gone to welcome them home.”
“Breckton,” Gilbert said miserably. “Com’on, Elgar, we have a game to finish.”
The two turned their backs on the courtyard and returned inside, but Renwick ran out past the courtyard and through the city toward the southern gate. The portcullis was already up by the time he arrived, and the legion bearing Breckton’s blue-and-gold-checkered standard entered.
Drums sounded, keeping beat with the footfalls of men. As the knight-marshal rode at the head of his army, the sun shone off his brilliant armor. At his side rode the lady Amilia, wrapped in a heavy fur cloak, which draped across the side and back of her mount. Renwick recognized other faces: King Armand, Queen Adeline, Prince Rudolf and his younger brother Hector, along with Leo, Duke of Rochelle, and his wife, Genevieve, who composed the last of the Alburn nobility. With their arrival it was official—the eastern provinces were lost. Sir Murthas, Sir Brent, Sir Andiers, and several others he knew from the rosters formed ranks in the armored cavalry. Behind them, neat rows of foot soldiers marched. These were followed by wagons of supplies and people—more refugees.
Modina ran to embrace Amilia the moment she climbed off her horse. “You made it!” she said, squeezing her. “And your family?”
“They are on the wagons,” Amilia told her.
“Bring them to the great hall. Are you hungry?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Then I will meet them and we will eat. I have people for you to meet as well. Nimbus!” Modina called.
“Your Eminence.” The chancellor trotted to her side and Amilia hugged the beanpole of a man.
Renwick could not see anymore as the army filled the street. He moved to the wall and climbed steps to the top of the gate, where Captain Everton was once more on duty, watching the progress of the army’s return below him.
“Impressive, isn’t he?” Everton said to him as they watched the column from the battlements. “I for one will sleep easier tonight knowing Sir Breckton is here, and none too soon, I suspect.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t like the sky.”
Renwick looked up. Overhead a dark haze swirled a strange mix of brown and yellow, a sickly soup of dense clouds that churned and folded like the contents of some witch’s brew.
“That doesn’t look natural to me.”
“It’s warmer too,” Renwick said, having just realized that he was outside without a cloak and not shivering. He breathed out and could not see his breath.
He rushed to the edge of the battlement and looked southeast. In the distance, the clouds were darker still and he noticed an eerie green hue to the sky. “They are coming.”
“Blow the horn,” Everton ordered as the last of the troops and wagons passed through. “Seal the gate.”
CHAPTER 20
THE VAULT OF DAYS
Running through the corridors, she heard the clash of steel and the cries of men. She had done her duty, her obligations complete. Descending to the tombs, she entered the Vault of Days. The emperor lay on the floor as the last of his knights died on the swords of those loyal to Venlin. A rage boiled in her as she spoke. The room shuddered at the sound of her words and the would-be killers of her emperor—ten Teshlor Knights—screamed as their bodies ripped apart.
She fell to her knees.
“Emperor!” she cried. “I am here!”
Nareion wept as in his arms he clutched the dead bodies of his wife, Amethes, and Fanquila, their daughter.
“We must go,” she urged.
The emperor shook his head. “The horn?”
“I placed it in the tomb.”
“My son?”