The sound of heavy boots grew louder, and Killian saw they were Tingaran legionnaires: strong, terrifying men with shaved heads and sharp weapons.
There was something strange about them. As they passed the place where Killian and Carla lay in hiding, Killian saw their faces were covered in soot.
He made to stand, but Carla pulled him back down.
“Something might be wrong,” Killian hissed to Carla. “There could be a fire. They might need our help.”
“Do not let them see you,” Carla whispered. “Why would legionnaires be fighting a fire in the middle of the night? Perhaps in the city—but out here?”
Killian watched them go with a puzzled expression on his face. He’d heard rumors of the emperor’s growing madness. He hoped no one was hurt.
“We’ll stay off the road from now on,” Carla said.
As they walked through the fields, Killian decided to wake Marney and tell him what they’d seen. Marney would be angry, but he’d know what to do, and they could see if anyone needed help.
It would soon be light, and the first rays of dawn crept into the sky, revealing the hills and grassy fields with the trees just behind. The camp was just ahead.
Killian smelled smoke.
Carla grabbed Killian’s arm, pinching his shoulder with sharp fingers.
“No, Lord of the Earth, no,” she moaned.
The radiant dawn revealed a plume of dark smoke ahead.
The next hours were a blur for Killian, and even when he tried to remember what happened next, he couldn’t. He later reasoned that perhaps his consciousness had removed the worst of the memories, though fragments still remained.
He remembered running through the field and roaring, screaming like a man running into his first battle. The fire had swept through the dry plain, though swords and pikes had also done grisly work.
His two strongest surviving memories were finding the animals burned to death in their cages, and an old woman—to this day Killian had no idea who she was—telling him someone from the crowd had reported Marney for spreading sedition against the emperor. Killian could only remember Marney saying something about helping Seranthia’s street urchins.
Killian and Carla didn’t find Marney’s body, or the fire-eater twins, or Jak the mime and several others. They raced back to Seranthia, arriving outside the Wall just in time.
The emperor’s men had them lined up on top of the Wall.
Killian saw they’d been cut by the whip, Marney worst of all. He remembered Carla sobbing beside him, and then Killian’s colleagues—his family—were pushed.
Marney was last, and Killian could swear their eyes met, and then the only man who’d ever been kind to him fell from the impossible height. Like the others, his body made a little puff of dust when he hit the ground.
It was the last time Killian saw Carla. He didn’t know if he helped her in her grief, or was too stricken himself to be of any use. The memories simply weren’t there. He knew he’d carried the bodies back to the forest and spent days burying them all, even the animals.
Killian never sought Carla out. He went back to Salvation.
And there he met Primate Melovar Aspen and heard about a plan to end the emperor’s rule.
Killian forced himself to let go of the iron bars as the memories came rushing back. He now stared at her; she’d changed, but then he supposed so had he.
“Hello, Killian,” Carla said with the same lopsided grin she always had.
“Hello, Carla,” Killian whispered.
“Are you going to invite me into your palace?”
The rushing guards finally caught up to Killian. “Open the gate,” he ordered.
The iron drew apart, and Carla stepped through.
Killian’s lost love had returned.
6
Flurries of frigid air dashed themselves against the window, almost causing Miro to flinch, as if some ghostly enemy rattled at the glass. He wondered when this cursed cold weather would end: warmth would make things much more difficult for a revenant army.
Unfortunately, Tingara’s cold spell had carried through Torakon and the Azure Plains, to Mara Maya and even all the way to Ralanast. Winter was reluctant to give way to spring. Miro and Amber’s journey overland from Seranthia to Ralanast had been an ordeal of constant shivering.
As he paced the length of High Lord Tiesto Telmarran’s private dining hall in Rialan Palace, home of the Halrana high lord, Miro wondered what had transpired back in Sarostar and the free cities in his absence. He’d left people back home he could count on: Amelia, Bartolo, and Deniz, to name a few. But he itched to get back home to Altura. He’d scanned the missives from Sarostar, but there was still no word of the enemy. Even so, no message was instantaneous, not with the signal towers still being built. Miro could only hope the enemy had yet to be sighted.
He was basing so much on hope.
Miro clenched and unclenched his fists as he thought about Ella, wondering if she’d arrived in Agira Lahsa. He hoped she was safe.