A muscle feathers in my jaw. I can’t believe I’m being insulted by this walking hunk of scrap metal. But I let him continue—why interrupt someone when they’re likely to reveal their own weaknesses?
“Cast your eyes upon the Vale’s reckoning.” Kairyn stops before a huge, open-air archway. I step beside him and look down into a stone courtyard.
Hundreds of soldiers spar, their steel spears clanging together in near-perfect unison. They all wear identical armor, that same moonlight-gold emblazoned with celestial sigils: suns and stars and crescent moons.
I raise a brow. “I’m not sure if you’ve forgotten, Kairyn dear, but I haven’t spent my whole life in the Below. In fact, I traveled from Florendel to the monastery escorted by your very brother only several decades ago. I’ve seen the Queen’s Army train before.”
And they are as mesmerizing now as the first time I saw them. The monastery is not only home to strange acolytes who still revere the long-lost Queen and worship the sky as if it still housed the Above, but to an ancient guild of highly trained warriors from across the realms. The Queen’s Army was formed centuries ago, serviced by elite and disciplined soldiers who would come to the Queen’s call only. Their dedication is unmatched.
Hilariously so, if you ask me.
They’ve given their lives to training and wait for the day the Queen will call upon them, regardless of the fact she’s been gone from the Vale’s eye for over five hundred years. Like dogs waiting on a doorstep for a dead owner who will never return.
Kairyn snorts, a puff of air coming from beneath his helm. It shouldn’t bother me, but I find myself straightening and pushing myself up on my toes to get closer to his height. By gods, he’s like a giant.
“Why are you snorting at me?” I snap. “Do you intend to fool me—to fool Sira—into thinking you have an army? They serve no realm, only the Queen—”
Kairyn raises his fist into the air. The clang of spears stops; every soldier turns in a single, uniform movement to look up at him.
My pounding heart is the only sound.
“Hail, great warriors!” Kairyn roars.
“Hail!” the army cries back, hundreds of voices now one.
The Nightingale drifts beside me. Though I can’t see her mouth, I can see it in her eyes: the reverence, the hungry awe.
Kairyn’s voice is a raspy echo. “Who do you serve?”
“High Cleric Kairyn,” they answer.
“It’s not possible …” I stumble away from the edge. “This army has spent centuries awaiting the return of Queen Aurelia.”
“Like the rest of the Vale, they can wait no more. We may have lost a legion or two in the upheaval, those who could not see the true cause. Let them flee across the realms, seeking a Queen who will never answer.” Kairyn turns with a flick of his black cape and stomps down the hallway. “When my brother banished me to the monastery, I knew I could rot, or I could grow. Like the ivy that strangles the dying tree, it was my duty to Spring to turn the minds of those clouded by corruption.”
The Nightingale grabs my arm and whispers in my ear, “You doubt him, brother, but wait and see. He is a great leader. He has gained the soldiers’ and acolytes’ trust not because of his blood, but despite it. They serve him because they know he leads the way to glory.”
I yank my arm free. “I didn’t realize throwing old men off a building was the path to glory.”
She clicks her tongue. “Do not pretend to weep for the High Clerics. They ignored the plight of the villages and treated the people here like property. You’d have done no different than Kairyn.”
Perhaps that’s what’s bothering me. She’s right.
He did stop the goblin raids against the mountain villages. I think our own goblins Below are nasty business, but the ones that wander the Vale preying on the fae, the ones that don’t follow Sira’s commands … Why, they’re nothing more than barbarians.
I pull her back, so we fall behind the young Spring Prince. “What did you promise him, Birdy? He’s already got a position of power in the monastery. If he minds his temper, likely that tin idiot Ezryn will name him steward. So, why’s he giving you an army?”
“This army is not for me,” she says. “I have my Dreadknights, and they will follow me to the ends of the realms. No, the Queen’s Army is for something much greater.”
“What’s Kairyn’s game? Why is he throwing everything away for … for Sira?”
The Nightingale blinks. “Throwing it away? Listen to yourself. Maybe if you spent more time with Mother and less spying on those beloved princes of yours—”
“Birdy,” I warn.
She shakes her head. “Kairyn understands something you don’t. This world wasn’t built for people like us. We must fight for every scrap. No matter what he does, Ezryn will never respect him. Spring will never see him as anything but the banished brother.”
“Ah.” I stroke my chin. “If he can’t make his brother love him, he’ll make him hate him instead.”
The Nightingale’s eyes drift away from me. “Anything is better than nothing.”
A clang sounds before us. Kairyn heaves open a huge metal door leading to a staircase.
My chest burns as I climb up, not thinking we could get any higher. I quickly wipe a drip of black gunk from my nose. This report better wrap up soon.
We enter through a door at the top of the staircase. “Who are these charming folk?” I raise a brow.
Standing in the room are two armor-clad figures, one finished with a bronze sheen, the other in a turquoise blue. Tucked in their breastplates is the same white flower that both Birdy and Kairyn don.
“This is the start of my Penta Conclave, a new order of High Clerics,” Kairyn says.
“I don’t recall the old High Clerics wearing helms of Spring steel.”
Kairyn stomps over to one and almost tenderly caresses the shining metal. “I have forged these helms with my own hands. They are not only High Clerics, but my own princeguard.”
The Nightingale looks at me with gleaming eyes, almost as if she’s just showed off that her new puppy knows how to roll over.
Five pedestals loom behind the conclave. On all except one is a grand weapon: a lance, a trident, a hammer, and a brilliant golden bow.
I examine the two warriors, both still except for their heavy breathing. “So, you’ve chosen these poor souls to wield divine weapons.”
Kairyn nods toward the bronze-clad one. “Shenzo wields Autumn’s Lance of Valor.” Then he gestures to the one in turquoise blue. “Pike bears Summer’s Trident of Honor.”
I stroll over to the massive hammer, intricately crafted, both a thing of beauty and power. “You, of course, have chosen Spring’s Hammer of Hope?”
“No one shall wield Spring’s divine relic but I,” he growls in response.
Now, my voice deepens. “Then you do realize you have sentenced yourself and your men to death?”
Before Kairyn can respond, I’m upon him, yanking his wrist and pulling off his huge leather gloves. Dark black veins mar his skin, running from the tips of his fingers up the wrist, beyond to what is hidden by his armor. A sneer escapes me. “As I thought. The corruption has already set in.”