Then the wind shifted and, with it, her Emperor’s expression.
“This is what is obviously Imperial. It’s a new dawn for us both, and she wears my craftsmanship upon her once more,” Aldrik spoke only for her.
“As I should,” Vhalla replied gently.
They set a good pace through the desert. The East-West Way made an easy path from the Crossroads to Norin, and they once more found themselves spending time in the company of lords and ladies along the way. The further West they went, the stronger the culture of old Mhashan became.
Vhalla was on-edge the first time she saw the Western phoenix with a sword in its talons. No one questioned her decision to ride hard into the next day for the next opportunity for shelter. Like the scar on her shoulder, there were some wounds that could be mostly forgotten day to day, with enough time and healing, but would always be tender when probed.
As summer came early to the desert, Vhalla and Fritz used their magic in tandem to keep them from cooking alive in their armor. Fritz applied thin layers of ice atop the metal, which Vhalla’s winds quickly evaporated. At first, they were wet and windswept. But Vhalla and Fritz managed to get the hang of it enough that soon the five of them were not only kept cool, but they were comfortable as well.
The ride progressed without problem, and they woke before the sun on their final day of their ride into Norin. They’d stayed with one of Aldrik’s distant cousins, sending word ahead to Ophain that they were only a few hours from the city proper. Vhalla had wanted to keep pushing, but Aldrik was insistent that certain conventions must be observed, and their arrival would be one of them.
Normal butterflies were replaced by a whole flock of birds in her stomach as the city began to grow around them. Sunlight sparkled over their recently polished armor, and they had all washed properly at the lord’s home before the final leg of the journey. Elecia was all smiles at the idea of returning home, but Jax had grown quieter and quieter as the days progressed.
The man had reduced himself to nothing more than a silent shadow. The lords and ladies along the route had maintained only the bare minimum of etiquette toward the man. A select few treated him with as much respect as the rest of his noble company. However, there was a moment when the lords and ladies first saw his face, a moment where they had to check their reactions at the sight of him.
All thoughts of Jax’s odd mood vanished like pennons flapping in the wind. Sand changed to a more soil-like consistency, and large palms appeared in the growing density of the city. Norin waited before her.
It was a city unlike any she had ever witnessed before, and it had surely been built by giants. The outer wall of Norin was so tall that Vhalla wondered how they had engineered mechanisms to carry stones that high. The houses within the outer wall were constructed of clay and wood, simple structures packed one atop the other in a mission to rival the wall with their height. Vhalla remembered Master Mohned’s history, and she wondered if this was the place that he had grown up. The thought was quickly accompanied by a pang of sorrow at the fact that her master likely met an untimely demise at the hand of Victor.
The inner wall of Norin separated the squalor of the slums from the working and middle classes. At present, men and women lined the streets in the first section of the city; common folk, lords, ladies, merchants, dignities, and all shades between them encroached on Vhalla and Aldrik’s forward progression. Vhalla would have felt uneasy by the mass had they not been happily crying her name alongside Aldrik’s.
They threw rose pedals from rooftops and sent tongues of flame into the sky. They waved small pennons, all crying for her attention. Men, women, children, all reached for those who had returned from the dead to lead them. Vhalla was thankful for the strong legs of the horse beneath her.
The castle of Norin appeared before them, stretching up in defiance against the sky. In the sunlight, the clay and stone used in the construction seemed to glow scarlet. A red castle that skewered the sky with its flat-topped spires and arched walls. It was set apart from the most affluent section of the city by a wide, dry moat, a single drawbridge spanning the distance.
Vhalla understood how the West had nearly taken a decade to fall.
“My lady.” Aldrik pulled her from her thoughts by offering her his palm.
Vhalla shifted Lightning’s reins into one hand in order to take his hand. In the light of the sun, before all their subjects, the Emperor and future Empress rode together. Vhalla wondered if the people had ever seen the man with a wider smile across his lips.
She doubted it.