Ellie. He found himself going over his memories of his sister, and he was shocked at just how few he really had. In the long years of his exile, they had worn away, reduced to a few touchstones. A gap-?toothed smile, an afternoon spent in the garden, a crying fit whose cause he’d forgotten.
Even if Ellie wasn’t Winter—?if it was some other girl—?what kind of relationship would we really have? He tried to compose a picture of what he might have expected from a grown-up Ellie, but the features remained vague. What would we talk about? What would she think of me?
When he woke, tangled in the sheets of the too-?soft bed, his mouth was dry and his head pounded. He’d spent most of his evenings in the queen’s apartments, but last night he’d come back to his own, barely used quarters, a large suite that dwarfed his few possessions. Palace servants brought him water, filled his bath, and left a fresh, neatly folded uniform waiting for when he finished. He put it on, moving slowly to spare his head, and fixed the stars of a column-?general carefully to his shoulders.
The conference was in a dining room that Raesinia had repurposed as a command center, with a huge map of Vordan City and the surrounding area laid out on the big, polished table. When he arrived, she was there, looking down at the finely painted details of Ohnlei, wearing a silver and dark blue dress that was somber enough to verge on mourning attire. At the sight of him, she smiled and cocked her head.
“Are you all right?” she said.
Marcus crossed the room and bent down to kiss her. “I’ll be fine.” Eventually. “Where is everyone?”
“On the way.”
Sothe arrived first, all in rough black, moving silently to stand at Raesinia’s side as if she’d never left. Then Cyte, neatly dressed and looking better rested than she had in weeks. And then, finally, Winter.
She was back in uniform, but something had changed. The fit was different—?while her figure was modest, it nonetheless had unmistakably feminine curves. Her white-?blond hair, grown down to the back of her neck in the time she’d spent away, hung around her ears and framed her face, making it look softer. Seeing her now, like this, Marcus wondered how he could have ever mistaken her for a man.
Winter herself seemed less than comfortable in her new attire, and was tugging awkwardly at her uniform jacket. She bowed to the queen and offered Marcus a crisp salute.
“Division-?General Ihernglass, reporting,” she said. “I apologize for the length of my absence.”
“I believe I speak for all of us when I say that no apologies are necessary,” Raesinia said. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. If you don’t mind, I have several companions who I think should join us.”
“Of course,” Raesinia said. “I trust your judgment.”
Winter went back into the corridor and returned with three others. Marcus recognized Alex, the young woman Winter had found on the Murnskai campaign, who’d accompanied her in her effort to find the Penitent who’d poisoned Janus. The other two were strangers to him. A tall, solemn young man in a priest’s robe accompanied a frail girl with a strip of cloth wound around her eyes, and guided her to one of the chairs pushed up against the walls.
“I think you know Alex,” Winter said. “This is her companion, Abraham, lately of the Mountain. He has his own demon as well.” She paused. “And this is Ennika, once one of the Penitent Damned.”
Raesinia caught her breath. “Once one of the Penitent Damned?”
“The Priests of the Black are destroyed,” Ennika said. Her voice was surprisingly strong for such a thin frame. “The Penitent Damned are no more. There is only the Beast of Judgment.”
“Ennika was a communicator, able to speak to her sister over great distances,” Winter said. “Now her sister has been taken by the Beast. In a way we don’t fully understand, Janus—”
“Some entity that claims to be Janus,” Sothe put in.
“—?indeed. The entity can speak to Ennika from ‘inside’ the Beast. So far, it has proven useful.”
“I’m not sure I would believe it,” Marcus said, eyeing the blind girl, “if not for the note Janus himself gave me.”
“If anyone could plot his way out from inside a demon, it’s Janus,” Raesinia said. “Has he told you anything more?”
Ennika nodded. “But he said this would be his last chance to speak to me. He has... convinced the Beast to bring its core, the center of its power, along with its army as it marches on Vordan City. This will enable it to take over the bodies of everyone here without delay. But Janus says it provides Winter with an opportunity. The Beast believes she is still in the north, trying to find a way back to Vordan.”
“Why won’t Janus be able to speak to you again?” Marcus said. “Has something happened?”
Ennika shrugged. “His communication was never clear at the best of times. Perhaps my sister’s soul has slipped from his grasp.”
“Whatever the reason,” Winter said, her tone still formal, “it’s clear we can’t count on his assistance. So the situation is this: somehow, I need to reach the core of the Beast and use Infernivore to destroy it.”
“Can you identify the core?” Raesinia said. “What is it?”
“A person. The first one the Beast took over.” There was a faint hitch in Winter’s voice. “I can identify it.”
“Even if it doesn’t think you’re nearby, I assume the Beast will keep the core well protected,” Marcus said, looking at Winter for confirmation. She nodded, a momentary awkwardness as their eyes met quickly smothered under military professionalism.
“It will,” she said. “It’s possible that our best chance would come during a major battle, where the Beast’s forces would have to deploy over a wider area.”
“Which puts things back in the domain of the military,” Sothe said.
“Do you want to go over the situation for everyone?” Raesinia asked Marcus.
“Want is putting it strongly,” Marcus said with a grimace. He couldn’t help darting a glance at Winter. She—?she—?was watching him intently. Focus. Raesinia needs you more than ever. He walked to the table and started to lay small wooden counters on the map.
“After Alves,” he said, “Janus pursued my army south along the Pale for quite a distance. Our garrisons in the Illifen passes were enough to keep his detachments west of the mountains until he gave up the chase and marched his main force to push through. Unfortunately, we now believe he met with considerable reinforcements from Murnsk at this point, more than making good his losses in the campaign so far.
“He took his time reducing the forts on the east side of the pass, giving him a clean line of communications back to Alves that we can’t interfere with. From there, as you can see, he had to deal with the Marak.” On the map, Marcus traced the line of the river Marak, running almost due south from its source near the mountains to where it emptied into the Vor twenty miles downstream of Vordan.
“The terrain is better west of the river,” Winter said. “Nice and flat, plenty of room to maneuver. Exactly what you’d want if you had an advantage in numbers. But...”