We found the first destroyed village by smell more than anything else. Wood smoke, wet ash, and, worst of all, burned meat.
“He’s not there,” Marc said, catching my arm as I veered off the Ocean Road and up the less trafficked one leading to Nomeny. I knew it was so, because there was a sign at the crossroads, the top of it singed black.
“I need to know,” was all I said, my boots crunching as I strode across the ice – snow that had been melted, then frozen again in a sheet as far as the eye could see. At first the trees were only scorched, but as we drew closer to the village, they became blackened, burned, then nothing more than ash on the ground. And scattered amongst them were bodies, heat and fire having rendered them unrecognizable, but every one of them face down. They’d been fleeing. Running for their lives.
There was nothing left of the village but a faintly glowing pit in the ground. I stumbled toward it, my boots sliding in the grey slush, until I stood on the edge. There was nothing. Nothing but rock that had melted and hardened, still hot hours after the attack. And ash. Dozens of lives reduced to ash.
If the world burns, its blood will be on your hands.
Turning, I made my way back to where my friends stood next to what remained of the tree line. The dawn rose as I reached them, and as it did, my sense of Tristan went flat. I stopped with one foot raised mid-stride.
Victoria bent down, her eyes squinting in the glowing brightness of the sun. “Are you well?”
“Yes,” I said, then stumbled over to a charred trunk and spilled my guts onto the grey ice. I’d known he would use the seed, had known what it would do to him, but the reality was so much worse.
“I made one of Anushka’s potions for Tristan,” I said. “It’s meant to mute our bond, but it works by suppressing his emotions.”
“Why?” Victoria demanded.
“So that if something happens to her, he’ll be able to carry on,” Marc said, then slowly shook his head as though he had more to say on the matter but was choosing not to. “Can you tell if it worked?”
My throat convulsed as I swallowed. “Yes. Maybe a little too well.”
No one spoke, the only sound the wind and the hiss of snowflakes falling into the pit.
And the tread of many feet.
I lifted my head, the trolls already facing back to the Ocean Road, heads cocked as they listened.
“At least a dozen,” Vincent murmured. “Perhaps more.”
We crept back through the blackened trees, magic blocking us from sight but our silence dependent on stealth. Reaching the Ocean Road, we stopped, groups of islanders trudging past us, many of them bearing signs of injury, and all under guard. But not troll guards.
Human.
“Black, white, and red,” Marc muttered as one of the guards passed close to us. “Roland’s new colors?”
“How is this possible?” I asked, turning to spit in the snow, the taste of vomit still sour on my tongue. “How could he have recruited so many in so little time?”
“He didn’t,” Marc replied. “This plan has been years in the making.”
There was nothing else to do but follow them.
* * *
We took the hour’s walk to the village of Colombey as an opportunity to discover information, the four of us ranging up and down in pairs to listen to the guards and prisoners. But we learned little other than that the islanders had been roused from their hamlets and told they’d either swear fealty to the rightful ruler of the Isle or find themselves on the sharp end of a sword. Most had capitulated. Some had not. Those who had not hadn’t survived long.
The village had a thousand times its usual population, many milling about aimlessly, while others sat in the mud, their eyes distant. The armed men bullied townsfolk, farmers, and fishermen into a ragged line leading into the tavern. Men and women. Children, some so young they had to be carried by a parent or older sibling. The only people I saw none of were the elderly and infirm, and a sickening suspicion filled my gut that it was because Lessa had already ordered them killed.
They shoved a woman holding a child wrapped in blankets toward the line, but she resisted, asking, “Who is he? And why does he need the oaths of children barely old enough to speak? My boy’s sick – he can’t be out in the cold like this.”
“He’s Prince Roland de Montigny,” one of the men replied, hand drifting to the blade strapped to his waist. “Heir to the throne and soon to be King of the Isle of Light.”
“What of the Regent?” She looked bewildered, and I wanted to warn her, to tell her to be silent. “The Isle has no King.”