Chapter 4

I woke up wet. The morning dew had soaked my undergarments. The first light of morning brightened the sky and flickered through the filter of the canopy above. Everything was less ominous than the night before.

Despite my damp clothes, I didn't go back to my cottage. I could tough it out. I slid down the trunk of the old oak slowly, taking more care than the night before not to scrape my skin or put holes in my shirt.

I arrived at the training range as the archers were starting their morning routines. Most of the soldiers were in the mess tent, grabbing a meal and getting ready for the day. Alone on the field, I chose the farthest target of the bunch.

I let my arrows fly, one after another, until the repetition became hypnotic. Draw the arrow from my quiver. Notch it in the bow. Release it. Draw. Notch. Release.

I was about to step out to shoot through my quiver for the ninth time when a hand rested on my shoulder.

"Why didn't you come find me, Skye?"

I lowered my bow. I hadn't considered talking to Jelenna, or to anyone really. I'd felt an overwhelming need to escape. Even now, I wasn't sure I could put my thoughts into a coherent order.

"I…couldn't." I fought through my reluctance. If I didn't speak to anyone about it, it wouldn't feel real. "Do you know about…"

"The rumor is the Prime asked you to marry the Dark Lord of Ashfuror." She squeezed my arm. "Is it true?"

"Yes." I let out a ragged breath. I checked to make sure no one was in earshot. "Grandmother wants me to sever Cyrus' connection to his crown. It's an artifact, a powerful one."

"Sounds fun!" Jelenna flashed me a crooked smile. "What's the problem?"

"We'll take wedding vows. We'll be bound together. That's the strongest tie you can have with another human being. It wouldn't weigh on you to betray that?"

"Skye, they aren't people , not like us. They're manipulative and conniving. They don't feel guilt when they do something bad. His father killed your parents!"

I squeezed my forehead with my right hand. A throbbing pain was threatening to take over. "It's not about them. My vows mean something to me. They aren't just empty words. The soul bond makes that doubly true. What will it cost me to betray that?"

"Maybe a lot." Jelenna answered. "But isn't the future of our home worth it?"

From her face it was clear that she thought the answer was simple, but it wasn't to me. I'd understood the need for agents among the enemy's people, I even assumed we had some active. But this was an act of deceit and aggression that could put the core of who I was at risk.

I didn't have an answer.

"Listen." Jelenna's tone was more casual. "I think I'll come along."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll need support. I can be a lady-in-waiting." She curtsied mischievously.

I chuckled at the thought of Jelenna dressed in the elaborate lace outfits of the old aristocracy.

"You've never been a lady."

"Your attendant, then." Her face set itself into a mask of determination. "The point is, you won't be alone."

Her wish to stay with me was comforting. She was intelligent and deadly. It would be good to have a friend like her at my side.

"All right. If I decide to do this, you can come."

"Nice!" She slapped me on the back. "Now let's talk about your virginity."

"No." My face surged with embarrassing warmth. "No, we will not be talking about that."

"You need to lose it before the wedding."

"I do not!"

"You really want your first time to be with the Dark Lord? Who knows what kind of ugly troll he is! I've heard that the old families of Ashfuror have been inbred for centuries."

"I don't think—"

"Why haven't you taken care of this already, anyway?"

I rubbed my face with my hands. I hated this, hated talking about it and hated thinking about it.

"There was never anybody that I was that close to."

"Oh, you mean you kept any potential love interests at arms length, because you're scared to be vulnerable."

I rolled my eyes. She was annoying, but she wasn't wrong. As a teenager, I'd been too wrapped up in the drama of my parents' deaths to have interest in any of it. After I came of age, I moved quickly up the ranks of the Archers. I hadn't wanted to compromise my ability to be a good military leader by getting involved with any of them, but they were the only people I ever saw. There hadn't been time to hunt for a partner.

All of that added up to, yes, I'd held people at a distance. It wasn't worth the trouble.

"I'm not going to go and screw some stranger," I said, "just to have done it."

"Why not? In my experience, that can be a lot of fun."

I shook my head. Jelenna viewed sex differently than I did. I didn't begrudge her that. She should have all the fun times she could want. But if I had sex, my heart would be involved automatically. I understood that about myself, from even the few fleeting moments of kissing a classmate in my youth.

"It's not for me."

Jelenna shrugged. A sweet sadness shone in her eyes. "I thought it would make things easier."

"I haven't decided yet if I'm going to agree to the marriage. It's a lot to ask."

Jelenna stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. The compassion radiated from her embrace. I leaned into her. After a long moment, she broke the hug, keeping her hands on my shoulders and peering into my eyes.

"You should go up the mountain. To the shrine."

"Vazzart hasn't allowed anyone to find his altar in decades," I said, confused. "No one has had direct contact since before we were born. All we have are those light shows over the reservoir. Has the god ever even spoken to anyone beside the Prime? It's probably an old wives tale."

"My grandfather found the shrine, back in the old days, and spoke directly to Vazzart." Jelenna's eyes were sharp with certainty. "He wouldn't lie about something like that."

"Even so, no one has managed it in our lifetime."

Jelenna grabbed my hand and squeezed.

"Please try. If Vazzart could guide you, maybe the decision wouldn't be so hard."

***

It took me two days. Two days of sleepwalking through my duties as Commander. Two days of my thoughts going in circles. I kept sleeping in the hammock. Being enveloped in the canopy of trees calmed the unease that coiled like a snake in my chest.

When I woke on the third morning, it was time. I gathered what I needed for the ritual. It was simple: a flask of water from the reservoir, a gold coin, and my knife. The ceremony should be an easy one.

Finding the shrine, on the other hand, would be harder, if Vazzart even allowed it. It had been years since anyone had traveled that far up the mountain. The holy place wasn't all the way to the summit. That was unreachable, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs. But it would still be a hard hike, almost up to the treeline.

People said it had always been on the banks of the stream that ran down the mountain, feeding the reservoir, but they could never agree on the exact location. If the route of the stream had shifted significantly over the years, it would make finding it even more difficult.

I headed up a few hours after sunrise, keeping the swift stream in my sight as the path grew steeper and more difficult. The forest thinned with the elevation as I made my way. The mountainside was alive with movement, with chipmunks flitting from tree to tree, hummingbirds drinking from the bluebells, and starlings circling overhead. There was an electricity to it all, as if the mountain was welcoming me into its arms.

Eventually, though, it all grew quiet. The soft murmuration of the water and the gentle movement of small animals through the undergrowth faded to an almost unconscious hum. The trees were sparser, but still the shade from the swaying leaves above my head kept my skin cool.

I didn't see it at first. I felt it, a tremor deep in my gut and spreading out to the rest of my being. At first there was nothing but the stream and the trees. Then a glint of blue and white, a flash of reflection through the brush. I left the bank and walked toward it.

The altar waited in a small clearing, a single block of carved blue quartz with veins of white running through it. Atop the altar sat a simple pewter bowl. I moved in closer. The bowl was filled with water, gently bubbling, although there was no physical reason for it to be doing so.

With nervous reverence, I kneeled before the altar. I took out the gold coin and dropped it into the bowl. Upon contact, the water stilled, and the coin tumbled to the bottom, a glinting golden sun on a field of silver. Raising my left hand above the basin, I sliced across the top of it, letting blood drip down and float in tiny pools on the surface of the water.

After a few moments, the red liquid began to wind and turn, swirling into increasingly intricate patterns. I lost myself in the shapes, feeling a strange disconnection from my body and the world, like I was floating through empty space.

I was startled back into reality by the sound of rustling in the nearby brush. An enormous buck entered the clearing. I got up off my knee. Even standing, its head was far above mine, and its thick, muscular neck held up a massive set of antlers.

It approached me with powerful, even steps. It could have easily overpowered me, but I didn't have an impulse to step back from it. I couldn't tear myself away from its huge brown eyes. They contained some strange intelligence, some deep understanding.

It closed the distance and bent down, touching its nose to my forehead. There was a flash of cold and then everything changed.

I was underwater. Disoriented, I was carried along by a mighty current, passing by ancient, coral-covered ramparts. I struggled to swim, but the pull was too strong. Nothing I tried would slow me down.

Look .

The voice resounded loudly in my head, alien and strange, not like any human sound. It echoed with the power of the ocean's depths.

Before me, the moss- and coral-covered stones of the ancient monuments shifted and blurred, forming images that sprang to life in front of my eyes.

The unfathomably tall spires of Ashfuror, black and sooty, set against an orange-red sky. I recognized them from the illustrations in the history books I read as a child.

The inside of a cathedral of Stahkla, with an iron icon of the god himself. I stood in front of the altar, standing and grasping the hands of a tall, thin man in red robes, decorated with intricate gold embroidery.

Blaze, riding at great speed across a desolate plain, with me on his back, bearing the glowing orange banner of the Dark Lord. A flock of ravens circled overhead.

What was this? Some prediction or conjuration of what might be?

My grandmother, standing at the shrine of Vazzart, blood dripping from her hands, seeping through her fingers, falling to the earth below.

"No!"

Water flowed into my open mouth, silencing my cry, and I was choking, I was drowning. I squeezed my eyes closed, willing myself out of whatever this was, this vision or manifestation or terrible dream.

A bright light shone behind my closed eyelids, turning them from black to orange. I opened my eyes and I was once again back at the altar. The buck still stood in front of me, its intense brown eyes staring into my very soul.

You must go to him .

"How do I stop it? How do I save her?" I couldn't keep myself from uttering a desperate plea. My grandmother was all I had, the only thing left that connected me to my parents. "Please…"

Go to him.

From behind me at the foot of the mountain, the clarion call of a horn rang out, echoing off the slopes. I turned toward it, but from where I stood I had no view of Greatfalls, or of the outer walls.

I turned back. The animal was gone.

Was this the visitation of Vazzart? The buck hadn't spoken but a few words to me, but what it had shown me was terrifying. Were these visions of a set future, or could I change the outcome?

There were no answers to be had, only the gentle gurgle of water from atop the shrine. I shook with anger. I had been given no answers, only some disturbing images and a vague directive to "go to him."

I assumed the "him" was the Dark Lord, but why? Why did I have to go to him? Would it circumvent the visions or would it cause them to come into being?

Another horn blast broke me from my reverie, and I took off down the mountain at a clip. Regardless of whatever had just happened, if that horn meant what I thought it did, then I needed to be there for it.

The arrival of the army of the Dark Lord.