18

We ride on, and my heart pounds with uncertainty as the landscape around us changes. The silence is interrupted by the rustle of cloth snapping in the breeze and the crackle of dead and brittle things beneath our horses’ hooves. We near the source of that flapping—it’s the flag in the middle of the burned-out campfire, and now, the fog lifts and the wild grasses lose their height, becoming matted and clumped, as though some great beast made its nest here.

No, it’s worse than a great beast.

Parts of this meadow have been scorched black, and as we look down from our horses, we see they are stepping over broken blades, broken bones, and abandoned pieces of armor—a greave over there, a pauldron over there, breastplates and gauntlets everywhere. The air still holds the acrid stench of fighting and death. This smell is too weighted, too coarse, and my nose burns. There’s the flag that we saw, one corner tangled around the branches of a burned tree and another corner end tied around the neck of a dead man shorn apart by arrows and axes.

There’s another trampled flag of the emperor over there, stomped to its death and left in that muddy grave. Over there, a trampled flag of a kingdom with a sigil of a golden griffin, soaring pine trees, and green hexagons. There’s a decomposing hand with a thick-banded ring still on its finger and clutching both Wake’s flag and this mystery kingdom’s flag.

That makes me sit upright in my saddle.

The horses snuffle and shake their heads and lose the rhythm of their trots. They, too, sense the phantoms of this battle, of the warriors who died in this meadow.

“What happened here?” I ask.

“Wake,” Jadon whispers.

“The flag with the griffin,” I say, my chest tightening. “Whose flag…?”

Jadon frowns but doesn’t speak.

“Whose flag, Jadon?” I ask, dread gripping me.

“I’ve seen it around Pethorp,” Jadon says, “flown by one of King Exley’s battalions who serve as protectors of the town.”

“Does that mean…? Should we…?” I swallow, then push out, “Has Wake hit Pethorp? Are we walking into a trap? Not Miasma but the emperor’s men?”

Jadon runs his hand over his mouth, shaking his head. “We’ll know soon enough.”

“What’s the point of this carnage?” My eyes pinch with angry tears. “Who even won this battle? What’s the fucking point?”

“Other than Wake quenching his insatiable thirst for power and his insatiable desire to be exalted as the greatest ruler in history?” Jadon asks.

“Yeah. Other than that.”

“Power,” Jadon says. “Emperor Wake seeks unity and peace.” As we ride through this graveyard, Jadon tells me that Wake believes that uniting all the provinces under one ruler, and absorbing any culture or belief that would create division and conflict, will bring about an age of peace and prosperity. As Supreme Manifest, Wake considers this campaign his divine right.

“His successful reign will fulfill an ancient prophecy,” Jadon continues. “One ruler uniting the realm, shepherding all of Vallendor away from impending doom and closer to a world of peace.”

“What kind of impending doom?” I ask.

Jadon shrugs. “The collapse of Vallendor.”

My cheeks burn hot as I think about those charred trees and scorched bones across the fields behind us. “Wake’s strategy to bring about peace and save the realm is…threatening people? Burning them alive if they don’t surrender?”

“Whatever works, right?” Jadon says.

Several paces behind us, Olivia coughs and asks, “Are we there yet?”

“Nope,” Jadon says. “Not for a—”

Above us, veiled by the haze of smoke and ashes, a bird’s song pierces the crackles of dying fire. Cheer-cheer-cheer .

Jadon glances my way, his eyes narrowed with cautious curiosity. I cast a brief look to the sky above. We ride on in silence, both of us pretending that we never heard that cardinal’s song.

“Are Pethorpians also believers in ‘the emperor is Supreme Manifest’?” I ask, stomach churning.

“Not yet,” Jadon says, “that is, unless that abandoned flag back there has changed things. If not, Pethorp remains a part of the kingdom of Vinevridth, under King Exley’s rule.”

“Which means, then,” I say, “Wake’s men were on their way to Pethorp but were stopped by that battalion back there on that battlefield.”

Olivia lifts her chin and says, “Told you we should’ve—”

“Don’t,” Jadon warns, hard eyes on his sister. “And we can’t assume that Pethorp lost the skirmish. The flag in that hand could mean nothing more than that. A flag in a hand.”

We ride silently for a moment, until Philia says, “Kai, Pethorp had lovely colures even before someone decided that colures now mean that you believe Emperor Wake is Supreme Manifest. When my father was alive, he did the glasswork for the colure over their chapel door, the colure over the mayor’s front door, and a few inside, and in the town square. And not one colure was meant to symbolize Wake as Supreme Manifest.”

“Phily, don’t make Pethorp better than it is,” Olivia grumbles, then winces as she shifts in the saddle. “Their beliefs aren’t too far from being icky. They believe that if you have more, you are closer to Supreme. They believe that the better you dress, the prettier you are, the richer you are, that you’re closer and more devoted to Supreme. That you will receive the biggest blessing.”

“Maybe they’re right,” Philia says, reaching one arm across her body to stretch. “Maford’s been in a drought for years. No one can even make babies anymore. And now, the emperor’s about to take the town for himself. That’s not a town that’s been blessed.”

“If Wake completes his invasion of Maford,” I say, “does that mean, then, that Maford’s women will go back to popping out babies? All because Wake is supposedly shepherding all of Vallendor away from impending doom?”

Jadon nods. “At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I don’t think diamond-encrusted colures can prevent the inevitable.”

My mood sours, made worse by my aching back. “And what is the inevitable?”

“People will die from Miasma,” Jadon says. “Wake doesn’t care about them dying. More dead means fewer people to rebel against him.”

“And no one can stop him?” I ask, my eyes skipping to the sky.

Up there, a flash of red pulses through the gray…

I think.

“No one can stop him.” Jadon tips his head side to side to loosen his neck muscles. “King Exley’s armies have made successful stands against Wake’s men partly because ages ago, Exley’s father had mages, alchemists, and woodsmen work together to make the forests a maze. Wake’s men risk walking in circles for the rest of their lives, especially since King Exley has started to call back some of these mages for himself.” He falls silent now and stares at me.

My eyes widen. “All the magic makers were pushed to the edges of the realm, yes?”

Jadon nods. “They were.”

“But Exley is calling them back to fight under his flag.”

“Yeah,” Jadon says. “That’s the latest wanderweavers gossip I heard at market days.”

“Is that what you’re thinking?” I straighten in my saddle. “That I was on my way to Vinevridth to help with defense—”

“And while you were on your way,” Jadon says, “you were practicing a trick and you messed up.”

I bristle at the “messed up” part, but I nod anyway. “And I left my family to help King Exley, possibly leaving my own town vulnerable and open to Wake’s invasion.”

She’ll turn on you…

The cardinal makes no sound as it escapes the twilight, soaring higher, higher into the boundless sky. Higher still, until it is just a flicker of red before vanishing altogether.

If my companions witnessed this bird’s arrogant display, none of them speak of it. Their silence grants me the quiet I need to realize this:

I will never again move unseen through Vallendor Realm.