CHAPTER 12
On Atyas’s twenty-fourth day in Feenix, the column beneath the Lunar Watch reached the eastern gate without silver. Their armour had been darkened with ash, mud and smoke. Every crescent upon their breastplates had been cut through by a single diagonal line. White cords were tied around their left arms in knots that changed from one company to the next. They stopped before the eastern military gate before sunrise. There were seventy-four thousand four hundred and eleven of them. Seraphina had counted them at every bridge and again before the final approach. The number had not changed since midnight. It was not the number with which she had left Asehria.
She no longer calculated the difference where soldiers could see her face. At the reception avenue, three children left the column with an Asehrian clerk. A Phoenix warden gave them water and sent them towards the shelters while their names were still being taken. Seraphina watched until they disappeared beneath the canvas.
Her soldiers entered a different lane. Feenix officers divided them by company beside the hospitals and supply yards. Silvercrest detachments marched among the wounded Watch beneath repaired standards; Eridan had placed those separated remnants under her temporary field command. Several men began shaking when the column stopped. She sent a healer down the ranks.
Alaria stood with Solara, Veyra and Captain Maelin beneath the inspection pavilion. Phoenix Guards watched from the towers and road posts.
None had drawn weapons.
None pretended the arriving soldiers were not being measured. The woman at the head of the column wore no helmet. A dried cut divided one eyebrow, and a strip of cloth supported her sword arm close to her body. Her silver armour had been repaired with mismatched plates. The crescent upon her chest bore the same deliberate wound as those behind her. Captain Seraphina left the head of the waiting army with twelve officers and stopped ten paces from the Queen. Every weapon remained sheathed beneath a visible peace cord.
Her gaze found Alaria first.
For a moment, neither woman moved. Alaria was standing, armed and recognisable beneath Feenix colours. That proved she had survived the flight from Asehria. It proved nothing about the child Eridan had placed behind her sword. Seraphina kept the question behind her teeth. If Atyas had not reached Feenix, she would not make Alaria answer before an army. If he had, she would not speak his name at a gate whose guards she had not verified herself. Then Seraphina placed her uninjured fist against her breastplate. Alaria returned the salute.
“You look terrible,” Seraphina said.
“You took longer.”
Something exhausted and familiar passed between them. Seraphina turned to Solara and lowered herself onto one knee. The movement nearly caused her injured arm to strike the ground. She caught herself before anyone could help. She had knelt to Solara before as the captain of an allied kingdom. This time she carried wounded soldiers, broken commands and a request from a king who did not know whether his family lived. The difference weighed more than the armour.
“Queen Solara.”
“Stand, Captain.”
Seraphina did.
“How many more?” Solara asked.
“Millions remain east with the provincial armies and the King’s field command. Three Watch formations are holding the civilian roads, and another remains at the Greywater crossing beside your engineers.”
Seraphina looked back at the waiting ranks.
“These are wounded Lunar Watch companies, Silvercrest detachments, engineers, record keepers and soldiers cut away from commands that no longer exist. Eridan ordered me to hold temporary authority over the verified remnants, bring them west for treatment and rebuild their chains of command. He also sent a request for Feenix reinforcements.”
General Veyra studied the damaged crescents.
“Why mark your armour?”
“Because the soldiers who opened our gates wore perfect uniforms.”
Seraphina touched the cut through her insignia.
“We changed the mark every morning. The cords identify the company and the officer who verified it. Neither proves loyalty by itself, but together they made infiltration slower.”
Veyra held out her hand for the rolls.
“Who names the witnesses?”
“Each company has two who served with its members before the attack. The others travelled in provisional cohorts, weapons bound. Their officers may protect them but not deploy them.”
“We will compare both lists.” Veyra gave the first roll to a waiting quartermaster. “Treatment begins now. Full verification will take longer.”
Behind Seraphina, the companies moved towards the eastern wards. Their own quartermasters kept the weapons; Phoenix clerks recorded which officer held each key.
“Your provisional cohorts remain in their assigned wards,” Veyra said. “Individuals may use the civilian districts under the peace law. No formation moves beyond its quarters without a route from my command.”
Seraphina turned to her twelve officers.
“You heard the conditions. Give them to every company before the men disperse.”
Seraphina looked at Alaria again.
She did not speak Atyas’s name.
“I have a report that cannot be given in these fields.”
Solara’s attention moved briefly from Seraphina to Alaria.
“Then you will enter under escort,” Solara said. “Your officers remain here until Veyra calls them.”
Seraphina glanced at the twelve waiting behind her. Garran Vos stood among them in armour blackened past recognition. The last time Alaria had seen him, he had been leading six Watch officers and a civilian column away from the royal passage. He met her gaze, touched two fingers to the cut crescent upon his chest and gave her the smallest possible nod.
Alive.
“They will remain.”
Atyas waited in the old map chamber. Solara had sent two guards to bring him through the enclosed palace passages. Neither explained why the eastern gate had sounded the arrival signal before dawn. Alaria was not in the training courtyard. That frightened him more than the horns. The map chamber had been cleared before he entered. Its windows were shuttered. General Veyra stood beside the barred outer door, while Solara and Alaria waited near the table.
No one told him to sit.
“What happened?” Atyas asked.
Footsteps approached in the corridor. The door opened. Seraphina entered without her sword. Atyas had remembered her in polished armour. Even in the training yard, she had carried herself as though the kingdom’s walls continued wherever she stood. Her dark hair had always been pulled into the same severe knot. Every buckle had remained fastened. Every command had sounded as though she had considered it before anyone else understood a decision was required. Smoke and old blood darkened the padding beneath her armour. Her hair had been cut at the shoulder with a blade. One arm remained bound against her ribs, and exhaustion had hollowed the skin beneath her eyes. She stood straight until she saw Atyas.
She crossed the chamber and stopped in front of him. Her eyes moved over his face, the healed cut upon his forearm and the bruises left by Alaria’s training. Then she lowered herself onto one knee, close enough to look at him properly.
“Your Highness.”
Atyas could think of only one question.
“Where is my father?”
Seraphina did not look away.
“Alive. When I left him six days ago, he was commanding the western line from Haran Reach.”
The answer passed through Atyas without finding anywhere to rest.
“You were with him.”
“Yes.”
“Alaria said you were defending the palace together.”
“We were.”
“You left him that night.”
Alaria’s posture changed. Seraphina placed her uninjured hand on the table.
“Yes. The bridge went down between us. He ordered me to take the people who could still get out.”
“And you went?”
“I tried two lower routes first. One had collapsed. The other had Keh’Dia inside it. Thirty-one soldiers died there.”
“How long did you try?”
“Four hours.”
Atyas looked at her sling. Four hours sounded too short until he tried to remember the first four after leaving his mother.
“His message found me on the eleventh day,” Seraphina said. “I reached him on the fifteenth. He was holding Haran Reach when he sent us here.”
Atyas kept his hands against his sides. He wanted another answer and could not name it.
“Where is Queen Isolde?” Seraphina asked.
Silence entered the chamber.
Seraphina looked from Atyas to Alaria. She understood before anyone answered. Her uninjured hand closed against the edge of the table.
“Where?”
“The nursery corridor,” Alaria said. “She reached Atyas, and we entered the royal shelter together. We left only after the northern palace gate was physically breached.”
“Who left the shelter with her?”
“Eighteen Lunar Watch. Garran Vos took six with the civilian column. Six held the bronze gate. Rian took the remaining six into the royal passage.”
“Garran reached us at Greywater,” Seraphina said. “Four thousand one hundred and twelve civilians remained with his section. He kept them moving until provincial wardens absorbed the column.”
Atyas remembered Nela and Tarin disappearing behind Garran’s drawn sword.
“Were two children from Elmar still with him?”
“Nela and Tarin Ar,” Alaria said before he could explain.
Seraphina looked towards the door beyond which Garran had remained. “Their names were upon his arrival roll. They crossed into Feenix with an archive household nineteen days ago.”
Atyas had not saved them by remembering their names. He had not even known where they were until now.
But they were alive.
“Who reached the hidden passage with you?”
“Rian Mer and Cel Varo.”
Seraphina closed her eyes.
“Rian commanded the royal shelter,” Seraphina said. “Cel volunteered for the route after the first alarm.”
“They kept the route open after she was struck,” Alaria said. “Rian held the inner lock. Cel died at the final watch post.”
“And Isolde?”
Atyas heard himself answer.
“She died protecting me.”
Seraphina opened her eyes. She touched her fist to the broken crescent upon her breastplate. No prayer followed. No promise that Isolde had gone somewhere better. The Captain of the Lunar Watch stood in silence for her dead queen. Then she looked at Atyas.
“I am sorry.”
Atyas did not want another person to be sorry. He wanted someone to tell him the weeks since the palace fell had been a mistake.
No one did.
Seraphina drew the fall of Asehria’s palace district from memory. She used black stones for the Keh’Dia, silver for forces whose loyalty she had verified and bare iron for every unit that had received contradictory orders or disappeared before its allegiance could be established. There were more iron markers than silver ones.
Seraphina placed the silver stones at the western barracks and followed the shelter columns' route with her finger.
Atyas watched her place two silver stones together.
“You knew Alaria was with me,” he said.
“Yes. I confirmed it with your father before we left the command hall.”
Alaria stood on the opposite side of the table.
“Why did you ask?”
“Because orders were already being issued in my name. If Atyas had been placed with anyone else, I intended to retrieve him myself.”
“Eridan told you not to.”
“He told me you would keep both Atyas and Isolde safe.”
Seraphina moved one of the silver stones towards the western side of the palace.
Alaria looked down at the two stones.
“He trusted me with both of them.”
Seraphina left her hand beside the marker. Neither woman looked up until Solara spoke.
Solara touched the table once.
“Continue.”
Seraphina opened the first leather folder.
“Six caches on the westward route. Food, weapons, uniforms and maps. The oldest inspection mark was nine months old.”
“Copied?” Veyra asked.
“Possibly. These are the originals we recovered. I have marked which stores were still sealed.”
Veyra drew the folder towards her. Solara took the transport orders beneath it.
“Valid seals?”
“All those we could check. I cannot tell you how many officials knew what they were moving.”
Atyas recognised the columns: destination, weight, receiving officer. He had copied pages like them beside his father.
“Who began it?”
Seraphina shook her head and opened a second folder.
The first page listed Lunar Watch officers by routine and family. Beside some names, a different hand had written useful, uncertain or replaceable.
Alaria held the paper by its edges.
“Where?”
“An attacker outside the western barracks. No author named.”
“They knew us,” Atyas said.
Seraphina put one finger against an entry near the bottom.
“They placed Garran on a stair he had not guarded for two years. Some of this was old. Some was accurate enough to kill people.”
Veyra called a clerk to copy both versions of the duty roster. Seraphina waited until the original lay beneath Alaria’s hand again before turning to the palace map.
Seraphina marked the Bridge of Bells, then moved a silver stone beneath it through the flood-control gallery.
“Forty-three remained with Eridan when the span went. Seventeen reached the maintenance stair. Nine separated at the canal and are still missing. The rest died in the lower works.”
Veyra wrote each number beside the route. Seraphina carried the marker west to Haran Reach. She showed the two crossings they had retaken after she reached Eridan, and removed one when Veyra asked which still held.
Atyas watched the remaining crossing.
“Why come to Feenix now?” Atyas asked.
Seraphina looked at him.
“Because Eridan needs the relief force Solara promised, because these companies need treatment and new commands, and because every additional day increased the chance that these records would be captured.”
“Not because you knew I was here.”
“I did not know.”
For the first time since she entered, Seraphina glanced at Alaria with something close to relief.
“I knew she had been with you when the attack began. I knew Eridan trusted her to choose a route no false order could change. If Alaria survived the journey, Feenix was the place she would eventually seek.”
“And if we had not come here?”
“Then Solara would still have been the person most likely to know where she went.”
Alaria lifted an eyebrow.
“You followed my friendship.”
“Your predictability.”
“I crossed sovereign Vahran territory while being hunted.”
“And then you came home.”
Alaria considered objecting. She did not.
General Veyra questioned Seraphina for the rest of the morning. She asked for the names of every officer who had access to the emergency signals. The location of each recovered cache. Which roads remained open, which cities still resisted and which Watch companies had not been seen since the palace fell. Seraphina answered until her voice became rough. When she did not know, she said so. When a conclusion depended upon a frightened witness or an unverified prisoner, she named the weakness before Veyra could ask.
Solara divided the recovered documents between three locked rooms and assigned separate guards to each. No one person would be permitted to remove a complete set.
“The Lunar Watch?” Seraphina asked.
“Remain under you,” Solara said. “Veyra will give their quartermasters the ward boundaries and agreed routes.”
Seraphina checked the marks against her own map. She moved one company out of a Phoenix hospital court and signed the correction.
“What do you intend after they recover?” Solara asked.
“Return every fit company to Eridan’s western line. The wounded remain until your physicians release them. The engineers join the relief columns. I return as liaison between his command and yours.”
Solara looked towards Veyra.
“How soon can the first verified formations move?”
“If Seraphina’s rolls survive comparison, six days,” Veyra said. “The Feenix divisions already at the border can cross sooner.”
“Then they cross. We reinforce Haran Reach before the Keh’Dia can cut it away from the river armies.”
Seraphina bowed her head.
“Eridan asked for soldiers. He will receive allies.”
“And Atyas?”
Seraphina looked at Alaria.
“He already has a protector.”
“You assume I remain in Feenix,” Alaria said.
“No.”
Seraphina reached beneath her coat and removed a narrow field letter. The fold carried no royal seal, only a line of black thread tied through the paper.
“Eridan did.”
Alaria took it.
Atyas recognised his father’s hand before she unfolded the page.
Alaria—
If you reached Feenix with Atyas, you are already planning the road back. Do not take it.
They broke my palace to reach Atyas. A guarded room does not make him safe from people who entered mine wearing our uniforms and carrying our orders.
I have armies, captains and Seraphina. If my son is alive, he has the person who carried him through their first attempt.
If you both survived, remain with him until I can relieve you myself.
—Eridan
Alaria read it twice.
“He cannot command the First Blade of Feenix,” Solara said.
“He knows.”
“Then this is a request.”
Alaria folded the letter along its original lines.
“Yes.”
Atyas watched her hands.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt. It also kept him from mistaking her presence for something effortless.
“Will you?”
Alaria placed the letter inside her coat.
“No.”
“Because Father asked?”
“Because he is right.”
“Then the assignment I gave you stands,” Solara said.
“It never stopped.”
Solara turned to Seraphina.
“You commanded his training.”
“I taught him how a soldier holds ground. Alaria carried him through the ground we lost.”
Seraphina returned her attention to Atyas.
“The Watch does not need to know Atyas is here. Not yet.”
“They are loyal to him,” Atyas said.
“They are loyal to Asehria and its lawful crown. That does not make every soldier incapable of being followed, questioned, bribed or overheard.”
“How many people know now?” Veyra asked.
“Among those who reached the military wards? Only me. Several officers suspect Alaria escaped with him, but none knows whether either survived the forest.”
Solara looked at Atyas.
“Then it remains that way.”
He did not argue.
Three weeks earlier, he would have heard only that thousands of his soldiers stood within reach. Now he heard the danger hidden inside their loyalty. He was not certain whether to blame Alaria or Solara for that.
Probably both.
Seraphina found him in the training courtyard that evening. She had exchanged her armour for a dark coat and a new sling. The cut above her eye had been cleaned. Without the broken crescent upon her chest, she looked smaller than she had in the map chamber. Atyas stood beside the rack with a wooden sword in one hand. Alaria sat beneath the covered walkway, sharpening her real blade.
“Your guard is too high,” Seraphina said.
Atyas lowered it.
“Now it is too low.”
“Alaria said—”
“Alaria says many things when no responsible instructor is present.”
The stone moved down Alaria’s blade with a slow scrape.
“He is learning to survive a fight, not pose for a barracks mural.”
“His wrist remains exposed.”
“Only if he stands still.”
Seraphina looked at Atyas.
“Does she ever admit she is wrong?”
“Not in words.”
Alaria stopped sharpening.
Atyas realised his mistake.
Seraphina almost smiled. For a moment, the courtyard behind Asehria’s armoury existed around them again. Then Atyas saw the sling, Alaria’s scar and the unfamiliar walls.
“Will you train me now?” he asked.
Seraphina considered the wooden sword.
“Alaria will continue.”
“You used to say her technique encouraged bad habits.”
“Her technique kept you alive through a city neither of you should have escaped.”
Alaria resumed sharpening.
“I would like that repeated in front of witnesses.”
“No.”
Seraphina stepped closer to Atyas.
Seraphina adjusted his wrist with her good hand.
“Keep that covered while you move. Alaria can find enough other ways to hit you.”
Atyas tried the guard again.
“Did Father know I escaped?”
“No. I had no verified report.”
“You can tell him now.”
“Solara is preparing private couriers. I will carry the answer myself when my companies are released.”
“You could go first.”
Seraphina looked towards the eastern wards.
“Not before the wounded have their places and the officers have their orders.”
Seraphina reached inside her coat and removed a folded field map. The capital filled only its eastern edge. Across the rest, silver lines marked armies, supply routes and cities still refusing Keh’Dia control.
“Asehria is not gone,” she said. “The palace was taken. The central roads were broken. Millions fled and millions more could not. But your father is fighting with the soldiers who remain.”
Atyas studied the changing front.
“And I remain here.”
“And train.”
“And learn why keeping you alive is part of the same war, even when it does not feel like fighting.”
Atyas looked at the western line where Eridan’s armies stood between the Keh’Dia and Feenix. Since the escape, he had imagined Asehria as a darkness that had swallowed everyone he left behind. Now the map showed bridges being defended, roads being lost, cities holding and armies moving beneath his father’s command.
Solara sent Atyas to bed before midnight. She did not ask whether he was tired. He had been awake since the Lunar Watch entered Feenix before dawn, but sleep felt impossible. Whenever he closed his eyes, the Bridge of Bells collapsed differently. Sometimes Eridan reached the gallery and the river wardens found him. Sometimes the eastern stair remained closed. Sometimes Atyas arrived before the bridge fell and changed a history he already knew had happened. He left the lamp burning beside his bed.
The rooms in the infirmary wing had once belonged to senior healers. A narrow service passage ran behind them, allowing servants to replace water, linens and fuel without carrying them through chambers occupied by the sick. Most of its doors had been sealed when the palace expanded. Its outer exits now ended inside the same guarded wing as Atyas’s rooms.
Most.
Alaria had shown him the surviving entrance during their seventh morning of training.
Every room has another way in, she had said. If you cannot find it, assume someone else already has.
Atyas waited until the guards changed beyond the outer door. Then he stepped into the service passage. He told himself he only intended to walk. The lie lasted until he heard his name. Voices came through an open ventilation panel farther along the wall. A thin line of light crossed the floor beneath it.
“The senior officers need to know,” Seraphina said.
Atyas stopped. Through the ventilation panel he could see the back of Solara’s chair and Seraphina’s uninjured hand beside a cup. Alaria stood opposite them.
“Veyra has not finished examining their companies,” Solara said.
“I mean the officers who have served his family for years.”
“And who may be followed or overheard like anyone else.”
Seraphina lifted the cup without drinking.
“Outside Eridan’s lines, soldiers are gathering around whoever still has a seal. A living heir could keep some of them from following the wrong man.”
“He has been here twenty-four days.”
“I know how long.”
Alaria glanced at the panel. Atyas held his breath. She looked back at Seraphina without mentioning him.
“He was awake when I checked his room last night,” she said. “He had the supply reports under his blanket.”
“He wants to help.”
“He thinks he missed something in a lesson that would have kept his mother alive.”
Atyas pressed his hand against the stone. He wanted to go into the room and tell her she was wrong. His feet stayed where they were.
“Has he spoken about her?” Seraphina asked.
“Very little.”
“Or the man he killed?”
Solara turned towards Alaria.
“I did not know that.”
“He killed a soldier who had me on the ground.” Alaria looked towards the cup in Seraphina’s hand. “He still remembers how the sword stuck.”
Atyas looked down at his fingers.
Solara pushed her unread report aside.
“No lessons tomorrow afternoon. Bring him to the south garden if the weather holds.”
“And the officers?” Seraphina asked.
“Remain uninformed until Veyra clears them. Then we discuss who needs to know and why.”
“If Eridan’s line breaks, the councils will start asking for a regent.”
“They will have to ask Asehrians. I am not crowning a twelve-year-old in this palace.”
Alaria’s hands had closed behind her back.
“He needs to hear what they may ask before they find a way to ask it without us.”
Solara nodded.
“And he needs somewhere to say he is frightened without receiving another assignment.”
Seraphina set down the cup.
“I can give him both of those badly. You know that.”
“I know,” Solara said. “Try anyway.”
The three women sat without speaking until the relief bell sounded. Solara rose first.
“We revisit this after Veyra’s examination. Tomorrow afternoon remains free.”
Their footsteps moved towards the door. Atyas retreated into the darkness before the room opened. He had almost reached his own entrance when Alaria’s voice followed him through the passage.
“You place too much weight upon the outside of your left foot.”
Atyas stopped. Alaria stood behind him with the service door open.
“That is how you knew?” he asked.
“That and the shadow beneath the panel.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“You were listening well.”
“You tell me not to eavesdrop.”
“I tell you not to get caught.”
Atyas folded his arms.
“That is not the same rule.”
“You are learning.”
She closed the service door and leaned against it. In the narrow passage, the stiffness returned to her injured side. She had hidden it throughout the meeting.
“You heard?” she asked.
Atyas nodded.
“I wasn’t reading because of Mother.”
Alaria waited.
“Not only.”
She eased herself down against the wall. He watched the careful movement.
“You tell me to rest, but you keep opening your stitches.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“If I stop, I remember the corridor.”
He sat beside her. Light from his bedroom made a narrow line across their boots.
“If I become good enough, maybe next time—”
Alaria shook her head. He stopped before the sentence reached an ending.
“What am I supposed to do with it, then?”
“With what?”
“Mother. The man in the forest. Everyone who died while I escaped.”
Alaria closed her eyes.
“Don’t ask me that tonight.”
Atyas stared at her.
“You don’t know?”
“I count them whenever I close my eyes. Isolde. Rian. Cel. Every guard behind the last door. Training until my wound opened did not change the number.”
Her voice had become uneven. She pressed one fist against her leg until it steadied.
“So no. I don’t know what you are supposed to do with them. I only know I need you to stop treating your life as a debt you must die repaying, because I don’t know how to lose you too.”
Atyas looked at her.
“Do you want them to know I’m here?” Atyas asked.
“Some mornings.”
“And the others?”
“I want to take you somewhere no one will ask you to be anything.”
“Would you?”
She looked at him.
“I nearly died bringing you here. I should probably let you have a say before choosing the next road.”
He rested his head against her shoulder. She shifted to let him settle.
“Seraphina would want to come.”
“She would bring the whole Watch.”
Alaria’s cheek touched his hair. Neither smiled for long.
They sat without speaking. The palace became quieter around them. Somewhere beyond the wall, a healer extinguished lamps. The guards changed again outside Atyas’s rooms.
“They will ask you first,” he said.
“The officers?”
He nodded.
“I will bring them to you.”
“Do you trust me with the choice?”
Alaria looked at him.
“When you understand it, yes.”
“And if I choose before you think I’m ready?”
“I will tell you that I think you are wrong.”
“And then?”
“If it remains your choice, I stand beside you.”
Atyas studied her face for any sign that she was saying what he wanted to hear.
He found none.
Alaria pushed herself to her feet and offered him a hand.
“Now you go to bed.”
“What if I’m not tired?”
“Then you can lie awake somewhere with blankets.”
He took her hand.
At his door, Atyas stopped.
“Will you tell Solara I heard?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“Because tonight, you and I are going to pretend you successfully escaped detection.”
“I did.”
“Your left foot disagrees.”
For the second time since he fled Asehria, Atyas almost laughed without feeling guilty afterwards. Alaria waited until he entered the room. Then she followed him inside, pulled the chair beside his bed and closed the hidden door behind her.
End of chapter