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I stayed quiet for the first few minutes of our ride, lost in my own thoughts. Until Sunbeam interrupted them.

“So,” he said without slowing his pace, “Winifred and Jinjur, huh?”

“What?”

“You didn’t notice them canoodling? It was pretty obvious.”

I hadn’t. “No one has used the word ‘canoodling’ at any time in the last century.”

“I am an elderly horse,” he replied in a dignified manner, “suffering from black lung and the heartbreak of psoriasis. I should be respected in these, my final days, rather than mocked for my antiquated language.”

“You’re going to outlive us all. I have no doubt of it.”

“Anyway,” he said, “do you think the king and queen will change the law so your sister can get married?”

“Hey now, hold your hor—” That was going to sound very wrong. “Uh, hold yourself.” Not much better. Oh, well. “It’s probably a little early to be discussing their marriage.”

He’d raised an interesting point, though. The king and queen might very well try to amend the marriage laws, if someone brought it up to them. Conservative pressure from the Council of Nobles might be the only reason they hadn’t done so already. I had no doubt the queen would be sympathetic to the idea; Jacqueline’s brother had been taken for a girl when he was born, after all, and she’d always stood up both for him and for his right to be with the woman he loved.

Besides, Jacqueline had a hard time resisting anything that sent the Council of Nobles into spinning fits.

Looking back on it, I should have noticed what was going on between Winifred and Jinjur. Sunbeam was right; they hadn’t been subtle about it. As I’ve already said, I can be extremely slow on the uptake about such things.

And not just when it comes to other people.

I glanced back at Ilyana, who was riding perhaps twenty feet behind us, and watched her body shift in the moonlight. Now the lean muscles of a huntress, with dark eyes and a proud nose, black braids flying behind her head. Now generous curves, ruby lips, and a mop of pale hair. Flickering form after flickering form, sharp features melting into soft ones, shoulders broadening and narrowing.

I hadn’t closely examined my feelings for her. I hadn’t been letting myself. Even when she agreed to help rescue my sister without a second thought, though I knew how much she dreaded what it would mean for her. Even when I found myself longing for a glimpse of her smile or the sound of her laugh. Even when she kissed me. Even when she kissed me everywhere.

Oh, fucking hell. I’d fallen in love with her. And I was taking her to marry someone else.

How had it happened so fast? We’d only spent a week and a half together. Although that was more than enough time for Yudit to fall in love, begin a romance, plan out a future with her sweetheart, sour on the whole thing, and go through a bitter breakup.

For the first time in my life, I’d taken the initial step on that path. Possibly the second as well, if Ilyana returned my feelings; I’d never asked her how she felt, not while I was carefully failing to ask myself the same question. But even if she did return them, then unless she somehow managed to defy the commands of a man who ruled half the continent, we would still never reach the “planning out a future” stage of things.

My unhappy introspection on this subject was ended by the rapid approach of the Red Empire army.

At first, all we saw was a red glow in the distance. It was soon joined by the sound of an immense chorus of voices chanting in unison. They were singing their infamous marching song, a sound that still caused fear throughout the known world, even twenty-five years after their last war of conquest:

“Oh-EE-oh, ee-OOOOOOH-ah! ”

Chilling.

When Sunbeam topped a rise, the vast advance force became visible, thousands upon thousands of soldiers in tight formation. Wizards were interspersed throughout, bright red light shining from their raised wands, illuminating the night like crimson suns. Gruoch had been right—darkness was no hindrance to them.

They swarmed forward more swiftly than I would have believed possible, lurching ten feet ahead in the time it should have taken them to make a single step. Dr. Pipt’s radish-quickening spell was working well. They were racing toward us as fast as charging cavalry.

If the ground had cooled enough for them to begin their assault, it was safe for the horses, so I told the flower pathway to stop growing. I waved my arms to attract attention, hoping we came across as unthreatening. I was suddenly glad that we lacked an escort; a force of dangerous-looking bodyguards wouldn’t have helped, and might very well have gotten us killed.

“I have Ilyana the Golden with me!” I shouted. Pointlessly. There was no possible way anyone could hear me over the noise of an army on the march.

As the front line swept closer with that unnatural speed, I noticed something odd—every now and then, one of the soldiers would disappear. There one moment, gone the next. The formation quickly adjusted to fill in the gaps.

I waved my arms again, and an arrow thunked into the ground by Sunbeam’s hooves. Then another. I hoped they were warning shots.

“Should we maybe consider running away?” Sunbeam asked.

“No.” I wasn’t nearly as certain as I was trying to sound. “We have to see this out.”