AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cassia was the first to speak the words they had dreamed of all these years. “Long live the queen!”
“Long live the queen!” Lord Hadrian called out.
“Long live the queen!” rose from the lips of Solia’s worshipful followers and unwilling subjects alike.
“The Empire is at your side,” Kella cried.
“Orthros stands with you,” Lio declared.
His magic swelled within Cassia, and on those currents, they shared this moment. They had done it. They had helped Solia seize her throne, if only for tonight.
There was no time for further ceremony before the doors banged open. One of Flavian’s guard commanders rushed in, heaving for breath. “My lord, the king is approaching. He demands to speak with Princess Solia.”
“Queen Solia,” Flavian corrected. “It is her decision whether she will hear Lord Lucis’s demands.”
The guard’s eyes widened, and he knelt before her. “Your Majesty.”
The entire court seemed to hold their breath, waiting to see how she would answer the first challenge of her reign. Wondering if she dared stand between them and their former king.
“I will meet him.” Solia smiled. “I want to see his face when I demand he kneel before me.”
LORD LUCIS
Fifteen years before, Cassia had been a child at the foot of the fortress walls, powerless to stop the catapults that would spell doom for her sister. Now she stood at Solia’s side on the battlements of a different castra and watched Lucis lead his army toward them.
“I count seven mages in flame-red robes,” Lio said. “He’s brought an entire war circle of Aithourians.”
It was the trebuchets that made Cassia sick to her stomach. The magic on them had an arcane scent like burning flesh. “They have enchanted siege engines.”
“Enhanced with fire magic,” Lyros confirmed. “Designed by the Aithourian war mage Hephaestion, like the ones at the Siege of Sovereigns.”
“Blatant,” Mak said. “The Aithourians keep breaking their own religious laws against combining spells and weapons.”
Flavian gave his head a shake. “Ben told me about the siege engines, but seeing this with my own eyes…”
“Now you know what I’ve watched happen to our kingdom all these years,” Lord Hadrian rumbled.
“And what I lived with in Corona.” Eudias looked down at his former colleagues with disdain.
Kella grimaced. “If those are half as destructive as what the Imperial army uses, a mundane fortress like this will crumple.”
Cassia shuddered. “It’s why the Siege of Sovereigns was the shortest in Tenebra’s history. Not a living thing survived.”
“Mak, Lyros,” Solia asked, “how long will your wards hold against them?”
“Long enough for the Charge to get here,” Lyros replied.
“We need one of you to step to the Sanctuary,” Solia said. “Bring all the Hesperines errant you can.”
“Stay here to help with siege strategy,” Mak told Lyros, “and stay safe.”
Lyros nodded, and they shared the long look of two Graces speaking in their Union. Then Mak stepped away.
Lucis’s forces halted in the camp below, which was now a deserted ruin thanks to Ben’s efforts. With astonishing speed, he and his men had gotten everyone to shelter inside the castra, leaving behind nothing the enemy could use against them. Lucis and the Aithourians split off from the army and galloped across the scorched festival grounds. Nearer. Nearer. They halted right below the gatehouse.
Despite the might he still wielded, Lucis looked so small sitting there below their vantage point.
He lifted his gaze. Cassia and her sister looked at the man who had sired them.
