anyone else take it—and the power it possessed.
“Widric the Headman from Kavallaro,” I said slowly, keeping my eyes focused on the lightening horizon. “Jesse. Heidi. Timbago. Mistress Tibbs. Twenty-four helpless mermaids. The three thousand soldiers lost fighting in the battles of the Fate Maker. My half brother, Eamon. Darinda and the Dryad Order. Esmeralda. My mother, the rightful Golden Rose of Nerissette—”
“Allie?” John asked quietly. I didn’t bother to turn around. I heard the rustle of his footsteps across the grass and swallowed. “What are you doing?”
“Remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“All the people we’ve lost, the ones who’ll never get the chance to see what Nerissette can be like when it’s brought back to its former glory, when it’s beautiful again.”
“Hey.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“I’m their queen. It’s my job to remember them and what they gave their lives for.”
He didn’t say anything, but I felt two brawny arms wrap around me as he gave me a brief hug. “It’s good to remember them, but you can’t forget the living while you make your apologies to the dead.”
“I know.” I nodded but didn’t turn to look at him.
“Come on, then.” He loosened his embrace and instead wrapped one arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go get some breakfast. I remember your grandmother used to say that it was the most important meal of the day. And on a big day like today, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
“Why?”
“The last of the Council of Nobles have arrived with their troops. And we’ve had reports from the patrols that went toward the deserts of the Firas.”
“And?” I asked, my heart clenching. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t actually want to
“They found a small group that managed to escape,” John said quietly. “Seven of them. The great Firas… reduced to nothing but four tradesman, one woman, a six-year-old boy, and a king.”
“None of their Fire Dancers survived?” I asked, my heart sinking as I tried to remember what few details I knew about the Firas culture.
The Firas were a tribal people. They’d moved from place to place on the backs of enormous beasts that looked like a cross between a camel and a wooly mammoth except their fur was a brilliant purple instead of the usual matte brown of animals from my world. Their soothsayers were known as Fire Dancers—mystics who claimed to speak with the Pleiades on behalf of men and kings through rituals that they kept secret.
“Just those seven,” he reiterated.
“So what do we do then? What do I say?”
“I don’t know,” he said as he led me toward the house. “I don’t know what you say. I think—” He stopped. “I think you simply have to be kind. Now, come on, let’s get breakfast.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I want to see Melchiam. I need to tell him I’m sorry for what happened to his people.”
We’d reached the back of the ruined palace by then, and I nodded to one of the guards standing watch. “Could you please ask the Rache of the Firas to meet me in what’s left of the throne room?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The young man snapped his heels together and then bowed his head sharply before he hurried away.
“Allie—”
“Bavasama won’t stop doing evil just because I’m having breakfast,” I said quietly. “She’s not resting, and we shouldn’t be, either.”
He sighed, but instead of arguing, he just followed me into the large room where I’d once heard royal audiences. It now acted as a communal bedroom for all the nobles and other refugees that were now calling the palace home.
The dais, along with my throne, was still in place, the area behind it curtained off as a sort of locker room where people could bathe and change their clothes with some sort of illusion of privacy. I pushed the curtain back and made my way into the changing area, snagging the tiny hand mirror one of the new maids—a woman from the city of Neris—had given me when she realized the sad state of my personal possessions.
I glared at myself in the mirror and used a free hand to push back the few locks of hair that had managed to work free from my braid. “Just be kind,” I said to my reflection. I took a deep breath before setting the mirror down and running a hand over my stiff, dirt-smudged tunic and filthy brown trousers.
I stepped back out from behind the curtain and climbed onto the dais. Once I was standing there, I put my hands behind my back so that no one could see my fidgeting while I waited.
Within minutes, the room began to fill with army commanders and nobles and the leaders of the various races within Nerissette.
“Your Majesty,” Arianna of the Veldt said. I held a hand up, silencing her.
I watched as a tall, thin man with long, dark hair, wearing a plain black robe with a high neck and long, billowing sleeves came slowly into the room, his head down. Melchiam, Last Great Rache of the Firas Nation.
Instead of waiting for him to make it all the way into the room, I started down the stairs toward him. “Melchiam.” I took his hands in mine when I reached him, and he looked up at me with sunken black eyes.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed his head slightly, and I could see his shoulders trembling.
“I—” I sniffled as tears built up in my eyes.
“Your Majesty?” He looked up at me again, and I could see that he was trying not to cry as well. One tear slipped out of his left eye and made a lonely trail down his cheek.
“I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed, trying to give him a comforting hug, like the ones my mom had always given me when I’d had a really bad day.
“Oh, Your Majesty,” he sobbed softly.
“Come now,” Tevian, the head of the Dragos Council, said. He came forward, wrapping his strong arms around Melchiam and letting the taller man sob on his shoulder.
“Come now and dry your eyes, both of you. We’ll cry when the war is won. Once there is peace, the entire world will mourn those we’ve lost but not now. Not when there are battles yet to fight.”
“Right.” I let go of Melchiam and started back up the aisle, wiping my eyes with my shirtsleeves as the nobles stepped out of my way and Tevian led the Rache of the Firas away.
“Your Majesty,” Rhys said as he moved forward to help me to my throne. “Your army has assembled. Or at least as much of your army as we could get. The rest will join us on the road.”
“Good.” I let go of his hand when I reached the top of the dais and turned to stare at the assembled nobles. “How many?”
“Every man in Nerissette who is able to hold a sword on his own and every woman who doesn’t have a child at home that needs her care.”
“The women, too? We didn’t have that many women soldiers when we fought the Fate Maker the last two times. They stayed behind to take care of the crops and protect the villages.”
“Everyone who can fight”—he looked at me, his eyes flat—“will fight. We’ll protect the villages by pushing our way into Bathune and not giving Bavasama’s army the chance to set foot in Nerissette again.”
“How many soldiers?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“What?” My eyebrows raised in shock. Nerissette wasn’t that big of a country. I didn’t think we had more than a half million people in it if you counted every man, woman, and child.
“You have an army of two hundred thousand swords ready to fight in your name, Your Majesty. Everyone over the age of sixteen that can hold a sword has volunteered. Your army is five times the size of the largest army that has ever been raised in this world—and that army is one that only exists in legend.”
“So we’re ready?” I swallowed and tried to picture two hundred thousand people in my head and realized that I couldn’t actually do it.
“Not even close,” Rhys said. “We’ll take the soldiers we have, and if we’re lucky, the rest will join up before
