He ran into Ana in the courtyard and his worries dissipated. If anything, the years had only increased her beauty in his eyes. She stood straight, her long dark hair undone today. He stepped close and grabbed her hands.
“How did it go today?” she asked.
Brandt sighed. “Well. Even when she is aided, I suspect that I will soon surpass her.”
“That is something to be proud of. But?”
“But it still doesn’t matter. This new strength still equates to nothing against the Lolani. I might win against their warriors, but against their queen I am nothing.”
Ana stepped closer to him. “I don’t like to hear you say that.”
“What?”
“That you are nothing. A person is more than just their strength. Once you begin to forget that, I’m not sure there’s a return.”
She was right, of course. Ana always was.
They’d all come back changed from the caves outside Landow. Alena discovered powers not yet developed by anyone in the empire. Brandt lived with the knowledge of his own limits and the power they faced. And Ana had become something of a philosopher. Each of them had brushed death. By Alena’s accounts she had even been to the gate. But Ana had perhaps been changed the most by the experience.
She held onto serenity now, a quality he admired more with every passing day. She would say it was because she had discovered what mattered to her, but Brandt wondered if the change went even deeper than that.
“I’ll try. I promise.”
Then he frowned. Ana’s presence had distracted him, but the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. Why?
Ana sensed the disturbance at the same time he did.
“What is that?”
It felt familiar, yet his memory refused to dig up the appropriate event. Where had he felt this?
Then it hit him. The heavy air, filled with moisture and unseasonable heat. The atmosphere held a menace to it, an intent.
This was what it was like before the queen had tried to assassinate the emperor years ago.
Brandt shouted. “Everyone run! Down the road! And ring the bell!”
The few monks in earshot hesitated, then leaped to action. The bell began to clang. Monks came out into the courtyard, ready for danger and confused when none appeared. They looked to him for answers.
“Get away from the monastery,” he said. “Leave, down the path.” They didn’t understand the queen’s ability to manipulate the weather, but they knew the attack couldn’t be aimed at a person, not exactly. Instead she aimed for a place where she knew a person would be. In this case, the monastery was the only reasonable target. If they put distance between them and the walls, no lives would be lost.
Orders were passed among the monks. Kurl opened up the gate as the first handful rushed to safety. Storm clouds appeared over the mountaintops, darker and taller than any storm had a right to be, racing across the sky with unnatural speed. Brandt wouldn’t have much time to effect his own escape.
He made himself light, running through the hallways and corridors of his home. Off in the distance he heard the first rumbles of thunder, deeper than normal. He felt the reverberations in his stomach. He woke one monk sleeping undisturbed through the bells and shooed him out, still groggy. Other than that, the monastery was empty.
The rain started, a sudden downpour that drenched every stone in sight. Brandt ran, sprinting toward the gate as fast as his legs and lightness could carry him. He passed the gate just as the first bolt of lightning struck behind him, a blinding flash and deafening roar washing over him.
For several agonizing moments he ran on instinct alone. Off to the edge, the path ended precipitously, but he needed every bit of distance he could get between him and the monastery.
Fortunately, his instincts guided him well. He remained on the path and his vision cleared after just a couple of heartbeats.
A second flash hit, far more powerful than the first. His world became light and sound. The blast threw him into the air and tossed him to the ground face first. Brandt knew he needed to move. He was too close.
But he couldn’t convince his body. He cowered, burying his face into the stonework of the road and covering his head with his hands.
In time, the echoes of the blast faded, the mountains echoing the final reverberations.
Brandt blinked and slowly raised his head.
He lived.
He lifted his gaze higher, to the threatening sky. The impossibly tall clouds had already diminished as they passed beyond the monastery. So many forces of nature had been manipulated to bring one powerful event into being. As unnatural as it was, it couldn’t last.
The order of the world reasserted itself in time.
Perhaps that was some consolation.
It was all that he had. Brandt sat up and for the first time saw his home.
Or what remained of it.
The queen’s attack had struck true. Perhaps it had looked and sounded like lightning, but it had been something more. The blast had destroyed three of the monastery’s buildings and damaged the rest.
Brandt couldn’t conceive of the energies required for such an attack.
He knew he was weak compared to the queen, but the ability to work this technique seemed impossible. For every step he took toward her skill, she ran a league.
Brandt didn’t know how he would catch her, but looking at the remains of his home, he swore a vow that he would never stop trying.
2
Rolle was an enormous man, making the front room of the smithy look small when he stood within it. Most days two or three customers could browse through the space comfortably, but Rolle alone looked like he barely had room to turn. His arms were as thick as Alena’s waist, but it was hard not to laugh at his infectious smile and quick wit.
Rolle’s kindness was even more expansive than he was. He worked as one of the town’s butchers, and his generosity was legendary. He provided liberal portions, a business
