the High Lord's mouth came straight from their eminence.
Garren's laughter shook Micah from his musings.
'Do you take me for a witless fool?' Garren asked.
No one dared answer him.
'Truly, there is not one among you who will admit to flawed judgment? Come, speak openly. Who thought even one small share would go unnoticed?'
Micah looked around at the shocked faces. Some were visibly shaken, others deathly still in their fear. There was not a single heart that didn't flutter with Garren's dangerous questioning.
Garren leapt from the high platform, an unnatural act, and landed on the cobbled street. The crowd parted only to fall again to its knees once out of his way.
He walked up to a portly gentleman with a sandy beard and a bright blue tailored cloak. Tucking his sword under the man's chin, he leaned into his face, laughing low. 'And what about you?'
Sweat rolled down the man's face and into his eyes. The cold weather certainly did not make him swelter so.
'My Lord, I have the utmost faith in the Goddess and their eminence. I beg you not question my loyalty,' he pleaded.
Garren removed the sword and nodded once. 'By your own admission then, you are not guilty of treason.' He turned on his left foot and, just as Micah had convinced himself that Garren was going to return to the platform, the High Lord gripped his sword in both hands and with a swift stroke severed the man's head from his body.
Garren snatched the cloak from the ground and wiped the blood from his blade before addressing the crowd again. 'Let this be a warning. The lack of faith, and thereby obedience, that once went unnoticed will no longer be so; no matter the nature of the betrayal nor how slight. All will pay for the sins of one, innocent and guilty alike.
One last human stronghold remains, and nothing will keep Palingard from the Goddess' rightful reign.'
It was long into the night, well after the High Lord and his forces had departed for Palingard, that Micah no longer heard Garren's words resounding in his head. All will pay for the sins of one.
CHAPTER ONE
For years, she'd risen before the sun would even consider it and yet, on the day she was relying upon an unnoticed departure, Ariana overslept. She rolled out of bed, groaning, and reached one hand under the night table to snatch the packed satchel she'd tucked there. She'd changed the night before from her thin evening shift into a well-worn linen tunic and pants that were in an even worse state of disrepair. Her intention was to slip out before daybreak, but sunlight blistered the horizon, washing the room in shades of bright pink and red.
Koen, her canine companion, looked up from where he rested on the floor and sniffed his disapproval.
'I'm not interested in your opinion Koen. You're only in it for the food,' she whispered. Shaking her head, Ariana turned to the window and pushed open the weathered wood. Three days and the winter festival will be over, everything will return to the ordinary and mundane.
'Are you interested in my opinion?'
Ariana sighed, dropping her head. Without turning around, she knew the doorway to her bedroom was occupied by a head full of hair the color of spun sugar.
'Not particularly, but I fear I have little choice in the matter.'
Sara seated herself on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. 'Let them have their fun, Ari. It does everyone good to celebrate the victory, however small it may have been.'
Ariana let go of the window frame and rested her back against the wall. 'I don't need to remind you who was lost in that victory.'
Sara gave her a graceful smile. 'Hiding won't bring her back. Wouldn't she want you to enjoy this time with us?'
Ariana unconsciously toyed with her mother's necklace as she considered this, then tucked it safely into her shirt. 'Perhaps — but I am not my mother, nor am I as gentle a soul as she was.' As she spoke, the sounds of the hearth in the main room grew louder as Bella began to cook for the day. This was not going as she had hoped. 'Why are you here at this hour?'
Sara giggled. 'You think me completely daft, do you?'
Ariana's stomach growled and, as much as she hated to admit it, the smells drifting from below the door had begun to hold her attention.
'I suppose I was coming to bid you farewell. And maybe ask where you were planning on hiding this year, so that if you fail to show up after a few days I'll know where to send everyone.'
'Tell them I've gone to Eidolon in search of my father,' Ariana grinned. 'That should keep them occupied for at least a few days.'
'Be serious. Are you really avoiding the whole affair?'
Palingard was not the fortified kingdom of Sara's ancestry. It was squalid in some places and simply poor in others. The festival, while lavish for their resources, was nothing that could rightly be called an affair. More than anything it was a complete waste of resources that would be needed sorely in the coming year.
'Sara, we have this same argument every year, and every year the result is the same. This is idiocy — to celebrate a victory some fifteen years old. What have we learned since then? How have we improved our safeguards? There aren't any, and the few who held to what my father taught them are no longer here. Don't you think if your fairy tales were real, they would have come true by now? What about the few seasons running when nearly every crop we had withered and died? What then? Your mythical saviors didn't swoop in to teach us how to rotate crops; we had to figure that out on our own. I just can't be around it right now. It's too much.'
The silence was drawn out to what felt like an eternity. Finally, the mild exasperation in Sara's eyes shifted back into her traditional congeniality, tinged with a bit of sadness. 'Then at least tell me where you're going so I won't worry about you.'
Ariana had a habit of being hard around the edges, even bitter at times, but deep down she was heavy- hearted and regretted her tone. 'Sara, forgive me. I have been horrid to you lately. I don't mean to be, it's just — I'm sorry. I'll be near the bluff or just south of it.'
Bella called from the kitchen, 'Your breakfast is cooling while you take your time chattering away, and don't even think about bringing that troublesome friend of yours to the table.' She was referring to Koen, whom she didn't particularly care for. Most of the time he played games with her, like seeing how much priceless bacon he could steal, or chasing the livestock.
Sara made a face at Ariana.
'So like a proper lady,' Ariana quipped. She walked past Sara and opened the door into the main room.
Bella was bent over a kettle that bubbled and filled the room with the smell of stewed apples. Mixed in was the scent of freshly baked bread. Ariana, not needing to ask what they were for, walked over and picked a steaming sliver from the kettle, sliding away from Bella's scolding hand.
'They're not ready yet, and they're not for your mouths anyhow.'
Ariana smiled, biting into the half-cooked apple. 'If you didn't intend them to be for our mouths, then perhaps you shouldn't have made them smell so good.'
Bella was a pleasant woman, plump and jovial much of the time. She was rather short with long, fine brown hair that she kept pinned beneath a white scarf, her cheeks always flushed a dusty pink. She'd been a presence in their home long before Ariana was born, first as a shy housemaid, then as Ariana's caretaker after the loss of her parents.
Bella brought a loaf of bread to the table, along with a small bowl of apple butter. 'I thought you'd appreciate this, Sara, being your favorite and all.'
Sara took the bowl from her, gratitude spreading across her delicate features. She was Ariana's closest friend and had been since they were in school. She was the very definition of beautiful and had no knowledge of it
