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10

To Earn the World

Erida

By nightfall, the smell of smoke was everywhere, clinging to her clothes, her hair, and perhaps her bones too. Campfires, cook fires, and flame within Rouleine, from the same and worse. The catapults had begun their onslaught, slinging rocks and rubble from the outskirts. Every few minutes, Erida heard the distant thunder of them. She wondered which blow would be the one to open the city gates and bring the flag of surrender.

The Queen’s sleeping tent was as grand as it could be in a siege camp, with carpets on the bare ground, a small salon consisting of a low table with mismatched seats, and her bed hidden behind a screen. Her handmaidens and ladies had their own tent to the right, connected by a covered passage, as the council tent was to the left. The latter was large enough to hold seemingly every person of marginal importance in the army, lest someone feel slighted and decide Lord Konegin had the right idea.

As always, Erida’s skull throbbed with the difficulty of keeping such a balance. Scales weighed in her hands, bobbing up and down.

Lucky there was only one scale to balance at the moment. Ronin sat before her in the salon, his dinner set on his knees, while Taristan kept up his steady prowl along the edge of her tent. His imperial cloak and armor were gone, but his shadow loomed large against the canvas. His constant, silent motion put her on edge.Perhaps that’s the point,she thought.

Even though her armor was light, made for show and not function, it was good to be rid of it. Her long green gown with trailing sleeves was more comfortable. Slowly, she worked the braids from her hair, easing away a little bit of the tension in her head and neck.

Taristan’s black eyes caught the candlelight. They followed the motions of Erida’s hands as they combed through her hair.

His gaze sent a chill down her spine.

“I need to name more members to the Crown Council,” she said, leaning back against her cushioned seat.

Ronin paused over his tray of greasy chicken bones and raised his red eyes. “I would be honored.”

Erida laughed in his face. “I did not realize you had such a wonderful sense of humor, Ronin.”

The quivering priest scoffed and went back to sucking on bones like a child scolded.But he is no boy,Erida knew.Even if he is not so old, barely older than me, Ronin is a man, and a dangerous one.She watched Ronin’s eyes again, both scarlet and bloodshot. She had never seen such eyes. Part of her knew Ronin’s eyes wereunnatural, some gift or curse of What Waits.No person alive could be born with such eyes.

“Your focus should be on the Spindles,” Taristan said to her, halting at his wizard’s shoulder. “He would not like for your gaze to stray.”

The Spindles.The march pushed most thought of them from her mind, out of both exhaustion and fear. She remembered Castle Vergon, ruins made by the echo of a Spindle. And now split by another, the one Taristan tore open only weeks ago. It was almost too sharp in her mind. The smell of his blood on the Spindleblade. The sun on broken glass, the image of the goddess Adalen shattered by his fist. The air itself seemed to crackle with energy, like the sky before a lightning storm. And she could never forget the Spindle itself, a single thread of gold that formed a doorway to another realm.

To think, there were more to open. More realms to draw forth.

And What Waits beyond them all, biding his time.

She wondered how they communicated, her husband and the Torn King.Through the wizard priest,she assumed.They certainly aren’t exchanging letters.

Though a thousand questions ran through her mind, as they did whenever the Spindles came up, the Queen held her tongue. She was no fool. There were things she did not wish to prod, not yet.

“We should not tarry long here,” Ronin said, cracking a bone with his teeth. He slurped out the marrow with a disgusting noise.

Erida pulled a face.Clearly What Waits has not given him table manners.

“The siege will not last,” she said aloud, swallowing her revulsion. “They may have water and stores, but not stone. Their walls are already beginning to crumble, and when the siege towers are built—”

The red wizard shook his head. “That is still too long.”

“And why is that?” Erida shot back, eyeing him across the low table.

“I exhausted your archives in Ascal, and found little in the way of Spindles. The Gallish records of anythingnotGallish are sorely lacking.” He set down his plate and cast another loaded glance at Taristan. “The Library Isle will be of far more use.”

Erida sighed, frustrated.

“The Library Isle is in Partepalas,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “The Madrentine capital is the object of our entire campaign. And after we break Rouleine, it will be an easy march, right down Robart’s throat.”

Ronin snapped another bone between his white hands. The crack sounded through the tent. “You have twenty thousand men with you. Leave a thousand, five thousand—ten, even—to besiege Rouleine. But we must continue south, and we must continue our hunt for Spindles.”

“Corayne is far more dangerous than we understood,” Taristan rumbled.