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Perhaps the only one.

As her horse drank, Corayne refilled her own waterskins upstream, then tried to clean her face. The icy water was a shock, waking her up a little.

Again, she glanced at the sky, peering between the branches. The sun angled cold and golden among the clouds. Too beautiful to stand on such an awful day.

She turned back to find the mare with her head raised and ears twitching, over-alert.

Immediately Corayne went for the Spindleblade on her back, hands closing around the hilt in seconds. But before she could draw, a low voice echoed over the stream.

“We wish you no harm, Corayne of Old Cor.”

4

The Lioness

Erida

They will kneel or they will fall.

Siscaria and Tyriot kneeled.

So became the Queen of Four Kingdoms.

Erida of Galland, Madrence, Tyriot, and Siscaria. Her domain now stretched from the shores of the Auroran Ocean to the bitter cold of the Watchful Sea. From sprawling Ascal to the jeweled islands of the Tyri Straits. Forests, farmland, mountains, rivers, ancient cities, and bustling ports. All of it fell beneath Erida’s command, and her shadow grew long indeed.

My empire, with no boundaries but the edges of the realm itself. All the realm in my own two hands.

She’d had more than enough time to think of her destiny on the road home, as their journey was longer than planned. Parts of the Long Sea were too dangerous for the Queen to sail, even with a fleet around her. Pirates thrived in times of war, and they stalked the waters like hungry wolves. Erida and her company were forced to travel overland from Partepalas to Byllskos, where she received Tyriot’s surrender. Or rather,Tyriot’s abandonment. The Sea Prince and his royal cousins fled their palaces, rather than surrender to her conquest. Erida laughed at their empty halls and empty docks. She left behind a few lords to manage the coastal cities and carried on, rolling over the continent in an inexorable wave.

Siscaria surrendered easily. Erida placed her uncle, Duke Reccio, in control of the Siscarian capital. Their bond of blood made him more loyal than most of her own nobles.

She had rejoined her armada soon after and a hundred Gallish ships, galleys, and cogs turned north to Ascal. The nobles were eager for home, but none so much as Erida herself. Her own flagship led the way, an immense war galley done up as a pleasure barge, with all the comforts of a royal palace.

After two months of travel, Erida despised it.

She suffered through countless meetings, feasts, and oath takings, all her time wrapped up with loathsome courtiers scratching for favor. Everything seemed both endless and immediate. Some days disappeared in the blink of an eye. Some seconds dragged, clawing over her skin. She felt so now, through the last agonizing miles of the long way home.

Patience, Erida told herself.This torture is nearly at an end.

She knew what waited in Ascal. And who.

Taristan was already there, returned from Gidastern. His letters had been vague, scrawled in Ronin’s spiky handwriting, but she gleaned enough. Taristan was victorious too.

She expected nothing less. He was her match in every single way.

Erida squinted north, where the shores of Mirror Bay narrowed into the mouth of the Great Lion. Ascal sprawled, the city of islands and bridges strung across the river. Her heart skipped a beat, her body tightening with anticipation.

She would be home before nightfall. Even the tide rose to her favor, pushing on the fleet, a favorable wind filling their sails.

“We’ve made up time,” Lord Thornwall said, holding the rail at her side. His red beard had finally gone all to gray. The conquest had been hard on her greatest commander.

Lady Harrsing held her other flank, leaning heavily against the ship. She bent like a crone, huddled in her furs against the damp cold. Erida would have commanded her down below, but she knew Harrsing would only wave off her concern. The old woman had faced worse than winter in her many years upon the Ward.

“What of the final counts?” Erida asked her commander, eyeing him sternly.

Thornwall heaved a great sigh. He did his best to condense two months of conquest.

“One thousand of Lord Vermer’s men lost to the Tyri rebels before the surrender,” he said. “And we received word from Lord Holg that the Tyri princes still attack from their islands.”