When I’m finished, I peer around the tree, glimpsing the backs of the guards where they’re standing. They took a few more steps so that they’re on top of the gentle slope instead of behind it. At first, I think they did it to give me a little more privacy, but when one of them points, I realize it’s because they’re looking at something.
Unease creeps up my spine as I walk forward to join them, snow coming up around my ankles with every step I take. When I reach the top beside them, a gasp comes from my parted lips.
The city is surrounded.
Perfect formations of Fourth’s army are placed in the frozen valley around the entirety of Ranhold, like a dark horseshoe tossed down, ready to strike the stake of the castle.
From up here, the semi-circle of black-clad soldiers looks like a curled hand, ready to squeeze, to strangle the city. I feel that hand like it’s on my stomach, holding me in a painful grasp.
Seeing the army like this...it’s so different from the way I’ve come to know them—gathering around fires, evenings filled with camaraderie. But I saw a glimpse of the battle-ready men when I saw them in the fight circle. I knew what was coming, so it shouldn’t surprise me.
“Fourth is attacking?” I breathe.
“Not yet,” the guard to my left answers.
My eyes dart from left to right as I try to pick out familiar soldiers in the lineup. But from this far away, they’re not much more than black ants ready to swarm, though it still doesn’t stop my eyes from skimming.
I’m looking for a spot of mustard hair, a behemoth male, a quick-footed female.
Spikes on a spine.
But I can’t pick anything out, not from this distance.
I don’t know what I thought would happen when we arrived. The idea of battle was there, but it didn’t feel real.
This...this feels real.
“Your army is going to decimate them.”
The guards don’t disagree with me, and my stomach hurts with misery for the innocent people of Ranhold.
“Serves them right,” the other guard tells me without sympathy. “They did this. Fifth Kingdom attacked our borders. Killed some of our men.”
I turn to look at him. “What’s your name?”
“Pierce, my lady.”
“Well, Pierce, I heard that your soldiers slaughtered Fifth’s army pretty effectively at that battle,” I tell him. “Isn’t that enough?”
He shrugs. “Not to our king.”
My fingers curl into my skirts, gripping them tight.
I know Midas tricked King Fulke into attacking Fourth’s borders. I know that this is essentially Midas’s fault. But to wage war, to be ready to decimate a kingdom...it’s like a lead weight in my chest that drags me down.
I hate the power plays of kings.
Ranhold Castle flies purple flags at half mast, a symbol of their dead king. The walls of the fortress glitter gray and white like marbled stone, proud spires pointing up to the Divines.
It would be pretty, if it weren’t for Fourth looming around them.
“Come, my lady,” Pierce tells me. “Time to get you safely in your tent.”
“I don’t want to go back to my tent,” I reply.
The thought of being cooped up where I can’t see, can’t know what’s going on, it makes me anxious.
Pierce gives me a sympathetic look. “Apologies. It’s orders.”