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guards
of the attack. His words were met with resounding surprise, voices
that echoed in the portal’s vaulting.
    “Why didn’t the scouts warn us?” a soldier
said.
    “What happened to the outpost?” asked
another.
    “Brayden?” came the tiny call of a little
girl. He pivoted in his saddle to see his sister Brynlee running
toward him, her silky hair springy with her steps. Their youngest
sister Scarlett was with her, her tiny feet shuffling under the
folds of a long ivory dress.
    “What’s happening?” Brynlee asked.
    Brayden wasn’t sure he could explain it—or
even if he should. Brynlee had turned seven last fall, and Scarlett
was only five. Could they even comprehend what was happening?
    An image of their father covered in blood
rushed into his mind, and tears welled in the young boy’s eyes.
    From atop the wall someone shouted,
“Look!”
    The surrounding commotion grew silent. When
Brayden saw Pick make a dash for the gate, he jumped off his horse
and followed.
    “What is that?”
    “There, coming over the hill!”
    Brayden looked to the west where he saw a
horsed scout approaching dressed in the colors of Aberdour. At
least, it used to be a scout. The man’s head had been severed and
placed in his lap. His body was tied to his horse, and the symbol
of Aberdour on his chest had been scribbled out with his own
blood.
    Soldiers hurried ahead to catch the man’s
horse and cut his body down.
    Beyond the hills, visible against the pale
blue sky, rose a column of smoke.
    “The outpost burns,” said one of the
soldiers.
    “And now we know why we had no warning,”
Pick said.
    Khalous came barging up the southern slope.
“Make way for the king!” he shouted, his voice edged with urgency
and rage.
    Kingsley’s horse galloped alongside his own,
faithfully bearing its lord upon its saddle. The moment the horses
came to a stop within the city, however, the King of Aberdour
plunged to the ground.
    “Father,” Brayden cried, running toward him
with Brynlee and Scarlett on his heels.
    Kingsley’s eyes fluttered open, a gurgling
sound emanating from deep in his throat.
    “Get back!” Khalous said. He started to pull
Brayden away when the king latched onto his son’s shoulders and
pulled him in close.
    “Father?” Brayden said, fresh tears
springing to his eyes.
    Kingsley fought for breath, choking on the
arrow shaft still lodged in his throat. “Fight hard,” he whispered.
“Love well. You’re a man now… my son.”
    Kingsley’s hand fell from the boy’s
shoulders, limp. Brayden felt a wave of cold wash over him, and
then he lost control. He clutched his father’s velvet shirt and
begged him not to leave. He apologized. He pleaded. He cursed and
fumed and told his father that he loved him, but Lord Kingsley
Falls was dead. The king of the last free city on Edhen had been
murdered.
    To the west, the army of the high king
marched up over the road.
     
     

 
BRYNLEE

    Aberdour became a city of panic when the
brood of black vipers appeared on the southwestern hillside.
Thousands of spears and halberds jutted up from the mob like the
talons of a monster while the golden insignia of a viper flapped
high in the breeze on crimson flags. The soldiers filed over the
hillside step-by-step, unit-by-unit, until the green field
sprawling before the city sat covered with a dark patchwork of
enemy divisions and siege weapons.
    The dirt and stone streets of Aberdour,
soiled by remnants of winter’s runoff, churned under the footsteps
of thousands of citizens pushing and running, screaming and calling
for loved ones, fleeing to whatever shelter they could find—barn
lofts, crawl spaces, wooden homes with shingled roofs.
    The chaos was sheer terror to the mind of
seven-year-old Brynlee Falls.
    Heralds of the high king’s army blew their
trumpets, a deep, bone-chilling reverberation that sent shivers
down Brynlee’s spine. Next to her, Scarlett, her baby sister,
clutched her ears to quell the awful