Amara nodded. “I hope so,” she said. “Love, you should have some food and rest, too.”

“Aye. In just a moment.” His fingers absently stroked her hand. “Pretty sunset, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful,” she replied. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

The sun was nearly gone, its ruddy light glaring into their eyes. Shadows spread long across the Valley’s floor.

And off in the distance, the shrieks of angry vord whispered from the Valley’s walls.

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 40

“Let me deal with this,” Invidia snarled. “Give me our earthcrafters and the behemoths, and that wall won’t last five minutes.”

“No,” said the Queen. She paced back and forth beside the pool of water, staring down at it. Her tattered old gown rustled and whispered. “No, not yet,” she said.

“You saw the losses they inflicted.”

The Queen shrugged a shoulder, the motion elegant, at odds with the stained finery she wore. “Losses are to be expected. Especially here, at the last. They revealed hidden capabilities without destroying us, which we will overcome in our next encounter. That is a victory.” She looked up at Invidia sharply. “However, I do not understand why you did not warn me about the great fury in the mountain.”

“Because I didn’t know about it,” Invidia replied, her voice tight. “Obviously.”

“You said you had been here before.”

“To pick up Isana in a wind coach,” Invidia said. “Not to plan an invasion.”

The vord Queen stared at Invidia for a moment, as though she hadn’t quite understood the difference. Then she nodded slowly. “It must be another disparate Aleran experience.”

Invidia folded her arms. “Obviously. It wasn’t a part of the context.”

The Queen tilted her head. “But you intended to conquer Alera.”

“I intended to take it whole,” she said, “by co-opting its system of governance. The use of military force was never a preferred course of action. Certainly, there was little probability that I would ever have a need to attack this remote little valley. With the exception of providing a convenient and predictable place for the Marat to attack, it’s been of no historical importance whatsoever.”

At that, Isana looked up from where she sat, near the imprisoned Araris’s feet, and smiled.

Invidia’s presence became suffused with sudden rage, only slowly gathered back under control. The burned woman turned to the Queen, and said, “Every moment we spend here with our forces doing nothing brings complications.”

“They are not ‘our’ forces, Invidia,” the Queen said. “They are mine. And you still think like an Aleran. My troops will not desert in the face of starvation. They will not cast their allegiance with another. They will not hesitate to obey nor refuse to attack an enemy at my command. Do not fear.”

“I am not afraid,” Invidia said, her voice coldly precise.

“Of course you are,” Isana said calmly. “You’re both terrified.”