Shadows receded, revealing the castellan’s quarters at Voldmarr Watch, Melanna’s home while the dispirited remnants of her father’s army gathered for a humiliating march home.

Melanna’s pulse steadied, her death-grip on the blankets relaxing alongside. The nightmare had seemed so real, though she recalled nothing of it save the scream. It wouldn’t hurt to check in on her father. Wounds turned sour, and the conditions in the Tressian stockade . . .

Aware that she was conjuring bleak fates from nothing, Melanna threw aside her blankets and pulled on her robes. The rampart beyond the chamber door carried the cold breath of the mountains, parting the last skeins of sleep. It was also quieter than it should have been, lacking the small sounds of the crowded courtyard.

The empty courtyard.

Melanna stared over the inner rampart into a space that should have been filled with men, wagons and horses. But there were no tents. No campfires. Fingers scratched on rough stone as Melanna steadied herself against the wall. Even her guards were gone – Sera and the two lunassera who had stood as sentries since her arrival. All gone.

She was alone.

Shifting wind drew Melanna’s eye westward. Past Kreska, past the humiliating fields of Davenwood, to where Eskavord should have lain defiant beneath the stars. There was only darkness.

“You see the price of arrogance.” Ashana propped her elbows on the outer rampart. The slit sleeves of her dress hung like verdant pennants against the wall.

Melanna’s panic receded as she at last noted the mists curling across the hillside. “My arrogance?”

“In part. You awoke desperation in another. In that desperation he roused something better left sleeping.”

Melanna’s blood ran cold. “Malatriant.”

Ashana nodded. “Or as near as doesn’t matter.”

“You’re talking about the Sceadotha! How can it not matter?”

“Maybe it is Malatriant. Maybe it’s the power she wielded, which only believes itself her. Our fears shape the Dark as much as the Dark shapes our fears. That’s why it so often chooses a trusted face. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. The truth makes little difference.”

Melanna found herself struggling to follow Ashana’s words. But other details sang out. “Akadra. The man-of-shadow. He awoke this.”

“He did a terrible, foolish thing for the very best of reasons. You pushed him to it, you and your thirst for battle.” She sighed. “But something would have cracked, even without you. She’s been twisting souls for years. Making proud folk stubborn, and petty folk cruel. That was always her gift.”

Melanna closed her eyes, lost in the tales of a blazing hearth. The soft pearlescent notes of her mother’s harp-strings. “She conquered the old Tressian kingdom and brought order out of anarchy. But only for a time.”