For the first time in as long as he could remember, Ra felt a pang of fear. He could not help but think of the prophecy that had haunted his reign: There would come a rise of the dragons, followed by a rise of the valiant. A single girl would rise up, with powers never before seen, and control the north. She would command them to destroy Pandesia—and she could only be stopped before her powers were complete.

Ra sat there, feeling his heart slamming his chest, and he knew now that the day had come.

“Where is she?” Ra asked the messenger.

The messenger swallowed.

“Our spies have been told she heads to the ancient Tower of Ur.”

Ur. The Tower. The Watchers. That only cemented Ra’s fears. He knew the power that lurked behind those walls. If she reached that tower, she could become more powerful than he could control. He had to use all the force at his disposal to stop her before it was too late.

There came a shout outside the hall, and Ra caught a glimpse, through the open-air arch, fifty-feet-high, of the companies of soldiers patrolling the courtyard. They were an army grown idle. An army that needed to be fed. An army ready for war.

Ra stood to his full height, his muscles bulging, his golden armor jingling. He casually swung around his golden dagger and sliced the throat of the messenger before him, as if scratching his arm. He saw fresh fear in the faces of all those stationed in his chamber. They should be afraid, he realized. For Ra was not only a great leader, not only a god, but also a great warrior. He could feel his blood boiling, itching for bloodlust, for complete domination, for the urge to have all peoples in every corner of the world bend their knee to him.

Ra looked out and surveyed his commanders, all afraid to meet his gaze.

“Assemble all my armies,” he commanded. “We shall stop at nothing until we find this girl.”

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

It made no sense. Vidar stood atop the parapets of Volis and looked north, for the horizon, towards The Flames, and he wondered. So far off, their dim glow was slowly becoming visible as afternoon gave way to dusk, and as he stood there, a dozen of his brothers-in-arms around him, all Duncan’s men, he was perplexed. For hours, he’d been feeling the tremor, a slight vibration that rang through the ground, through his feet, like a mild earthquake. His whole life in Volis he had never felt anything like it.

Vidar reached out and laid his hands on the stone, and as he did, he felt it again: a tremor. It came every minute or so, then disappeared just as suddenly. It seemed to be getting stronger.