Kos was the key; it was also a litmus test. The men of Kos were famed isolationists, as stubborn as the goats that scaled their cliffs. If Duncan could persuade them to join him, then, he knew, the rest of Escalon would follow. But if Kos refused, or if Pandesia found out too soon, then an empire of soldiers that no one could hold back—not even the best of their men—would sweep Escalon and wipe out not only he and his men, but all the men, women and children of Escalon. Escalon would be no more, razed to a crisp. The stakes could not be higher: Duncan was gambling with all of their lives.

But freedom, his father had taught him, was more precious than anything in life. And freedom, sometimes, had to be earned repeatedly.

They marched and marched, the day cold and gray, thick clouds hanging low, snow falling all around them, a light snow which never seemed to stop. They marched in silence, these men who understood each other, who had fought many battles together, and nothing need be said between them.

Duncan watched with interest as the terrain changed the farther south they went, the salty, sea-climate of Esephus giving way to a barren stretch of plains and rolling hills. He searched for the Ire with each step, yet it never appeared; this land sprawled forever, and it did not seem as if it would ever end.

They crested a hill and a gale of wind and snow took Duncan’s breath away. He blinked the snow from his eyes, and as he looked out before him, he was mesmerized by the sight. Far below, nestled in a valley, there it sat: the Lake of Ire. It shimmered even beneath a gray sky, glowing a bright red, looking like a sea of fire. Some legends, Duncan knew, told its color came from the blood of its victims, men who waded in never to be seen again; others claimed its color rose from the vicious creatures who lived in its waters; still others had it that its color came from the tears of the goddess who wept in it when she first discovered Escalon.

The Lake of Ire was revered by all in Escalon as a sacred place, a place one came to to pray to the God of Birth and the God of Death—and most of all, the God of Vengeance. It was fitting, Duncan realized, that they would skirt its shores on this day.