Cyrus tried to remain optimistic. He tried to hold faith in the divine beings pledged to protect Thanet. A seemingly endless tide of soldiers disembarking from the ships and marching the main thoroughfare toward the outer castle walls broke that faith.

“Tell me, Rayan, if the walls fall and our gods die, how will you protect me?”

Rayan looked to the distant congregation of his fellow paladins of Lycaena at the outer gate, and his thoughts clearly echoed Cyrus’s.

“Poorly,” he said. “Stay here, and pray for us all. We will need every bit of help this cruel world can muster.”

The paladin exited the balcony. The heavy thud of the shutting door quickened Cyrus’s pulse, and he swallowed down his lingering fear. A cowardly part of him shouted to find somewhere in the castle to bury his head and hide. Stubborn pride kept his feet firmly in place. He was the fourteen-year-old Prince of Thanet, and he would bear witness to the fate of his kingdom.

The assault began with the arrival of the ladders, dozens of thick planks of wood with metal hooks bolted onto their tops so they could lock tightly onto the walls. The defenders rushed to shove them off, but the empire’s crossbowmen punished them with volley after volley. Swords clashed, and though the empire’s losses were heavy, nothing slowed the ascent of the invaders. What started as a few scattered soldiers fighting atop the walls became a mile-long battlefield. It did not take long before the gray tunics overwhelmed the blue tabards of Vallessau.

Next came the battering ram. How the enemy had built it in such short a time baffled Cyrus, but there was no denying its steady hammering on the opposite side of the outer gate. Even the intervals were maddeningly consistent. Every four seconds, the gate would rattle, the wood would crack, and the imperial army grew that much closer to flooding into the courtyard.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cyrus whispered to himself. “The gods protect us. The gods will save us.”

The fight along the walls was growing thicker, with more ladders managing to stay upright with every passing moment. Cyrus could spare no glance in their direction, for with one last shuddering blast, the battering ram knocked open the outer gate. The invading army flooded through, and should have easily overrun the vastly outnumbered defenders, but at long last, the castle doors opened and Thanet’s divine made their presence known.