“Is this map correct?” he asked Thorda, who sometimes accompanied him during his library excursions, content to quietly read in a corner in case Cyrus had any questions. His master left his chair, crossed the crimson carpet, and peered over his shoulder.

“About a century or so outdated, actually.” He pointed across the map, highlighting tiny little spaces of clear white that had not fallen under the slanted fill lines marking imperial territory. “Antiev, Onleda, Noth-Wall, Aethenwald, Lahareed, and Miquo have all been taken since.”

“Miquo,” Cyrus said. “That’s… that’s your home, isn’t it?”

Thorda hesitated.

“It was,” he said softly. He tapped his finger upon the little sliver along the southeastern portion of the map that somehow remained without lines despite being swallowed on all sides by imperial territory. “Tucked deep into the mountains and built beneath towering godwood trees so tall, no building of human construction can reach half their height. Those mountains and trees protected us better than any wall, which is why they waited centuries to even try.”

Cyrus could tell he was opening old wounds, but his curiosity ached to know the story.

“Why did Miquo fall?” he asked. “Is the empire truly so strong?”

“Do you see this nation right here?” Thorda said, pointing to a similar bit of unconquered land labeled ANTIEV. “There are only two entrances into Miquo. One is through the Vermell Mountains along the south. We rigged countless portions of the path so that we could trigger avalanches. The empire’s first attempt at an invasion died before it even began, for we cut off the army from their supplies. No army can fight long on empty bellies. And so the empire turned to the second entrance…”

He tapped Antiev.

“It took them years, for Antiev was covered with trees akin to our own godwoods, but it finally fell. The Everlorn Empire gained an entrance far less dangerous than our mountain paths. War came at last to our home. Over a decade we fought hard, we bled, and we died. The gods of Miquo fell. The Everlorn Empire planted another flag.”

Silence fell over them both. Cyrus stared at the map, trying to imagine what that war had looked like. He’d had but a taste of a potential invasion. As much as it wounded his pride, he knew Thanet had offered a meager resistance. Miquo had fought for years. Vallessau, Thanet’s capital, had fallen in mere hours. Cyrus skimmed the map and the outlying coastline, then flipped through the book from where he’d found it.

“Is there a map of Thanet in here as well?” he asked.

“Doubtful. Thanet is already on the map, and I suspect it contains what little information the designer possessed.”

But that made no sense. He turned back, and at his hesitation, Thorda indicated a tiny little island nearly disappeared off the fraying edges of the paper.