Despite her reservations, after several more days, Adare was forced to admit that the events at the Everburning Well, divinely ordained or not, had worked a small miracle for her cause. Not only were the Sons of Flame flocking to Lehav’s call, but the common people of Olon, sons and daughters both, came in scores, then hundreds, then thousands, some begging to join the holy army, others bearing baskets of food, or even, in one strange case, a dozen iron rakes.

Can strip the skin from some legionary bastard with a rake as well as a sword, the giver proudly proclaimed.

The words made Adare sick. She needed to see il Tornja unseated—that much she had never doubted—but now that her own army was gathering, she was starting to tally up the true cost for the first time. She wasn’t just preparing to fight a war, she was putting together a military force that would kill Annurians, loyal soldiers doing their best to hold their posts and defend the empire. It was a grim thought, one that refused to leave her as she worked with Lehav to make the force ready to march.

As it turned out, rallying an army wasn’t simply a matter of running a flag up the pole, making a few stirring speeches, and passing out swords. Not even for a princess. Not even for a prophet. Adare had thought she understood something of military logistics from her reading, but the books made everything seem tidy, manageable, as though the main work were lining up wagons and procuring rations, meting out rank and enforcing discipline. Whoever wrote the books, however, had evidently authored them from a comfortable chair far from the mess of actual mobilization.

It took Lehav almost a full week just to assemble a respectable force out of the disbanded Sons of Flame. Most of the soldiers had quit Annur, traveling south partly to escape the capital, partly to chase the whispers they’d heard of a force coalescing secretly in Olon. Coalesce it certainly had—there were thousands upon thousands of Sons in and around the city—but the secret part meant that, for all but a few hundred, Lehav’s innermost circle, there was no clear hierarchy, no established muster point, no protocol for the dissemination and verification of orders, nothing beyond a shared desire to defend Intarra with the force of their arms and a tenacious hatred of the Malkeenians.