“I was in the south, in the jungles. At that point, il Tornja was still a regional commander all the way up in Raalte. I’ve never even met the man.”

Adare frowned, then shook her head. “I’ve read all the classic treatises, but I don’t know the first thing about soldiering. Men say he’s brilliant, that he wins battles no one else could win. His soldiers would follow him around the earth if he asked it, which I suppose makes him dangerous enough.”

She paused. Her memories of il Tornja were like knives; bright and sharp, cutting.

“As for the man,” she went on, trying to find the right words, “he seems flippant, dashing, insouciant . . . but it’s not real. Not all of it, at least. I thought I was smart, but he used me, used me like a fine tool that he had chosen and polished for his purpose, used me without my even knowing it.”

Lehav watched her, the reflected flame of the candle alive in his narrowed eyes. “You escaped,” he pointed out.

She nodded bleakly. “And now we’re going back.”

Over the following days, the fear and uncertainty gnawed at her like a rat trapped in her guts. Still, speech by speech, day by day, the force grew. Men polished their armor, honed their blades, and joined the growing camp just north of the city. Just as importantly, the citizens of Olon and her hinterland gathered as well, some to gawk at the unexpected force, some from genuine devotion to either Adare or Intarra, some because they had something to sell—wagons, horses, grain. Offerings to Intarra’s prophet were all well and good, but people needed to make a living, and there was good money to be made outfitting an army.

Where the money came from was a different question and one that, to Adare’s surprise and satisfaction, she proved uniquely able to answer. Olon, for all its poverty and dilapidation, still acted as a funnel for most of the trade between central Eridroa and the capital itself. Significant trade meant significant taxes, and Adare, leveraging her twin roles as Malkeenian princess and the Minister of Finance, insisted on access to the imperial coffers, coffers packed with coin. Enough coin, as it turned out, to back an army.

A week after the lightning at the Well, the Sons of Flame had most of the supplies necessary to reach Annur. On the following day, they marched, leaving the city while a baffled population looked on, some cheering, some wary, wondering what effect that war would have on them, on their homes and families.