Certainly, most of them hoped to come home, to rebuild. But in hard times, with war approaching, Iome’s people could not rebuild without some nearby fortification.

The castle was nearly ruined. Huge blocks of stone that had lain in place for twelve centuries now lay cracked and shattered.

Almost subconsciously, Iome began calculating what it would take to repair the fortress: five hundred stonemasons out of Eyremoth, for they were the best. Carters to drag the stones, frowth giants hired out of Lonnock to place them. Men to dig moats. Lumberjacks to cut trees. Cooks and iron-smiths, with mortar, chisels, saws, awls, axes, and . . . the list went on and on.

But to what purpose? If Raj Ahten could simply shatter the castle with a shout?

She looked up on the hill, saw Gaborn kneeling in a patch of snow, in the field. Gaborn had laid his father’s body out on the hill above the castle, beneath a great oak tree. A huge limb lay near them.

Gaborn had collected dozens of spears, and he ringed these about his father’s corpse, creating a fence of sorts, to keep out the wolves.

In the tree above his father’s corpse, he had hung his father’s golden shield. He took his father’s helm, laid it in the snow at his father’s feet—a sign that his father had fallen in battle.

She turned her horse, went to him, leading her father’s stallion. Behind King Sylvarresta followed the three Days: hers, her father’s, and Gaborn’s. King Sylvarresta had verged on falling dead asleep in his saddle a few minutes before, but now stared about, grinning broadly at the snow through bleary eyes, a child filled with delight.

Gaborn looked up at Iome as she approached; his face looked bleak, desolate. Iome knew then that she would find no words to comfort him. She had nothing to offer him. In the past few days, she’d lost nearly everything—her home, her parents, her beauty . . . and things less tangible.

How will I ever sleep again? she wondered. In her mind, the castle had always been the supreme icon of security. In a world fraught with danger, it had always been a safe haven.

No more.

She felt now that she’d lost her childhood, her innocence. Her peace of mind was torn from her.

Not just because her mother lay dead and one of her castles lay in ruins. As she rode that morning, she considered what had happened. Yesterday, she’d feared that Borenson would sneak into Castle Sylvarresta, kill her Dedicates. She imagined that secretly she’d known what he would do, though she hated it.