“Dead, like all them buggers in the castle,” the youngest lad answered. He had his back to Borenson, hadn’t seen to whom he was speaking.

A sound escaped Borenson’s throat, something like a growl or a snort. “Everyone?”

Pain must have sounded in his voice, for the lad turned and looked up, eyes widening in fear. He dropped the body and backed away, raising a hand in salute. “Yes—yes, sir,” his older friend said formally. “Only one man lived to tell the tale. Everyone else is dead.”

“A man survived?” Borenson asked distantly, though he wanted to cry out, call Myrrima’s name and see if she would answer. Myrrima had been in this castle.

“Yes, sir,” the older lad said. He staggered backward, afraid Borenson would strike. “You—your men fought bravely. King Orden made a serpent, and fought the Wolf Lord man-to-man. They—we won’t forget such sacrifice.”

“Whose sacrifice?” Borenson asked. “My king’s, or the buggers’?”

The young men turned and ran as if Borenson would strike them both down, and he very nearly did, but he felt little anger toward them.

Borenson scanned the downs wildly, as if Myrrima might stand on the brow of a hill waving to him, or as if he might see one of Raj Ahten’s scouts crest a ridge. Instead, as he looked up, he spotted Gaborn beneath an oak.

The Prince had laid out King Orden’s body, ringed it with spears from his fallen guards, as was the custom in Mystarria. He just stood there, over his dead father, hugging Iome. The Princess had her back to Borenson, and wore a hood, but there could be no mistaking the curves of her body. A knot of three Days all huddled a few yards off to the side, watching the scene with studied patience.

The idiot King Sylvarresta had come off his horse, was in the circle of spears, fawning over King Orden, gazing about dumbly, as if to beg for help.

A sense of horror and desolation swept Borenson, so that he cried out in astonishment and despair.

The fallen castle, the fallen king.

I may have killed him, Borenson thought wildly—my own king. Orden had fought Raj Ahten hand-to-hand, and lost. I could have followed my king’s orders, slain all the Dedicates. Had I obeyed in every detail, perhaps it would have changed something. Perhaps Raj Ahten would have died in that battle.

I let my king die.

The guilt that welled up in Borenson was a wild thing, a storm that came from everywhere and seemed to uproot every fiber of his sanity.

An ancient law in Mystarria said the last command of a king must be obeyed, even if the king falls in battle. The command must be obeyed.