The delicately crafted statues and intricate carvings of the Brynth buildings passed in a blur, my horse following the ones ahead on its own. In my mind, the scene in the Turren Wing replayed over and over again. The Illucian soldier’s mocking words, the Turren smith’s disappointment as she looked at me.

A shadow fell over me, and I blinked rapidly, clearing fuzzy vision I hadn’t noticed. My horse had stopped, as had the others, and Ericen sat merely a foot away, looking down at me from his massive stallion.

“I said, what are these?” He gestured to the rows of pure white statues on either side of us, carved into figures twice the size of a normal person. Each stood beside the black marble sculpture of a crow, or what was left of them. Several had chunks missing from their wings and bodies, and one of the figure’s hands was missing.

More damage from Ronoch shoved to the wayside in the face of bigger problems.

“Saints’ Row,” I responded. We’d reached the other end of the Brynth Wing already?

“The riders you worship.” He said the words with derision.

“Some people do.” The stories said the Saints were the first riders, gifted the crows by the Sellas. Together, they’d built Rhodaire, and when the Saints passed, they ascended into godhood. Before Ronoch, I’d believed that as wholeheartedly as anyone. Now I wanted to know why they hadn’t helped us. Why they hadn’t protected us.

At the end of Saints’ Row stood a building nearly as large as the castle. The citadel, a place of learning and research, where academics studied architecture and chemistry, crow flight patterns and the origins of magic. Before Ronoch, it’d been the earth crows’ unending project, slowly expanding upward and outward like a living thing. Now the unfinished upper level sat exposed like fractured bones, scaffolding slowly rusting in the humid air and tarps flapping in the wind like white flags of surrender.

“They certainly didn’t do much for the people that did,” Ericen said.

I scowled. “If you want to find your own way back to the castle, that can be arranged.”

He raised a single black eyebrow, the unspoken reminder echoing in the hot air. If you push me too far… I looked away, and in that moment, I felt the eyes of the Turren smith on me again, dark with disappointment and shame.

I’d begun this tour with renewed confidence, then let Ericen take it from me without so much as a fight. My whole life, I had fought: for my mother’s approval, for my place as a rider, for my skills and strength and knowledge. I’d pushed unwaveringly, and when I had met a wall, I’d shattered it.

When had I stopped fighting?

No more. I was done.