Princess Cinna of Selkarc, eldest daughter of King Artemisias V, stopped before a pair of ornate doors. She nodded to the guards on either side, who bowed their heads slightly in acknowledgement and pushed the throne room doors aside. Cinna waited until the doors were entirely open before walking in.

  The throne room was a long, high ceilinged room clad in ornately carved wood that summoned memories of Selkarc’s past as a nation of seafaring raiders. Although Selkarc had long since transitioned into a powerhouse of sea trade, elements of its roots remained in the sagas depicted on the walls and the room’s resemblance to a traditional longhouse. But where a longhouse would have been built of plain, seasoned wood, the wood here was painted white and edged in gold.

  On the far side of the room sat the king, seated upon a golden throne with white cushions. A second throne, identical to the first, lay empty beside him. Both were situated on a dais, but it was only a few centimeters off the ground. Lining both sides of the throne room were various courtiers, ministers, and advisors present for the political theater taking place.

  Cinna walked until she was a few meters away from the throne and knelt, bowing her head as a show of respect. She made certain to keep her hand away from the hilt of her sword; she had a habit of resting one hand on the pommel at all times and that might be seen as a sign of hostility even if the sword currently at her hip was purely ceremonial. After a few moments of silence, King Artemisias spoke.

  “You may raise your head.”

  “Yes, father.”

  Cinna looked up, but remained kneeling. Her father, a middle-aged man with graying brown hair and an otherwise youthful appearance, regarded her with a face set in stone. She didn’t take personally. This was all an act planned out well in advance and carried out simply because certain formalities were expected on occasions such as this one. In practical terms, this was a means of announcing to the court at large that Cinna was being sent away on a mission.

  “Do you know why I have called you hear today?” asked the king.

  “Yes, father. I am to lead a relief force of our finest troops to Castle Sada to relieve the Crown Prince’s forces there. Then I am to return home with the contingent currently stationed on the front lines,” Cinna replied, speaking loudly enough for her voice to be heard from all corners of the room. King Artemisias nodded gravely and waved to a guard stationed near the throne, who stepped forward to hand a medallion to Cinna.

  “That medallion contains formal orders to Prince Dalton. See to it that he receives it. Know that he has been informed in advance that your orders are to return here after relieving his army; do not attempt to deceive him into believing you are there to take his place,” Artemesias ordered.

  Although Cinna gritted her teeth at that, she didn’t argue. The warning was a result of her own impetuousness years prior. When she’d heard that her brother was being sent to the frontline of the war against Barkolt, Cinna had embarrassed herself with a public outburst in the middle of court. It wasn’t that she’d felt slighted at being passed over. It was that, between the two of them, Dalton was the politician and Cinna was the general. Her elder brother had been raised to take the throne and was educated primarily in statecraft while Cinna had been allowed to pursue her more martial talents.

  But Selkarc was far from the war, and it was a naval power. A nigh-insurmountable mountain range cut the peninsular kingdom off from the rest of the continent, so there had never been a need for Selkarc to develop its army. It had only so many troops to contribute to the war effort. Instead Selkarc had deployed a group of its best siege engineers guarded by an elite force of knights and mages. Compared to the armies mobilized by other nations its was a paltry addition to the war effort.

  Sending the crown prince himself had been the only way for Selkarc to prove it was taking the situation seriously.

  “Of course, father,” Cinna acknowledged as she took hold of the medallion with both hands. It was little more than a disc of metal with a gem at its center, but she knew that running a bit of mana through it would cause the device to telepathically project the message it carried. She slid it into her pocket without doing so. Even if the message hadn’t been meant for her brother, she’d been present when it was recorded anyway.

  “You are dismissed.”

  Cinna stood and made a sharp about face, then marched out of the throne room by way of the doors she’d entered through. Her shoulders and back remained rigid until she heard the doors shut behind her. She relaxed slightly, but the difference was likely indiscernible from the perspective of anyone watching. A lifetime of training had beaten the bearing of a soldier into Cinna.

  With the audience out of the way, Cinna made her way directly to the courtyard which doubled as the castle’s mustering ground. It had space for several thousand troops, assuming they were packed into formation, but currently held just two hundred men and women along with their baggage train. Seeing Cinna emerge from the castle, the captain serving as her lieutenant for this trip called the troops to attention.

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  “General Cinna has arrived! All hands, salute!”

  As the courtyard was mostly empty space and paving stones at the moment, her troops had mustered close to the door Cinna came through. It took her just a few seconds to reach them after the acknowledgement went out. She stepped up next to Captain Bright and panned her gaze across the soldiers arrayed in front of her.

  Half were siege engineers. Just because Selkarc was difficult to reach did not mean it was inaccessible, but it was more economical to build long-lasting fortifications than it was to maintain a large standing army. As such, Selkarc was home to many specialists in the construction and improvement of those defenses.

  Of the remaining hundred soldiers, three-fifths were knights. Only some bore the actual noble title; most were the second or third children of higher-ranking nobles that weren’t in line to inherit. Among that rather broad population, these men and women were the best of the best. Sending anything less could risk upsetting larger and more powerful nations.

  That left forty mages of various specializations arranged into squads that balanced offense and defense. These were largely commoners. Nobles could—and did—learn magic, but it was far more common for direct successors to be educated in it as a means of differentiating them from their younger siblings. That meant that nobles and their heirs were incredible mages, but the nation could hardly afford to deploy the bulk of its ruling class abroad, so Cinna’s mages were drawn from scholarship students and the children of merchants.

  A fine assemblage of Selkarc’s greatest. Their posture was perfect; their equipment perfectly maintained. She could have been staring at a field full of statues for all that they moved. That discipline would serve them well on the battlefield. Cinna was proud of the soldiers before her; she only wished she could join them on the frontlines herself.

  “At ease,” Cinna commanded. As one, the soldiers dropped into a parade rest. “You know your mission. You know its importance. You may be few, but you are without exception the best Selkarc has to offer. I have no doubt that every one of you will go above and beyond in representing Selkarc on the frontlines of the war against Barkolt. Serve my brother well and you will be rewarded commensurately upon your return. Understood?”

  “Yes, general!” the troops roared in a single voice.

  “Good. About face!” At Cinna’s command, the entire unit spun to face the castle gate. Before she could give the order to march, however, she was interrupted.

  “Princess! Wait!”

  Cinna turned to find a footman rushing out of the castle. His expression was controlled, but she senses an underlying panic beneath his veneer of calm. The princess narrowed her eyes and frowned, but she knew better than to bite the head off of a subordinate bearing a message for her simply because he’d interrupted her.

  “I assume this is important?” she asked.

  “…very,” the man confirmed. He glanced at Captain Bright and the troops behind him. “It should not be discussed here.”

  “Captain, have your soldiers perform one final check of their equipment. I will return shortly,” Cinna ordered, turning to Captain Bright.

  “Yes, general. Take five, everyone! Ensure your equipment is present and accounted for and double-check that our supplies are in order!” Bright commanded.

  Cinna nodded towards the messenger and followed him back into the castle to a nearby sitting room. It was a chamber meant for visiting dignitaries to rest in while waiting for an audience with the king and richly decorated as a result, but Cinna paid this no mind. She didn’t even take a seat in one of the lush seats that surrounded the room’s ornate coffee table. Instead Cinna stopped just inside the door and waited for the footman to close it behind them.

  “Alright. What’s so important that it necessitated delaying my departure?” Cinna asked informally now that they were alone. There was no need to keep up appearances in the absence of a crowd.

  “Just after you left the throne room…we received word from the Archpriest. In person. He reported…he reported that the clergy have lost contact with the gods. All of them,” the messenger informed Cinna in an unsteady voice, as if he couldn’t believe the news himself.

  “If this is someone’s idea of a joke, it isn’t funny,” Cinna replied coldly.

  “…there’s more,” the messenger said nervously, now thoroughly cowed by Cinna’s harsh response. Seeing that, Cinna took a deep breath and calmed herself, then nodded for the man to continue. “Every oracle the Archpriest contacted reported that they’d received the same message. They were all told the gods have forsaken us…because Barkolt slew Mortos.”

  “Impossible!” Cinna objected. “The gods are closer to concepts than people. How could a mere necromancer possibly have slain the concept of death itself?”

  “I don’t know, Your Highness,” the messenger answered. “I wasn’t informed what the exact wording of the revelation was. Only that Mortos is dead and Barkolt perished attempting to usurp his power.”

  For just a few seconds, Cinna was stunned speechless. She was beginning to accept that this was no lie. The implications were enormous. While Cinna was primarily educated in leading armies, she was also no fool, and she could immediately foresee the dire consequences of a complete collapse of the world’s religions.

  Some would turn to new gods; nonexistent ones. Others would swear off religion entirely. Governments relying too heavily on the temples for their legitimacy would find themselves overthrown. There would be mass riots. Anarchy as a segment of the population, held in check only by the threat of eternal punishment, decided they no longer had anything to fear. One issue, though, stood out to her as particularly imminent.

  “The necromancers,” she breathed out. Great effort had gone into ensuring that Barkolt’s mere existence didn’t tarnish the name of necromancers as a whole. Now there was no averting that particular witch-hunt. As soon as the contents of that revelation reached the public, the pogroms would begin.

  Cinna burst into the hallway, shoving aside the door with so much force that it broke from its hinges. Leaving the messenger behind, shouting in confusion, Cinna sprinted back to the troops she’d left in the courtyard. Just before she reached her destination, Cinna slowed, knowing the troops would only panic if they saw her in such a hurry.

  “Captain Bright!” Cinna barked as she walked outside. “Place the engineers on standby. Deploy your remaining men and women to the city by squad. Locate every necromancer in the city and have them brought here unharmed.”

  “Yes, general!” Bright responded, saluting by bringing his left palm to his right shoulder. “Will you be accompanying us? I can assign my best team to escort you.”

  “No. I’ll be returning to the command center. We have a national emergency on our hands and I’m going to have to coordinate the response personally.”

  “What about our mission?”

  “Postponed. Indefinitely.”