“How does it feel?” asked General Tryggve Selkarc—whose seat Cinna currently occupied. Cinna glanced at a certain chip on the desk and then gave her uncle an unamused look. He was a tall man, broad with muscle and sporting a mane of hair that reached his waist. Some considered him handsome, but Cinna wasn’t equipped to judge that. She found the amused look on his face terribly annoying.

  “I believe you can answer that question from personal experience,” Cinna pointed out.

  “Mm. My sister was at a diplomatic conference when our father died,” Tryggve replied, eyes growing distant. His mind had returned to a time two decades prior, when Cinna was still a child.

  Her uncle had grown reflective in his old age. She’d gotten used to his tendency to reminisce and share stories he’d already told dozens of times before, but not enough so to avoid triggering them.

  “I had to take the title of regent in her absence. In a way, it worked out for the best. That encouraged the nobles favoring me as the successor into showing their true colors. Cecilia’s succession ended up being far smoother after I purged them,” Tryggve recalled, summing up a bloody event in a single word.

  “You’ve told me before, uncle,” Cinna reminded him.

  “Did a similar faction approach you while I was away?” Tryggve asked.

  “No. All I’ve dealt with is the numerous petitioners that drove me from my office in the palace and into yours. The nobility learned their lesson with you, I suspect. Their intention this time appears to be to replace our family entirely. You’ve read the same reports I have,” Cinna answered, shaking her head in disgust.

  “Well…it made sense at the time,” Tryggve deflected. He rubbed his neck in embarrassment, but he showed no sign of regret. Even Cinna had to admit his actions had prevented an outright rebellion. The warhawks of the time had hoped Tryggve would be easier to goad into starting wars than his sister, and they would have done anything to put him on the throne. But that didn’t mean his actions had had no negative repercussions.

  “And now we must deal with Duke Korhonen and his ilk. They were solid supporters of my mother, but hold no such loyalty toward my father or my siblings.” Cinna shook her head and sighed. It was a complicated matter that would require high-level politicking to resolve. Purging the nobles in question might provoke the rest to rebel in fear of it becoming customary every time a new monarch took the throne.

  But politics was not Cinna’s forte; it was Dalton’s. At best Cinna could intimidate her political enemies into laying low with the threat of another purge. Eventually they would call her bluff, though, so she hoped her brother returned quickly. At a forced march he might be able to reach a port early and cut weeks off his trip, and she’d advised him to do exactly that.

  “Then we’d best ensure your brother had as little to worry about as possible when he returns. That way he can focus his attention on the political situation,” Tryggve said. He’d practically read Cinna’s mind, and not for the first time. They’d always been alike: second-eldest children, military minded, and ardent supporters of their elder siblings.

  “On that note, what did you find?”

  “Nothing. I took the best mages under my command with me and none of them found any sign of who is raising those corpses.” Tryggve rubbed his neck once again, more out of frustration than embarrassment this time. “In hindsight I’m not sure there was any point in going myself. Sorry for sticking you with the council meetings in my place.”

  “No you’re not,” Cinna replied flatly. “We both know you went specifically to avoid dealing with the council during this crisis. And I can’t even be mad at you because if I had a niece or nephew at my rank I would have done the same.”

  “Gahaha! Saw right through me, did you? Well, that aside, I think I did manage to reduce tensions. Seeing the High General himself touring the kingdom must have helped everyone feel more confident that even in with the gods gone we would still protect them.” Tryggve shrugged. Cinna opened her mouth to speak.

  Kri-crack.

  The words died in her mouth. Cinna felt her heart drop at the sound of not one but two gems shattering. She’d heard that sound once before…on the day her mother died. She looked down, eyeing the chain around her neck that supported the pendant hidden beneath her shirt. Then Cinna looked up to meet Tryggve’s eyes; she found him equally horrified.

  He gulped. “On three?” Cinna nodded in reply. “One…two…three,” Tryggve counted. Simultaneously the two royals fished the pendants out from beneath their shirts. When she gazed at the pendant, Cinna’s vision seemed to narrow as if trying to protect her from seeing it all at once.

  Aside from a mid-sized gemstone representing the wearer, the two pendants were identical. The largest gem represented the monarch that had inherited the throne. That one, a ruby, had shattered years ago, leaving a jagged surface where chips had fallen away. Normally it would have been replaced with glass, but Cinna had opted to keep it as-is until Dalton ascended to the throne.

  Gathering the willpower to check the other gems, Cinna next panned her gaze to a topaz representing the king. Her eyes moved slowly, and she couldn’t tell if her sense of time had slowed or if her very eyes were resisting her. She found it intact, however. A chill ran down Cinna’s spine at that. If her father had passed abruptly from a stress-induced heart attack or apoplexy she could have at least understood it.

  Tearing her eyes away from the topaz, Cinna finally looked to the ring of stones that surrounded the two monarchal stones. Most were glass; her uncle and siblings were the only living members of the royal family aside from the king. Her own carnelian was obviously intact, as was Tryggve’s peridot. Kamilla’s sapphire remained undamaged, as did Rasmus’s amethyst. Now Cinna’s breath stopped, just as her gaze did on Dalton’s emerald.

  Cracks ran through the once pristine surface. A chip had already fallen away.

  “No…Dalton? But how? A sickness…? Someone in his entourage would have contacted us. Could he have been ambushed on the road? I can’t imagine why anyone would attack his group, though, even if the alliance against Barkolt is dissolved. But what other reason—”

  “Cinna, it is too soon to panic,” Tryggve interrupted in a hoarse voice. “You know as well as I do that he could have shattered his own gem in order to fake his death.”

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  “That thought brings me no comfort, Uncle Tryggve. That would mean Dalton was in such danger that he felt it necessary to such drastic measures necessary,” Cinna responded.

  “Do you recall which kingdom he was travelling through last?” Tryggve asked.

  “I urged him to conduct a forced march when last we spoke. He might be anywhere from Laskal to Immer. However…the intact gems should still be connected. Master Alfvin may be able to determine the current location of Dalton’s pendant,” Cinna proposed.

  “It would be best if we go to him, then. That way we can have the farspeakers contact whichever authorities are closest immediately.”

  Nodding in agreement, Cinna stood and followed her uncle out the door. The Hall of Seier lay relatively close to Tryggve’s office in the barracks, but to avoid going outside and alerting any nobles to Cinna’s location the pair took a more circuitous route through passages utilized by the castle’s servants. It earned them not a few curious stares, but Cinna merely waved to the staff she passed to indicate they should continue their duties.

  Taking a detour nearly doubled the time it took to arrive at the Hall of Seier, but dealing with questions from the various nobles still seeking a conversation with Cinna would have delayed she and Tryggve far more. They arrived to find the central hub of the Hall of Seier in silence. Nearly a dozen mages were present, but they were busy with their research and studies.

  “Master Alfvin?” Tryggve called out, drawing every eye in the room to himself in the process. Once the mages present realized he was not there for them, though, they returned to their duties.

  “Tryggve? For the last time, I will not enchant your sword to—ah, Princess Cinna. My apologies. If you wished to speak with me, you could have sent a summons,” Alfvin said as he emerged from the library off to the left. Cinna gave Tryggve a curious look, but he answered only with a smirk and a shrug.

  “We have reason to believe we will need the services of your farspeakers as well,” Cinna informed the middle-aged head of Selkarc’s royal mages. He looked Cinna’s age, but she knew that was the work of one of his original spells. Carefully, Cinna reached behind her neck and unclasped her pendant, then handed it to Alfvin. “I’d like you to tell me where Dalton’s pendant is right now.

  Alfvin looked down at the pendant briefly, a look of shock crossing his face when he spotted the shattered emerald. “I…understand. Come with me.” Alfvin turned towards the farspeak center and practically jogged to it, somehow managing to not trip over his gray robes in the process. By the time Cinna and Tryggve caught up, Alfvin was already standing over a large map of the world occupying the middle of the room and chanting a spell in the gods’ language.

  “Nisig-gá kalam-ma ní?-gal-la mu-un-?i-sa. Gu mu?en ní? ku-zah. E-a?-a gíg-bi dam-ma an-ta mu-un-?i-du mu-un-si-in-ga?. Mapa-ta ki-bi mu-un-?i-in-de!” When the last word left Alfvin’s mouth, the five intact gems set into Cinna’s pendant lit up. A hazy line of light formed between each of them and two locations on the map. One set of lines pointed to Selkarc, brighter than the others because three locations were overlapping. Another, fainter set of lines converged on a road in Laskal.

  “Close to the border with Immer, there’s still a city in the way. I doubt Dalton was attacked by Immerians. Laskal would never allow Immerian troops inside its borders,” Tryggve murmured.

  “Have your farspeakers contact both kingdoms, Master Alfvin. Even if Immer isn’t involved, their hatred for the Laskalish runs deep and their spies may know what happened,” Cinna ordered.

  “At once,” Alfvin acknowledged, bowing his head. He waved to two of the farspeakers on duty and ordered each to contact one of the two kingdoms. Cinna tapped her foot as she watched the two select the insignia for their assigned nations. Each had been bound to a beacon in its home nation that made it easier for farspeakers to pinpoint the location of their counterparts abroad.

  “…no answer. All I hear is footsteps. Like someone is walked around the beacon very slowly,” the mage assigned to contact Laskal announced.

  “Strange. If they don’t wish to talk, they could have easily blocked the connection,” Alfvin commented.

  “What in Soltha’s name do you want, Selkarcian coward?” growled a voice from thin air above the other farspeaker. Tryggve and Cinna exchanged a momentary look; many of the “front-line” kingdoms involved in the war against Barkolt held similar sentiments but it was highly unusual for them to be expressed so directly. Much less by a farspeaker, given they were typically trained in diplomacy.

  “You are speaking to Princess Regent Cinna of Selkarc. Is this the manner in which Immerian farspeakers are taught to speak to foreign dignitaries?” Cinna questioned flatly.

  “We’ve got more important things to worry about than your delicate feelings. You’re lucky any of us was even free to respond. You still haven’t told me what the hell you want,” the Immerian man answered in an irate tone. Cinna sighed internally, but decided she too had better things to worry about than manners at the moment.

  “And he’s lucky I’m not there in person to relieve him of his teeth,” Tryggve murmured.

  “What I want is to know the whereabouts of my elder brother, Crown Prince Dalton. My sources tell that he was last seen in Laskal, but they have not responded to our attempts to contact them. Being as your nation is hostile to Laskal, am I correct to assume you have been monitoring their activities?” Cinna asked.

  “Laskal? Laskal is fucking gone. This is the problem with you Selkarcians. You leave all the fighting to us and can’t even be bothered to keep up with what’s happening!”

  “Gone…? What do you mean by that?” Cinna wondered, confused.

  “Gone. Overrun. Exterminated. Barkolt’s horde attacked the walls in force yesterday morning. You and the rest of the leeches pulled your forces off the walls the moment you heard Barkolt died and left them undermanned. They’ve got mages somehow. There’ve been breeches across the entire line.” The farspeaker tapped the Selkarcian insignia on the other side, a universal signal that he needed to step away. Before anyone could find the words to speak, though, he returned. “You’ve got your answer. Your brother probably died like the craven he was. I need to check in on Rotestal Castle, so I no longer have time to entertain you.”

  The room fell silent as those present reeled from what they’d just heard. Cinna could hardly determine what to focus on first. Another attack by the undead? Did that mean Barkolt still lived? Even if that were true, the network of castles and walls spanning the continent had held off such attacks in the beginning when more distant nations had yet to send reinforcements. The princess found it difficult to believe that Laskal could have been completely overrun in just one day.

  “Did anyone else notice he said something about mages? We weren’t the only ones whose necromancers were hunted down on the Day of Revelation. If any closer to the front lines escaped, they would have been in a perfect position to use Barkolt’s leaderless army for revenge,” Tryggve theorized. Hearing him skip over Dalton’s fate entirely almost drove Cinna to rebuke him. Once she saw the grim expression on his face and his damp eyes, though, Cinna realized her uncle must have been using more practical matters to distract himself from his worry.

  “If that were the case then he would merely have said necromancers. That he said mages implies other forms of magic were used,” Alfvin disagreed.

  “That makes no sense. The undead would have killed any mages trying to side with them on sight,” Cinna pointed out.

  “I believe I can shed some light on this,” said a voice from behind. Cinna turned to find Baron Lundgren in the doorway. “Before you ask, I am here because Master Alfvin is working with me to decipher my family’s tomes. Our library survived the Day of Revelation thanks to our retinue of guards. As the new head of the family, it is my responsibility to continue our practices.”

  “…I see. What did you wish to tell us?” Cinna asked, seeing the fatigue on the baron’s face. He clearly lacked the energy to argue and had no desire for her pity.

  “I’ve been studying the forms of undead, and I believe I know what that man was referring to. Liches. A type of undead created by returning the soul of a mage to their own body,” Lundgren explained.

  “A sapient soul cannot be returned to its body without assenting to it first,” Alfvin argued. “Where would Barkolt have found such vengeful souls, even if he has returned?”

  “I don’t know. But I can see no other possibility.” Without saying anything more, Lundgren turned and shuffled out of the room, leaving Cinna and the others with more questions than before. Alfvin was the first to speak.

  “Your Highness, if what he said is true, we are in unprecedented danger. I believe you should consider summoning a Hero.”