Lilia was a necromancer.

  At least, Cinna heavily suspected her to be one. She wasn’t an idiot; she’d noticed Lilia’s clumsy attempt at deflection. Clearly the girl knew something Cinna didn’t about the undead tide currently crashing against Selkarc’s walls. But she also seemed to be wary about revealing what she knew. First Cinna would have to earn the girl’s trust.

  Another thing she’d noticed was that Lilia had no idea who Cinna was. That in itself seemed strange to the princess. She’d been given her name by her father; it wasn’t one typically given to Selkarcian children. But Lilia also seemed to be oblivious to the obvious pun in her bird’s name, so Cinna concluded the girl likely originated in some rural village and had all the education of the average farmer.

  By Cinna’s estimation, Lilia was an adult, but only barely. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen. Golden locks fell down to her hips and framed a face Cinna found cute enough to stir attraction, but enough baby fat remained on her cheeks to make Lilia look too childish for Cinna’s tastes.

  She also direly needed a bath and a change of clothes. Her hair had accumulated twigs, leaves, and a bit of mud. Sweat darkened her clothing, which appeared to be torn and even burnt in places, and it had also caused a good deal of dust and dirt to adhere to her face. As for the smell…well, Cinna could hardly judge her for that after hours of fighting with no time for so much as a sponge bath.

  Speaking of fighting, Cinna had a more immediate concern to address.

  “Ngh.” Cinna grunted hard as she snapped her nose back into place. She hadn’t even noticed the troll had broken it the night before. Combat had a way of doing that to a person. After she fled the battle, she’d run to the point of collapsing, so she hadn’t had much time to notice then either.

  “So, Lilia,” Cinna began while wetting a cloth with water from a canteen. She dabbed at the blood on her face. “Why did you not evacuate along with everyone else? Every town and village behind the Stryk line was to be evacuated the moment construction finished.”

  A spark appeared to flash in Lilia’s head as Cinna completed her sentence.

  “Oh, is that why everyone left? I thought it was a parade, but I did wonder why no one came back,” Lilia answered sincerely. Despite the sheer ridiculousness of that sentence the girl seemed to mean every word of it.

  “Were you not aware of the undead attacking Selkarc? Surely you should have been able to put two and two together,” Cinna replied, feeling baffled.

  “Um. No? I’ve been in Master’s basement for a long time, so you’re the first person I’ve talked to in a while. I lost track of time but it looks like it’s summer, so it’s either been a lot less than I thought or it was at least a year.”

  Normally Cinna would have assumed Lilia meant a master-apprentice relationship, as slavery had been outlawed in Selkarc for centuries. But typically apprentices didn’t refer to their teachers simply as “master,” and the detail about being locked in a basement set of alarm bells in Cinna’s mind. It would explain how Lilia had survived this long if Cinna’s suspicions were true, though.

  Cinna tucked away her handkerchief and placed both hands on Lilia’s shoulder.

  “Please be honest with me. Were you being kept as a slave?”

  “No, of course not!” Lilia denied strenuously. “Master said my first lesson was escaping the basement, but that I couldn’t leave until I ran out of food or he returned. He must have been very busy, though, because he never came back. That’s why I’m trying to go home. I didn’t really know what else to do, so I thought I should ask my parents.”

  “Your master…” Cinna stopped. No one could possibly mistake a month or two for a year, so Cinna erred on the side of Lilia’s longer estimate. This master of Lilia’s must have died on the Day of Revelation. The timeline would match up. But would breaking her illusions now do her any good? “Never mind. I’m sure he meant to return but was kept away by other matters.”

  Shaking her head, Cinna released Lilia and stepped away.

  “Regardless, we should be on our way. Assuming your parents lived on this side of the Stryk River they would have been evacuated along with everyone else. Your chances of reuniting with them are much better if we go there instead of searching for your village,” Cinna explained. Lilia looked panicked at that, but not for the reasons Cinna would have assumed.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Oh, um, I left my stuff in the bushes over there. I’ll be right back. Just, uh, stay there! No need to come with me, I’ll be fine!” Lilia said as she ran off. Cinna quirked an eyebrow at the behavior, but she chose to do as asked. Presumably Lilia had left her belongings with a thrall and needed to retrieve them before moving on.

  With Lilia gone, Cinna turned her thoughts to the more pragmatic side of things. Under the circumstances she had to acknowledge that traveling with a necromancer could be dangerous. Currently no one really knew who was behind the undead onslaught that had poured out of Barkolt’s Wastes.

  Cinna couldn’t truly rule out the possibility that survivors of the Day of Revelation were leading the undead army. She’d confirmed during the siege of Saltrvatrmarr Fortress that there lich necromancers existed, but that didn’t mean there were no living necromancers involved.

  But several factors outweighed the threat in Cinna’s mind. Currently Selkarc had no true necromancers left. Only a single fledgling that had yet to even bind a thrall. Calling him a necromancer at all was a stretch. Lilia claimed to have been locked in a basement as her first “lesson,” but Cinna didn’t think an apprentice with no skills whatsoever could have survived in this area. She had something to offer, that Cinna knew.

  The fact that Cinna still lived at all contributed as well. Lilia could have murdered her on the road instead of waking her up. She might be seeking to use Cinna to infiltrate Selkarc, true, but there were easier ways of doing that. No one would have suspected a thing if she’d simply posed as a refugee. Even in the event that Lilia knew who Cinna was and wanted to take advantage of proximity to the crown princess, she would have had no way of knowing Cinna would stay behind as a rearguard and end up isolated as a result.

  No; their meeting here had been a coincidence. And while Cinna lacked the people skills to be absolutely certain Lilia was being honest, her gut told her she had nothing to fear. She’d survived many a bad situation thanks to her instincts, so Cinna felt inclined to listen to them here as well.

  “I got my bag! I’m all good to go!” Lilia reported as she ran back to Cinna. She now wore a knapsack that looked to be heavily overburdened with whatever had been stuffed inside it. How long would Lilia even be able to carry that?

  “Are you certain you can handle the weight of that bag?” Cinna questioned.

  “What do you mean? I carried it all the way here myself. Obviously. I mean, who else could have carried it here?” Lilia replied evasively, unable to look Cinna in the eye.

  “…hand it over,” Cinna told her with a sigh. Lilia looked hesitant, but ultimately gave Cinna the bag. Considering she’d left Saltrvatrmarr Fortress with nothing but the armor on her back, Cinna was actually traveling remarkably light at the moment, so the knapsack would hardly be a burden. “Come along. We shouldn’t stay here for too long.”

  Cinna hoped to put as much distance between herself and the undead behind her as possible, but her hopes were quickly dashed when Lilia proved to be even less resilient than expected. Hardly twenty minutes passed before Lilia became a sweaty, panting mess.

  “Can we…stop for a bit?” Lilia begged between breaths. “You’re…way too fast…I can barely keep up…”

  “Make it quick. We cannot afford to wait long. I encountered a large number of undead beasts only a few hours from here and it’s a miracle they haven’t caught up already,” Cinna replied sternly. Relieved, Lilia collapsed onto her rear, sucking in air like a person dying of thirst encountering an oasis.

  “Right…a miracle…” Lilia agreed, but Cinna picked up on how uncomfortable the girl sounded. That statement hadn’t been meant as a probe, but it seemed it had served as one anyway. The fact that Cinna and Lilia hadn’t run into any undead so far must not have been a coincidence.

  Still, Cinna chose to let it pass. Knowing that was enough of a win in and of itself. She didn’t want to push too hard and put Lilia on the defensive.

  “So, uh, where are we going, exactly?” Lilia asked as she rested on the ground. For her part, Cinna remained standing, eyes scanning their surroundings. Even if she felt certain Lilia could hold off attacks from roaming undead, Cinna had no reason to believe she could do anything about undead led by an actual necromancer.

  “I hoped at first to catch up with the rest of my army and make our way to the Stryk River together, but it seems that will no longer be possible.” After all, Lilia couldn’t maintain a quick enough pace to gain ground on the retreating army. “Instead I intend to make for the nearest bridge; one that is closer but would not support the passage of so large a group.”

  “Why is the river so important?”

  “It lies at the bottom of a deep gorge and cuts across most of Selkarc. The waters of the Stryk are also fierce. It makes for a highly defensible location that draugr and skeletons will struggle to ford even by piling up bodies,” Cinna explained. She judged that the information she’d just given was nothing that could not be learned by experience, even if Lilia turned out to be an enemy spy. Odds were good that some undead had already made it as far as the Stryk, so the information was likely outdated anyway.

  “There’s that many of them…?” Lilia asked, looking awed. “How could anyone…um, that is, where did they get all those bodies?”

  “Before the Day of Revelation, Barkolt bolstered his forces largely through the desecration of graves across the world. More recently, the undead army broke through the defenses of every nation bordering Barkolt’s Wastes. We can only assume they have access to the entire populations of those nations,” Cinna explained grimly.

  “And…what’s the Day of Revelation?”

  This, Cinna decided, was going to be a long journey.