Chapter 1

Rendalia City, Rendalia

William had spread the dispatches across the map table and weighted the corners with whatever lay near to hand: a sea-polished stone from the Chansol Ford, a bent dagger he meant to have mended, a chipped cup he had not bothered to empty. Wax seals broke and curled like red petals against Sidor’s outline. Ink smudged where his thumb pressed too hard. He read the same passage twice. It did not change.

Isolde slipped in without ceremony. The lamplight caught the silk at her wrist and the dull metal of the signet he had given her after the battle at the river. She looked from the mess of paper to his face, then back again.

“You’re up late,” Isolde said, coming up behind him.

He didn’t jump. There were guards on the keep and one on his door. He would have heard an assassin before they came in.

Still, she would have made an excellent assassin. He hadn’t heard her at all, even the door opening and closing, until she’d been practically on top of him, and even then it had only been a slight whisper of her dress swishing against the floor.

Had the fire not already died down to coals and still been popping and flickering, he might not have even heard that.

He’d been focused for hours, leaning over a map that was the best representation of the forces stretched out across the River Mark and Kingsheart, based on the letters he’d received from his Aunt Alyssa, since she was the only one telling him anything worth knowing.

Which was a problem unto itself.

Sinclair, he understood. Based on everything his Uncle Aldric had told him, Sinclair was only for Sinclair, and he thought everyone else was beneath him. He’d play well with others just as long as he thought he’d get something out of it, but not a moment longer.

He’d had higher hopes for Pembroke, who’d been as much a mentor to him as Aldric had been. When he’d heard about Pembroke’s departure, he’d hoped the baron would stay in contact.

He hadn’t.

So he was operating on pieces of information, and those pieces weren’t good.

“Late? It’s barely a bell after dusk.”

“You’ve been at it for hours. You need a break. How bad is it?”

“Bad. I have no idea how he’s done it, but my father has found more men. A lot of them. We’re outnumbered again and might be even if we get this entire army back to Sidor. And he’s still recruiting.”

“Conscripts, though,” she offered.

“Volunteers, actually. If Aunt Alyssa’s reports are to be believed, they’ve come to him in two and ten and twenty. They sign his rolls and take his coin and cheer his name. He marches through the Kingsheart towns and the men throw caps and shout for him, and when the caps fall, a hundred hands fight to keep them in the air. And it’s letting him win back ground we’d taken. The rebellion’s lost nearly everything it gained in the last year. They’ve been pushed back to the borders of Iron Keep and south of the Thunderhorn.”

William pointed to one of the markers on the map that showed the current battle lines. “Without someone there to hold things together, the whole thing’s going to collapse and according to my aunt, it’s not just the manpower surge. Sinclair and Pembroke are spending as much time disagreeing with each other as they are fighting my father. The armies are divided and fighting their own fights, which cuts our forces in half while theirs grows.”

“You’re surprised that nobles are acting like nobles?” Isolde said.

William looked up at her. “What?”

“Sinclair and Pembroke have spent their entire lives building their power bases,” she continued. “They’ve invested decades in cultivating influence, securing alliances, positioning their houses for advantage. You can’t expect them to simply abandon those interests because you need them to work together.”

“We’re at war.”

“War doesn’t change a noble’s nature. If anything, it amplifies it. Your uncle’s death created a power vacuum and they’re going to try to fill it. That’s how noble houses have survived for generations, by never missing an opportunity to advance their positions.”

“Even when it risks everything?”

“Especially then. The greatest rewards come from the greatest risks.”

“They should be focused on achieving victory first.”

“And who decides what that victory looks like? From everything you’ve said, Sinclair sees himself as the next duke of Iron Keep once Windermere is gone, and maybe before then. And Pembroke has always been the most powerful baron in the River Mark. For now, your aunt maintains some level of control, but she was never anointed and no one is going to follow whoever your father anoints as the next duke. If you believe he doesn’t have his eyes on the duchy, then you are fooling yourself.”

“Sure, Sinclair is angling for more power; it’s who he is. But I expected more from Pembroke. I thought he was different from the others. More principled.”

“Why?”

“Because I know him. He’s always put the kingdom first, above his personal ambition. The man I know wouldn’t jeopardize what we’re doing here. He wouldn’t abandon his responsibilities.”

“He probably doesn’t see it like that,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “I know it’s hard to think this way, but even in war, you can’t just think about the war. My father may have been an evil man, but he understood how power works and would talk about it often. Even while fighting a war, you have to think about what the postwar world will look like, and arrange things so that when it ends, you are in a position to ensure your vision comes true. Sinclair and Pembroke both know this, I assure you. From how Pembroke spoke of Sinclair to me, he is almost certainly worried that the man will end the war in a position of greater power. From the looks of this, he is with the Eastern barons now and has all of Iron Keep behind him. That’s a larger power base than Pembroke has, giving him a leg up when it’s all over. You may have the Whitton name, but other than Pembroke, do any of the barons follow you? Their knights and soldiers, yes, but none have raised a banner in your name specifically.”