Epilogue

There was a chill in the northern air.

Pallisur strode through the war camp, ignoring those who stared at his Vestathi-style armor made from silk and leather, materials that would allow him to cast arcane spells without interference. In Ti Kunja, the armor was mostly used for ceremonial purposes now, a memory of earlier days, but there were enough battle wizards in Tormardar for armorers to still remember how to make the real thing.

Pallisur found Ephrenia in the command tent, looking over a map. He knew the three men with her—his oldest living priests, formerly Leonis’s bondmates—but they wouldn’t recognize him in this form. They eyed his pointed ears, glancing back and forth between him and Ephrenia. The men believed her to be seaborn, but it was rare to see seaborn away from the coast.

“Leave us, please,” Ephrenia ordered, and the priests filed out. She turned back to Pallisur, cocking her head to the side. “I don’t remember your eyes being blue.”

“They were—in this body, at least. Would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

“Someone has to deal with the side effects of your spat with Hera,” she said. “I had finally—finally!—convinced Leonis to end his war against the elderfolk, and then he went and got himself killed. His men want revenge.”

“Against Rusol? Surely they understand they don’t have a chance against Larso. You could have convinced them of that if they can’t see it for themselves.”

She sighed. “It’s not that simple. Nothing’s ever as simple as you make it out to be. Right now, the Carved Basin is united for the first time in its history. For all Leonis’s faults, he actually managed to build something here. If I don’t keep them working together for a common cause, they’ll splinter apart. It’s better to keep them focused on Rusol than to let them go back to slaughtering elderfolk villagers, but I did persuade them to wait until Larso gave us some sort of opening. I hoped you’d send them a vision—that you’d do something!”

“I told them you speak with my voice,” Pallisur said.

“That only goes so far when I regularly violate what they believe to be your teachings. You’ve let them run rampant for too long, and for what? The mages in this part of the world are hardly the sort of threat you were anticipating when you created the Order, and the ones who are a threat would never allow your little cult to take hold.”

“Perhaps my cult, as you put it, is the reason the mages here aren’t a threat,” Pallisur said. “What if there’s another dark magic incursion or demon war? What if a mortal wizard discovers the conjunction? There are futures where the Order may be needed, and I won’t have time to build them up from nothing. They stand ready until they can serve their true purpose. You need to disperse them—they’ll have to have their revenge some other day.”

Ephrenia gave him an odd look. “You haven’t heard?” she said, tapping the map. “Hera’s idiot puppet king stripped the border of most of its defenses. He pulled all his mercenaries out of the north, and a big chunk of the knights as well. The army’s spread too thin to take over—some of the crossings have no guards at all. I told Leonis’s men that we need to wait for a sign, and now Rusol has gifted it to us on a silver platter. It’s too late to stop. We march tomorrow.”

The ship Pallisur had taken had sailed past Larso, heading straight for the Basin, and the last rumors he’d heard were months old. Why would Rusol leave the region so poorly defended?

“Even if you take the border,” he said, “even if you take Northtower, what purpose would it serve? You can’t seriously believe your five thousand men are enough to face Larso’s armies. And in the meantime, you’re setting the Order against itself. You’ll get my people killed.”

“Rusol is distracted by some war to the south,” Ephrenia said. “It should be easy enough to gain a foothold. And who says we have to fight the Order? Why not reunite the two branches? Then we can eliminate Rusol, along with the snakes he and his father have put in charge of the Church. They’ve been undermining you for years.”

“I need Rusol alive for the ritual. I’m only here because we lost Leonis, and I doubt I’ll be able to convince any of the others to take Rusol’s place.”

“Then you’ll just allow him to continue working against you? You’re playing right into Hera’s hands.”

“I don’t think he’s working for Herasis,” he said. “He wields three magics now—that’s how he was able to defeat Leonis. Someone blessed him, and it wasn’t one of us.”

Ephrenia froze. “Dark magic?” she asked.

“That’s one possibility.” Dark magic was a curious perversion, always trying to mimic one of the four true sources, but Pallisur had never seen it act as a priestly blessing before. “Herasis thinks a demon lord ascended.”

Ephrenia shook her head. “If that happened, there’d be war in the hells. We would have seen some sign of it by now.”

“I agree, but whatever Rusol’s motives may be, I can’t let you kill him. Not yet.”

Ephrenia thought for a moment, chewing on her lip. “Then we take Northtower and focus on reuniting the Order, but delay the confrontation with Telfort until you can finish the ritual. How long will that take?”

“I need at least one more warden to participate willingly. Did Kono or Hildra ever respond to Leonis’s messages?”