4. The Court at Calendar
Chapter 4
The Court at Calendar
C alendar was a castle made of enslaved and captured art, at war with twelve different styles, yet melded together with an elegance that swirled in its perfect balance.
Framed paintings lined the walls, the ceiling, to where you could not tell what color the walls were. Candles and braziers were lit everywhere, and the world glittered with crystal.
It had the feel of a place of emptiness.
“It is time for the Tithing, my lady.” Captain Aidric beckoned her forth.
“Already,” Celestine whispered, walking behind him. All she had to do was just keep walking behind him.
Captain Aidric did not answer her. They walked towards the staircase to the next level. The steps were carpeted in a differing color as they rose.
“Your… gods here. Do they even know of the Painted Realm?”
“They are gods to you, Final Bride.” He did not turn as they slowly approached the stairs. “Here, the Seasons are called Lords. Lords of their banner. Lords of their realms.”
“They are men?”
Aidric paused. It was the only time she had seen him waver from the trajectory of his duty since he first took her from her home.
“They are anything but men.”
Is that fear? Is he warning me?
Six more Mirrored guards approached and flanked around them in an honor procession as they walked up the stairs.
“Lords,” Celestine repeated. How strange, for deities to hold such titles. But she had the feeling title wasn’t even the proper word. When Captain Aidric had said Lords there was such a weight to it. Like a prayer. Or a curse.
They crested another staircase upon two more doors where two guards waited.
“Declare thyself,” the first of the guards stated, “those who seek.”
“And those that would be sought,” finished the other.
Captain Aidric turned to her. Celestine nodded. Beyond the door likely awaited her death and a frenzied one at that. She had heard the tale of the grand bride hunt of the Lords of the Calendar Court. Women were chased and set upon, captured, and dragged to dark corners of the earth to die in agony. The uncertainty behind the door made her wish it would stay sealed forever.
Who could bargain with the gods of wind and winter?
Something must save us from the hunger of men, immortal or otherwise.
“I am Celestine of the Unbannered.”
“The Banner that serves,” said the guard on the left.
“The Banner that seeks,” said the guard on the right.
“ Step forth, should you be sought ,” they both said in unison and pulled the doors open.
Captain Aidric stood at attention. Both heat and cold flew from the room within. Celestine gasped at the image before her. An impossibility of substance, a clash of realities woven from four seasons into one.
She walked within. In the center of the room was a circular dais, surrounded by twelve thrones. Beings that looked like men but were larger than they could be stared at her with eyes of light, of shadow. The roof was open above the central platform, and snow and rain filtered through sunlight and falling leaves towards the ground—disappearing before any substance touched the surface.
“ Brides of the Calendar Court ,” every voice said in unison.
Celestine stepped into the court. The assault of such confusing temperatures on her flesh made her head feverish. She walked forward to the center of the grand dais; the doors shut behind her, and she looked up into the terrible eyes of the Lords of Season.
The door disappeared when it was shut, as if it had never been there. This throneroom felt like a tomb without exit.
If any feeling permeated the room, it was one of need. Need that demanded satisfaction at any price.
“What is this, Captain?” A voice of deep lumber thundered from a throne to her left. Celestine glanced up and saw a brawny man with brown banners sat around him and a wolf’s pelt on his great shoulders. “We pause conflict for an appetizer? Have you or have you not collected our Tithing?”
“Lord Cedarheart, this is the Tithing from the Painted Realm.” The Captain bowed.
“A mistake,” the Lord of Green spoke. Celestine turned and saw a beautiful young man on a throne of living trees and ivy. His brow was crested with a circlet of roots and flowers. Her breath abandoned her at the sight of the most beautiful man she had ever seen.His skin seemed plush, and virile.
“A jest?” the Lord of Blue said. His throne was a simple thing. The floor sat with grass of a great plain. His eyes, bright like the sky, and strong face regarded the captain, encased in dark brown skin. Upon his wrist rested a great hawk, and a spear leaned against his throne.
“A challenge?” the Lord of Red spoke. Celestine spun, gazing upon the fixture of war itself. His was a throne of leather, brass, and steel. He wore thick armor, etched with something she couldn’t read. A circlet of molten black daggers sat around his brow in a red mist. The glow from his eyes was the flicker of cities on fire. His back was straight, his jaw like the firm line of a shield. A hand large enough to encircle her entire neck clenched a sword that whispered it had ended thousands of lives.
“An insult, perhaps,” spoke a voice that sounded like a snake across her skin. Celestine almost yelped when she looked upon the Lord of Scarlet, who sat upon the Spring quarter of the court. His flesh was pale. His teeth were like fangs. His throne was one of dripping blood and blades. The eyes of a predator stared her down.
“A trap.”Celestine turned around and saw the lord who spoke, who sat upon a throne of bronze that looked as if it hadn’t cooled. The metal moved and slid around him as if freshly poured from the crucible. His circlet was a helm that covered the top half of his face and had bronze horns of a magnificent bull.
“She is the Tithing, my lords.” Captain Aidric said again.
“A lovely one. Which Banner do you range from, girl?”
Celestine turned to the Lord of the Golden Banner, who looked more a wry brigand than a Lord of Season. His throne was made of stolen decadence. A sly grin greeted her that made her heart miss a beat. It was the smile that saw gowns fall to the floor. The smile that drew you in and made you forget your oaths and promises before an autumn festival.
These Lords were beautiful and terrible to look upon. They were the timeless youth of the eternal. To even think they could have been men was laughable. They looked like what men descended from. Some looked her age of twenty, some a decade past. But they felt older, older than the world.
“I am Unbannered, my Lord.”
“Indeed? Your lands prepare the Tithing then, tell us, where are the rest of them?”
“Speak, little mouse,” the Lord of Scarlet hissed. “Before we pull the bones from your body.”
“Decorum, you little creature,” the Lord of Red boomed from his throne of war in the summer quarter.
“Speak, bride,” The Lord of Green nodded from his throne of living forest. “Tell us.”
Celestine opened her mouth in the center of this beautiful nightmare. Lords of gold and war, of spring and blood and all things in her realm, stared at her. She balled her fist.
“I am the final bride of the Painted Realm.”
Shouts broke out, too akin to her own father’s table. Perhaps when men argued, it always sounded the same, but here it was like being in the center of storms. Insults crashed like thunder. Accusations.
The Lord of the Yellow Banner sat upon the summer section with Red and Blue raised his hand for silence. His throne was one of chains and silken rope, a long whip coiled in his hand, and he cracked it upon the ground of his realm. “I wish to hear this one. What does this mean, Celestine of the Unbannered? The final bride?”
“Speak your truth as you know it,” a demigod said directly behind her. Celestine turned, haunted and enthralled by a voice that sounded like it came from a bottle you couldn’t stop drinking.
Upon a throne of shadow in the winter quarter, the Lord of the Black Banner stared at her. His dress was dark, as were his eyes that stared into her like the void itself. Celestine suddenly felt like she wanted to walk to him and touch him. Like he had been designed for her. Like he had watched her for her entire life.
Upon looking at him, it was his face. He seemed to be made of everything she wanted, everything she was attracted to. He was the canvas painted by desires she didn’t even know the brushstrokes of.
If I walk to him, he is my death.
“Your Painted Realm suffers under the onslaught of your disagreement, Lords.” Celestine turned from the Lord of Black to the rest of the court. She ignored the grinning swagger of the Gold Bannered rogue who sat in Autumn in his creaking leathers and the coins that flitted around his fingers.
“Continue,” the Lord of the Red Banner demanded.
“Your people starve without crops to yield. They dig their homes from sudden blizzards, only to see their husbands drown when the snow melts suddenly under the crush of summer.” Celestine turned among the court, spinning from summer to spring, to winter and autumn.
“If this continues, our people will cease to exist. Men are turning to savagery, to depravity. Hope falters while you war for supremacy of the skies.”
“As is our right, girl,” Lord Cedarheart growled from his throne. His yellow eyes fixed upon her, his arms were cords of muscle with long blue tattoos. “As is our way.”
“That may be so, Lord of the Brown Banner.” Celestine nodded. “Yet if this continues, no one will be left to send to you. No people left. You speak ripping my bones out of my flesh? I am the last morsel of a carcass you have all picked clean!”
“Meaning?” Lord Skye asked from his Blue Banner.
Celestine inhaled, trying to quell the fear inside her. “You must give the realm order and decide your supremacy. You must decide the order of your seasons. If you cannot share power… share me.”
Laughs broke out from the Scarlet Lord and the masked and lithe White Bannered lord of Winter, who stared at her from a hawkish helm that covered his face.
The Lord of Silver called to her from behind his helm. His throne was of ice. “We do not share. We do not agree. ”
“It is our way,” said the beautiful Green Lord on his throne of nature.
“We do not rule your Painted Realm,” the wolfish demigod of the brown banner sneered. “You are a flock we draw flesh from. We have our own realms, our own people to rule.”
“You are a body of water we cast a net into,” the white bannered lord spoke. “And we feast on what flops on the deck.”
It couldn’t be. Celestine felt the room spin, a fairgrounds trick. She had always thought the Seasons warred for supremacy of the skies of her people. But they were just ripples of their conflict. To think your entire life that gods battled to rule you, when they didn’t even hear the prayers you spoke to them…
How dare they. She saw her father’s face when he gave his only daughter.
“Then you will starve!” Celestine screamed at the court. “There shall be no flesh tithing while you bicker and invade one another. Never again! If you cannot decide which of you follows the other, then your hunts will be barren.” She stared at the court who sat silent, peering at each of them. When she spoke again, her voice dripped with the bitter venom she felt for these wretched beings. “As will your beds.”
The one who broke the silence was the made of it. The Lord of Black spoke, “She is clever, this one. Though she may not know why. Tell us, final bride, why do we feast on the maidens of your realm when we rule our own? We have peoples. We have lands. Our bastions are the very essence of each present. So why?”
It was Celestine’s turn to sneer now. “Because, they will not have you.”
Some Lords chortled, others made unappreciative noises. But the Lord of the Black Banner held her eye. “It’s because they die, final bride. The moment we seek their embrace, they wither in our arms. The worlds align once a year, did you know that? Only once. Our Mirrored go forth to your world to bring us flesh to sate our needs.”
“For your hunt,” Celestine bit the final word off at him. She glanced down at his portion of the throneroom.
Blackdawn nodded. “Imagine starving twelve beasts for a year, would not some tear apart the morsels you drop them? Though some do grab a piece or two and scurry away to their realm. But once that denied lust is set free, even those may break what they sought to save.”
“Monsters,” Celestine whispered to the Lord of Shadow. “All of you.”
“Yes…” Blackdawn answered, nodding as if she had found the secret to a hidden question. “Need makes monsters. We cease our bickering once a year, to enjoy the Tithing. And once it's over, we cannot touch another woman. Tell me, Celestine, what do the men do now in your realm now that they have no women, no hope, no future?”
“They war,” Encarmine stated. His eyes glowed as red as the mist around his circlet. “I feel their conflict.”
“It’s true,” Celestine said. “They war.”
Blackdawn spread his hands. “So you see, we are not men, we are more than them. Twelve starving lords, seeking the sweetest taste. Denied year after year. Hunger, and gluttony, that is who truly rules this court.”
“Oh be done with her!” the Scarlet Lord Vermilion snarled. “Send the Mirrored back for more.”
“There aren’t more, pale fool.” Azure of the Blue turned to look at Celestine. “Isn’t that right?”
She nodded.
“Who gets this one?” Cedarhall of the Brown Banner asked. His yellow eyes hungered for her and she felt her skin crawl, as if trying to find a way to hide from his twin fangs.
“A contest,” Blackdawn offered. He reclined in his throne but his eyes never left Celestine. “If we so choose it.”
“How so?” Lord Emberfell, of Autumn, asked from his throne of harvest and gourd. He was dashingly lovely, with spiced skin and honeyed eyes that drank her in when she looked.His smile seemed kind, inviting. She preferred it to the hungering looks around the court.
Blackdawn shrugged. “We choose during the bride hunt. Let us choose now. A contest.”
“Fight for her?” Lord of the Bronze Banners laughed. “She is lovely, but let’s not make a feast from a fledgling because we, too, face famine. Would this court break the one truce we agree to for a single maiden”
Blackdawn didn’t laugh. He stared at Celestine. “Yes.”
All turned to the Lord of the Black Banner. He sat on his throne, his tone not menacing to her ever, there was a cold invitation to him. Like falling asleep in the snow.
“The Final Bride will choose her groom. And that Lord will decide which quarter falls before another. The procession shall be set.”
Vermilion laughed, but Lord Emberfell leaned forward. “State your meaning, dark-thing. How would this work? We each race for her, whoever spills within her wins?”
“It should be whoever sews seed in her womb,” the Green Lord smiled and leaned forward. “She is potent. She is ready. I can tell. Let us all take her and see what banner grows within her after breeding.”
Celestine covered her mouth in horror.
“Now even I think that’s cheating, coming from the Lord of Pollen,” the Yellow Bannered lord laughed.
“Indeed.” The Lord of Red glared across the throne room.
“Let us disperse of this!” Vermilion leaned back in his chair. “One of you take her, break her, and let us return to the game. Spring will reign supreme.”
“Oh, will it?” growled Lord Cedarheart.
“Enough,” the gentleness of the Lord of Black in his Winter quarter was tragic. “There is no court without a people to treat with the skies. Just because some of you choose to ignore the Painted Realm, do not think that world is not the other side of the coin. Without it, ours may fall as well.”
“There can’t be death without life, you mean. There can’t be you without them.” Lord Solis laughed.
“Indeed,” Blackdawn spoke. “Nor any of us. Let us each court her. No hunt. No chase. She may select her husband at any time.”
“We can’t have the girl ranging from all over,” the Lord of Pollen snickered. “She’ll get lost.”
“Season,” Blackdawn stared at Celestine. “By season. She visits. If she selects a groom, so be it. That groom will decide the order of this court.”
“Who decides who goes first?” Lord Emberfell asked.
“Chance?” Lord of the Gold Banner grinned.
“A race,” Lord Skye of the Blue Banner stated.
“Blood,” Encarmine said.
“Blood.” Blackdawn of the Black Banner agreed. “One champion from each Season to first blood…for her first blood.”
Celestine felt the world tumble out from beneath her. Being hunted, being killed had been on the table. Being married even by one lord.
But sampling all? Visiting all?
“To court twelve lords will be the end of her,” Blackdawn said from his lonely throne.
“So?” Lord Scarlet asked. Celestine looked at him and his cruel face. So hauntingly beautiful, so deadly.
“A month of courtship then, for each banner, at our estates.” Lord Solis, of the Yellow Banner said from his throne of chains.
Silence reigned.
Celestine looked around the court at the beautiful, otherworldly faces. She knew the rumors were true now. They hunted brides, whether to use them for a night or a season. Perhaps their immortal magnificence broke them. Perhaps their depravity and hunger slew them. Perhaps it wasn’t their touch but the absence of it that stole a woman’s voice and mirth from her.
But more than her own demise, she needed a solution sooner than that.
“You must hold the truce until I decide.”
Looks were traded across the courtroom. It was the white bannered lord who answered her.
“No.”
“Yes,” Blackdawn whispered. He cast a look at his brother in winter. “Do not forget your place. You do not speak for winter.”
“And you do not speak for this court,” Azure called out.
“The truce holds,” Lord Silas said. “What of her?”
Celestine felt a wave of relief. Whatever happened, her people would have time. What happened here echoed in the Painted Realm.
Do I truly consider throwing myself on the painted shield, for not one Lord but all?
She thought of all those lonely nights, in darkness. Wishing for love. Now her wishes would be cast upon her, answered like arrows that pierced her.
Celestine looked at Lord Blackdawn. At Lord Emberfell. At Lord Pollen. All beautiful. So much power reigned here. So much finality. These were masters of the sky, wind, soil, and all that grew in it.
She shuddered.
“I accept.”
“Blood it is then,” Blackdawn said. He looked so young, like her. So tragic. So forlorn. As if he lamented needing her shared. But she knew beyond certainty he would be the death of her.
Cedarheart rose, pulling an axe from his throne. He walked like a beast, stalking toward the court.
“It’ll be my banner her crest breaks upon, and my Season she comes to first.”
“Here, here.” Emberfell raised a goblet.
Lord Vermilion rose in his sickening and haunting way. He withdrew a long sword, more like a needle than a blade. “Blood is my realm to taste, Cedarheart.” So spoke the quarter of Spring.
It was Silver, who rose now from the Winter quarter, who said nothing. Twin blades flashed at his side. His eyes settled on Celestine in a piercing blue, and she felt herself flutter.
That one doesn’t seem so bad.
But finally, it was Lord Encarmine, who rose with his circlet of broken swords on his brow, his armor etched with names, she saw now, and they shifted upon his armor as if being written over by a live hand. His back was straight. His hair was chestnut and close-cropped. He raised a shield of steel with leather trim.
“Come, Lords,” he said. “Let us prove who will take the crest of the final bride of Calendar.”
The four champions circled and began.
“Stay close to me,” Captain Aidric pulled her from the central dais. “This has not happened in some time. You may get hurt.”
Celestine nodded, terrified and exhilarated at what she was watching.
“It is to first blood.” Aidric’s hand did not leave her shoulder. She took it as a comfort instead of holding her in place.
Celestine watched the four Lords circled one another.
“Their lust fuels them. They will take their spurned wrath out upon one another,” Aidric whispered.
The grand duel began, the duel for her.
Vermilion reached out suddenly, drawing first blood from the Silver-Bannered lord of winter. The Lord laughed and held up a necklace of dark, bloody jewels.He tossed them to the brigand who sat on a throne of plunder in autumn.
“Return that, thief.” Vermilion spat from the dueling circle.
“I think not,” the rogue laughed and held up the necklace. “Been after this for some time.”
Vermilion turned to pursue him, so entranced by the thievery that Lord Cedarheart cracked him across his pale crown, his circlet of bone and blood nearly coming loose. Scarlet spun and roared, taking the fight to Cedarheart. The wolfish lord roared, feinting and moving, swinging his axe mightily.
Lord Encarmine of the Red Banner did not move. He stood at attention in a knightly manner, waiting his turn.
“Why does Encarmine not strike?”
“He would believe it unworthy.” Captain Aidric said. “His is the way of honor.”
Vermilion and Cedarheart fought. Cedarheart was ferocious; his assault savage. Vermilion was liquid on his feet, so fast, striking everywhere and nowhere, like a hunting cat. But there was a disdainful impatience to his movements, as if he despised even the air that touched him.
“Agh!” Vermilion cried out in surprise. Cedarheart’s axe scored across his chest in a splash of thick glopping blood. Celestine watched it on the dais, it was black.
“Begone, creature.” Lord Cedarheart growled. The pale lord of Scarlet returned to his throne, not meeting the smiling eyes of his partners in Spring.
“Come, Cedarheart.” Encarmine stood and held his sword and shield.
“Aye,” Cedarheart’s yellow eyes fell upon Elyse, his teeth like fangs, his blue tattoos rippling with muscle. “I’m eager as well. Though I don’t hide my motive for the bride behind your rules and laws Encarmine.”
It will be like a beast when he ravages me. He will break my crest while his teeth are upon my neck.
Celestine felt something. Something she only acknowledged in the late evening or early mornings. Heat took her quim, the arousal so sudden. The edge of her clit eased forth as if her body prepared to meet these lords and give her crest to one of them. She felt it in the coy looks of boys her age when they noticed one another. The same feeling she had felt when one had been brave enough to kiss her behind the lumber fields once, and the pull of his body into her and how she had responded.
Not the fairest man, but when he kissed me, that raw need had nearly broken me.
But he had lacked the final courage. He had feared her father’s wrath. She had never wanted a love moved by trepidation.
The duel grew louder. Her fate ricocheted from a shield of steel and an axe. Cedarheart was larger, but Encarmine fought with a resolve she could feel in the air.
When an axe cut came with such force, she thought the blow itself would knock the Red Bannered Lord down. She gasped as he stood steadfast and immovable, every muscle in his body locked.
There was no silken pillow for her to grind upon now. Her fate raged in front of her, a spinning coin between Summer and Autumn and their desire for the first touch. Her quim was a silken mess. Celestine’s body betrayed her fear.This was a siege, and she was a castle about to be won, taken, and captured.
I want them both to win.
The thought came unbidden, and Celestine attempted to stamp it down as soon as it rose. Long ago, the world had replaced chivalry with desperation. It had birthed thievery from scarcity and cast aside courtship with a famine of flesh. The courting tales she had been told as a young girl had slowly faded, season by harsh season, where valiant knights rode against one another for a lady’s love.
Not here. Here it was, and it was so much worse. So much better. She had always been told that her chastity and crest was a sacred gift for a husband. Now, her entire body was flush. A tingle danced up her leg and lower back as Encarmine and Cedarheart warred for her favor.
The Lord of the Brown Banner snarled, and it sounded like a wolf fighting hounds. For a moment, she saw him as a great furred beast, and Encarmine was the might of men on the singular focus of exertion.
For her.
Steel clashed and swung, inertia juggled back and forth, and sparks flew from a battered shield. Cedarheart was a beast. A thousand howls of a hundred packs running in the trees at night. Encarmine’s voice sounded like armies roaring across a terrible battlefield. Cedarheart swung wide, allowing Encarmine to slam his weight onto his shield, striking the Lord and pushing him back. The sword swiftly moved under his arm and across his chest with precise efficiency.
Blood splashed across the central dais like a bucket spilled from the hands of a falling servant. The sound of it was rain.
The battle ceased, two storms pausing. Cedarheart’s hand touched under his arm, coming forth with his lifeblood. Celestine expected him to drop, to fall gasping. But the lord’s eyes focused on Celestine, such golden hunger, such lust that her stomach turned.
“Woe to my furs this evening, Encarmine, and their loneliness.”
Encarmine stood, raising his bloody sword in salute with a brusque nod.
“Summer reigns upon the Painted Realm,” Encarmine said to the court. The dominance suited him. Celestine found herself leaning forward, edging closer.“Woe to those that seek what is mine.”
“So be it,” said Blackdawn from his throne of shadow. “The Lord of the Red Banners shall court the Aspirant for a month. Then to his brothers in Summer, then we will come forth and see what the Final Bride decides” The Lord of the Black Banner stared now at Celestine. “Should she choose you, Encarmine, you will decide the setting of the Seasons, now and forever.”
“Whom shall follow?” the Lord of the Yellow Banner asked.
“You will,” Encarmine stated, then turned to Lord Azure of the Blue Banners. “Then you, great rider.”
“The lady shall sample the wares of Summer, and if she chooses a husband, so be it.” Blackdawn decreed. Lord Scarlet looked hatefully around the court but kept his mouth shut. Lord Emberfell raised a toast to her from across the hall.
Such skin, like honey. There is a warmth there, and his face glows as if by firelight.
“We return at the end of your season to see her decision,” Blackdawn said.
Celestine swallowed. Say something, say something now.
“And if no husband is chosen?”
“Then you pass to the next season. Or leave, to your home.”
“Will you take my voice and mind from me if I do?” Celestine asked.
Blackdawn did not smile nor scowl. “No. If you are the final bride, you can carry the tale of how the folly and greed of this court saw man fall. You may leave at any time. The Captain of Calendar will never be far from you.”
Lord Encarmine turned to her, his circlet of swords and daggers on his brow. His red eyes had dulled, and the stubble on his strong, tanned jaw looked rough enough to scar flesh.
“Woe to the vanquished. I will take my prize now, won and earned. Come, Final Bride of the Painted Realm.”
The throne in his section of the court disappeared, the wall turning into a tunnel where the sun shone.
“The first touch you shall know will be upon my Red Banner.”
Celestine walked forward. Encarmine climbed upon a great warhorse that came forth from the opening to sunlight. He held his blood red banner high.
She walked towards him. He was mythology made manifest. For a moment, the world flickered, and she saw a thousand black blades embedded in his body. Then it stopped.
She stepped closer, every step feeling like the edge of the world.
My crest will fall to this lord of battle.
Celestine turned back to the court, where the remaining Lords in their seasons four regarded her. Some had hungry eyes, others had jealousy.
The Lord of the Black Banner was the only one not looking at her. He sat in deep pallor, morose upon his throne of shadow.
Captain Aidric, in his mirrored mask nodded to her.
A powerful arm, armored in scale and leather, reached down.
“My lady,” Lord Encarmine spoke.
Celestine took his hand, and he lifted her so easily, like a doll, onto his war mount. The wall fell away, and a land of sun, of dry dust, glowed beyond her. Not the Painted Realm, not Calendar, but somehow both.
She sat across his lap, and with one arm, he steadied her. His other commanded the reins.
“Wrap your hands around this banner,” Encarmine spoke, motioning the spear that sat in a stirrup to her. Above him, the Red Banner flew where there was no wind. “All Seasons fell so you could feel summer’s touch.”
Celestine did, and the spear felt so tangibly real, unlike anything in this place called Calendar. She meant to look towards the portal they now sauntered towards, but she turned her head, draped in this soldier’s arms, and locked eyes with Encarmine.
They marched into Summer.