Chapter 6
Augaurde sat beneath her like a setting in a dream: a sweeping valley of white that stretched from left to right as far as she could see, before it spanned upwards again to a smattering of sharp, pointed cliffs covered in snow.
The valley itself was scattered with hulking white war tents, mixed through with smoldering campfires that spat smoke into the sky.
Countless soldiers – not enough, as she’d expected – marched about.
Draft horses dragged heavy logs on rolling carts.
Mixed among them were the enormous white war bears she’d heard stories of, born and bred to love the cold.
She could hear their roars from here. Some were saddled with riders atop them, while others used their brute strength to haul giant boulders across the snow.
Some soldiers practiced sparring or swordplay. They were adorned in red cloaks, the color of the nomage uniforms, born without Sacred blood.
The majority of Lordach.
Where the soldier’s barracks fell away, the valley gradually sloped back upwards, and a sweeping stone bridge led to the center of the cliffs, high in the sky. There stood an enormous castle in the clouds.
The Sacred Citadel.
It was ancient and crafted entirely of white stone. It stood so close to the edge of the cliffs that it looked like a strong gust of wind would have sent it tumbling into the Expanse on the other side.
The Citadel boasted five towers, for the five gods, each one spiraling into the snowy sky.
Smaller white bridges connected the towers, rounded like the backs of sleeping dragons.
The only vibrant colors came from the banners that hung from each tower, near frozen to the stones by a fresh sheen of ice.
Five banners, in five colors, for each pillar of Sacred magic and the god they represented.
The Sacred Circle was nowhere to be seen. A place of legend, where twelve enormous standing stones stood in the snow, covered in runes that told the story of Lordach’s creation. Ezer wondered if she’d be able to see it from her tower.
If she’d be able to leave it, or if she’d be expected to stay locked away again.
‘This way,’ Arawn said, and his voice was like a blade as he addressed the exhausted group. It cut into the moment, broke the spell of seeing this place for the very first time. ‘To the barracks, where you’ll receive your orders.’
She never thought she would walk in the footsteps of a soldier.
Never thought she would lay eyes upon the men and women that would someday, most of them, enter the Expanse.
And die.
She couldn’t see it from here. But she could certainly feel it: the death and danger that lay in waiting to devour her on the true front lines.
The howling wind lessened with the natural shield of the Citadel’s cliffs, but the sounds of the war camp emerged in its place as Arawn led them into the maze of tents.
It was like another world entirely.
She’d been receiving messages from this place and others just like it for years. But somehow seeing a war camp with her own eyes, hearing the shouts of soldiers and the roar of bears, the ring of steel clashing against steel …
It felt truly real for the very first time.
She stepped through a cloud of smoke from a nearby campfire and followed the blur of Arawn’s white braid and cape through the chaos.
It was the only constant she could hold on to now.
Countless troops marched in all directions.
Many seemed dressed for battle, swords sheathed on their hips and shields hefted over shoulders, while others looked to be resting inside the wards for the night.
They sharpened their weapons, wrote letters home, scarfed down dried rations that reminded her just how long it had been since she’d eaten any real food.
But she suddenly had no appetite.
‘Out of the way, recruit!’ a voice grumbled.
It was followed by a roar, and Ezer stumbled sideways, narrowly avoiding a giant war bear as it padded past her, its mighty paws leaving deep tracks in the snow.
It was harnessed, and dragging a sled loaded with a pile of weapons.
The hilts and blades rattled like bare bones.
They went past a tent full of Ehvermage healers: Sacred Knights that had the magic of Dhysis in their veins.
The canvas flaps were held open for just a moment to reveal the rows of stained wooden tables, bodies already lying on each of them.
The smell came with the familiar reek of cleaning alcohol. Death.
She stumbled past a pair of sheep bleating in a pen, and a young girl dressed in Sacred whites, who looked to be in training from the fact that she bore no crest yet.
Her lips moved in a constant whisper as she voiced elegant invocations over their water troughs.
Blue light emanated from her palms, a dance between her and her god as she manipulated the ice back into water.
Arawn had paused not far away at the entrance to another white tent.
Inside, the prisoners had already begun receiving their uniforms.
A tattered red nomage cloak with a hood lined in grey fur.
A cap and gloves, a red tunic and thick red trousers, wool socks and a pair of worn leather boots.
The toes were stained in dark splotches.
As if whoever had worn these uniforms first …
whoever had stood here at this very tent – Gods, Ervos had stood here – they didn’t need these clothes anymore.
Which meant she was to wear the clothing of the dead.
Ezer turned, suddenly feeling her stomach twist.
And before she could stop herself, she was vomiting into the snow. Soldiers skirted to the side as they walked past, shaking their heads.
She wiped her mouth clean with the back of her sleeve and turned back to the tent.
‘Next!’ the soldier barked.
Ezer stepped forward.
And then promptly felt a hand clap over her shoulder.
‘Not for you, Minder.’
She turned to look up into Arawn’s cold blue eyes and found him frowning down at her. The second their eyes met, he dropped his hand like he’d been burned.
‘The Ravenminder’s tower is past the Citadel,’ he said. He lifted his chin over her shoulder … towards the hulking fortress that glowed at the top of the cliffs like a beacon in the night.
‘Past the Citadel?’
She thought her tower in Rendegard was tall.
But his gaze had gone all the way to the highest cliff in Augaurde, to the right of the Citadel.
Where a single pathway led up to a summit covered in clouds.
She could just barely see the flicker of lights up top; the tower was so tall it nearly pierced the golden wards.
She swallowed the taste of bile and asked, ‘I don’t suppose you have a tower down here?’
Up close, the Sacred Citadel did not whisper of magic, like the wind or the old stories Ezer used to read in her borrowed books.
It sang with it.
Arawn guided her up the sprawling staircase on the cliffside, and finally to the Citadel’s innermost gates.
Even the icy wind dropped to only a breath of a breeze when they stepped through. And though she could still hear the rumble of war … it felt instantly calmer here.
Quiet.
Like a spell had been cast over the space.
Snowflakes danced lazily above them, landing on a lone tree in the courtyard’s center. It was encased entirely in shimmering ice. It looked ancient, its gnarled branches as white as bone, and bare of any leaves.
Swords had been plunged into the snow around it.
Not hundreds but thousands. Some were gold and some were silver, some were plain while others had fat rubies or gemstones inside their hilts, but every single one had the sigil of the Sacred hammered into their blades, the winged crest of the war eagles.
She glanced at Arawn. ‘What are they for?’
‘The fallen Sacred,’ he said softly. ‘The ones loved and lost. Not just of this war, but of others long forgotten to time.’
He stared at one sword in particular, half his face cast in shadow from the Citadel above. His pale hair had ice formed in the strands, so he almost looked like a form of a god himself.
‘How many?’ Ezer asked.
Arawn blinked, whatever spell he’d been under, broken. ‘How many what?’
‘Lives,’ Ezer said. ‘How many don’t come back each night?’
His eyes darkened. ‘Too many, these days. Sacred magic is a fickle thing. The more we invocate, the more our bodies dwindle over time. But it’s worth the sacrifice.’
Words she wasn’t certain she’d be able to say, when speaking of herself.
She did not wish to die young.
She wanted to live. To try everything wild and wonderful in life, until she grew old and wrinkled and as wise as the ravens that had saved her.
‘This was a godsblessing,’ Arawn explained. ‘All of it, every stone in its place, granted to an ancient king and queen on only the second Realmbreak, eons ago. A fortress that could never fall. A place to praise the gods on high.’
‘So, it’s real, then,’ Ezer said. ‘The godsblessing. Nomages celebrate the holiday, but we think of the blessing as only a story.’
Arawn huffed out a laugh. ‘There are no stories when it comes to the gods. Only truths.’
He led her to the right, to another infernal staircase, and the uppermost cliff where her tower was. Up, they walked, passing statues of the gods’ forms that were littered along the ancient stone railing.
‘In the old lore, the Five could come and go wearing whatever body they pleased,’ Arawn said, ‘whether it be an elderly farmer one day, a beautiful young maiden the next, or sometimes, even a helpless child. Scholars believe it was a way for them to play with creating. To show they have no limits, indeed.’
She didn’t need the lore explained to her. She’d studied the gods too many times to count, for there hadn’t been much more to do in her tower but read. But there was something different about a true Sacred speaking the words. Wardlight sparkled down over the statues as they ascended.
‘Aristra, god of Realm,’ Arawn said.
The statue they passed had three faces. Male on one side, female on the other, and a roaring bear’s maw in the middle.