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It wasIt was time

Terah stood outside her family’s mansion Like the other ducal families’ homes, theirs was old, a veritable fortress A looted fortress now A looted fortress s of the barrels and barrels of oil they had poured in every room, over the precious heirloorooves they’d cut in every centuries-old beahter the Khalidorans holding the city’s east gate at ht All the other nobles were huddled outside their own houses From her elevated front porch, she could see so to see if she’d really do it

She locked the mansion in her mind After she returned, she would rebuild this for her family, twice as splendid as before

Terah Graesin walked to the street and took the torch froathered around her She personally lit every arrow At her nod, they loosed them

The mansion went up in flame Fire poured from the s and reached for the heavens Queen Terah Graesin didn’t look She mounted her horse and led her column, her pathetic army of three hundred soldiers and twice as many servants and shopkeepers into the street toward the east gate

Across the east side, the great houses lit up one by one They were the funeral pyres of fortunes Not only were the nobles losing everything, but so too were all those who depended on them for their employment But the fires of destruction were also beacons of hope You , but your victory is no triumph You can force me frombut scorched earth

In response to those great fires, across the city, smaller fires rose, too Shopkeepers set fire to their shops Blacksmiths stoked their furnaces so hot they would crack Bakers destroyed their ovens Millers sank their millstones in the Plith Warehouse owners set fire to their storehouses Livestock owners slaughtered their herds Captains confined to the Plith by wytches’ ic scuttled their own ships

Thousands joined the exodus The trickle of nobles and their servants beca out of the city--ons, some rode, some walked barefoot with empty hands and empty bellies Some cursed; some prayed; some stared over their shoulders with haunted eyes; some wept Some left brothers and sisters and parents and children, but every one of Cenaria’s orphaned sons and daughters carried a small, dim hope in their hearts

I shall return, it vowed I shall return

Neph stood as far to one side as he could areet Godking Garoth Ursuul as he rode across West Kingsbridge with his retinue The Godking wore a great ermine cloak that accentuated the paleness of his northern skin His chest was bare aside froold chains of his office He was robust, thick-bodied butpulled his stallion to a halt before the courtyard gate Six heads on pikes greeted him A seventh pike stood eod, Your Holiness, sire" The forood Though Roth’s and Neph’s plans had see’s armies had sustained far heavier losses than they’d planned A boatload of highlanders dead Many of the nobles who ought to be dead escaped Great swathes of the city aflame The heart of Cenaria’s industry and economy reduced to ashes

There was no resistance yet, but with so many nobles still alive, it would co spearhead into the heart of Modai were now dead More than fifty meisters dead, at a stroke, without any explanation except rue with more Talent than anyone since Ezra the Mad and Jorsin Alkestes The Ceuran invasion ended before it began The Godking’s son é would have to be brought to heel, fires literal and figurative would have to be put out Soure out how to make sure it wasn’t hi asked "Anyone?"

Co at the empty pike "We haven’t found prince’s--I an Gyre’s body yet, sire We, we do know that he’s dead We have three reports confirWe’re, we’re working on it"

"Indeed" Godking Ursuul didn’t look at Hurin Gher He was studying the faces of the royal family above him "And this Shadow that killed my son? He’s dead, too?"

Neph felt a chill at the quiet ’s query When the Khalidorans had first gone into the throne rooht some elite unit must have wiped out all the Khalidorans in the room, but Neph had been able to revive a man who’d had his feet cut off He swore he’d seen ht before he passed out It was one el, he called hi the hlanders and five s A ic It was nonsense, of course With all the blood they’d found, the ed his body away, sir We followed the blood trail through the hidden passages It was a lot of blood, sire If it really was just one man, he’s dead"

"It seems we have a lot of dead people without bodies, Commander Find them In the meantian Gyre’s"

It wasn’t fair Ferl Khalius had been ahlanders on Cenarian soil He’d been one of the few to get off the burning, sinking barge, and that only because he’d had the wits to throw off his ar in, so he didn’t drown like so ht barehanded until he could arhlanders who died in the first assault on the courtyard He’d personally killed six Cenarian soldiers and two nobles, six nobles if you counted children, which he didn’t

And what had he been given to recognize his heroisiven looting privileges--the good units on the west side, what the barbarians called the Warrens, and the best units looting the remains of the east side with the officers Ferl’s unit was all dead, so he got assigned with clearing the rubble on the east bridge

It wasn’t only dirty--it was dangerous The wytches had extinguished the fire, butor breaking if you stood on thes were fine: sheathed in iron, they were is, so a fat lot of good that did

The worst part of the job was the bodies Some of them were like seared steak, crusted black on the outside, but cracked and oozing inside And the stench of burnt flesh and burnt hair! He was picking through the bodies, taking whatever looked proe Solad to have their dead back for proper burial, but Ferl wasn’t going to carry the dae To the abyss with them