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"Sorim "But most didn’t"

"They wanted survivors," Bronwen said, loud enough for all to hear "To sow fear"

Manon studied the shattered trees, the ancient oaks as broken as the bodies on the forest floor Proof of who, exactly, had been responsible for the massacre

She had done that, too

Bronwen said, voice cold and low, "What mortal band could ever hope to survive an attack by one of the Ironteeth legions? Especially when that aerial legion was trained by such a skilled Wing Leader"

"Choose your words carefully," Asterin warned

But Una, the pretty, brown-haired Crochan and another of Manon’s cousins, gripped her silver-bound broom and said, "You trained them All of you--you trained the witches who did this" Una pointed to the decaying bodies, the torn throats, the killing that had not stopped at quick deaths Not at all "And you expect us to forget that?"

Silence fell Even fro

Manon’s hands turned frail Foreign The iron within them brittle

She had done this The soldiers in the wide clearing were nothing and no one to her, most were mere mortals, and yet … A woman lay near Manon’s boots, her torso split clean open froly at the shattered canopy overhead, herin pain

"I can burn them," Dorian offered no one in particular

Who had she been, the warrior before her? Who had she fought for? Not kingdo?

"We should alert the King and Queen of Eyllwe," Bronas saying "Warn their princes, too Tell the prisoners"

Manon stared and stared at the slaughtered warrior What she had once delighted in What she had once flaunted before the world, and done with not a shred of regret Only with the wish that her grandmother would approve That the Ironteeth would approve

This hat they would be remembered for

What she would be re Leader

"Don’t burn the

But Manon knelt on the festering earth, unsheathed her iron nails, and began digging

Yanking off her gloves, Asterin lowered herself to the ground nearby Then Sorrel and Vesta Then the rest of the Thirteen

The cold, firers, root and rock burning as they scraped at her skin

Across the clearing, Karsyn, the witch whose broom Manon had returned, made to kneel as well But Manon held up a filthy, already bleeding hand The witch halted "Only the Thirteen," Manon said "We will bury them" The Crochans stared at her, and Manon ripped away the ancient soil "We’ll bury all of them"

For hours, Manon and the Thirteen knelt in the blood-soaked earth and dug the grave

Dorian assisted Bronwen and Glennis in draftingand Queen of Eyllwe and their two sons Warning the more No request for aid, for arers returned Their southern kin who had suht after the massacre, too late to save the human war band or the feitches they’d sent ahead They had flown right to Banjali, where their four covens now aided the King and Queen of Eyllwe

Not that the Eyllwe royals seeer had returned with a rave indeed, but Eyllas not broken by it Their rebels and gathered forces, while s Morath, still unbroken They would continue to hold the line in the South, and would do so until their final breaths

Dorian gleaned the unwritten words, though: they did not have a single soldier to spare for Terrasen After what he’d seen, Dorian was now inclined to agree