Karen and Ella have been working hard to stock up on herbs for the first autumn and winter ailments. Emily was keen on assisting them before Frederic's eldest swooped her off her feet. She's a Laneby girl; they'll be wed by next Spring.

Nick buried his face deeper into the ashes. The pressure built up in his throat, his heart pumping louder the longer he suppressed the urge to cough. He had to hold on. One odd sound, one glimpse of his shredded shirt, and he would be reduced to a pile of burning bones.

A pair of light footsteps rushed him by. Alex had fooled the demons into thinking she was nothing but a silly girl.

But Fox...

Nick shuddered upon hearing the pleading cries. His friend was lost forever. As impressive as Fox's outbursts of courage may have been, his only options were to head north or face death. The Greenlander laws were clear on the matter: no magic allowed; under no circumstances.

At least in the north, there was a chance that he would grow up a good and kind magician. It was the only way this horrendous day could have some purpose.

Abby. 

She had to live. The Goddess of Kindness had to show Billy the way so Seb and Abby could complete the journey to Sundale. She wasn't allowed to die. His sister was the only family he had left.

Fox and Seb had relatives in other parts of The Greenlands, and Alex had an uncle who owned a large trading company on one of the Jade Islands. But not his family. Generation after generation, they had lived and died in Laneby—first as farmers, later as all-rounders to serve the Lord. Now it had become his duty to carry on their legacy. 

He held his breath to kill the tears that were threatening to reveal his hiding place, but the bittersweet memories weren't so easy to smother. 

It was here, behind the blacksmith's workshop that Abby always hid when he and George were playing hide-and-seek with her. It was the only game that they managed to play together as siblings without quibbling like a bunch of bored woodland fairies, as Mother often put it.

All of that gone now. All because the death of Lord Brandon and Seb would give King Ariel a claim to rule these lands.

As the clopping of the horses echoed through the deserted valley, Nick's hands chewed the ashes until his skin was as raw as the emotions toiling inside of him. The magician's story sounded absurd. It would mean that Lord Brandon and Seb were of royal descent.

Royals living in Laneby. He had never heard anything of the like. When people weren't distracting him with warrior training, childish games, or unexpected hunting trips, he was either devouring every book he could get his hands on or finding ways to eavesdrop on Lord Brandon's council meetings.

And he was good at it too. Whenever his father and Lord Brandon were discussing trips to Sundale or made plans to host a surprise feast, Nick was always the first to hear about them. But nobody had ever mentioned anything of the Lord's royal blood.

Or had they? He had questioned Father often enough of why he was the one to go to the capital for official ceremonies instead of Lord Brandon. His curiosity had been laughed away with jokes about the Lord's stubbornness and how he would cause conflict at court just by being there.

A conflict with the King.

Nick scrambled up, his back resting against the forge, and ran his hands across his face to brush the dirt off.  It wasn't fair. Fox abused the words often enough when things didn't go the way he had planned, but they couldn't ring truer now.

George. Mother. Father. Grandma Bessie. Uncle James. All had died so the northern King could one day plant his fat behind on the Greenlander throne.

But his plan had failed. Seb had survived.

Nick peeked around the corner; the riders were clouded in the smoke on the horizon. The cough that had been nagging at the back of his throat came out so hard that tears sprung from his eyes.

It was all because of Lord Brandon and Seb that he would no longer hold any burping competitions with George after eating Mother's roast. Nor would he ever get chased out of the house again because Father wished he'd do something more useful than staying indoors to read all day long.

If only he could stare at Father one last time, smiling a sheepish grin, as he was caught with a handful of books underneath the oak tree by the tavern. You didn't say I couldn't read outside.

A numbness spread in his chest as he followed in Alex's footsteps, his beige shoes landing where hers had passed not too long ago. 

"She can't have gone far," he muttered to himself, plodding up the hill. "She would never leave without me."

As he waded through the floating corpses in the river, the tip of her bow peeking from behind a birch tree confirmed his theory. He shook his head. She may be a remarkable hunter, but even little Abby could teach Alex a few things about playing hide-and-seek.

"Alex?" he called to her, more a whisper than a real shout-out.

The silence of death answered. No birds chirping. No flies buzzing. Nothing.

He pulled at the reed in the riverbank and clambered ashore. There she was sitting against the trunk, with her head buried in her lap. She always did this when she was sad. Real men didn't cry, and Alex pretended that she didn't either.

He patted her back, uncertain whether it would comfort her. Girls were strange creatures, and Alex was even stranger. "I'm here. You were so brave there. You—"

Her body shook from all the sobbing, which along with the crying, muffled half of what she was saying. "No... Fox. I should've... stopped them. Those monsters... those brutes..."

"They kept him alive." His hands sought refuge in his pockets, where he found a mixture of wet ashes and dirt. "We could ask King Thomas to save him. I'm sure he'll do it."

A stupid lie. The man would kill him if he found out what Fox was, but Nick wanted to go, and this was how he would convince Alex.

"No, it's... it's all my fault, Nick. I'm sorry... I should not... I should have killed them... Poor Fox..."

"It's not your fault. King Ariel, he's the one who has to pay." A lump formed in his throat as the half-burnt body of his grandmother flickered before his eyes. "Grandma Bessie used to say that apologising is useless because you can never truly make up for the mistakes you made. The past has already happened, and there's nothing we can do to change it."

The twig-filled forest floor cracked beneath her feet as she got up, the warmth of her body spreading fast against his as she put her arms around his neck. He pressed his head against her chest and closed his eyes. Laneby wouldn't be any less gone when he opened them again, but for now, he needed her comfort as much as she needed his.

Slowly her breathing returned to a normal, steady cadence, only to be broken by the odd sniff. "Sundale... eh. It's not my first choice, but since that's where Seb and Abby will be..."

Nick nodded. Mother had often called the capital a place with deeply ingrained misogynistic attitudes, and although he had never fully grasped what that meant, he had heard the mocking of the travellers at Laneby's tavern to understand that Alex's privileges meant nothing beyond the Forest of Lane.

With the sleeve of her hole-filled shirt, she rubbed the tears from her face. "And if we want to ask the King to rescue Fox from the claws of these brutes, then we need to go to Sunstone Castle. You know the stories as much as I do that he hardly ever leaves the castle."

"True, and since he's related to Seb, he might take us all in. There's law that states that the Lord and Lady of the village are responsible for taking in orphans. If Lord Brandon and Lady Karen are dead, then Seb would become our legal guardian, but since he isn't sixteen yet, the right will pass on to his nearest of kin. Which I think might be the King himself."

"Seb and Fox were right about you reading too many books." Alex snorted, no smile in sight. "If they want to put me in a castle and dress me up as some boring Lady, I will gladly volunteer to spend the rest of my days in the dungeon."

Nick shrugged. It would be no use to reason or argue with Alex, so he just started walking, keeping the river on his right side to use the current to guide them to Sundale.

Mile after mile, the smouldering remains were the only view on the other riverbank. The fire had claimed it all. Would it stop eventually, or just continue burning until it had claimed all of The Greenlands?

The irony of it all. Then King Ariel would be King of its ruins.

He turned his head to the ground as the floating corpses passed by. He glanced back. The river here was still; his imagination playing tricks.

"Look, hooves. Seb must have passed right through here." Alex tugged at his arm, pointing at the horseshoe-shaped marks buried underneath a fresh layer of ashes.

"I hope he'll get there in time. He just has to." He stopped talking. The God of Wrath pulled at his heartstrings.

Abby's body had been terribly burnt, like she had scales instead of skin; her normal rosy colour replaced by red and black. And then there had been the wheezing of her lungs.

"Are you okay?" Alex gently squeezed the palm of his hand, her eyes filling with water as well.

"I'm pathetic." He sobbed, forcing a grin on his face. "It's not like crying will help her get better."

"I think even Lord Brandon would cry right now." She pulled him closer. "I mean... it's not like someone broke our favourite toy."

"Maybe Abby was my favourite toy."

She brushed her hand over his back. "It's possible, the way you two are inseparable sometimes. When she begs you to help her, you can never say no. You are her hero, you know that."

"Then why didn't you let me ride Billy? I should have been the one to take her. I'm her brother."

"You were too emotional. And Seb is a far better rider than you, especially when it comes to long journeys."

He cocked his head. Nobody had ever called him emotional. "So why didn't you ride then? You're even better than Seb."

She grinned the same mischievous smile that had convinced him to join too many of her and Seb's horsing around Laneby. "Easy. You and Seb would have never been able to catch food. You two muttonheads would die of starvation before any Sundale patrol could find you."

He jammed his elbow into her side. "That's not true, Miss Alexandra."

She bumped her hip against his. "It is, Young Master Nicolas. Remember this afternoon when the hare just hopped by, and you still missed it."

The hunting trip. The scratches on his legs from prowling through the ivy leaves convinced him that it had happened for real, but it seemed as fleeting as a good dream come morning.

"Did you know about Fox?" Alex asked. "Him being a magician?"

He licked his dry lips, trying to find the right words. "I think part of me always suspected something was wrong with him. Nobody else knows how to build fires like he does, but he's the blacksmith's son. I never considered it extraordinary that he liked playing with flames. The thought may have crossed my mind, but it's not something you would say out loud."

"No, Lord Brandon would have banished him. Or worse."

Lord Brandon. In hindsight all clues were evident. For his ninth birthday, Nick had received a book about Greenlander Kings. The tale had stopped just as King William ascended the throne over forty years ago. Many books had pages missing, so he had never questioned the torn edges of paper at the back.

If Lord Brandon had one secret, he could keep others too. Perhaps harbouring Fox was the source of conflict with the King.

"I don't think he would have. He must have known."

"Do you think he's dead? Lord Brandon?"

"I didn't see him, but given the number of corpses and bones." He put his hands back in his pockets to stop their trembling. "Math doesn't lie, Alex..."

"But brutes from Silvermark might." She raised her head to the sky, squinting her eyes. Above the clouds of smoke loomed a darker force. "You think that's rain?"

"I hope so. Then Mother's joints would be right after all." He whimpered an uneasy laugh. "She always said Lord Brandon would have been a fine King. I always thought she was praising him. But, all the dots were there. We only had to connect them, Alex. He was a royal."

"I'm not a porktail, Nick. I've already added it all up too." She pressed her lips together and strutted away.

It had never been his intention to make her look dumb. "So you know what that means, don't you? For Seb?"

She turned around, flashing the smug look in her eyes. "Of course. He's riding home."