Chapter 1 - Golden Kingdom

— Part I: Arrival —

Kingdom of Zulen, City of Zleyval

Across the water, the city shimmered like highly polished tertanium in the hands of a skilled metallurgist. Zleyval, the capital of the kingdom of Zulen, was literally a shining beacon on a hill. The city nestled in a valley between two high mountain peaks. Our boat slid through the placid water of the lake, picking up speed as Kintle and Yung rowed swiftly and with increased anticipation, nearing the glow of Zleyval whose light grew brighter with every stroke of the oars. These people were either supremely overconfident or insanely reckless. Their radiant capital was like an enormous arrow, pointing the Hollows to where their next meal could be found.

I glanced at Taio, trying to read his expression, but his handsome features showed no sign of tension. His long, straight blue-black hair was pulled back from his face in a queue down his back, revealing his sculpted cheekbones, full lips, and the slash of dark eyebrows above his blue-green eyes. With so much light reflecting off the city, I could see the color of his eyes now, though dusk had fallen and the sun set. Taio stood tall, much taller than me, which was still an anomaly to me as among my people, the people of Earsleh, I was freakishly tall and, as such, considered undesirable. It hadn’t even mattered in Earsleh that I was the daughter of a king because I had other unfortunate attributes. My eyes were impure—not an unadulterated dark color but a mixture of brown and gold. My mother, a former queen, had been divorced for her infidelity. And I was known to be impulsive, illogical, and unemotional.

With everything I’d learned over the past couple of weeks, I no longer believed I was impulsive or illogical. I wasn’t unemotional either. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at Taio again because whenever I did so, I felt as though a warm blanket wrapped about my chilled body. I might not have shown my emotions, but if I had, my family and so-called friends would have exploited them as weakness and brought me to my knees. No, I would stand strong, even if that meant I had to push down every soft feeling and vulnerability.

I rolled my shoulders back, wincing at the tension between my shoulder blades. I’d clenched my fists so tightly my hands ached. Taio had told me we were safe from Hollows here. The mountains, the lake, the rivers on the east and west of Zleyval were natural barriers to the monsters whose lust for blood had brought down three of the once great five kingdoms, leaving only my own, Earsleh, and this little pocket of Zulen. At least that was what I believed. I’d been lied to before—by my father, my mother, Gaz...

I wondered what Gaz would make of Zleyval. Like me, he would probably think the people quite mad to be so incautious. He wouldn’t see the beauty that glimmered before me now. He wouldn’t wish with all his heart, as I did now, that this place wasn’t just a mirage but a refuge for hope that the world needed.

That I needed.

Gaz would hate what he saw because all he’d wanted was power and status. He’d tried to use me to gain those, and I had no doubt that if I ever saw him again, if he wasn’t lying dead somewhere in the woods between Earsleh and Zleyval, he would not hesitate to kill me.

I looked at Taio again. A crease had appeared between his brows. “Something is not right.”

I followed his gaze, but the city looked the same to me. I could begin to differentiate various buildings now, and I spotted a long wooden walkway extending into the water. Kintle and Yung were rowing toward it.

“Where are the dock workers?” Taio said softly, almost to himself.

My stomach knotted, and I pressed my short nails into my palm until the skin broke. Taio was not a man who ever looked worried. Even when I’d first seen him, walking through a crowd of foreigners, surrounded by hostile guards, he’d held his head high and appeared supremely confident. When our eyes had met, he’d winked at me. The next day we’d faced off in the arena in hand-to-hand combat. I was still annoyed that he’d beat me, but I would always wonder if I would have used the golden dagger to slit his throat if I’d won. I think, even then, I was besotted with him, drawn to him like iron to a lodestone. Part of his attraction was his calm, his self-assuredness. Seeing his composure falter now meant I had to tamp down stirrings of panic.

Behind me something splashed in the water, and I reached for my skullcrusher out of habit. Of course, my belt loop was empty. I’d lost my skullcrusher back in the woods when Gaz had ambushed Taio and me. Hands empty now, I swung around, fists raised in defense, to find Kintle waist-deep in the indigo water of the lake, wading toward the front of the boat. His carrot hair gleamed like a fiery spark in the glint of the lights.

“You are not in danger here, Mara,” Taio said.

I gave him a dubious look over my shoulder. “Then why do you look so uneasy?” Immediately, his expression shifted to one of neutrality, but I’d seen his concern. My gaze moved to Omira, Taio’s sister, and I saw the same expression on her face as I’d seen on Taio’s before he’d tried to mask it. “There is no music,” Omira said in Zulenii. “That is why this feels so odd.”

Zulenii was the language Taio and his people spoke, the language of Zulen. My people spoke Earslehen, and until I met Taio, I had never heard another language spoken. At first Zulenii had sounded completely foreign to me, but the more I’d heard it—and I’d heard it constantly since Taio had claimed me as his bride and we’d set off for Zulen—the more I realized the two languages were very similar. I could now understand most simple phrases and piece together more difficult ones by identifying a couple of words and inferring the rest. I’d been trying to practice speaking it too, but that was more difficult than training to kill Hollows. More humbling too, as I sounded like a toddler when I attempted to speak their tongue.

I hadn’t understood every word Omira had spoken, but I’d understood enough. Taio had told me Zleyval was full of music, and he’d grown up listening to the evensong when dusk fell. But the city was silent now, and this concerned Omira, which meant it concerned me.

Kintle had taken hold of the rope on the front of the boat and pulled the vessel the last few feet to the long, wide dock. He climbed a ladder on the side of the dock, shook off the water, and wound the rope around a bulwark that seemed intended for that purpose.

Dusk was upon us, but in the golden light emanating from seemingly everywhere all at once, I could make out a booth at the end of the dock where presumably workers would wait for returning boats. Larger craft were to our east, anchored in deeper waters. Above them, hidden behind the high cliffs surrounding the city, an eerie orange light flickered in the darkening sky. Black smoke obscured the emerging stars.

Water splashed as Yung dropped the anchor, and Taio grasped Kintle’s arm and climbed onto the end of the dock. Taio took both my wrists and pulled me onto the wooden slats, followed by Omira and Yung. Even with the dread settling in my belly, I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the city rising before us. I was really here. I was in a foreign kingdom, a place that until now had been nothing more than a myth to me. The impossible beauty of the place, the gilded grandeur of stately buildings with tall columns spreading before us, was breathtaking.

“No people in the streets,” Taio said in my language, his tone wiping away my awe and replacing it with unease. Even in Earsleh, some people would have been out in the early evening. Our streets were dark but even an Earslehen child of five could navigate in the shadows. In this place, night was more like daytime.

Taio gestured to a wide avenue spreading from the end of the dock. “We will go directly to court.” He offered his hand, and I took it. His warm hand closed over mine, and I would never admit, except to myself, how much reassurance his touch gave me. Still, in a new place like this I would have preferred to hold my skullcrusher in my other hand, and I felt exposed on that side. As we neared the end of the dock—Taio leading with me at his side and Omira, Kintle, and Yung right behind—the avenue I’d glimpsed before became more visible. No wonder I’d thought the city had a golden glow. The stones of this avenue were literally painted golden. Wide enough to accommodate ten people walking shoulder-to-shoulder, the avenue must be a main thoroughfare. We had nothing so spacious as this inside the gates of Highcastle, the capital of Earhsleh. We lived practically on top of one another in the safety of the castle walls. I was used to stepping aside to make room when I came across two people walking together along an alley. Some streets were so narrow only one could pass at a time.

As we left the dock behind, my shoulders rose protectively. The expansive space around me was alien and dangerous. Gaz would have agreed with that. I could imagine him turning this way and that, looking for danger in every direction. I took a breath and pushed Gaz from my mind. For all I knew, he was dead. I’d wounded him gravely in our last fight. The loss of one eye would make it harder for him to spot Hollows, so perhaps I’d doomed him to being eaten alive.

Or worse.

“What do you think, Mara?” Omira asked, coming to walk at my side. Her tone was light, but the levity sounded forced. Kintle and Yung could have easily walked beside her, but they stayed behind, covering our flank. Clearly, the four Zulenii were on edge and what we encountered now was not what they’d anticipated. Omira was tall, about my height, with long, straight black hair like her brother Taio. She wore it in a sort of knot on top of her head, the severe style highlighting the delicate bones of her cheeks and jaw as well as the tightness in that jaw.

Looking away from her, I studied the buildings we passed and tried to take everything in without becoming overwhelmed. I was hungry to examine everything, to stop and stare, to feed on the newness and the beauty of all I saw. The structures on this thoroughfare were pale and ethereal, almost universally white. Many were made of what I guessed to be a pale marble. They should have looked cold, but hundreds of lamps on poles, set on the side of the thoroughfare, and at every window and doorway, flickered over the stone, making the golden veins in the marble come alive. Not all the edifices were so grand. Others appeared to be made of brick or wood and whitewashed. Almost every building was embellished by massive columns so wide I could not have put my arms around them. The smaller structures had but two columns, and the larger boasted four or six. The uppermost sections of the columns were decorated with carvings representing long leaves. These were often painted gold, as were the doors and the window casings of the edifices.

“The city is very beautiful,” I said. Beautiful was too mild a term for what I felt when I saw it, but the other word that also came to me, ostentatious, would probably offend her. Tasteful as the construction and the materials might be, so much light and grandeur seemed extravagant after the simplistic utilitarianism of Highcastle. The other Zulenii looked at me expectantly, and I tried to think of something else to say. “The streets are so wide, and everything is gold and shining,” I said, my words woefully inadequate. I was no poet, though. I was a warrior and had never pretended otherwise.

“Not every street is this wide,” Omira informed me. “This is Gold Path, where our finest artists and artisans work and perform. Many of our streets are similar in width to those in Earsleh.”

I was happy to hear that since wide avenues like this would be impossible to defend if Hollows ever breached the walls of the city. That was, if the city had walls. Perhaps the cliffs served as a natural wall? I’d expected to feel safe once we came ashore, but I felt vulnerable and on edge. Omira seemed happy, though. Despite her earlier concerns, now she moved with a relaxed stride, and a smile spread her mouth wide. I glanced over my shoulder and felt relieved to see the dark-haired Yung and the carrot-haired Kintle moving more cautiously.

“How many people live in the city?” I asked, turning back to Omira. “It appears empty.”

Omira glanced in the direction of the cliffs where we’d seen the fire. The tall marble buildings hid the crags to the east from us, but if I looked straight up, I could see the billowing smoke. Taio had been concerned about the smoke when they’d first spotted it on our passage across the lake. He hadn’t mentioned it again, but he wasn’t smiling like Omira either.

“We think the fire in the mountains might have frightened everyone,” she said. “The people may be hiding inside or obeying an order to do so. Usually this street is filled with—”

“My lord! My lady!” someone called in Zulenii. I spun around. Once again, my hand reached for the empty belt loop where my skullcrusher should have been. I cursed inwardly and resolved to get hold of another weapon as soon as possible. Taio, still holding my other hand, squeezed it in a gesture that was probably supposed to be reassuring. As much as I liked having him by my side, in that moment, I would have preferred my hand be free for defense.

A man rushed out from one of the buildings we’d just passed. I didn’t like anyone coming at me like that, but no one else seemed on guard. This newcomer was tall, like the other Zulenii, and clean shaven. His long hair was a light brown and reached past his shoulders. Plaits with golden charms at the end swung among the loose waves of his hair. He wore a long white robe with a gold sash at the waist. On his feet were shoes of some sort of woven material that left his toes and ankles bare. Taio said something I recognized as a Zulenii greeting, but I couldn’t stop staring at the man’s shoes. Clearly, this man was no threat—not in shoes like that. What was the point of such footwear? How could anyone run in something so flimsy?

Abruptly, Kintle broke away from us, and before I could grab him and keep him safe, he embraced the man with such exuberance I wondered if they were family. When they finally parted, Kintle took the man’s hand and led him to Taio. Taio released me and, to my surprise, also embraced the new man. Was everyone here mad? Did they care so little about their lives? The light glaring through the night sky answered that question. Still, even if these people willingly embraced others with abandon, the behavior was odd for a man in Taio’s position. He was of the First House, which I understood to be the ruling family. This man with the gold charms and the feeble shoes was his subject. Were all of Taio’s subjects so familiar with him? I cut my gaze to Omira, who was smiling even more broadly now. “Omira, is this man part of the court?”

She shook her head and laughed. “No. Just an actor. I forget his name.”

And yet, a moment later, she embraced him too. Then the man looked at me, his pale eyes searching my face. “And who is this?” he asked in Zulenii. This was a common phrase I understood well enough.

“Ngaro, this is my bride, Lady Mara of Hightower of the Kingdom of Earsleh.”

I had to guess at a few of these words, but as most of them were my name and birthplace, I understood Taio’s introduction well enough.

“Earsleh?” Ngaro’s green eyes widened and the golden charms in his hair pinged against each other. For a moment, I thought this Ngaro would back away. The muscles in his face tensed, and fear flashed in his eyes. But he swallowed loudly and said in Zulenii, “Lady, Mara. Welcome.”

I nodded at him—a formal nod, my neck not too deeply inclined. Suddenly, Ngaro reached for me. I raised my arms, prepared to defend myself. But he jumped back before I could strike and said something I didn’t quite understand.

Omira put a hand on my shoulder, which made me flinch. “Easy, Mara,” she said quietly in Earslehen. “He only wanted to embrace you.”

Taio was speaking to this Ngaro, while I eyed the actor suspiciously.

“I don’t even know him,” I said to Omira, not taking my gaze from the new man. I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t try to grab me again.

“Embracing after being introduced is our custom,” she explained.

I gave a slight chuckle. But when I gave her a sideways glance, her expression was one of sincerity.

“You are not teasing.”

“No,” she said. “We always embrace or what we call hug when we see someone from whom we’ve been apart for a time.”

I tried to keep my mouth from dropping open. What a perilous custom! Embracing someone you didn’t even know was the fastest way to die. Why let someone untrusted that close? They could easily stab you or take you prisoner. But Kintle was speaking with the actor Ngaro now, and I tried to understand his words. They spoke rapidly, and Kintle gestured to the cliffs where we’d seen the fire. I heard the Zulenii word for Hollows—Twilight Men—and stiffened, turning this way and that to make sure the area before and behind us was clear.

But it wasn’t clear, not at all. More people had emerged from the marble buildings and stood at the edge of the gilded street, coming out from behind columns. Taio’s name seemed to float on the air as people whispered his name and those of my other companions. “Taio,” I said, “we’re attracting an audience.”

Ngaro gasped. “She speaks a different language!” he said in Zulenii, though I had no trouble understanding.

Taio glanced about and took in the people now emerging. “We don’t have time for them right now.” He spoke in Zulenii, and I guessed at most of what he said. He was looking at Omira, his words intended for her. “We don’t even have time to call at court. We need to take the air boat to the lookout.”

Air boat? I must have translated that incorrectly.

“Now?” Omira asked. Her reaction only served to increase my anxiety. If she didn’t like something, I really didn’t like it.

“Now,” Taio said. He walked with some urgency in the direction of a side street that was, as Omira had said, narrower than that of Gold Path. This one was not painted gold either, but it was smooth and swept clean. People began to follow us, calling out Taio’s name as well as other questions. Taio ignored them. He spoke to Kintle, mentioning Ngaro and something about court.

Kintle shook his head. “I am with you, my lord.”

Taio nodded, though such insubordination would have been punished in Earsleh.

Taio said something else to Kintle and put a hand on his shoulder.

“He is coming with us?” I asked.

Taio nodded. “I asked him to inform my parents we’ve returned, but I suppose word will reach them before he could anyway. Besides, we might need Kintle.”

“Why?”

Taio gave me a look and pressed his lips together. Clearly, he didn’t want to answer my question. I wasn’t put off easily, though. If he didn’t want to answer why we’d need help, he could answer where we’d need it, though I thought I already knew.

“Where are we going?” I asked, lengthening my stride to keep pace with Taio.

Taio turned, his troubled blue-green eyes meeting my darker ones. “Into the fire.”

* * *

AS WE MOVED THROUGH the city, the streets became steeper, and the number of shops and homes decreased. Some of those we passed were carved into what I now realized was a hill or, more likely, a mountain. I wished I had time to pause and study this construction. The execution could only be described as ingenious.

Taio’s cryptic answer had annoyed me but now was not the time to peck at him with questions. I’d see the situation soon enough. Taio and Omira’s disquiet had become my own, and I kept a determined pace with them. No one came out to greet us on these lanes, and the city dwellers following us kept their distance. But I thought I saw curtains in some of the houses we passed flutter. We were being watched.

Behind me, Yung said something I roughly translated to Has this small blaze really frightened everyone so much they stay indoors?

Kintle answered, and it took me a moment to make sense of his words. I shot a look at Taio. “Your people are afraid of me?” I asked.

His lips pressed together. “This isn’t the reception I had hoped for you,” he said in Earslehen. “This fire has ruined your welcome.”

But would I have been welcomed? I wasn’t so certain. I wouldn’t admit this to Taio, but I found I rather liked the idea of the Zulenii fearing me. Perhaps I should keep it that way. The last thing I wanted was strangers trying to embrace me.

Taio and I crested the rise we’d been climbing, and I studied the wooden structure built on the flat highpoint. The wood had been painted gray to blend in with the rocks surrounding us. Turning this way and that, I realized we were now at the base of the mountain. I looked up and up and up, until my neck fell fully back. I’d never seen such a tall mountain. I was winded from the short climb we’d made, and yet we’d not even climbed a fraction of this enormous rocky structure before us. And this was but one of a collection of mountains. The peaks of the range were so high snow already covered them.

“Mara. Come.”

I’d been so preoccupied by the mountains—the sheer size and scale of them—that I’d forgotten we were investigating the fire. Taio had already climbed the wooden ladder to the top of the platform. Now I reached for the first rung and climbed to join him. He was already speaking to two Zulenii—one man and one woman. They were dressed like Taio, Yung, and Kintle in trousers, boots, and tight-fitting coats that reached to their thighs. They spoke so rapidly I could not translate fast enough.

“We’ll take the second air boat,” Omira said, leaning over to murmur to me.

So I had translated air boat correctly.

“Leed and a contingent of his warriors took the first,” she continued.

“You have warriors?”

She gave me a tight smile. “Am I not a warrior?”

I felt my cheeks heat. “Er...”

She saved me from replying. “Besides the four of us”—she gestured to my companions—"Leed insisted on training other men and women who showed an interest.”

Excitement began to replace the anxiety churning in my belly. “Leed is the Earslehen man?”

“Taio told you of him.”

I nodded, my heart thudding with anticipation now that my supposition another countryman of mine was here had been confirmed. “Taio told me everything.”

She arched her brows. Clearly, she didn’t think I’d been told everything. Well, I’d been told enough, and knowing Taio, I didn’t think he’d intentionally omitted information. According to Taio, Leed had fled Earsleh years ago with what he said was the cure for the red vein virus that caused people to turn into Hollows. The problem was the cure was written in the royal language, and only a few of the royal children could read it. I was one of those as were a handful of my siblings. Finnrey had been able to read it, but she was dead now. She’d never read anything again.

I took a shaky breath and tried not to think about Finnrey. I needed to think about this Leed. He had taught Taio our language and trained him to fight the Hollows. It was Leed who told Taio about the Claiming Rite, whereby he’d beaten me and claimed me for his bride. In essence, Leed was the reason I was here, in Zulen, now.

Taio moved forward and pulled open the door of the booth at one end of the platform. As he stepped inside, the booth moved, and I gasped quietly. The booth wasn’t a booth at all, but some sort of vessel suspended from ropes above. I’d noticed the ropes trailing from the mountain to the platform, but I hadn’t yet imagined their purpose. Now I saw they attached to the vessel. I spoke to Omira. “Is that the air boat?”

“Yes.” She gestured for me to move forward and enter it, as Taio had done. Kintle and Yung stepped inside, causing the dangling boat to sway even more.

“Can it hold all of us?” I asked. I had never been afraid of heights, but then I’d never been suspended over a mountain with hundreds of feet between the ground and me.

“Of course,” Omira replied. “It can hold the weight of ten men, and probably more than that. Never tell me you are afraid, Mara.”

“I’m not afraid of an air boat,” I said with a confidence I definitely did not feel. Everyone in Earsleh said I was impulsive and overly curious. I’d wanted to see the world outside Earsleh. I’d wanted to see Zulen. Mayhap I hadn’t wanted to see it from a hundred feet in the air barely a half hour after I’d arrived, but here I was.

I followed the length of the ropes from the platform where we stood up, up, and still up into the mountains and toward what looked like another platform. It was now too dark for me to be certain. The only reason I could see the path as well as I did was because the fire was behind that platform, and the light of the fire illuminated it.

My mother had always said my wish for adventure would be the death of me. Now was a fine time to admit she might have been right. Especially because even though I was terrified—not that I would admit that to Omira—I was also excited. I’d never been up in the air. I’d never been to the top of a mountain. I could hardly imagine something so exciting and frightening. I might have wished a fire didn’t wait for us on the other side of this journey, but I climbed into the air boat anyway. It swayed violently, and I fumbled for Taio. He steadied me and pulled me against his firm, broad chest. Now my heart beat harder for another reason. Taio’s touch had never left me unaffected, and even with the stink of smoke in the air, I could smell him—that exotic, indefinable scent that was all him. I’d been enveloped by that scent, marked by it all over my body, but I still couldn’t stop myself from inhaling it again and wanting to bury my face in his chest. I refrained, stepping back from Taio as soon as I felt steady again. He gestured to the other side of the boat, which had a rail where I could hold on as the vessel began to move. The air boat was little more than a rectangular box, enclosed on the bottom and top, but open from about my waist to the top of my head on the sides. The air was cool, and I shivered slightly, though I wore my warm underclothes beneath my tunic and leggings. Taio came to stand behind me, putting his arms on either side of mine and resting his hands beside mine on the rail. I welcomed his heat.

And then when the boat began to rise from the earth, I welcomed his solid shape at my back. The air boat started off with a jerk, and if I hadn’t been holding onto the rail, I would have fallen. The thick ropes above creaked and the wooden vehicle groaned as we began to climb. I looked back, craning my head to see around Taio, and saw the two guards at the platform operating a large wheel. Presumably this boat was attached to some sort of pulley system, and the wheel moved the rope to which we were attached.

I faced forward to watch the mountain looming large in our path. I could already tell we were making slow but steady progress toward the platform in the dip of the mountain before us. Holding my breath, I peered over the edge of the bus. Dizziness assaulted me at the sheer drop below us. I felt as though I might fall and quickly leaned back and closed my eyes.

“Most of us prefer not to look down,” Taio said.

I nodded, eyes still closed. “I’ll remember that in the future.”

“You are safe, mi guerrira. I would not expose you to danger.”

I turned to face him. “What if I like a little danger?”

He glanced over my head, presumably at the other platform. “I am taking you into a fire. That should be enough danger even for you. If not”—his hands moved to my waist, and he bent his head to mine—“perhaps we could find something to excite you later. Alone.”

His words were quiet, almost swept away by the wind. They were for me, exclusively. He was for me exclusively, and I couldn’t resist placing one of my hands on his cheek, where he still bore the fading bruises from his fight with Gaz. The prickle of his few days’ worth of beard made my fingertips tingle. Then Taio turned his head to kiss my palm. My insides felt as though they had turned to cream, especially when his mouth made its way to my wrist and down my forearm.

“Do we really have to watch this?” Omira asked. I started and snatched my arm away, but Taio didn’t move his hands from my waist.

“No. You may watch the mountain, sister,” he said and bent to kiss my mouth. I couldn’t exactly concentrate with Taio’s lips on mine, but I thought she said something to the effect that if Leed and his men saw, he’d never hear the end of it.

Apparently, that convinced Taio because he reluctantly pulled away, and I turned back to the mountain. The fire was brighter now, and we had all but completed our ascent, coming level with the platform nestled in a dent between what appeared to be two mountains. I turned my head to speak to Taio. “Omira said Leed will be on the platform.” I pointed to the structure we were slowly approaching, where several people were now visible. They were looking down the other side of the mountain, not over at us.

“That is certain. Whenever we have a problem with the Twilight Men, Leed is the first to defend us.”

Leed sounded very much like most Earslehens. I had a feeling I would like him.

Taio called out, and two of the warriors turned from the other end of the platform and jumped to come to our assistance. As our air boat neared the end of the rope, they reached out and steadied the conveyance, pulling us into a dock beside the first air boat. The men were tall, quite a bit taller than me. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to looking up at other people. With few exceptions, in Earsleh, I had always been the tallest person in any room. After being around Taio and his team, I had begun to feel as though I was average height. But the more I saw other Zuleniis, I felt almost short. One of the warriors held out a hand to steady me as I stepped off the air boat, and my head barely reached his shoulder.

I looked up and noted the tattoos on his neck and face. That was something else I had difficulty becoming accustomed to. Zulenii men preferred to be clean-shaven and all of them were decorated in some place or other with tattoos. One of the warriors standing before me had tattoos all along the left side of his face. He immediately brought Yung to mind as he too had facial tattoos.

The warrior assisting me released my hand and gave me a puzzled look. “Who are you?” he asked, reminding me the Zulenii were also much more direct than I was used to. In Earsleh, we would have never asked such a question so plainly. We would have said something like, Have we had the pleasure of meeting before? Forgive me if I cannot recall.

My half-sisters would have called the Zulenii uncouth barbarians, but I was trying to keep an open mind. The Zulenii people had different customs and practices. One kingdom was not better than the other.

Since the warrior had spoken in Zulenii, and my comprehension was far more advanced than my speech, Taio answered for me. “This is Lady Mara, my bride-to-be.”

“Lady Mara? But I’ve never—” The warrior’s eyes widened. Then he turned on his heel and called, “Commander Leed! Commander Leed!”

A short man whirled away from the group looking over the other edge of the platform where the light from the fire was brightest. His fierce scowl was almost as hot as the heat from the blaze. “Will you lower your voice, cadet? We don’t want to inflame them further.”

He spoke in Zulenii, so I guessed at most of what he said, but I knew immediately this was Leed. Not only was he shorter than the others—shorter than me—he had dark hair, golden skin, and dark eyes, like almost all people from Earsleh. Unlike my countrymen, he wore Zulenii clothing—the trousers and longer coat—was clean-shaven and had a visible tattoo that snaked from his neck to his ear. Our eyes met, and his widened. His gaze went to Taio, then back to me, and his face broke into an enormous smile. He started across the wooden platform, and for a moment, I was afraid he would try to embrace me. Instead, he stopped before me and bowed his head respectfully. “My lady,” he said in Earslehen. “You are welcome.”

“Thank you. I am told you are called Leed.”

He looked up at me. “Leed of Westower, my lady.”

I gave a slight nod. His name told me much about him. He was not of royal blood, else he would have been of Highcastle or Shadow Court. Eastower was where my mother and I had lived. That side of the inner castle walls usually received more sun and was not as crowded with houses. Westower was darker and more populated. This man had been from a low-ranked family. His father had probably been a laborer or a fulltime soldier. His rank might explain why he claimed to Taio that he had been sent to the Barrier repeatedly. I still wasn’t sure I believed that. My father, the king, had proclaimed that no soldier went to the Barrier more than three times in his life without requesting to do so.

But if Taio was to be believed, my father lied.

“You won’t have heard of me,” he explained, “as I escaped long before you were born.”

I drew in a breath. “Escaped?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “We have much to discuss, my lady...?” He trailed off, a polite way to remind me I had not given my name. So at least Leed had not forgotten our Earslehen customs. “Lady Mara of Highcastle,” I said. Then to give him more context, I said, “Only daughter of Lady Aine, formerly Queen Aine, and King Wollem V.”

“I see. When I left, Queen Brita was on the throne.”

“Queen Brita was my father’s second wife. My mother was his third. The current, Queen Nahla, is his fourth.”

“I see King Wollem is much like his father. Perhaps he will live to marry a seventh wife, like your grandfather.”

“My father sets a good example for his people,” I argued, feeling suddenly defensive. “He has nineteen children. All families should be so blessed.” But, of course, all families couldn’t be blessed thusly because the king limited the number of children a woman other than the queen could bear. I knew this, and yet habit had me defending my kingdom and our customs.

“Well, fortunately for Taio, you did not follow your father’s matrimonial example.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I might have liked to marry if any men of my station had been available. I was spared this explanation when Leed moved to stand before Taio. “We have a situation,” he said in Zulenii. At least I think the word was situation. It might have been something more alarming. Whatever it was, the word was sufficiently serious to cause Kintle, Omira, and Yung to hurriedly follow Taio and Leed to the other end of the platform. The two soldiers who had greeted us had also returned, so I followed as well. It was only about ten steps from the air boat deck to the platform’s far edge. As I neared the wooden fence at the edge, I realized the drop below was steep and sheer. Those pieces of wood the warriors leaned against were keeping them from tumbling to their deaths below. I found an open spot at the rail beside Yung and a warrior I did not know and looked down. A river cut a swath of cobalt through the high peaks on the far side of the valley beneath us. The water seemed to cascade down a distant mountain and flow through the range to form this river that must have emptied into the lake at some point.

I might have admired the river and how it had carved that valley from the mountains over what must have been centuries, perhaps millennia. But I couldn’t admire the river because on the other side of it was a swarm of Hollows. I couldn’t smell them from up here, but even over the roar of the raging river water, I heard the unnatural hum of groans. I had never seen so many Hollows in one place. I couldn’t count them, but there must have been close to three hundred standing at the edge of the water. They swayed and looked as though they were in a trance, the same mindless dead things I had fought half of my life.

Taio was right that the river and the mountains would be a natural barrier protecting the city of Zleyval from the Hollows. Except there were about a dozen on our side of the river, and of that dozen, about half were on fire. The light from the fire was the reason I could see the Hollows on the other side so well as the sky was quickly turning a deep navy.

“How did this happen?” Taio asked, pointing to the Hollows on the near side of the river. “How did they cross?”

Leed sighed, and it was the sound of a man who is weary but who knows the battle has just begun. “Do you see those boulders there?”

I followed his finger down the river and over to several large boulders that must have, at some point over the centuries, toppled off the mountain and fallen into the riverbed. “A couple weeks ago, a group of Twilight Men broke off from the horde and tried to cross on the narrow section there, using the boulders as a bridge of sorts.”

“That’s impossible,” I said interrupting. “Even if they could recognize the boulders might be used as a bridge, they are unsteady. They would have fallen into the water.”

Leed nodded. “And they always did in the past,” he said in Earslehen. I heard Taio translating quietly as Leed continued, “In the past, Twilight Men might see a human, grow excited, and try to cross the river by running into it or accidentally using a boulder. They’d fall right off. The water doesn’t kill them, but it weighs them down and traps them. In the light of day, you can sometimes see their bodies floating, caught by the rocks. The current is fast and the bodies are washed downstream within a few hours or a day. But a larger number of Twilight Men tried to pass last night, and before the lookouts here knew what was happening, the fallen bodies caught on rocks too quickly to be washed away. They created a sort of bridge.”

I understood this. On occasion, we would come across rivers on patrol where Hollows had fallen in and either floated or sunk to the bottom. Unless a river was shallow or narrow, they could not cross. But in Earsleh, we had no rivers large enough to serve as a barrier, not like the wide river I stared at now.

Leed took a breath. “I don’t know how, but last night, a few of the Twilight Men put together a plan.” He held up a hand. “I did not see it, but this is what I was told. The Twilight Men who reached our side of the river used the boulders and their fallen brethren as steppingstones to this side.” He pointed to the group on our bank of the river.

I shook my head, not wanting to believe it. Hollows had made a plan? Impossible. They were mindless things that did not have any intellect. They could not possibly see boulders and understand those were a tool to cross a river. Hundreds were still milling about aimlessly on the riverbank across from Zleyval. They had no idea how to cross a river and hadn’t even realized some of their fellow monsters had.

But clearly a small group of Hollows had done something like thinking and crossed. How else to explain the presence of Hollows on this side of the river?

“Why are they on fire?” Taio asked. “The people of Zleyval are shut up inside from fear.”

Leed shook his head. “Before I arrived the cadets fired all our arrows at them. When those produced no result, Cadet Bonju took it upon himself to light several on fire.”

The cadet in question stepped forward, facing Taio, who translated for me. “They were trying to climb up the mountain face, my lord. I had to stop them. As Leed says, the regular arrows had no effect.”

Trying to climb up? Now this was truly impossible. I looked down at the valley below. There was a path—a steep one, but a path—down this side of the mountain to the river. I would have found it challenging to navigate. A Hollow would have found it impossible.

“The arrows were premature,” Leed said. “But after seeing the Twilight Men cooperate to cross the river, I understand the impulse. If we can destroy those Hollows who crossed the river, the clever ones, then we should be safe again. It might be weeks or months or never before the others figure out how to do what that dozen worked out.”

There it was again, a mention of Hollows cooperating. Jolen, my half-brother, had spoken of observing this sort of thing while out on patrol. Taio had claimed the Zulenii were seeing it here in Zulen. And if Leed’s warriors were to be believed, the Hollows had worked together in the last day or so to cross the river toward Zleyval. Were the Hollows evolving or just lucky?

“I sent word to the First House that the fire will burn out in a few hours,” Leed said. “And Cadet Bonju’s actions will have the effect of ending those five or six monsters.”

“What about the others?” I asked. “There are still at least half a dozen not on fire on our side of the river.”

“In the morning, we release more arrows from the lookout,” Taio said. “An arrow in the eye or the brain will end a Twilight Man.”

“Unfortunately, the cadets used up our supply of arrows. It will take days to fashion more,” Leed said. “We can’t wait that long. I don’t think it a good idea to wait even until morning. The monsters are more active at night. Under cover of darkness, they may make another attempt to climb to the lookout. It’s unlikely even one would be able to scale the mountainside, but it was unlikely that, after all these years, any would cross the river.”

I was nodding in vigorous agreement. Just one Hollow could bite two or three soldiers before being put down. If even one soldier made it down and then turned, he or she could bite others and all Zleyval would be in danger.

“I’ll go,” I said, reaching for my skullcrusher and, again, finding my belt loop empty. Frustrated, I squeezed my eyes closed. “If I had a weapon, I’d go and put the remaining Hollows down.”

“Mara, no,” Taio said at the same time Leed said, “Spoken like a true princess of Earsleh. You shall have that weapon and me by your side.”

“Mara, no,” Taio said again. Everyone looked at me. I saw Omira glance from me to Taio and back again.

“Isn’t this why you brought me here?” I demanded. “To protect your people?”

“Not like this.”

“Well, I won’t sleep tonight knowing those things are plotting how to invade the city.”

“They are still a long way from the city,” Taio said.

“And they’ll be dead when I’m done with them.” I raised my brows at Leed. “What’s the fastest way down?”