I dream about Tolstoy a lot on the road, as we move from camp to camp. I think about running my fingers through his hair, rubbing his ears between my fingertips, kissing his nose and his eyelids and his lips. I dream about how warm he was beside me that first night we’d tousled beneath the stars. I dream about his fingers twined in mine. And I miss him, with my whole soul and body.

Even as we travel in the daylight, I can almost hear him call my name, and almost smell him on the wind.

I try to keep myself busy by training Sybil. We start with books and maps, and with the help of some of the other lieutenants and council members I’ve built up as we go, we teach her everything we can about tactical advances and battle formations. I teach her what I can on economics and trade.

Even still, I find that it is not a one-sided learning experience. In our downtime, Sybil teaches me how to control my magic. Via is too much for me to handle when she tries, so the lessons revert back to my necromantic counterpart. I raise trees and move the earth. We find ways to blend our magics together to push rocks out of the road.

Henry and some of the other bones remain with us as we travel southeast, keeping a steady clatter of chattering words and clicking gestures. She teaches me how to bind to them, even though their voices are faint inside me and it takes a lot of energy to hold them steady enough to hear. It does prove easier though, when Sybil shows me secretly how to use the speaking stones to get in touch with Lasis.

Their voice is bright in my skull when we speak for the first time. “By the gods, it’s about time. I’ve had so much to talk to you about.” They stammer. “For gods sakes, ever since the time you knocked over the bucket in the seed house and–” Lasis leads me into an incessant rambling about their laundry list of disappointments since they met me–followed by a laundry list of redemptions, culminating in an unexpected compliment: “You did good by us. We’ll do good by you. I’ll hold down the fort here, but come back soon.” They pause. “Tolstoy misses you.”

“Keep him safe?” I ask them, and I feel them chuckle.

“I wouldn’t dare dream of anything else. Have a safe trip now, don’t be a stranger.”

As we march on, we pass through villages, townsteads, and cities that cheer our arrival–many of which join up with us until we are an army three-thousand strong. We even pass through Belmer, and I am honored to meet with Banohr again, whose daughter has since been married to a wealthy nobleman in Cape Whistledon. The many dinners with leaders that Sybil and I share are more enlightening and optimistic as we go, building alliances with every step we make closer to the Cainern border.

It isn’t until we are a two-week ride from the capital that I finally receive a missive from my brother. It is encoded just as I anticipated. I frown at the jumbling of words and take it into my tent to review. “What does it say?” Sybil asks. She’s followed me with her hands on her hips.

“He wants us to throw the final battle,” I frown.

“He wants us to not take over, but take over?”

I set the offending letter on the travel desk and rub my face, tiredly. We had just set up camp for the night when the postman approached us. “More like: they’re going to let us win, we just need to make a show of it.” I frown.

“Does he want you to kill him?” She asks, her voice worried. “That’d be… traumatizing?”

“No, I wouldn’t either.” I admit. “Not unless I had to–and certainly not for show.” I rub my eyebrows. A deep-set disappointment settles into my gut. “I’m glad that there won’t be any need for bloodshed, necessarily,” I tell her, “But…”

“It doesn’t bode well with Dad,” Sybil finishes with a nod.

I crack a smile at her. “Yeah. It doesn’t bode well for my relations with Cainern,” I correct.

“It means your suspicions of your brother acting as a puppet for your father’s rule are likely true.” She winces. “That’s… to put it lightly, a bummer.”

“It is,” I agree. “I think…” I hesitate. “I think he wants me to pretend to kill him, though.” I gesture at the letter.

“How would you do that?”

I rub my jaw in consideration. “How do we win a war without killing anyone, while sending a message that we aren’t to be trifled with?” I wonder aloud.

“Diplomacy?” Sybil suggests drily.

“That would be nice,” I agree. “But Cainern will see it as a show of weakness in my brother. If I was meant to be killed originally, Herman would face the same fate when he returned home.”

Sybil shakes her head, “Remind me never to be born into a royal family.”

I crack a smile. “You’re being dragged along into it.”

“For tradition’s sake,” she reminds me. “And not for too long. Not until I can gather more necromancers.”

“You can do that as your state position,” I tell her automatically, mind still turning at my brother’s letter. “Train necromancers again. And druids.”

When she doesn’t respond, I realize I said the words aloud. I turn to see her stunned face. I frown. “What else did you think I would have you do?”

She shrugs. “You didn’t explain yourself before, and all the things I was learning… Tony, you made me think I was going to be a royal, royal.”

My eyebrow quirks up. “A royal, royal?” I repeat, confused.

“Yeah. All those fancy dinners. Dressing up nicely.”

I shake my head, “No. I mean, some of that, sure. But I can handle the rest of it. I’ve done it my whole life. I need someone on the ground, running affairs of the people. I’ll deal with the,” I spit on the ground, “parasitic nobles,” I suppress a shudder and she smiles. “You’ll focus on building up the people.”

Sybil nods slowly. “Okay. I like that better,” she admits.

I frown. “Did you seriously accept my proposition on the grounds of duty alone?”

“Necromancers are duty bound to their crown,” she reminds me. “It’s a long-standing tradition. Why do you think we went to war with you when we knew we wouldn’t win?”

I grimace. “Tradition killed your family?” I’d had inklings of the matter, but I’d never heard anyone say as much aloud.

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Her face falls. “Yeah.” It’s barely a word, more of a noise. She shakes herself out. “In any case.” She pats my shoulders. “Go figure out how to kill your brother. I’m going to catch some shut-eye. We have a long walk tomorrow.”

I nod and watch her duck out of the tent. My guards take up an outfit around her as she makes her way across camp, and another outfit takes up their space.

“What am I going to do?” I wonder aloud.

***

It turns out I don’t need to do too much, as we march closer to the capital. On that fateful morning, we see the sun glittering off the helms of the royal army. We set up a forward camp and one of my lieutenant colonels rides out to meet with theirs, and we all hold our breath. Like many war-time negotiations, it takes hours. The horses are watered and fed, the men eat, the bones crack their knuckles and hiss threateningly at the distant dots that are the opposing army. Via sits on Henry’s back, craning her neck and shading her eyes from the bright autumn sun.

It had been four months in total, getting to this point from the day that Soleil had been taken from us. Sybil’s main communication with her farm back home was through the speaking rocks, but even those had become more difficult to use: given the sheer amount of distance between them. Sybil didn’t fully understand the magic behind the ancient artifacts, only that sometimes mountains or hundreds of miles between them would affect how well the messages were transmitted. They drained her a lot more these days, and I scarce used them at all. Now, she sent letters. I could see that it wore on her, not being able to easily communicate with her loved ones: her family.

Our family, I realized, now that I stood before the bulk of my brother’s army–what once was my army. Sybil’s family had become mine the moment she freed us from slavery, whether it was intended that way or not. I had never known anyone I could trust implicitly like I could the bone family and the beastmen. The Reisau Farm had become a home to me, very much like it had become Sybil’s home and family.

I watch the Lieutenant Colonel’s horse ride out from behind the forward ranks of my brother’s army and sprint across the ground toward us. I tuck my fingers into the grass and throw out a wide net of magic. I feel all of the people around, their horses, their breath, their life, I feel the grass trampled beneath hoofs and hear their voices.

I follow the magic until I find my brother’s tent… and feel him sitting with his head in his hands. Diego stands over him, I feel every pore of him worried for my brother and my heart aches at the “sight.”

I return to myself and watch with bated breath as my Lt. Colonel returns with news. Her face is steady. “Dawn,” she says stiffly to me and I rub my temples.

“Okay. We’re going through with this, then.” I turn to Sybil who stands beside Henry. “We’ll need to incapacitate everyone, but not kill anyone. Can we manage that?” I address my Colonels standing near me.

“I think we can manage something.”

Via raises her hand from atop Henry’s shoulder. “You and Sybil can disrupt the earth – make them fall into a big hole.” She demonstrates with her small hands.

“Disorient them,” I nod. I look up at the Lt. Colonel who met with the opposing army’s liaison. “Do their troops know we’re doing this for show?”

“Uncertain,” the woman responded. “Nothing was explicitly stated as such.”

I groan inwardly. “Of course not.” I saunter back into the tent and survey the map we’d drawn out for the battle. I adjust some of the miniatures in the space, toying with the various outcomes in my mind before reshuffling them.

“Let him play with his dolls,” Via chides Sybil, cutting through my concentration. I realize the slight woman is shifting her weight from foot to foot anxiously.

“Tony, can I…?” Sybil asks. I look up at them, surprised. I shake my head to clear it, stepping away from the table and gesturing to it.

“Please, go ahead,” I acquiesce. “We need another angle, if we are anticipating lethal retaliation in return for our non-lethal attempts…”

Sybil nods and shifts our troops around on the map before nodding to herself. She drums her fingers along one spot, “There’s a graveyard here, I felt it earlier.” She tells me. “I could potentially frighten a handful of them into retreating into this area,” she gestures across the boundary. “You will need to capture them somehow here. Via?”

“I can manage that.”

Sybil jabs her thumb at me. “Two platoons here, waiting for them on the other side of–what are you thinking, Via?”

“Hedges, probably. A surprise, angry forest, maybe.” Via grins.

“Okay. They’ll be here to pick off the rest. String them up. Third force here…” She moves another segment of our army. “To fight with the frontlines of theirs.” She winces, “I don’t think there’s going to be much we can do about them,” she admits, wincing at me. I can see a flash of fear run through her and I realize she’s seen what I have before: blood running over the earth in streams.

But when…? I don’t entertain the thought for very long. It isn’t my place to know unless she tells me, even if we have gotten close over the past few weeks.

“We’ll do what we can,” I tell her, and I mean it. We’d already briefed our troops on our intentions for this battle.

She nods appreciatively and continues, “You’ll be here,” she taps the group at the rear. “After I raise the graveyard here, I’ll meet you back here and we’ll open up the earth together.”

“Just like that?” I smile at her knowingly, crossing my arms. “You’re going to be out of energy by then.”

She hesitates. “I’ll do what I can to keep just enough for this.” She taps the map. “It’s going to be necessary if we want to spare as many lives as possible.”

I nod and look around at the colonels standing by. “What do you think?”

They look at one another around the map and agree that it’s a good plan, because it is – a good plan. “Okay.” I tell them all, clapping my hands together. “Go get rest, ready your troops accordingly. Dismissed.”

They all duck out of the tent after bowing to us. Via follows them out, so Sybil and I are left alone. She hoists herself up to sit on the table and regards me seriously. “How have you decided to ‘kill’ your brother?” She asks, avoiding any preamble.

“You’ve been in war before,” I counter, leaning on the table beside her.

She ignores me and we sit in silence, staring at the canvas tent wall. “My question is more important,” she grumbles.

“Maybe,” I sigh and rub my eyes with my knuckles. “I guess it depends. I think we can say we capture him and then send a note saying he’s died of illness.”

Sybil inclines her head in consideration. “Not a bad thought.”

“If you raise any… relatively recent bodies, let me know,” I half-joke. “We can maybe fake a death, send a wrong body.”

She glares down at me in disgust. “Absolutely not.”

“It was a joke.”

“Not a funny one.”

I crack a smile. “Have you heard from Haven?”

“She’s pissed,” Sybil rubs her eyes.

“And Soleil?”

Sybil shakes her head. “He says we’re fine. He’s been sending me essays on tactics, actually.”

I raise my eyebrow, “Is that how you’ve become so proficient at this?”

“It’s mostly old stuff,” she glosses over the compliment. “Necromancers and druids, how they handled certain situations together. You know, when we used to reign side-by-side.” She frowns and hops off the table. “I actually didn’t know about the Second thing. We haven’t practiced that in many generations.”

I shrug, “Old habits die hard when you’re a fundamentalist, I suppose.” I wince, thinking of Luis.

Sybil puts a hand on my arm. “Do you think Luis will still be in court?”

“Probably,” I mutter. “If it’s a cover-up job, he’ll be one of the security detail assigned to some important official.”

“How are you going to cope with seeing him again after he tried to kill you?” I frown at her and she shrugs, “The walls have ears, kid.”

I sigh. I’m not sure how much she’s heard, so I keep it simple. “I don’t know.” I don’t tell her that it’s happened before. How could I? The words always stuck in my throat.

“What will it be like when we take back the capital?” she asks, letting the conversation die. I appreciate her for it. “I’ve never taken over a whole country before.”

I think back over my conquest of the Led kingdom and how quickly the capital city fell. I frown. “It was… easy. As if it had all been set up that way,” I admit. “I can’t really tell you how it will go this time. I’ve established quite a few nobility in our new ranks, I have made some enemies of old friends.” I shrug. “And I’m going to go toe-to-toe with Cainern.”

She rubs her hands together thoughtfully. “So you don’t know.”

“Not in the least.”

“That’s good enough for me,” she smiles at me. “This is all new,” she tells me, in a knowing tone of voice.

“All new,” I agree. “But we’ll get through it, one way or another.”

“That we will.”