The morning comes and it is just as clear as the days before. There is a cold wind that blows over what will be the battlefield, though, that freezes a grimace to my face where I sit upon my horse.

For the first time in a long time, my friends aren’t by my side – only my soldiers. And while I trust them to do their job of protecting me and following through on our plans, I’m struck with a moment of loneliness. It’s only a matter of time until Sybil at least comes back, and Via is never too far away from her pet.

“I think I might also have become a pet,” I murmur to myself, imagining her grin cockily. “A very normal pet, indeed.”

The sun peeks up over the horizon and a shout is heralded through the air. It was beginning. I grip the leather reins in my fingertips, trying not to think. This was the final, decisive battle that would end my wandering and throw me into a world of unknowns. It was the end of a chapter, the beginning of a book. Chapter one after the longest prelude that was my past, beginning a legacy that might reach for many more, gods willing.

I watch the first hours of the battle from afar, eventually dismounting my horse to dig my fingers into the soil to survey it with magic. Most of it is stalled out in the clash of swords and shields, though no one seems to be hurting the other. Some people fall, stunned, and get trampled underfoot, though the awkwardness of a half-choreographed battle is not lost. It isn’t until the sun begins its first arc over the sky that I feel the ground shift and grass roots tear from the earth to the northeast that I know the diversion has begun. I mount my horse again and ride around my small company.

I raise my sword aloft in the sky and call attention once I get to the front again. “Hear me!” I bellow. My soldiers stand to attention. “Realize that while this battle is not what it seems, the war is only beginning. Now, I trust each and every one of you to follow me implicitly, but I ask one great task from each of you. I ask this of you not as soldiers, not as men bound to duty to your crown, but as people bound by the duty to your hearts. To your honor-bound duty towards a fair society, duty-bound to life without fear, duty-bound to love and be loved.” My voice rings out over the helmets and nodding heads. I raise my sword again. “I ask that you follow me today into this fledgling war understanding that this is the beginning of a lifelong crusade. I ask that you follow me duty bound to your hearts and to the very foundations of your belief – that we are not beastmen, we are not bone, we are not vine, we are one. We are a people. We are a people bound by our duty to love. Will you follow me?”

“Yes!” The responding shout reverberates through the earth.

“Soldiers, hear me now. This is a hard-fought war. There will be bloodshed. There will be loss of life. Our country will go to war. But we will not let Cainern take our land. We will not let them take our traditions. We will not let them take our loved ones from us. We are Led, and while we may not hold the same beliefs from one to the next, we are a country built upon the principles of family.”

“Yes!”

“We face down this enemy as one people!”

“Yes!”

I see from the corner of my eye an exhausted Sybil being carried by a skeleton, her limbs draped over his back, and my stomach clenches. Are we going to be able to do this? Were there more bones than we anticipated using? I set the thought aside just for a moment and raise my sword. “Let’s go! For Led!!”

The men surge around me, and I ride out of their way, toward Sybil. I meet them in the middle and help the skeleton pull her onto my horse, boneless. “What did you do?” I mutter, holding her across my lap as the horse shifts his weight uncomfortably.

She blinks tiredly up at me and attempts a shrug. “Sorry. Tired.”

“Yes, tired,” I grimace. I would definitely need an explanation after this. I ride us back to the forward camp and get her unloaded onto a cot before my horse decides to buck us both off into oblivion.

“What happened?” I ask once I get her settled in the med tent.

“Sorry, Tony,” she mutters. “Too much, too fast. Wasn’t careful.” Her eyelids are drifting.

“Okay.” Well that was one thing. I sigh and rub my eyes. What was next?

I feel a vine curl over my boot and I look down. Via. She was wondering where I was.

I squeeze Sybil’s hand and flee from the tent, launching myself onto my horse’s back. We sprint to the place Sybil and I were supposed to meet, and I see storm clouds gathering in the sky above a dark silhouette of Henry and the bright blue of magic at Via’s fingertips. She doesn’t look up, but she nods, and I know she knows I’m there.

I throw myself off of my horse and roll. Digging my fingers into the soil. I reach out in a large swath of land beneath my magic. A loud thunderclap sounds and I feel my soldiers flee the area, knocking away weapons and sprinting from their battle. I just need a…

I pull the energy from the very depths of myself. Instead of utilizing the magic of the mycelium and root network to drive the shattering of the earth, I grasp the same energy from the vine that rooted me in the med tent and thread it down, through the earth, pooling more and more energy into it until it grows into several, thick branches just beneath the soil–and then…

There are cries of surprise as men are thrown from their stances as huge vines penetrate the surface and knock everyone to and fro, covering and locking over the offending troops and holding them squirming beneath its arms.

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Exhaustion grasps me almost immediately, but I pull back into myself from my magic sight just in time to see the sky break open in torrential rain. Via’s outstretched arm gathers a ball of light into her palm, and Henry’s great behemoth form is crouched down. A blinding light encompasses the battlefield as a whole and my eyes betray me. Everything goes black.

***

I’m not out for very long. My senses return in great splotches of color and noise.

Someone is calling my name and pulls at me. Everything in me wants to fall asleep, but I let myself be pulled to my feet. I rub my eyes as the world returns to normal under my gaze. The enemy soldiers are either drenched or squirming under massive vines. No one is fighting. The person who has pulled me to my feet is just another one of my soldiers, and he’s helping me to my horse. I climb on, feeling the world dip as I try–but I can’t let on that my knees are shaking and that I think I’m going to throw up. That wouldn’t be very kingly of me.

I ride with my colonels through the destroyed battlefield to my brother’s forward camp: each gallop of the horse beneath me jolting uncomfortably.

Herman and Diego are standing outside their tent with their colonels, their weapons piled in the center of the camp and their hands up in defeat. “Tie them up!” I call out, riding closer to my brother. Herman looks up at me, and there’s a glimmer in his eye. Was he proud of me? Not that it mattered. I’d succeeded him a few times over the last time I invaded Led. The second time was just… maybe beating a dead horse. Even still, it gives me an annoying flicker of pride in my chest.

I consider hopping off of my horse and saying something brave for the masses to hear, but I don’t trust myself to keep my legs beneath me. Instead, I decide to talk to him later, once we establish our cover story so that our father doesn’t come after him.

After this point, it’s a matter of cleaning up the battlefield and moving into Kisvas, which occurs under great fanfare: a homecoming unlike I’d ever seen in all my life.

Sybil and Via ride atop Henry’s shoulders beside me as petals and confetti are thrown into the street before my army’s feet. People carry banners that welcome the Mad King. It’s as heartwarming as it is terrifying. Most of my staff are still in place at the palace, all happy to greet me back into what was my first home in Led – not that it could ever compare to the Reisau farm and Tolstoy.

When we enter the throne room, with all of the staff bowing before us, I see the one person that has haunted my nightmares for months: Luis. He looks clean shaven, and hollow faced. Above all else, though, he looks scared.

Good.

I take Sybil’s arm and step up to the throne. Her feet are halting, but she allows me to pull her along. I gesture for a chair to be brought up beside it and address the courtiers that have gathered. “I am Antonio de Cardenas, Mad King of Led. First of His Druidic Line.”

A footman pulls a chair up beside the throne and vanishes. Sybil’s hand is trembling, but she holds herself tall. “I am Sybil Whitman, First to the King of Led. First of Her Necromantic Line.”

“From this day forward, this seat shall never be occupied by only one. From this day forward, Led will be ruled by two, lest we forget where we have come from.”

The courtiers cheer, and Via nods her approval. We turn and I have Sybil take her seat on the throne, while I take the chair. It’s a symbol that we need another throne, but also, that I am not the only person taking the throne again.

She looks at me with uncertainty but sits anyway, and the room cheers again. We will have a proper coronation ceremony later, I’d told her, but we needed to establish ourselves as monarchs this way first. Let word spread back to Cainern.

“Thank you for seeing us this day,” I tell the courtiers. “Please join us for the feast we will hold in three days time. We also thank you for your blessings you have bequeathed us in anticipation of our pending coronation.” I half-bow my head in a rare show of respect to the people in the room. “We are all one, in this room. Whatever comes, we will hold steadfast to our values. We will dedicate ourselves to the safety of the people of Led from this day forward, including necromancers and beastmen. Everyone shall be treated the same. We will double our efforts to end human trafficking and the abuse of indentured servitude. From here, I will end all policies I’ve enacted in my previous reign and vow to hold true to Led’s founding traditions and the traditions of the forefathers I share with Led.”

I nod to Sybil.

She hadn’t prepared anything for this moment, I know, but she straightens her shoulders and addresses the gathered crowd. “I am the last necromancer,” her voice is steady, and there is a bone-rattling hollowness to it that shakes me to my core. It strikes me that she speaks as if she is one of the dead. “My spirits have said their final words many times, but this time will be different. I will be the last of my kind, but also the first–I will serve my country and reignite our passion and protection. From this day forward, I will honor my own tradition by seeking out others like me and training them to carry my mantle forward–until my very last breath.” She stands and inhales deeply, her eyes closed. “Until my very last breath, I will help Antonio as his First and as his Second, in affirming and rebuilding the foundations of Led, to renewing its legacy.” She opens her eyes and surveys the room. “It would be my honor to serve you as Led’s First Second.”

The room is as quiet as the crypt first, and then the roaring cheer that comes next shakes the stones in the castle walls. She stands before her people, as much a King as I am. Pride swells in me. For the first time I feel like I’ve found my soul’s equal. I’ve found a friend in Sybil Whitman, a rival, a sister. I stand up and press my hand between her shoulder blades, steadying her from her trembling. She gives me a small smile, but I see her dark eyes are wild with terror. Whatever happens, I know she has what it takes, though. Besides, it’s been far too long since Led had a necromancer on the throne. It was about time.

When the room empties, I nod my outfit of guards to capture Luis before he can shrink from the room. “Go ahead,” I tell Sybil, who nods and takes off, almost at a jog. She probably needs to vomit, I reason. After all, I also needed to the first time I addressed a room full of my subjects. I stride forward to Luis who has been taken up by each of his arms. “Long time no see, old friend.”

“It’s been awhile,” he agrees, eyes darting past me. He’s looking for a way out. I cross my arms and wait until the room is fully empty before I speak again.

“Was it my father?” I ask him. I had never been able to ask him before. Not the first time, at least. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass.

“You’re going to lead all of your people into oblivion,” he hisses, tugging at the arms that hold him.

“You’re a traitor,” I remind him.

“No,” His voice shakes, and he gives me a pained smile. “No, Tony. I am a patriot. You are the traitor. You forgot why we came.”

“I did not forget,” I tell him in a low voice. “I just realized I had been lied to my entire life.” I look at the guards holding him. “Take him down to the dungeons. I’ll deal with him later.”

He doesn’t yell or argue or plead innocence as they lead him away. His feet carry him with dignity and pride, just like we were taught. I respect that. It also fills me with a deep disappointment and hurt.