Much to Alexia’s dismay, Lucius Elagrimear chose Sir Aldius to lead her escort.

“Lady Alexia,” Aldius said, his voice a hammer beating against cold steel, his serious demeanor a sharp contrast to the strutting at their first meeting.

“Sir Aldius,” she replied coolly, adopting the mantle of the Great Wizard.

Aldius raised his sword, riding down the length of the column. “Men! We ride to strike the fear of Meladon into the hearts of the Zamael-worshipping Ruby. For King Gideon. For Alexia!”

“For Alexia!” the force roared back.

Alexia stiffened, her discomfort at their battle cries heavy in her chest as Vulcan flashed in her mind. She prayed there would be no battle ahead, knowing the plan rendered that improbable.

The journey took them through fields of wildflowers and past repurposed farmsteads, their beauty now tainted by the presence of war. What was once peaceful countryside had turned into a staging ground for battle, the landscape dotted with military patrols in place of lovers. It was the grim reality of a kingdom on the brink.

As the sun set behind the Cardian stream, which split Mirrevar in two, the world around them seemed to quiet in reverence. Lush arbors with purple flowers lined both sides of a stream glistening with the purity of a long-lost age, its surface a mirror for the rising moon. Fireflies, frostflies, and thunderbugs danced above the water, casting red, blue, and yellow glows, and emitting their evening nocturne while a gentle wind carried the scent of the flowers lining the banks.

The serenity was almost enough to make Alexia forget the war they were heading into. She found herself longing for a different life—a peaceful night spent by this very stream, far from the chaos of battle, with nothing but the moon and her life’s mate to keep her company while they counted the stars until sunrise.

Aldius’s voice shattered her dreams. “We’re in Ruby territory now, men! Protect the Great Wizard! For Alexia!”

Alexia cringed at the volume.

“He wants a fight,” Maleon drawled beside her. “He’s using you as bait.”

In her quiet mediations and again on the journey from the encampment, Alexia prepared nearly two dozen focuses to be recalled in an instant. She didn’t need Maleon’s reminder when the twang of bowstrings cut through the air. Already her tempestuous emotions shifting from peaceful to anxious to angry fed her affinity with chaotic Zafrir and the Ring of Peace glowed green as she siphoned the wind into Aurora.

“Disseptum!”

A shield of wind erupted before her, deflecting the incoming arrows like a wall made of howling air. Wood splintered, arrows shattered, and the sapphire force stood unharmed behind her barrier.

Aldius’s voice barely carried over her storm. “Engage the enemy!”

Alexia sent her windstorm surging forward, tossing the Ruby archers to the ground like scattered petals. Aldius and his cavalry charged, trampling the fallen with ruthless efficiency. Only the eerie echo of a Ruby horn signaled any resistance, and soon even that fell silent. The archers lay dead, their blood staining the flowered fields.

One Sapphire knight had fallen, an arrow lodged deep in his neck. Alexia rushed to his side, tearing the shaft free as his life ebbed away. There was no time for hesitation or to wipe the blood he coughed onto her face. Alexia summoned her magic, imagining the wound closing as wisps of Leverith’s ethereal blue spirit poured from her staff. Within moments, his skin knitted together, blood flow returned to normal, and the knight was back on his feet, as if he had never been struck.

A larger Ruby force crested the hill, their cavalry spreading wide and charging down at the Sapphires with terrifying speed. Maleon’s incantations rang out, and the trees lining the Cardian bent to his will, flinging themselves at the oncoming enemy. Fire and ice surged from his hands in deadly waves, tearing through the Ruby ranks. He wielded the elements with a mastery Alexia had never seen, using the drastic temperature shifts caused by his alternating channeling to strengthen his spells as he shifted from fiery Seraxa to cold Qoryxa. His seamless control of these antithetical powers was devastating.

Alexia turned her focus to defense, creating barriers of wind to shield their forces. She healed wounds with Leverith’s spirit before they could become fatal. Aldius fought like he was rivaling Gidi, but as the battle intensified, he struggled to command amidst the chaos as even more Rubies appeared, trumpeting for Alexia’s defeat.

Without hesitation, Alexia took control. She ordered the squad to stay tight, maximizing the protection of her barriers while Maleon unleashed devastation with boreal and blaze. Together, they held their ground, felling Rubies in droves as the night grew darker.

When the battle finally ended, Aldius hollered their victory praising himself and his men, but Alexia knew the score. Maleon’s magic had incinerated scores, the air thick with the stench of charred flesh. Groups of Rubies were mangled by debris, or frozen beside their horses. For all the lives Zamael claimed, none of them swore fealty to King Gideon Sapphire. Maleon huffed, his eyes furiously surveying the dead he was responsible for. Alexia’s heart ached for this further shattering of his soul, wishing this night never was.

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She dismounted, her legs unsteady beneath her. Alexia stumbled through the carnage, her mind a haze. The horror of it all was too much. The dead, the smell, the blood—it did not belong with the flowers and the stream, with the great canopy of Covademara.

She collapsed to her knees, nausea rising like a tide. Alexia vomited, her body shaking from the shock. Coldness gripped her, spreading through her limbs until she felt frozen, distant from her own body. Sapphires executed the Rubies that survived the butchery, parting them from the last vestiges of their lives, and Alexia further numbed herself. Her head was a great, vast fog where nothing could be found. Somewhere deep within, tears were being shed, but they couldn’t find their way to the surface.

Through the haze, pain ripped through her leg—a burning, searing pain that burst through her wall of numbness like fire through a thin, crumbling palisade. She collapsed onto her back, a Ruby knight crawling atop her, his dagger inches from her face. Half his face was melted from Maleon’s flames, the other side pale with frost. Alexia blocked the blade with her staff, but the man was strong, his weight bearing down on her.

A flash of lightning cracked the air. The Ruby knight was flung aside, his body convulsing as he hit the ground, dead.

Maleon was there in an instant, shouting something she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. Sir Timmeck helped her up, his hands cold through his gauntlets. Her leg burned where the dagger had struck, the flame enchantment on the blade wreaking havoc on her flesh. Her mind, prepared for things like this after years of intense training, broke through the haze. Draw the fire. Seal the major bloodrivers. Bind the flesh together.

Maleon drew the flames out for her, allowing her just to meld with Leverith. I want to restore peace, Alexia thought. I never want to see another battle. Attuned to peace and love, Leverith’s spirit answered her call, combined with her visualizing the anatomy of her leg as it should be, closing bloodrivers and knitting flesh. She might carry scars from her encounter with the Ruby knight, but they would not be visible.

Maleon offered his hand and pulled her up. “I’m glad I made it to you in time.”

Aware that the eyes of the battalion were on them, Alexia was too embarrassed to find her voice. She nodded, trying to fade out of their awareness by acting like she was invisible.

For once, Alexia was grateful for Sir Aldius’s bravado.

“All right, you tough sons of Gidi! This was the warmup! Let’s finish this! Move out!”

The diversion force rode southwest toward the southern tip of the Ruby encampment, taking Moonstrider and Maleon’s mounts with them, just as planned. Alexia allowed herself a brief but tender farewell to Moonstrider, nuzzling the horse’s head.

As the force disappeared into the distance, Alexia knelt beside the fallen Ruby knight that nearly ended her life. She pulled the dagger from his dead hands and studied its hilt, engraved with a grapevine and apple tree above an inscription: Brighton. She unfastened the knight’s bloodstained Ruby cloak, and pocketed the dagger. She handed the cloak to Timmeck, who raised an eyebrow as he fastened it around his shoulders.

“Poetic choice,” Timmeck said with a blind-eyed wink.

Alexia’s gaze wandered over the carnage, tears finally breaking through now that it was just the three of them again. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“They charged us in force,” Timmeck said. “You were amazing. Again. As always.”

Alexia shook her head. “If this is amazing, I don’t want to be amazing.”

“You kept a lot of men alive today with your barriers and healing,” Maleon drawled

Alexia shook her head. “My hands aren’t clean just because you did the killing.”

Maleon clenched his jaw. “Killing is the price of the peace you’ll bring.”

Alexia sighed, suppressing a sob. “No. It’s the cost of the war I dream to end.”

Their eyes locked, Maleon’s scowl speaking louder than any words could. They both saw the same destination, but vastly different pathways to reach it. Alexia couldn’t argue now, not with the man that saved her life. “We need to leave, while the diversion gives us a chance to bypass the Ruby.”

They pushed through the night, using draught of fortitude to stay alert, awake, and moving steadily toward the Impwood. Only once did they stop—to let a Ruby patrol pass.

As they entered the forest, the strange, luminescent glow of the giant fungi lit their path. Mushrooms as large as trees, glowing in shades of green, purple, and orange, towered over them. Beneath the gibbous moon, it felt like stepping into a different world. For a fleeting moment, Alexia imagined she was in a fairy tale, one with the promise of a happy ending. How desperately she wished life were so simple. She glimpsed the bright light of floating imps throughout the wood, keen not to be lulled by the pretty colors into a trap that ended in being ripped apart by the vile tricksters.

The rushing sound of water drew a collective sigh from the exhausted trio. Ahead lay the river, a half mile stretch that would be difficult to cross unnoticed in the moonlight. Alexia hoped her plan would work.

They waited for several degrees, watching for signs of activity. The river seemed quiet—no civilian boats in sight. Taking the opportunity, Alexia and Maleon constructed a makeshift raft from a fallen tree. Maleon anchored it with Celegana’s magic, while Alexia channeled Dalis to guide their raft across the water.

For a tense moment, it seemed their luck would break. A Peacewatch ship rounded the bend to the north. Trying hard to stay calm, Alexia shifted her Dalis focus from water propulsion to conjuring an obscuring mist. Voices carried over the river, as Timmeck hushed Cally, his horse. The boat drifted by, none the wiser, though Alexia felt several moons older from fear.

They made it to the western bank of the Bear River, letting their raft drift downstream as refuse. Once ashore, they quickly changed into their disguises—Ruby peasant clothes that felt alien and wrong. Alexia missed the familiar weight of Aurora, the staff she had carried ever since Azi had thrown the acacia branch at her feet. Azi, her oasis, was far away. Her mother, her sanctuary, was unreachable. Theos, her guide, and her father, her advocate, were nowhere near.

Yet, when she looked at her companions—Maleon Stonebreaker and Sir Timmeck Eckhard—she found a flicker of reassurance. Alexia believed they would be enough.

Yet, this was no fairy tale world she lived in.