Harin knelt and dipped his hands in the water of the river, cupping them and then bringing the water to his mouth. He drank deeply.

“My Liege!” A call came from behind him.

Harin sighed, but got up, turning to see what new issue had arisen. He had left the Capitol, but the problems of the crown were never far from a king.

“What is it Brago?”

“It looks like a messenger from the Council. And one from Landor,” Brago said.

Harin could now see two men riding towards them, one in red and gold, one with the crest of the council on his chest.

Both rode close and dismounted at the Praetorian’s guarding Harin.

Harin walked to meet them, allowing his legs to stretch after a week in the saddle.

“Men, what news?” He asked the two, nodding to his own man first.

The Councils messenger seemed agitated, bouncing from foot to foot.

“The General sends word, for your ears only my liege,” The messenger from Landor bowed and held a folded letter forward to Harin.

Harin took the paper and pushed it into his coat pocket.

“And the Council?” Harin asked.

The second messenger stepped forward, his face impassive as he held his hand out with a folded message for Harin.

“Bow before the king, messenger,” Brago said.

The messenger gave a dismissive look to Brago and gave the message a shake.

Harin raised his eyebrow to the messenger and turned his head to Brago.

“Bow, or I will help you with it, messenger,” Brago spoke quietly, taking one step towards the messenger from Harin’s side.

The messenger looked at Brago again, this time taking in the size of the Praetorian, and then, with reluctance painted on his face he gave a clipped bow and held out the message to Harin again.

Harin nodded to Brago who took the letter. He then motioned for the messenger from Landor to follow.

The messenger from the Council scoffed at the rude rebuke. Harin wanted to strike the messenger from the Council, the entitlement of the man infuriating.

Harin stopped a distance from the soldiers and Praetorians around him. Brago stood at a distance from him.

“Brago,” Harin called.

Brago came to the pair and stopped.

“You need to hear this, whatever it is,” Harin nodded to the messenger.

“You father, it seems he burned a Church of Zufier as well as an Inn on his journey south,” The young man looked from Brago to Harin and back, his eyes darting as he spoke, one leg tapping in the mud.

“Thank you, get some water and food before you return to Landor,”

“Thank you my liege, is there a message you’d like returned,”

Harin shook his head. “No, I’m certain my father knows what will have to be done after this,”

The young messenger blushed.

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“Dismissed young man,” Brago said.

Harin walked back to the messenger from the Council as he felt the heaviness in the pit of his stomach. His father was toying with the Compact. He was going to ruin the alliance he and the other nations had. All for the revenge of his own, a mission that he’d been forbade to continue by Harin himself. He wanted to strike out, to take his anger at his father out on anyone.

“What is it?” He snapped at the Council’s messenger.

“Your father is starting a war in the south. He burned the Clover Inn and a church to the ground. He killed a priest, the Council demands that you bring him to justice,” The man sneered.

Brago stepped forward and slapped the messenger, sending him to the ground.

The man got up. “How dare you!”

Brago stood over the man. “You do not demand anything from my liege. You ask. As does your precious Council.”

The man glowered at Brago from the ground.

Brago stood above him, his presence threat enough that the messenger did not attempt to get up.

Harin squatted on his heels, not kneeling in the mud again. “I signed the Compact, I did not give the Council my Kingdom of Landor. You will give my crown the respect I deserve, or my men will show you how we handle disrespect in Landor,”

The messenger finally dipped his head to Harin.

Harin in turn gave Brago a nod who stepped back, allowing the messenger to stand back up. The man brushed at his clothes, trying to get the muck off of himself. Realizing it was not going to happen, the man gave up and looked back to Harin.

“My lord, the Council informs you that your father must be brought before them for his crimes in the south, as the Compact demands of all nations to keep the peace,” The messenger looked a little smug.

Harin tried to guard his emotions, his rage at his fathers insanity, his anger that the general in command of the army of Landor would put all of the nation at risk. He breathed in and out, trying to control his face.

“What say you - my lord,” The messenger glanced at Brago, the pause an awkward length.

Harin gritted his teeth. “I will judge the crimes of my soldiers, my people. And I will dole out justice accordingly, as a king’s right,”

The messenger was about to speak again, but Brago put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You have a chance here, do not mistake my liege’s kindness for leniency, in Landor you are responsible for what you say,”

Harin watched the emotions run across the young man’s face. The defiance that all young men felt, then, the fight for self preservation. He knew that it was not worth a confrontation with Brago again.

“I ask that you deliver him to us, as the Council has - requested in it’s - letter,”

Harin turned on his heel and walked away, back to his waiting Legion.

“Lord -”

The question was cut off suddenly. Harin smiled, Brago would have helped the young man gain some wisdom about how to speak to Kings.

Harin’s blood still ran hot, boiling inside of him. He would might kill his own father if he kept this up. First he refused to serve his time at the Skellen Pass, and now this. He would upset the whole nation. He’d ruin the peace that Harin had been forced to make with the eastern nations and the Council.

—--

“We will be at the Pass by the end of the day my liege. Do we camp here, or push on?” Brago asked Harin after.

The scouting party of three cavalry had reined in their horses and were standing, panting, their horses pawing at the earth.

Harin looked to the mountain range of the Car Lauch that had grown steadily closer in the last day. It’s peaks reaching into the skies, an offering to the gods from the earth itself.

Skellen Pass was built in a gulf between the mountains of the Car Lauch. The range split between the Pass, but was bridged by a set of stone walls with a massive iron and wooden gate. The stone walls were hundreds of paces long, at least a hundred paces high. Men watched from the top and inside the wall, a network of hallways and ramparts to allow for archers and spearmen.

The walls engulfed the Pass, a town in and of itself. The Pass was the seat of power in the east. The seat of the Council who held the land together by their Compact and their hold on trade.

Harin knew that to go to the Pass was to enter into a den of vipers. No matter where he stepped, he would be bitten. The size of the bite was the only thing left to the gods.

“Push on, I want a camp on the eastern side of the Pass set up before nightfall. Push the men to double pace if you think it necessary Legate Brago,”

“Aye my liege,” Brago saluted.

“Men, rest and return to your squads,” Harin gave the men of the scouting party a salute and let them go on their way.

His army marched past, Brago stirring them up from the dead stop they’d been at just moments before.

Harin looked at the mountains and felt the dread of what he’d committed to do.

“What do you think they want of us?”

“Zufier above!” Harin jumped in his saddle. “Where’d you come from?”

Anastasia laughed. “I’ve been here the whole time brother. Your mind was elsewhere,”

Harin agreed with his sister, but his heart still raced from his scare at her appearing at his side. “I don’t know sister. The Compact gave them power, the only thing left is our nations in the east,”

Anastasia hummed a tune, more to her horse than Harin. He looked over at her, she had her eyes locked on the Pass, patting her horse at the same time. He knew her well enough to know that she was thinking.

“Tell me what you know,” Harin spoke softly.

Anastasia stopped petter her horses neck, stopped humming and looked up, fear in her eyes. “Did I ever tell you that father took me to the north once?”

“What?” Harin asked, confused. He’d never heard of this before.

“You remember when mother, you and Fabien went to the Ralarian Islands?”

“Aye, I didn’t yet have hair on my face,” Harin scratched at his now full beard.

Anastasia looked back out at the Pass. “He took me north, told me that he had someone he wanted me to meet. He and I and Hemmelle went through the Car Lauch to the lands of the Tribes. It took us almost a week to get through the passed and the trails. I was so young, I’d clung to old Rose, you remember her?”

Harin chuckled now. “I remember she nipped at me every time you passed me, she hated me,”

“She did, I always gave her a sweet treat when she nipped you,”

“Gods above! I should have known,” Harin gave his sister a nudge on the shoulder.

“Father took me to the north. He took me to meet Azal,”

“Azal?” Harin asked, confused at the name. Something in the back of his mind had tingled at the suggestion, like something was trapped in ice, pushing to break it’s cocoon.

“Aye, a prophet of some sort. The Northern Tribes still hold to the old ways, still listen to the gods in their mushroom fevers,”

Harin remained quiet, knowing his sister would take her time to talk.

Dust clouds billowed over them. Harin cover his mouth with a cloth from around his neck, squinting to try and keep his eyes free from the grit of the dust. He failed, blinking hard until his eyes watered and cleared.

“He spoke to me of this place and the west. The Pass. He called it something else,”

Harin looked to his sister who nodded along to something only she knew.

“He called it, Anis far,”

“What is that?”

“He told me it’s in the old tongue, it means the heart, the path between two worlds. He told me that I would know fear in this place. He told me that I would face death in the west,”

Harin considered his sisters words, she sounded almost scared the way she had recounted the mystery. He could see her fidgeting with her reins. Usually so sure of herself, he’d not see her like this in a decade.

“And you think it is the pass where you will face your death?”

Anastasia looked to Harin, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I know it brother,”

Harin put his hand out, close enough to her to grip her shoulder. “I will keep you safe sister, stick to me, no harm with come to you,”

Anastasi smiled, a half smile, the rest of her face still uncertain.