A vale. A meadow. A home.

A scrabble of ruins we can piece together.

A place far from the scavengers.

The child looks at me, her eyes full of hope. Waiting.

For now, I tell her.

The children scatter. There is laughter. Chatter.

There is hope.

But there is still no promise.

Some things will never be as Before.

Some things you cannot bring back.

Some things are gone forever.

And other things last just as long.

Like the scavengers.

One day, they will come for us again.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER FORTY

RAFE

The sun.

Had I mentioned the sun?

Maneuver your opponent so the sun is in his eyes, not yours.

Dodge and undercut. I hadn’t gone over that. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t already have good sword fighting skills. Maybe I should have given her a lighter sword.

There were so many things I could have said—and not just about swords.

I knew I was second-guessing myself. I had been for most of the journey.

“Your Majesty, we’re almost there. I’ve been talking for twenty minutes, and you haven’t heard a word I said.”

“I heard you say it yesterday, Sven. And the day before. Kings do this, they don’t say that. They listen, they weigh, they act. They take, but they give. They push but aren’t pushed. Does that sum it up? You’re acting as if I didn’t grow up in court.”

“You didn’t,” he reminded me.

I frowned. For the most part, he was right. Yes, I’d had weekly meals with my parents, and I was included as a matter of protocol in most official functions, but for the many years I was under Sven’s tutelage, I had lived with cadets, pledges, and most recently, with other soldiers. Dalbreck’s kings were soldiers first, and I had been raised no differently from how my own father had been raised, but in the last year, he had been pulling me closer into the fold. He had me sit in on high-level meetings and counseled me on them afterward. I wondered if he had seen his reign coming to an end.

“We’re still a good ten miles out,” I said. “I’m ready, I promise you.”

“Maybe,” he begrudged me. “But your mind is elsewhere.”

My hands tightened on my reins. I knew he wouldn’t let this go.

Tags: Mary E. Pearson The Remnant Chronicles Fantasy
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