Enya knew what to expect from Aurie. She had spent the past few months getting to know how Aurie thought, how she reacted, and was pretty confident in knowing what to brace for when she approached Aurie about most anything. But Maud was…unpredictable. Pragmatic. At every turn, she was being blindsided by Maud’s reactions, as if the young woman was walking the line between cold calculations and the purest of intentions, and Enya never knew which to expect.

  One moment, Maud would be as soft and caring as a nursing mother. The next, she was reminding her of the one person she never wanted to be reminded of: Clarissa von Strasse.

  Clarissa, who would gladly torture a servant over the most arbitrary of offenses, who imprisoned and executed countless innocents while she was forced to stand by and watch over the two short years she commanded the Cathedral cohorts at Strasbourg. With each passing moment, Enya found herself studying Maud closer and closer to find any sign, any hint that she might be the same if the power to do such things were in her hands. And then, when she was nearly certain she had found those signs, Maud would once again show that kinder, sweeter side, and it would be…sincere.

  “The under-port of the Hall is being enclosed to protect the fishermen while they fish during the siege,” Enya continued, though she was concentrating on Maud’s unchanged expressions.

  There was nothing there. It was a blank slate apart from narrowed thoughtfulness. The girl was thinking, calculating, as usual. She was sharp, there was no mistaking it. Enya felt like she was walking on eggshells. And having Paladin Qasim trailing her, listening in to make sure that it was his words being spoken without alteration, wasn’t making it any easier.

  He was in charge. His rank was higher, regardless of the fact he was of a different Order. He was in place of the King and she was the King’s second militarily. He said as much. She was always to be by his side. She was to look like she was still the Marshall, but he was to be the actual commander of the army, regardless of the established hierarchy. That’s all well and good. In many ways, Enya was glad for it. Mostly.

  When it came to handling their new Queen Regent, she wasn’t certain he would be as forgiving of Maud’s decisiveness as she would be if Maud crossed that line she was walking so tightly along. Enya would question it, would try to reason with her because she knew her. What would he do? The Holy Sepulcher weren’t exactly known for being reasonable. Or merciful.

  What they did to the Basilicas of the Order of Saint Olga sent chills down Enya’s spine. It wasn’t until Qasim mentioned it with a smile—a bloody smile!—that Enya found out it was Draka who did most of the desecrating of those Basilicas. Merciless was a kind way of putting it. God had been with him. He wasn’t revoked for what he did to them but empowered.

  “We are anticipating losing control of the lakeshores by the end of the week, if not sooner,” Qasim stated frankly. Maud frowned at him with a momentary glance.

  The frown shifted away when he showed her the two finished boats the knights were calling tortoises. They had a dome of iron covering them with slits that looked like stripes across them, width wise, to allow the archers to shoot their arrows through. Three rowers and three archers each. He had lumber being brought from the forest behind the fishery to make at least ten such boats and his blacksmiths were working in Egan’s forge to make the plates to cover them.

  There were other boats, larger ones with flattened hulls, that could carry twenty men ashore each, once the time was right to retake it, with a mechanized ballista turret at the stern. Only six of those would be made and one was finished. Maud didn’t ask when those would be finished. It was the tortoises she cared about.

  “We will keep control of the lake…”

  “And canals,” Maud interrupted Qasim with her doe eyes narrowed.

  He gave Enya a pleading glance before curtly nodding to her, “Those, too. As much as we can, but there are no guarantees that we will be able to maintain such control. After finding that our messenger to Strasbourg was intercepted, we must assume that we are surrounded, or soon will be. They know, just as well as we do, that those canals are our lifeblood, and will dam them or reroute them quickly.”

  Enya and Qasim had discussed how they would approach her about this. They already had a plan. They knew the cost would be significant, but Strasbourg was the only city with a standing Bastion they knew for certain was loyal to Draka, unlike every settlement to the west that had allowed their enemies to migrate through them. Even if the Order of Saint Olga didn’t amass and march out of their cities publicly, they still had to rally somewhere and someone must have seen them, yet no one sent a single word of warning. Strasbourg, on the other hand, was filled with men and women who knew their King and loved him, who had bled by his side already.

  They would march all they could spare—along with the Anatolian force once they convinced Jasmine to promise it—and face the force on the eastern side of the Zorn River in open battle. It would be a hard fought one, likely a Pyric victory, if a victory at all, but it would give them a chance to send word and hopefully weaken them enough to allow the Strasbourgien cohorts to break through. Hopefully.

  They were making their way up to the walls when he said it, when their test of Maud’s character was broached, with a silence brought on by Maud’s expressionless glances. Once at the top of the walls, glancing across the added wall of stacked sandbags to the top that was wide enough for archers to set their positions and platforms for boiling fish oil, Maud drew in a long breath that only added to their anticipation. What would be this pragmatist’s answer?

  Maud pointed, drawing Enya to gaze over the village and the trenches that now marred its once tranquil scenery like jagged slices crawling with stitches of barbed wire and spiked barricades. There were trebuchets and catapults between the trenches, turrets of mechanized ballistae that loaded their javelins by cranks in the widened parts within the trenches, and stacks of rubble from the deconstructed shanties and homes of the village that would be collapsed into them as they were taken. She wasn’t pointing at those. She was pointing at the unfinished watchtowers cresting the hill beyond them.

  “How long would it take our enemies to finish those?” She asked.

  Qasim’s brows rose when he met Enya’s eyes. He was impressed. He allowed Enya to answer.

  “We’re burning them down after the last of the materials is salvaged and the camp is struck.”

  Maud nodded distantly. She leaned, her head and eyes following the road back toward the drawbridge and the sea of villagers—women holding infants to their bosoms while hand-in-hand with the children old enough to walk on their own and the elderly who struggled to keep up with them—flooding into the bailey. There were a few teenaged boys and girls among them. A few heads turned upward with faces filled with fear tinged with curiosity. Others were hesitant to follow through the gates between the heavily armored Clerics.

  “Burn the village, too,” Maud said after returning from leaning over the wall. “As they take it, they can have the ashes.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Enya raised a brow, “I don’t think that would be necessary. Once this is over, rebuilding an entire village would be…”

  Maud let out a breath with a weight that even Enya could sense, sinking her shoulders and nodding, “I know. But we can rebuild a village. They’re going to make us starve if we’re under siege long enough. I don’t intend to feed them while they do it. Burn the village and salt the fields. The forest, too. I want the herds purged and the villagers put to work curing the meat so it lasts.”

  Pragmatic and cold. Enya wondered what Qasim thought of such brutality. He only pursed his brow and blinked at her with a thoughtful tip of his head.

  “The Abbey is surrounded by woodland,” He reminded her. “As are our battlements around it. We intend to use the forest as cover. I am inclined to disagree with burning such a resource, your Majesty.”

  Maud nodded, her eyes cast to the ground in front of her. “Burn it down, too.”

  “Fire strengthens demons,” Enya said before Qasim could.

  Maud’s mouth gaped only slightly. “Can you promise me that they won’t use it for the same against us?”

  Enya let out a long sigh. They couldn’t. She shook her head.

  “There must be a way to do both,” Maud was pleading with them. “Make our enemies suffer for the lands they take and prevent the fires from overtaking our forces or strengthening the demons within the Abbey.”

  “Perhaps we can clear the trees far enough back from around the Abbey if we have enough time,” Enya shrugged.

  There wasn’t. The force that was rounding the north would be upon them before sunset. They already knew that.

  Qasim pinched his thick lips to one side, “The forest is an advantage, a barrier on our north and south.”

  “The river is our barrier,” Maud growled with a fierceness that made both Paladins jolt. “All I see when I look at the forest is places for them to hide. It isn’t our advantage any longer. Burn it down, on top of them if you must, but rid them of the trees we can’t kill them through. And as for the Abbey, what good is having embattlements around it if you refuse to use them to take it before they come?”

  “We’re unsure of the force within and the force that is approaching from the north will arrive…”

  Qasim cut Enya off with a cautious flicker of his brows and a quick, “We haven’t the strength to take it and defend Talkro from the forces that are coming.”

  “Then why do we remain?”

  “To keep the Abbey from adding to their number,” Qasim was undeterred by her challenge. Unlike Enya, he seemed calmly prepared to meet her challenges. “If we lift the battlements, there is a possibility that the Abbey’s occupants will join forces with the Saint Olgas and we will be facing Fallen Paladins and demons at the same time, whereas we stand a chance of keeping the demons confined so long as we keep the corruption at bay as long as we can by maintaining those battlements.”

  “Which we will lose eventually anyway,” Maud shrugged at him, “Along with all the Paladins, Clerics, and monks—Father Hagen—for nothing but what? A bit of time? And wouldn’t we fare better if the demons join their number and strike when we have those Paladins and Clerics among our numbers here, together?”

  “The Saint Olgas know how to strengthen the demons,” Qasim took a step toward her. Enya winced at that. She was unsure how Maud might take it. “We very well might find ourselves facing a much stronger, greater foe than if we fight to hold those battlements and keep their forces separated between the two sieges.”

  Maud stepped into him, meeting him nose to nose, “I don’t want possibilities, Paladin. I want certainties. Those battlements will be overrun, will they not?”

  Qasim thinned his lips at her beneath a sharp glare. “They will hold.”

  “But they will be overrun before the siege ends.”

  Qasim maintained his glare, unmoved.

  “I will say it only once, Paladin,” Maud gritted her teeth. She jabbed a finger toward the bailey below, “These people are our priority, not the demons, not the Abbey, and not your vendetta against the Saint Olgas, and my father will agree when he wakes up. You will heed my command. Abandon the Abbey, strangle our enemies from having any resources from MY HOUSE, and bring those soldiers to do their jobs in defending their people! Not Talkro, not the Abbey, not the plowing Cathedrals! People! We can rebuild the village, we can replant the fields and forest, but we can’t replace people. The moment Draka was crowned King, your Order became the Army of Alcalia, which makes you beholden to my commands as his Regent, so you best take a step back from me and lower your eyes before I remove them in the name of God for breaking your tenet as a Paladin by not being the ‘Light,’ the ‘Shield,’ and the ‘Armor,’ of God’s people in this Kingdom.”

  Enya’s eyes widened. When did Maud learn the Paladinate beatitudes? She hadn’t even gone over those with Aurie yet.

  Light for the poor in spirit, comfort for the mourning, shield for the meek, armor of the righteous, hand of the merciful, waters that cleanse the heart, olive branch of peacemakers, and sword of the persecuted for righteousness. She just rebuked a Paladin to his face! A Paladin who was one campaign away from completion, from his final point on his star, without hesitation. How?

  “Stand by thy Queen,” the voice thundered, shaking Enya’s bones.

  “We will do as you command,” Enya lowered her eyes in a bow with a tap on Qasim’s arm for him to do the same. He reluctantly did it.

  Maud said nothing more as she pushed past them and down the steps of the wall into the bailey, leaving them behind, blinking at their feet.

  Once she was out of earshot, Qasim straightened, “I wasn’t expecting her to be a Justiciar or Judge. You could have warned me.”

  “I didn’t know, either, until just now,” Enya watched Maud climb the steps toward the door into the royal levels with her mouth gaping. “In an odd way, though, it makes more sense than it should. Once you hear about that family’s history, you’ll know what I mean.”

  “I suspect I will,” Qasim shook his head. “For now, get your artificers together. We only have so much oil. And that's for the fields to keep the Olgas from unleashing demons in death. If we’re to burn down the forest, we’re going to do it on top of them, my way. I’m going to get the engineers on demolishing the rest. They killed my rider headed toward Metz. Any word on the scouts we sent East and South?”

  “Nothing,” Enya shook her head. “Hopefully, Cleric Xavier made it past their advances on the east and will be in Strasbourg day after tomorrow or sooner. As for Cleric Yi…I’ve no doubt she’ll be able to reach Saint Dei.”

  Qasim rubbed a thumb across the top of his falchion’s steel pommel at his side thoughtfully. “We can only hope.” After a long, beleaguered sigh, “I’m meeting with the Queen when she's moved to visit the King in an hour. Make sure you’ve gotten the orders out to the Abbey battlements and the artificers by then and meet me after. After that meeting, you and I will be side by side from that point forward.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Enya put a fist to her chest in salute.