Kingdom of Ash

Manon sank to the stones of the castle battlements and did not move for a long, long while.

She didn’t hear those who spoke to her, who touched her shoulder. Didn’t feel the cold.

The sun arced and descended.

At some point, she lay down upon the stones, curled against the wall. When she awoke, a wing had covered her, and warm breath whispered across her head as Abraxos dozed.

She had no words in her. Nothing but a ringing silence.

Manon got to her feet, easing past the wing that had shielded her.

The dawn was breaking.

And where that witch tower had stood, where the army had been, only blasted earth remained.

Morath had drawn back. Far back.

The city and walls still stood.

She roused Abraxos with a hand to his side.

He couldn’t fly, not yet, so they walked together.

Down the battlement steps. Out through the castle gates and into the city streets beyond.

She didn’t care that others followed. More and more of them.

The streets were filled with blood and rubble, all of it gilded by the rising sun.

She didn’t feel the warmth of that sun on her face while they walked through the southern gate and onto the plain beyond. She didn’t care that someone had opened the gate for them.

At her side, Abraxos nudged aside piles of Valg soldiers, clearing a path for her. For all those who trailed in their wake.

It was so quiet. Inside her, and on the plain.

So quiet, and empty.

Manon crossed the still battlefield. Didn’t stop until she reached the center of the blast radius. Until she stood in its heart.

Not a trace of the tower. Or those who had been in it, around it. Even the stones had been melted into nothing.

Not a trace of the Thirteen, or their brave, noble wyverns.

Manon fell to her knees.

Ashes rose, fluttering, soft as snow as they clung to the tears on her face.

Abraxos lay beside her, his tail curling around her while she bowed over her knees and wept.

Behind her, had she looked, she would have seen Glennis. And Bronwen. Petrah Blueblood.

Aedion Ashryver and Lysandra and Ren Allsbrook.

Prince Galan and Captain Rolfe and Ansel of Briarcliff, Ilias and the Fae royals beside them.

Had she looked, she would have seen the small white flowers they bore. Would have wondered how and where they had gotten them in the dead heart of winter.

Had she looked, she would have seen the people gathered behind them, so many they streamed all the way to the city gates. Would have seen the humans standing side by side with the Crochans and Ironteeth.

All come to honor the Thirteen.

But Manon did not look. Even when the leaders who had come with her, walked with her all this way, began to lay their flowers upon the blasted, bloodied earth. Even when their tears flowed, dropping into the ashes alongside their offerings of tribute.

They didn’t speak. And neither did the streaming line of people who came after them. A few bore flowers, but many brought small stones to lay on the site. Those who had neither laid down whatever personal effects they could offer. Until the blast site was covered, as if a garden had grown from a field of blood.

Glennis stayed until the end.

And when they were alone on the silent battlefield, Manon’s great-grandmother put a hand on her shoulder and said quietly, her voice somehow distant, “Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood—let the land be witness, and return home.”

Manon didn’t hear the words. Didn’t notice when even Glennis returned to the city looming at her back.

For hours, Manon knelt on the battlefield, Abraxos at her side. As if she might stay with them, her Thirteen, for a little while longer.

And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom.