Everyone looked at me, and then the room filled with a flood of noise. They’d decided to talk at once, and instead of listening to one another and going from there, they talked over one another.
“Wait.” I held my hands up in front of me. “Stop. Stop all of you. We won’t get anywhere like this. So, first, Rhys, have you heard anything from the troops we have stationed at the White Mountains?”
“There have been attacks all along the border. Our troops fought back where they could, but we only have a small force there, since we’re supposed to be at peace with Bathune now. They could only do so much.”
“Call them back to the palace,” I said. “We need to re-form the entire army. Volunteers and professional soldiers both.”
“I issued orders this afternoon for troops to come to the palace,” Rhys said.
“And how is that going?” I asked.
“Thirty thousand men are on their way to Neris to pledge their swords to the Golden Rose and the Rose Throne of Nerissette. Every noble family has sworn their troops to our use. Between the noble armies and the village militias, almost every able-bodied man in Nerissette will march with us,” he said.
“How long until they arrive?”
“They should all be here within two days. Most of the nobles brought their troops with them, and we’re sending dragons to ferry the volunteers who live farther away. By next week you’ll have the largest fighting force this world has ever seen, my queen.”
“Good.” I turned to stare at my father, trying to keep my voice calm. “John of Leavenwald?”
“The Woodsmen have all received the call, Your Majesty.” He bowed his head to me. “Our men are scouring every forest in Nerissette. If there is food there, it will be found and brought to the army. The first of the supply wagons have already left the Leavenwald and should be here in the morning.”
“Right. Winston, you’re next.”
“The Dragos Council has met. Our warriors will arrive in the morning with recruits from the villages near Dramera. The aerie is prepared for war. We’ve already begun flying patrols.”
“And what have the dragons seen from the sky?” I kept my eyes focused on him.
“The Borderlands is burning,” Winston said softly. “Bavasama has set fire to the White Mountains and any other land that wasn’t inhabited on our side of the border.”
“What about the places where there were people?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer even as I asked the question.
“Six villages and the two largest Firas encampments have been invaded.” Winston turned to stare at Melchiam. “The encampments of the Lumeve and the Candelliere are gone. From what we can see, the people tried to flee from their campgrounds but didn’t have time.”
“Gone?” I asked a second before Melchiam let out a high-pitched wail, sinking to his knees with his head in his hands. Everyone turned silently to watch as the man dropped his head onto the floor and began to scream, long, terrible screams that sounded like a fire engine on a too-cold winter night. It was raw and primal, and it made the little slivers left of my heart feel like they’d been kicked by a bully in steel-toed boots.
“You mean they’re dead?” I asked, my eyes wide as I turned away from the screaming man and back to Winston. “All of them?”
“Yes.” He nodded, his eyes not meeting mine. “Everyone. They’re gone. I’m sorry. We were too late to reach them. We were lucky we escaped when we did today, Your Majesty.”
“No.” I shook my head as an all-consuming dread filled my stomach. “No, they didn’t…”
“The village of Sorcastia is gone, too,” Rhys said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Salvachio, the stupid farmer who’d been worried about the field of wheat that Dravak had accidentally burned last year, was dead. He’d been sure that someone would take over the village. He swore that the dragons would try to conquer them. He’d told me once that the dragons wanted to burn the world around them.
Now, it turned out he’d been right. Not about the dragons, of course, the dragons were on our side, but what was coming for our world. Someone was trying to burn it down around us.
“Why is the Empress Bavasama doing this?” Arianna asked. “Why, when we’ve signed a peace treaty, is she attacking us? Is it because you have control of the Relics?”
“No.” I shook my head. “This has nothing to do with the Great Relics. Not directly. This is about the throne. I have it, and she wants it. The Relics go along with that, but I don’t think that’s her primary goal.”
“So what do we do?” another man asked from the back of the throne room. “Your Majesty, what are we going to do? They’ll come here next. They’ll come here, and we’ll have nowhere to run. They’ll burn us out and—”
“Where are they? Bavasama’s troops?” I asked, my voice sharp as I tried to hide my own worry from the nobles staring back at me. “Where are they now?”
“Back over the border,” Rhys said. “They burned everything they could on our side and then retreated over the White Mountains, setting fire to the forests there to prevent us from following.” Rhys kept his eyes on mine, and I could see that his entire face was tense.
“So this was what?” I asked, staring at the sea of scared faces in front of me. “Bavasama’s version of the pregame show? She just wanted to show us that she could do this and we couldn’t stop her?”
“She wanted revenge,” Winston snapped. “This isn’t about magic artifacts or thrones or anything else. You humiliated her, and this is how she got revenge. She attacked our borders to punish you.”
“Yeah,” I said with a snort of derision, “well, I can’t wait to see what she does when I march my army into her country and do the same thing to her that she did to my mother.”
“What?” John asked, his eyes wide. “What do you mean what she did to your mother?”
“Bavasama.” I swallowed. “She took my mother hostage and then disguised herself to look like my mom so she could sit on the Rose Throne. Then, when she thought she might be caught, she used the Great Relics to force my mother through the Mirror so the Fate Maker could rule Nerissette as regent.”
“By the stars.” John’s face paled. “How long? How long did she pretend to be your mother?”
“I don’t know,” I said, then shook my head. “But what I do know is that after these attacks, her days on the throne of Bathune are numbered.”
“Your aunt must have been willing to take the risk,” John said. “She tried this in the hopes that our behavior at the peace treaty signing was all an act, that in reality you were sick of war but just didn’t want to appear weak.”
If that’s what Bavasama thought, then she was right. I was sick of war. I was sick of blood and battles and the smell of the dead burning. I was really sick of that stupid, hollow feeling in my chest that came from watching my friends suffer and die. I was sick of feeling weak every time I was forced to make a decision that led to someone else dying.
What I was really sick of most of all, though? I was really, really freaking sick of people thinking that we were just going to lie down and die so that life could be more convenient for them. That was going to stop today. Right now, in fact. I was sick of being walked on.
“So what do we do?” a white-skinned nymph on the right called out. “What will the allies of the Aurae do to stop these attacks?”
“Aquella?” I searched for her in the crowd, and the blue-skinned naiad stepped forward from the cluster of nymphs near the windows on the left side of the room.