After a full day of touring the city, flying around, scouting, and hunting out pockets of resistance in Vel Aerdeil, Pirin and Gray were exhausted. The city had been eerily quiet, with all the civilians cowering indoors. Even the vagrants hid in alleys and stayed out of trouble.

  They cleared out the rest of the flak castles and secured hold over the entire wall, but left the eastern gate open and undefended. If anyone wanted to flee, Pirin wouldn’t stop them—and it’d make their entire job easier.

  Now, as the sun set behind the western wall, Pirin approached the Summer Palace.

  Located at the very center of the city, in the middle of a broad plaza, the Summer Palace looked more like a cathedral than a seat of power. Its walls were made of the same pale limestone as the city’s outer walls, but it had massive arched windows, flying buttresses, towers, and domed rooms all along its overall rectangular shape.

  The Sirdian army had already cleared out the palace. They’d broken down the front gate with a ram, which made Pirin wince—the doors had to be centuries old, and the wood had ornate carved frescoes all across it, but some minor Aerdian aristocrat had ordered it to be barred.

  Pirin stepped into the vestibule, walking side-by-side with Gray. The passed a cluster of guards, and stepped aside to avoid a group of soldiers leading white-robed politicians—mostly Ostal—out of the building.

  The vestibule broadened into a massive hall with a ten-storey tall ceiling. Pillars lined the edges, but otherwise, there were no supports. Orange Aerdian banners hung at the edges, obscuring the windows and blocking sunlight, and braziers blazed all along the floor.

  Pirin stepped over the body of a Dominion soldier and avoided a pile of rubble, but otherwise, the interior of the hall was intact. Paintings covered the ceiling, depicting ancient elven lords fighting crimson fiends or annihilating armies with their abilities, and thought time had weathered them, the fighting hadn’t touched them.

  A carpet ran along the center, and Pirin followed it a hundred paces before climbing a half flight of stairs to the dais.

  The dais supported a throne. Or, more appropriately, the throne grew through it. Twigs and branches rose up through cracks in the dais, forming a regular-sized chair with a two-storey tall plume of dried twigs and branches behind it like a peacock’s tail. Dark brown leaves hung limply off the branches, and as Pirin watched, a dried branch crumbled down from the top. It tumbled a few levels before lodging in the armrest.

  Veins of spiritual energy flowed through the branches. Pirin sensed a faint weight, though not nearly as much as he felt in the presence of other important objects. The channels themselves had power, and residues of extremely pure Essence flowed through them, but very little Essence lingered. Not enough to sustain the arcane tree’s life.

  At its base, it was the height of a normal seat, with a simple cushion on its base. Dust covered the green velvet, along with a layer of dead leaves and twigs.

  Pirin brushed the seat off, but he didn’t dare to sit down yet. He turned around and surveyed the hall. Gray stood down below the dais, along with Chancellor Ivescent and a few elven guards.

  “Chancellor,” Pirin said. “Good evening.”

  “I take it your efforts were successful,” said the chancellor.

  “Marshal Velbor thinks so,” Pirin said. “But we haven’t found any Blazes yet, nor the high-marshal of the garrison. There’s still a potential for trouble.”

  “It is possible they left the city,” said Ivescent. “They retreated for better prospects. Don’t let them haunt your dreams.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Pirin stepped to the front of the dais, then plucked up a thick branch from the floor. Its bark crumbled in his fingers, but the pale white core remained, hard as bone and smooth. He held it up. It was dry and almost weightless. “Chancellor, who was the governor-king of Aerdia?”

  Chancellor Ivescent scoffed. “King Tarliom of Aerdia. He was a cousin of Mransil III, and he used his standing to secure power after Mransil’s death. He had very little power of his own, and he hadn’t inherited any of the royal family’s bloodline abilities, but with the old king dead, he was the country’s only perceived future. But powerful Dominion guilds had backed his ascent, and they expected something in return. Slowly but surely, he sold out his nation to imperial interests.”

  Pirin rolled his lips inward. That was probably something he should’ve known, and likely had at one point.

  “Eventually, he took the title governor-king,” said Ivescent. “The Dominion urged him to probe the Dremfell Wall and test our defenses, and he did without question. In his pride, he led a party to the wall himself, and in the fighting, he died.”

  “How long ago was that?” Pirin asked.

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  “About two years ago.” Ivescent folded his hands in front of him and let his sleeves merge together. “The Dominion tried to cover it up, claiming he was still alive, but they couldn’t maintain the myth forever. They still try…”

  “But I reckon almost everyone knows,” Nomad said, cutting in. He marched down the center of the hall, approaching Pirin and the throne. “Or they’ve guessed. They aren’t as irrational as the Dominion’s aristocrats and lords would have you believe.”

  Pirin walked back to the throne. “Gray…do you remember the battle at Dremfell?”

  Me? She lifted a wing out to the side, then curled its tip inward as if to point at herself. I remember startlingly little from before I absorbed a core. Not much to remember from a bird’s brain. Even if we were there, which I suppose is likely, I can’t remember it.

  Pirin grimaced. Not all birds were as intelligent as crows or hawks, and not all animals were as long-lived and mentally developed as bloodhorns. But where gnatsnappers fell behind in wits, they made up for in loyalty.

  But still, he wanted answers. There was no reason to think he’d been at the first skirmishes at Dremfell, save for a vague feeling, and he wanted to test the truth of the matter. He shut his eyes.

  Calling on the Memory Chain, he sifted through memories of the past kings—and of himself. He didn’t have a feeling to imbue his Essence with, a feeling to locate their memories properly with. But Ivescent gave him the rough time period, and Pirin had fine enough control of his Essence to push the Chain back exactly two years.

  He first caught glimpses of flying over the mountains, crossing the Vlarioch range longitudinally, racing aboard Gray toward some skirmish.

  So…after he’d crossed from Kerstel to Sirdia, and after he’d met Gray for the first time.

  They flew fast and hard, and in an extreme hurry. Pirin pushed forward a few days, and now, envisioned a broad mountain pass. It was a valley with sloped sides and a river at its base, with a layer of pine trees covering the ground so thick they looked like moss, with vast plains of rocks and pebbles where older incarnations of the river had flooded through.

  An ancient wall protected the pass. It wasn’t especially tall, and any of its once ornate ornaments had weathered and rubbed away over the centuries. Entire sections had crumbled, and rudimentary cobblestones replaced the gaps between the massive, ancient bricks. Leaning towers had wooden struts holding them up, and modern additions sprouted up above the wall—emplacements for trebuchets and archers and catapults.

  Blue flags fluttered from the wall, hung over the gate, and swayed on standards all throughout the small city behind the wall. It was Sirdian.

  That had to be the Dremfell Wall.

  Pirin slipped the Chain forward a few hours, and suddenly, he and Gray were duelling with birds mid-air. Other Aerdian gnatsnappers, and a few Dominion rockwings. A small army marched on the wall below, but it wasn’t as large as Pirin had been fearing.

  The wall beat it back with ease. Pirin didn’t need to watch the memories minute by minute; he briefly scrolled through them, refreshing himself on his actions. He’d landed and joined the fighting on the ground. A horn had blown.

  That had been the first moment where he’d truly revealed himself to a large group of spectators, and when he’d truly revealed himself to Sirdia—that he would eventually rule in place of a chancellor, that the wizard-kings of Khirdia would return.

  He cut off the Memory Chain and dragged himself back to the present, then faced Ivescent. “What are the chances the Wall just…holds? Again?”

  “There are some who believe that to be the case,” said Ivescent. “But it’s wishful thinking. The Dominion is done probing our defenses. Lady Neria’s army is an invasion force, and she will destroy the wall. If not by sheer numbers, then with the strength of her wizards.”

  “They haven’t attacked it with wizards before, have they?”

  “Unless you count Tarliom, no.”

  “How powerful was he?”

  “A Flare at best. He barely enhanced his body.”

  “He had no drive,” Nomad muttered. “He had everything he desired once he stabbed his cousin in the back and split this land, and there was no need to keep advancing.”

  Pirin tilted his head. “So—”

  Before he could finish, a deep rumble shook the hall and sent vibrations through the floor. The soldiers near the hall’s entrance stumbled, and Ivescent fell to his knees.

  “What was that?” Pirin asked.

  “Explosion.” Nomad marched off down the center of the hall, and Pirin and Gray raced after him.

  “Explosion?” Pirin ran ahead of Nomad, out into the Summer Palace’s vestibule, then out onto the terrace at the front of the palace. He rose up onto his tip toes and surveyed the city. To the west, a column of black smoke towered above the rooftops. It was wide enough to block out the setting sun. “Explosion.”

  I’ve…I’ve still got a short flight left in me, Gray said. In reality, her chest was heaving, and she ruffled her feathers. Her beak was cracked, and she panted a few breaths still

  “You sure?”

  To…see some more dissidents driven before us, to see them crushed beneath your power? Always!

  “...Right.”

  He climbed up into Gray’s saddle, and with a flutter, she took off. She circled around to the palace’s spires, then shot off toward the column of smoke. Where’s it coming from? Is that…just a neighborhood?

  “I hope not.” Pirin leaned over the side of the saddle and stared down at the column of smoke.

  It arose from a swath of charred, flattened buildings. Flames roared in the streets, and civilians sprinted about, running to and fro, looking for safety. Wood dried, daub flared, thatch blazed. A horse sprinted down the street, its mane burning.

  Pirin swallowed. “Not good.”

  At the epicenter of the blast was a crater of torn pavement and scattered bricks. But the blast had originated from below ground. It penetrated deeper, and the cracks ran for miles. Catacombs and hallways crumbled, leaving angular sinkholes in the charred streets.

  “They’re in the catacombs!” Pirin exclaimed. “We’re going down there!”