Kingdom of Ash

Dorian had gone to Morath.

Had flown from the camp on wings of his own making. He would have chosen some sort of small, ordinary bird, Manon knew. Something even the Thirteen would not have noted.

Manon stood at the edge of the outlook, gazing eastward.

Crunching snow told her Asterin approached. “He left, didn’t he.”

She nodded, unable to find words. She had offered him everything, and had thought he’d meant to accept it. Had thought he did accept it, with what they’d done afterward.

Yet it had been a farewell. One last coupling before he ventured into the jaws of death. He would not cage her, would not accept what she’d given.

As if he knew her better than she knew herself.

“Do we go after him?”

In the breaking light of dawn, the camp was stirring. Today—today they would decide where to go. Today, she’d dare ask the Crochans to follow. Would they heed her?

But to head to Morath, where they would be recognized long before they approached, to head back into hell …

The sun rose, full and golden, as if it were the solitary note of a song filling the world.

Manon opened her mouth.

“Terrasen calls for aid!” A young Crochan’s voice rang through the camp.

Manon and Asterin whirled, others following suit as the witch sprinted for Glennis’s tent. The crone emerged as the witch skidded to a halt. A scout, no doubt, breathless and hair wind-tossed.

“Terrasen calls for aid,” the scout panted, bracing her hands on her knees as she bent over to gulp down breaths. “Morath routed them at the border, then at Perranth, and advances on Orynth as we speak. They will sack the city within a week.”

Worse news than Manon had anticipated. Even if she’d needed it, waited for it.

The Thirteen closed in, Bronwen a step behind, and Manon didn’t dare breathe as Glennis stared toward the immortal flame burning in the fire pit mere feet away. The Flame of War.

Then she turned toward Manon. “What say you, Queen of Witches?”

A challenge and a dare.

Manon lifted her chin at the two paths before her.

One to the east, to Morath. The other northward, to Terrasen and battle.

The wind sang, and in it, she heard the answer.

“I shall answer Terrasen’s call,” Manon said.

Asterin stepped to her side, fearless as she surveyed the assembled camp. “As shall I.”

Sorrel flanked Manon’s right. “So shall the Thirteen.”

Manon waited, hardly daring to acknowledge the thing that began burning in her chest.

Then Bronwen stepped up, her dark hair blowing in the chill wind. “The Vanora hearth shall fly north.”

Another witch squared her shoulders. “So shall the Silian.”

And so it went.

Until the leaders of all seven of the Great Hearths stood gathered there.

Until Glennis said to Manon, “Long ago, Rhiannon Crochan rode at King Brannon’s side into battle. So has her likeness been reborn, so shall the old alliances be forged anew.” She gestured to the eternal flame. “Light the Flame of War, Queen of Witches, and rally your host.”

Manon’s heart raced, so wildly it pulsed in her palms, but she picked up a birch branch set amongst the kindling.

No one spoke as she plunged it into the eternal flame.

Red and gold and blue leaped upon the wood, devouring it. Manon withdrew the branch only when it had caught, deep and true.

Even the wind did not jostle the flame as Manon lifted it, a torch in the new day.

The Crochan crowd parted, revealing a straight path toward Bronwen’s hearth. The witch was already waiting, her coven gathered around her.

Each step was a drumbeat of war. An answer to a question posed long ago.

Bronwen’s eyes were bright as Manon stopped.

Manon only said, “Your queen summons you to war.”

And touched her flame to that in Bronwen’s hearth.

Light flared, bright and dancing.

Bronwen picked up a branch of her own, a long log burning in the fire. “The Vanora will fly.”

She withdrew the wood and stalked to the next clan’s hearth, where she plunged that kernel of the sacred fire into their pit. Again the light flared, just as Bronwen declared, loud and clear as the breaking day around them, “Your queen summons you to war. The Vanora fly with her. Will you?”

The hearth leader only said, “The Redbriar will fly,” and ignited her own torch before hurrying to the next clan’s fire.

Hearth to hearth. Until all seven in the camp had accepted and ignited the fire.

Then, and only then, did the young scout from the final clan take her burning torch, grab her broom, and leap into the skies. To find the next clan, to tell them the call had gone out.

Manon and the Thirteen, the Crochans around them, watched until the scout was nothing but a smoldering speck against the sky, then nothing at all.

Manon offered a silent prayer on the wind that the sacred flame the young scout bore would burn steadfast over the long, dangerous miles.

All the way to the killing fields of Terrasen.

Hearth to hearth, the Flame of War went.

Over snow-blasted mountains and amongst the trees of tangled forests, hiding from the enemies that prowled the skies. Through long, bitterly cold nights where the wind howled as it tried to wipe out any trace of that flame.

But the wind did not succeed, not against the flame of the queen.

So hearth to hearth, it went.

To remote villages where people screamed and scattered as a young-faced woman descended from the skies on a broom, waving her torch high.

Not to signal them, but the few women who did not run. Who walked toward the flame, the rider, as she called out, “Your queen summons you to war. Will you fly?”

Trunks hidden in attics were thrown open. Folded swaths of red cloth pulled from within. Brooms left in closets, beside doorways, tucked under beds, were brought out, bound in gold or silver or twine.

And swords—ancient and beautiful—were drawn from beneath floorboards, or hauled down from haylofts, their metal shining as bright and fresh as the day they had been forged in a city now lying in ruin.

Witches, the townsfolk whispered, husbands wide-eyed and disbelieving as the women took to the skies, red cloaks billowing. Witches amongst us all this time.

Village to village, where hearths that had never once gone fully dark blazed in answer. Always one rider going out, to find the next hearth, the next bastion of their people.

Witches, here amongst us. Witches, now going to war.

A rising tide of witches, who took to the skies in their red cloaks, swords strapped to their backs, brooms shedding years of dust with each mile northward.

Witches who bade their families farewell, offering no explanation before they kissed their sleeping babes and vanished into the starry night.

Mile after mile, across the darkening world, the call went out, ceaseless and unending as the eternal flame that passed from hearth to hearth.

“Fly, fly, fly!” they shouted. “To the queen! To war!”

Far and wide, through snow and storm and peril, the Crochans flew.