A whistle to his right brought his head around. Low in the saddle and laughing herself, Jin Li Tam pulled ahead of him.
“You’re slowing down, old man,” she shouted over her shoulder. Her red hair, shining in the sunlight, caught wind and flowed behind. She wore the rainbow-colored riding silks of a Gypsy queen, and though they were unnecessary and did not match her chosen outfit, she also wore the scout knives that had once belonged to his mother.
They’d been on the move for two months now, visiting each of his forest manors, introducing a jubilant people to the heir they had longed to see. Of course, so soon on the heels of their wedding at the Seventh Forest Manor, each stop simply continued the celebration as each of his towns rallied to honor both his bride and his boy.
And they honor me as well. They always had, even back to his days as a boy king. But until recently, like those losses in his life, it had meant something different to him. Now, it was a kind of amazement tempered by a gratitude he’d never felt before.
Paramo had been their last stop—a logging town that now stretched itself into a city as refugees settled in to work the old-growth forest, milling the wood and shipping it south by river for the library Rudolfo and Isaak built. Tonight, they would rest easy in their own bed. And tomorrow, Rudolfo would approach the waiting tower of paper that no doubt threatened collapse as it dared gravity there in the basket on his desk. Still, it had been a good respite between the first rains and the last of the sun.
A flash of white on the horizon caught his eye, and Rudolfo slowed his horse at the familiar sight. It shimmered and blurred in the heat of the day, moving in a straight line toward them, low to the tops of the grass. When the bird struck Aedric’s catch net, Rudolfo matched his pace with that of his first captain and watched as the man stripped the note, read the knotted message in the blue thread and unrolled the scroll.
Behind them, the rest of their caravan slowed. Ahead, Jin Li Tam turned and doubled back in a wide and sweeping circle.
Aedric frowned and turned, looking to the northwest. Rudolfo followed his gaze. In the distance, the Dragon’s Spine rose up, gray and impenetrable, above the Prairie Sea and the Ninefold Forest that spread like ancient islands across it.
Rudolfo laid his hand upon Jakob’s cheek. Aedric’s grim look in the direction of the Marshlands told him the source of this latest news. “What are they up to now?”
It had been six months since the Council of Kin-Clave. Half a year since the woman Ria had announced herself as the Machtvolk queen and saved his son’s life before slipping back into the north and vanishing behind her closely watched borders. The Named Lands had slid into madness and disarray, though of late there had been a brooding peace of sorts.
Aedric’s voice brought him back to the moment. Already, the young captain was inking a response and twisting knots of reply into the blue thread of inquiry. “They’ve breached our borders again, General.”
Rudolfo sighed. “Where now?”
“Glimmerglam.”
He felt his stomach sink. Jin Li Tam had slowed her horse to a trot and joined them. “We were just there three weeks ago.”
Aedric nodded. “Two evangelists this time. Preaching their so-called gospel in the streets openly. The house steward has them locked away for now. I’ll deal with them once we’re home and I’ve seen to the men.”
Rudolfo stroked his beard. This had started not long after the council there on the plains of Windwir. Initially, they had found Marshers wandering the Prairie Sea or the more isolated parts of the Ninefold Forest. These they turned back—even chased back—to the low hills that served as a border between his lands and the woman who called herself Winteria the Elder and claimed the Wicker Throne. Later, the ragged preachers had shown up in the towns surrounding his forest manors. These, his militia beat and delivered back to their border. It was less violent than what his father would have done, and still it made Rudolfo wince. Lord Jakob would have placed them on Tormentor’s Row, and after a day or two under the knives of his Physicians of Penitent Torture, they’d have seen the value of keeping their beliefs within their territory. If they’d returned, he’d