Emperor Siwalt Grande looked down at her with a cruel smile.
"You're more impressive than the rumors suggested," he said. "Considerably more."
The grim reality of it settled onto her as she knelt there. Rumors, reports, plans. There really had been a spy in the Nozenleaf army.
"So tell me," Siwalt said, enjoying himself, "why did you march into a battle you should have known was a trap?"
"You knew," she said. "You came anyway."
"Of course." He shrugged, and his reason was as simple as it was arrogant. "I heard the Duchess of Sheram was a great beauty. I wanted to see for myself."
Averifa was unimpressed.
"Then you're an even bigger fool than I took you for."
"And yet you're the one who got caught," he said, "and so easily," and he yanked her up by the hair to prove the point.
She glared at him and let her mind run, turning over every possible way to handle a man like this.
Siwalt took her chin in his hand.
"You'll become my woman."
She stared at him. "What nonsense are you talking about?"
"I like that attitude," he said, smirking, and forced her down to the ground.
He loomed over her, and there was exactly one thought in her head, and it was that she had to get away from him.
The tent flap tore open.
"Forgive the intrusion, Your Majesty—"
Siwalt straightened, visibly annoyed. "Impeccable timing. Truly. What is so important?"
The report was grim. The Nozenleaf army had already broken through their front line.
For the first time the emperor looked genuinely surprised. "Already? They've come faster than I anticipated."
He turned back to Averifa, gripped her chin once more, and spoke coldly.
"Stay put. Behave yourself."
Then he was gone.
Alone and still bound, her mind went fast and clear. This was her chance. She had to get out of here while she still could — before he came back, before the line moved again, before—
An arm closed around her from behind and a hand clamped firmly over her mouth.
She was not alone after all.
"Stay still," said a quiet voice.
A blade slid between her wrists and the ropes came apart, and she turned, and her rescuer was Lynn.
Relief went through her so hard it almost took her legs.
"We have to go," he said, pulling her close. "Now."
They looked out through the gap in the tent flap. The Strald camp was in complete panic. Men were running in every direction, shouting to each other that the Nozenleaf army was too strong, that there was no holding them, that they had to retreat immediately.
But as the soldiers turned to flee for their lives, their escape was cut off.
The ground shattered beneath them.
It opened into a deep chasm of jagged blue ice, and the fleeing men plummeted into the abyss that had just been made under their feet. A dark and enormous power came radiating up out of the icy depths.
Averifa watched with ice crystals floating in the air around her, and she recognized what she was feeling. There was no mistaking that divine power.
Ares had arrived.
The entire battlefield was flash-frozen. What had been a chaotic retreat one moment was, the next, a silent and chilling monument: Strald soldiers caught mid-stride, panicked faces permanently encased in jagged pillars of ice that stood across the plain like a forest.
From where she stood, Averifa stared at it. It was cruel, and it was beautiful, and she knew instantly who was responsible. Only Ares could make something so devastating.
Later, in the safety of a military tent, Colonel Finareo came to her with genuine relief all over his face.
"I'm glad to see you safe, my lady."
Averifa sat with a warm cup between her hands.
"I'm sorry to have caused you concern," she said quietly.
But her mind was still out on that plain, running the same few seconds over and over: the ground breaking, the light in the ice, the sheer force of it.
Had Ares's divine power always been this overwhelming?
Her reflection was cut short. The colonel had straightened, and his tone had changed to the formal one.
"Lady Sheram. My report."
The war was not over yet.