Sister Ai Nan-Tamé returned to her barracks, outside the
main walls of the city, with too many thoughts for one mind. She ran her
slender fingers over the flame-drenched hawk embossed upon her golden
breastplate, and found a sigh.
Captain Aric Milford glanced up from his desk. “... Dare I
ask?”
“Lisbeth is dead.”
Aric flinched violently. “Lorat bested Sister Cartwright? You can’t be serious.”
“It wasn’t the city,” Sister Nan-Tamé said slowly, hesitantly. “It
was the forest.”
“The Godswake hasn’t stirred in decades. How could—” Aric
stopped, collected himself, and turned his attention back to the sheaf of
parchment on his desk. “What will be done? We can’t . . . leave this. Can we?”
“Her Majesty certainly doesn’t believe so.”
The Captain stood. “This may not prove fortuitous, but we
may as well.” He gestured. “Come with me. Heiler has a new prospect.
You’ll want to see this personally.”
Sister Nan-Tamé blinked, surprised. “A new recruit? Now?”
“Just come with me.”
Captain Milford was a big man, a born warrior who never would
have made rank in the magic-specialized Third Guard if not for the fact that he
defied nearly every expectation of a man his size. He never would have seemed
like a lifelong scholar to anyone who looked at his muscular frame and his
wickedly bladed mace.
Despite his brutish appearance, though, there was no one who
understood the theory of magic better
than Aric Milford. What he lacked in practical ability, he more than made up
for with strategy.
The first thing that Sister Ai Nan-Tamé thought, as she
stepped onto her Guard’s training field, was that the man standing next to
Sentinel Heiler made her captain—with his huge, hulking frame—look like a child.
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