“Please, your highness. We should go.”

Dara knew he was right, but couldn’t look away from the devastation. The valley below them was in flames; the towers of the palace and temples were islands in a sea of red-flickering smoke. The sounds of battle had faded now, but the cries of pain and terror still reached her here on the hidden high road.

“I’ve killed them all.”

“No, your highness.” Sir John’s voice was gentle. “You have killed no one. We knew the horde was coming, and what that meant for the valley. Many of our people left. Those who stayed, stayed to fight, to defend the valley, to defend their queen — no matter the cost.”

Dara tried to draw comfort from her knight’s words. He was as much her councilor as he was her bodyguard, and she had long relied on his wisdom. But this night of blood and fire and horror was too much, and her despair too deep for Sir John’s words to penetrate.

She allowed herself to be gently pulled away from the path’s edge. She was back on the narrow track that wound its way up the rocky valley walls. They had been walking for hours — they’d set out as soon as the gates fell — and hoped to reach the Felgorn pass by sunset. Sir John had made arrangements at a certain inn in Felgorn. They would find horses there, and provisions enough to see them over the mountains into Garnlund. In Garnlund, Sir John had promised her, they would be safe. After all, Markus had been a prince there.

“Do you think Markus — if he were still alive — would be here with me? Or down there, fighting?”

Sir John turned back to look at her. His eyes were red-rimmed and worn, older than she remembered. It had been days, she realized, since he’d last slept.

He turned back to the trail and kept walking.

“He’d be torn, your highness. His honor would put him at the front line of the battle, leading his men and protecting his home.

“But his heart would tell him that his place was here, at the side of his wife and unborn son. He loved you so much. Even with the fever…”

“I know,” said Dara. It was her turn to be comforting. Markus had been Sir John’s king, but also his closest friend. “We all loved him. And we all miss him.”

As they climbed ever higher, they left conversation behind them with the smoke. The clear mountain air filled Dara with its silence, cleansed her mind of the useless words that had been twisting around each other like a nest of snakes since Sir John had awakened her.

Dara was cold. She had her favorite cloak, but it was thinner than she’d realized, more for show than actual warmth. She had no pack, no bag, no wagon full of chests full of clothing like the last time she’d visited Garnlund. Sir John had insisted they travel light, and this was as light as she could travel.

She welcomed the cold. It numbed her mind as well as her fingertips. Kept her focused on the trail in front of her: one foot in front of the other, always moving forward, always moving upward. Away from the smoke. Away from the valley. She inhaled the cold, willed it to chill her deeper yet, to numb her soul.

The sun had passed overhead when Dara heard a terrible roar.

Valehaven’s death-cry echoed up the valley walls, carried on a pillar of flame that stretched to the heavens. For a full minute it burned. She could feel its heat, see her fire-born shadow sharp on the valley wall beyond her. It danced and mocked her.

The pillar flickered and died. Silence and darkness rushed to filled its vacuum.

Dara wept.

“It’s all gone…”

Sir John reached for his queen, stopped, then placed a light hand on her shoulder.

“And it will be rebuilt,” he said. His voice wavered, reminding Dara of all that he had left behind, all that he had lost.

“You must have faith in the prophecy, your highness. Faith in the miracle you carry. It was the prophecy’s threat that brought Borgan and his horde here, and the prophecy’s promise that inspired the people to rise up and fight.

“It’s the prophecy that will see us through.”

Dara nodded for John’s sake, and turned back up the road to Felgorn, but couldn’t stop the tears. Not now. Maybe not ever.

She pitied Sir John, but couldn’t tell him the truth. The prophesied one, her miracle child, had stopped moving three days ago.