Chapter 257: Stripped (1) [BONUS]

"It’s from the Marshal’s office, my lady," Sir Agnus said. "Lord Cedric’s seal."

Zuri did not turn around at once.

She was standing where she stood every evening, at the northern edge of the Maren Ridge, where the ground fell away toward the river.

"Cedric," she said. "Of course."

She held out her hand.

Agnus gave her the packet. He was a broad, heavy man with a grey beard and a great shield strapped to his back, even here, on a quiet ridge with no enemy for a hundred miles. He had guarded her for as long as she could remember. He had never once handed her a letter without first looking at her face to see how she would take it.

He was looking now.

The wax was white, pressed with the crowned griffin and a single bar beneath it. The heir’s mark. Zuri broke it with her thumb.

There were two pages. The first was in a clerk’s neat hand. The second was short, and in Cedric’s own writing.

She read the first page.

On the eleventh day after the fall of the northern Wall, the lake fortress of Orsini was taken by the army of the Kingdom of Varkhal. The enemy dammed the upper river in secret and released it in the night. The outer ring was lost before dawn. The inner keep surrendered four days later.

Zuri stopped reading.

She stood very still with the wind pulling at her braid and looked at the word Orsini until it stopped looking like a word.

"My lady?"

"Orsini has been occupied," she said.

Agnus did not answer. She heard him breathe in once, slowly, the way he did when he was hit and did not want anyone to know.

She made herself read on.

The Duke of the East has complained to the Crown and to the Duke of the North. He says the Fifth Legion of the White Griffin left its post without orders before the fortress fell, and that its absence broke the eastern line.

By order of the Marshal of the White Griffin, command of the Fifth Legion is withdrawn from Zuri, effective at once. Command passes to Sir Agnus, who will return the Legion east to the Velmont line without delay.

Zuri is ordered to report to the Duke of the North. Her conduct will be placed before the Crown, which will decide her punishment.

She read the last line twice.

Then she turned to the second page.

I hope it was worth it. You will explain yourself to Father.

That was all. No greeting. No name at the bottom. Cedric had never needed to sign his letters to her. She always knew who they were from.

Zuri folded both pages and put them inside her coat.

She was not surprised.

Cedric had never liked her. He had been polite, as their father required. He had never been cruel in front of anyone. But for as long as she could remember, he had watched her the way a man watches a fire that is too close to his house.

She knew why.

Cedric was the heir of the Gannon Household, the eldest son of the Duke of the North, and everyone had expected him to lead the house legions one day.

Then a girl without the Gannon name had opened her Star before him. She had reached the Apex realm before him. She had reached Master before thirty, while he was still struggling at the realm below.

In the end, their father had given Cedric the ledgers, the supply lines and the title of Marshal, and he had given Zuri the sword.

Cedric had smiled at the time, and said it was the sensible choice.

He had been waiting ever since.

Now she had given him a reason. A legion gone from its post and a fortress fallen. The angry duke writing letters to the Crown.

Cedric had not even needed to lie. He only had to do what the law said, quickly and correctly, and let the rest happen on its own.

Zuri found she could not even be angry with him. Not really. He was right. She had abandoned the Orsini herself..

But one line still sat in her chest like a stone.

Command passes to Sir Agnus.

She turned around.

Agnus was standing exactly where he had been. He had not moved. He had already read her face, the way he always did, and he knew.

"He’s giving you the Legion," she said.

"Yes, my lady."

"You have to take it east."

"...."

He was silent and did not answer her, which was the first time as long as she could remember.

"And I have to go south."

He did not answer that either.

Zuri looked at him. At the grey beard, which had been brown once. At the great shield he had carried in front of her through every fight she had ever been in. At the hands that had held hers when she was twelve and could not sleep in a strange house, among people who looked at her as if she did not belong there.

Her mother had died before Zuri could remember her. Her father had given her a name, a roof and a sword, and very little else.

It was Agnus who had taught her to ride. Agnus who had stood behind her in her first battle. Agnus who had sat outside her tent all night after it, so that she would not be alone.

He had never once called himself her father. He had never needed to.

"I’ll refuse," Agnus said quietly. "I’ll write to the Marshal. Someone else can take the Legion. My place is with you-"

"No."

"My lady-"

"No," Zuri said again, and this time her voice broke a little. "If you refuse, Cedric will give it to someone who doesn’t know their names. Someone who will march them east like cattle and blame them for Orsini. They followed me north, Agnus. They don’t deserve that."

She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes.

"I need someone to take them back who loves them. That’s you. It’s always been you."

Agnus stood very still.

Then he did something he had not done since she was a child. He stepped forward and put one heavy hand on top of her head, the way he used to when she fell off her horse and refused to cry.

"Then I’ll take them," he said. "And I’ll bring them back to you."

Zuri did not cry. She had promised herself that she would not.

But she stood there with his hand on her head for a long time, while the light went out of the sky over the north.

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