Sunlight dripped from a tiny window into her cell. Brea lay on her doublet atop the cold ground and tried to remember how many days had passed. Four? Seven? A dozen or more? She had seen no one, heard only the moans of distant neighbors, and received no nourishment of any kind. The dungeons of Deagan's Hold were not a place to keep prisoners for questioning or before a trial, but a place to forget they had ever existed.

The pyre burned for hours. Its flames seemed to lick the sky, and Brea turned her horse and troopers away from the carnage. They rode for home, though she wasn't sure what that meant anymore. Smoke rose behind them, a dark reminder of her lord's betrayal.

Farnick rode at her side, the squadron of troopers behind them. His head was cleanly shaved. No trace of stubble lined his chin. Brea's armor hung heavy on her shoulders, the gorget tight against her throat. All was as it should be.

The tip of her longsword carved a channel along the beachhead of Lake Encarthan. She dragged the weapon, held it listlessly in her hand. Hers were dark, dirtied hands that knew the weight of good steel, the heft of a man's heart. She remembered a time when she was clean, though she could not recall the feeling of pristine boot soles, nor of a soul unstained.