again and left without another word. Catherine continued her tour, making a point of stopping and talking to both her white-hairs and Tzsayn’s blue-hairs. Most of the men seemed happy to see her, and all of them asked after their king.
“We knew he’d escape the Brigantines. If anyone could, he could.”
Catherine smiled and said how proud Tzsayn was of his men for their loyalty and courage. It was clear that none knew Tzsayn was ill, and it was probably best to keep it that way.
She came to a halt at the northerly end of the camp that overlooked Hawks Field. It too was unrecognizable as the place where the Pitorians had fought and beaten the Brigantines. The river had burst its banks and flooded everything. The only feature that remained was a crooked wooden pole poking up at an angle from the brown water—the remains of the cart Catherine had been chained to, which had somehow survived both fire and flood. On the far bank, where her father’s troops had gathered, there was nothing but grass. In the days since the battle, the Brigantines had fallen back to the outskirts of Rossarb, half a day’s ride north. No one knew when, or if, they would attack again, but while her father made up his mind, it seemed he had more sense than to stay put in a swamp.
As Catherine surveyed the ground, she felt her stomach tighten. On the maps in the war meetings, it had all seemed somehow remote, but here the true extent of their plight felt uncomfortably real.
Even if Catherine had escaped his clutches, Aloysius had got almost everything else he wanted from his invasion—gold from Tzsayn’s ransom to finance his army and access to the demon smoke on the Northern Plateau. His army had retreated, but he wasn’t beaten, while her own men were knee-deep in mud and riddled with fever.
Catherine set her jaw. She wished Tzsayn was able to help her, but for now she’d have to work alone.
AMBROSE
ARMY CAMP, NORTHERN PITORIA
THE INFIRMARY was cool in the morning light. The dawn chorus of groans, coughs, and snores had given way to quiet talk peppered with curses and weak cries for help. Ambrose lay on his side in his rickety camp bed looking to the door, willing the next person to enter to be Catherine. She would smile at him as she approached, walking quickly, leaving her maids well behind, as she used to do when she saw him in the stable yard at Brigant Castle. She’d take his hand, and he’d bend and kiss hers. He’d touch her skin with his lips, breathe on her skin, and breathe in her smell.
The man behind Ambrose coughed wheezily, then spat.
Ambrose had been here a week, sure at first that Catherine would visit him, now not so sure. He’d filled each day with thoughts of her, remembering the days he’d spent with her, from the early days in Brigant, when he rode with her along the beach, to the glorious days in Donnafon, where he’d held her in his arms, caressed her smooth skin, kissed her hand, her fingers, her lips.
A cry of pain came from a man at the far end of the room.
What are you thinking? Catherine shouldn’t come here. The place was full of misery and disease. He had to get out and go to her. But for that, he’d have to walk. He’d been injured in the shoulder and leg in the battle of Hawks Field. He’d seen soldiers heal from worse injuries than his, and he’d seen men give up and die from less serious wounds. There had been a moment, after the battle, when he thought he couldn’t go on, but that feeling of despair had left him, and he knew now he would never give up. He’d fight on for himself and for Catherine.
Ambrose sat up in his bed and began his exercises, slowly bending and straightening his right arm as the doctor had instructed. He moved on to the next exercise: rotating his bandaged shoulder. This was more painful, and he had to do it slowly.
The battle of Hawks Field was won, but the war was far from over. And as for Ambrose’s part in the battle . . . well, he’d tried to save Catherine, but killing Lang was all he had managed. He’d wanted to fight Boris, but the Brigantines had overpowered Ambrose, and it was Catherine, fueled by demon smoke, who had sent a spear into Boris’s