had done.
“Did Mazzulah specifically say they had to die?” Lorraine asked.
Quinn mulled over that answer, thinking over her times in the dark realm. Recalling the deal made. “Mazzulah said we had to win, but not what that meant or how.”
“Defeating the army could win the war?” Lazarus said.
“Not necessarily,” Quin said. “Talk of death and revenge was mixed in there, but you have to understand that Mazzulah isn’t entirely sane. For a being in near isolation for that long, deity or not, it changes you.”
“You speak like you know of it,” Draeven said softly. Almost empathetically. Quinn could sense Lazarus awaiting her answer. While he’d questioned her much, there were still things she avoided. Topics she preferred not to talk of.
“I do,” she answered. “While only months passed here, I was in the dark realm a very long time. Things are different there and I was adored by a god older than time itself. I spent more time with Mazzulah than I have with the rest of you several times over. It’s a strange thing, and I can only imagine what it’s like inside their mind.” She trailed her fingers over the wooden image carved in the likeness of his male form. “I saw snippets of it sometimes. Fragments. The gods are not kind. They are not benevolent. They might have created us, but they made us for the purpose of toying with us. We’re all but slaves to their wills as they decide what destiny and fate is. This game they’ve been playing ends with this war, and I can only assume that means taking out the pieces on the board. The army is important, but none of us will be free until we find the heirs and end them.”
“Are you afraid of them?” Dominicus asked boldly.
Quinn snorted. “Never. I do not fear. However, I’ve spent enough time with one of them to know we shouldn’t be stupid. The army is important, but it’s foolish to focus on that alone.”
A knock at the door made them all turn. It cracked open, and a guard stepped inside. It was not one of Lazarus’ however, but Thorne’s.
“What is it, Nemiah?” the Cisean leader asked.
“We received word from the pass,” he said.
“And? Spit it out, my boy, we haven’t got all day.”
The guard’s face didn’t twitch. The somberness in it not able to be lifted even by Thorne’s easy nature. Quinn sensed his anxiousness. Fear was riding him. She cocked her head.
“Our men have been overrun. We’ve lost the passage through the mountains.”
Shock went through those in the room that could understand Cisean.
“The army?” Quinn asked him. “It’s already there?”
Impossible. That was far too fast for even the lowest numbers they’d heard reported.
“No,” the guard said, shaking his head. “They didn’t fly purple and gold.”
“What colors were their banners?” Lazarus asked, his voice full of threat and fury.
“Green and silver,” Nemiah said. “As well as red and white.”
Bangratas and Jibreal.
They had questioned why no messages were ever sent back, why no spies seemed to return.
It was not because their messengers were intercepted. It was because they’d allied themselves with the other side.
“Those double-crossing bastards,” Axe said, letting loose a string of curses.
“What’s happened?” Lorraine asked.
“Bangratas and Jibreal have broken through the pass in the mountains and are marching for us as we speak,” Quinn told the others who couldn’t understand.
“Gods help us,” Draeven said, running a hand through his dirty-blonde hair.
“Haven’t you been listening?” Quinn asked him. “The gods are the last ones we should be praying to. We have to help ourselves.”
As fighting broke out amongst them, Quinn noted how Lazarus only stared at her. His head tilted. Their eyes met. He nodded once, which meant it was time to start putting plans into motion.
“Prepare the men, ready the Maji. If they’ve indeed broken through the pass, we only have days before the full force of both countries will be upon us.”
“Lazarus, are you certain we shouldn’t be retreating for Dumas right now? Dumas has walls, the ocean. Shallowyn doesn’t have the same defenses—”
“Yes,” Lazarus said. “And that’s exactly why we’ll stay. This is only the beginning. They are the prequel for what’s coming. We’re going to need those walls and that ocean for Nero’s army. Shallowyn can be rebuilt, but if we lose our strongest hold this early in the fighting, we won’t last. Now leave me and make the arrangements.”
The other vassals got to their feet and began preparations, but Quinn was no longer a vassal. She looked over