until she reached Peppercorn, and then she would ride until she could no longer ride. Perhaps the destination didn’t matter anymore.
When she finally reached Peppercorn, she was able to unhitch him and climb into the saddle before she collapsed. As she slumped forward to rest her cheek on Peppercorn’s coarse mane, she sighed.
“Lady Marzanna, I return…”
Then darkness overtook her that day for the third and final time.
At least she died in the saddle.
11
Perhaps Sebastian’s sister was right. At least to some extent. While he did believe the menace of the Uaine Empire had to be stopped, his motives for enlisting in the imperial army had not been purely altruistic. She was wrong that it stemmed from ego, however. It was the promise of freedom. The freedom to stop hiding who and what he was. To proudly show what he could do, not just to his parents, but to the world. He decided, then, that the best way to silence his sister’s accusations, which still rang in his ears hours after she had left, was to express that new freedom.
He stood in front of the mirror in his officer’s quarters and put on his crisp new green jacket. It was made from a thick, stiff wool, and when he cinched the gold buttons up the front, it felt almost like armor. He examined his reflection and decided there was something reassuring about the smart, severe look of it. Admittedly, it was rather plain compared to Commander Vittorio’s jacket. Sebastian touched the empty place at his breast where the commander had so many ribbons and medals. Someday, he would have the same.
Sebastian placed the round green cap of a junior officer carefully on his head, checked his appearance once more in the mirror, then made his way down the hall and out into the yard. A small group of infantrymen in blue uniforms were being drilled by their captain off to one side. The shield bearers, heavily armored in both chest and shoulders, dropped to one knee, their convex rectangular shields of ironbound wood planted in the cold mud. Behind them, the lightly armored spear bearers quickly thrust their steel points through the gaps between shields. At the command of their captain, the spears were rapidly retracted, the shields were lifted, both lines stepped forward, and the entire sequence was repeated. It was a near impenetrable wall of bristling steel that moved forward at a slow but unstoppable pace. Sebastian watched them for a moment, recalling how impressed he’d been with the precision of the cavalry even in that frightening moment when they’d invaded his home. The infantry appeared to be just as formidable. It was comforting to know that he was now on the side of such awe-inspiring discipline.
After admiring the soldiers for a few minutes, he made his way across the yard to the armory, a squat, windowless building near the outer wall of Gogoleth. The chief armorer, an Aureumian whom the commander had briefly introduced the day before as Sergeant Costa, sat on a stool in front of the door in his shirtsleeves, carefully sharpening a saber that lay across his lap.
“Good day, Sergeant.” Sebastian saluted respectfully, pressing two fingers to his forehead, the elbow out to the side, as Vittorio had taught him.
Costa looked up from beneath his thick, gray eyebrows and nodded. “At ease, Lieutenant… Portinari, wasn’t it? Commander Giovanni’s boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I served under Giovanni during the war. Hell of a man.”
“Thank you, sir.” It still baffled Sebastian how soldiers could express admiration for his father, untroubled by the fact that their fellow soldiers had killed him. Perhaps he would understand such things in time.
“Commander Vittorio told me you wouldn’t require a saber,” said Costa. “So I’m not sure what you need from me.”
“Do you have any scrap metal, sir? Preferably small pieces that are no longer of any use to you?”
One of his eyebrows rose. “I suppose so. I take it I won’t have to worry about disposing of them myself, then?”
“No, sir.”
He nodded. “Saves me the trouble. All right, I’ll see what I’ve got.”
He carefully leaned the saber against the doorway and went inside. Sebastian waited at the door, listening to the sharp clang of metal bits knocking against each other. A few minutes later, Costa returned, lugging a small crate filled with irregular pieces of metal.
“Some of them are rusty. Not sure if that matters.”
“It’s not a problem, sir. Thank you.”
When Sebastian took the crate from the old man, it nearly brought him to