Prologue

“I smell smoke," Crown Prince Vehome Aen muttered in Vianian, he wrapped up the pain he was allowing himself and reached for the spyglass, praying it to be nothing more than a natural fire.

He knew it was not, though his heart kept hope alive until his eyes denied it. Too many villages burned at once for any natural fire to spread so far, and too much of the western sky had turned the color of fresh embers for it to be the work of dry forests or careless hands.

He turned the twin-lensed spyglass, four and a half kos, towards the Great Keep of Miranda, holding onto the last foolish hope that distance had deceived him and that the glow belonged to something smaller, something the night had made greater than it truly was. The lenses sharpened the world instead of softening it, and the truth came nearer with every breath he drew.

The news of his father and mother's death had reached him only seconds ago, not enough time even to mourn them before another calamity demanded his eyes. Around the Great Keep, beneath the burning sky, men were assembling in ordered ranks. Even in the deepening dusk he could see steel catching the dying light in numbers far beyond a border watch, and there remained no room for hope to mistake it for anything other than an army gathering upon the Miranda border, taking advantage of an empire that had lost both its rulers in same breathe.

He was twenty at seven, not a child to weep as he had. He cursed himself for every heartbeat he had wasted staring at the black-threaded message instead of the western horizon, for letting sorrow bend his knees when Viana had needed an heir who knew better. His father had not raised him to drown in mourning while the border burned, and his mother had not taught him to mistake tears for duty.

“Fool,” he spat beneath his breath, tore the spyglass from his eyes and moved before another moment could be stolen from him for mourning could wait until the Empire had survived the night, but the border would not.

He seized the Sword of Ashke from where it rested beside the war table and turned, only then finding his younger brother seated over the maps spread across the table. Vehome's heartbeat faltered, unable to decide which truth ought to reach Vyere first, that their father and mother were dead, or that an army now stood upon their doorstep.

The Crown Prince overcame the brother. “Vyere,” he called before the younger prince had so much as lifted his head from the map, “ride to the Great Chowk and ring the rescue bell.”

With that, Vehome hastened back towards the spyglass once more, but the younger prince had already reached him, catching hold of his arm before he could take another step.

“Jye,” Vyere shook his head, “Papa swore they could never cross the bridge; he swore it upon the Flame itself.”

“Papa is not here,” Vehome's voice cracked as he pulled his arm free and marched still towards the spyglass.

“Send Vynarra then,” Vyere followed after him, refusing to yield, “she will reach Navale Bay before they have crossed even five paces, and Papa will be here before they can cross the bridge.”

“First you ride,” Vehome did not once turn to face him, “we cannot take that risk.”

“Jye...”

“Vyere,” Vehome met his gaze at last, “go, and take Dahvine with you.”

Vyere's heart had already foretold every dreadful possibility that command carried, yet he ran all the same and Vehome raised the spyglass to his eyes once more, only for his footing to falter beneath him.

Aengh Oneme Aen stood at the foot of the bridge with Salvo. Vehome lurched away from the battlements and ran towards the corridor, reaching the railing that overlooked the descending stairway. He leaned so far over the stone that one hand caught the cold edge to steady himself.

“Vyere!” His voice broke across the Keep, and before Vyere, who had stopped nearly ten steps below, could so much as look up, he added, “Take Dahvine with you and see Ryska safely away.”

“Jye...” Vyere climbed a step back towards him.

“No,” Vehome pleaded, his fingers tightened upon the railing. “I will awaken the Gate, then I will come back to you, but if...” His breath trembled. “Fahn forbid, but...” The sentence died upon his tongue before it could be spoken, and he forced another in its place. “See Ryska safely away. She is to live, even if we do not, even if every soul here leaves Myris this night, she is to live.”

“No.” Vyere took two desperate steps back up the staircase, shaking his head before the tears had even reached his eyes. “No, Jye.”

Vehome's face hardened. “It is the order of your King!” he thundered, the command struck the Keep harder than any war bell, and Vyere froze where he stood, his body yielded to the order long before his heart ever could.

“Papa...” His voice broke apart. “You did not tell me. You did not tell me Papa is gone... no.”

“Vyere, if they reach Ryska before you do, I need tell you nothing of what will follow,” Vehome's voice rose with every word until it became a cry that echoed through the stone halls. “Go, save her.”

Vyere's fingers curled helplessly at his sides, tears spilled freely down his face, and still he kept shaking his head as though refusing the command might yet undo the truth that had fallen upon them. His eyes never left Vehome. He drank in every line of his brother's face with desperate hunger, the scar along his neck, the golden strands fallen across his cheeks, looking as though he meant to carve Vehome into memory before war stole that chance from him forever.

“You were the finest brother a man could ever hope for,” Vehome stepped back once, turned without allowing himself another glance, and ran towards the gate of the bridge. “Fall back!” his voice ripped across the fortress, carrying over stone, steel, and flame alike.

Every soldier stationed along the western gate turned instantly. "Your Highness?"

“Leave these walls,” Vehome's eyes blazed. “Evacuate the citizens.”

The soldier's broke formation and ran. Armor clashed as they scattered into the city below, abandoning the battlements for the streets where screams had already begun to rise above the bells, but his guard did not move.

“My Prince,” he removed his helmet and only bowed his head. “I have spent my life learning how to stand beside House Aen," he lifted his eyes. “I do not know how to leave it.”

Vehome's expression hardened so completely that grief vanished beneath command. He held the man's gaze, saw nothing there but devotion, and knew that argument would only squander the seconds Solari no longer possessed and so he turned away. His stride grew swift as he descended the stairs towards the ancient rune carved into the heart of the Gate, a seal that had not been awakened for centuries. Every step echoed through the fortress like the tolling of a clock counting down a kingdom's remaining moments, and then he stopped at the sight of her.

She was running towards him, ignoring every order that had been given to her.

“I won't go without you,” Dahvine Rhan threw her arms around him with such force that it stole a heartbeat from his lungs.

“Dahvine...” Vehome's hand rose to her head, his fingers passed through her hair with unbearable tenderness before he gently loosened her embrace and resumed his stride. “I'll seal the Gate... and then I'll come back to you.”

“Promise me,” she said. “Promise me, and I will turn back now.”

He answered by running towards the rune instead, never meeting her eyes, even as she followed after him with his guard close behind. He stopped only before the ancient stone that bore the sigil of House Aen, the Great Dragon of Amara. The wind howled around them, fire stained the horizon beyond the sea, and for the first time that day his throat tightened, yet no promise came, for promises were made by men who believed tomorrow belonged to them, and Vehome knew tomorrow had already begun asking for his life.

He thrust both palms against the dragon's heart, calling upon his magic, and golden light should have answered, yet his palms remained empty and the rune lay cold beneath them. His fingers dug harder into the ancient carving until the stone bit into his skin. A golden glow flickered to life, only to die the very instant it was born, and the rune refused its prince all the same.

Dahvine thrust her hands over his, and golden light bloomed to life beneath her touch, curling around Vehome's hands like living flame.

“Dahvine, please,” he cried. “You cannot awaken this. You are not an Aen.”

“You will protect my dignity, and I will protect your honor. We will stand against everything, beside one another, in this life and in every life yet to come. You are mine, and I am yours. We became soulmates from this day until the day your soul no longer remains. We took our vows before the Fire, husband.”

“We did,” his voice cracked as the memory returned, their hands clasped within one another's above the Fire. He could feel its warmth again, could feel her fingers wrapped around his own as though the years between had never been lived. He remembered every vow he had given her, remembered every vow she had returned, and the Sage had placed both his hands upon their heads and said, “Before the Eternal Fire, you are now husband and wife.”

It had been the second happiest day of his life, for the first belonged to the girl who had turned him into a brother, he heard it again, heard her heralding her arrival once more, impossibly small and impossibly loud, her tiny fingers curling around one of his with a grip far too fierce for so fragile a soul. Ever since that day, she had been the same, never once releasing what she had claimed as her own.

The panic released its grip on him for he had people to protect, and magic bloomed from his palms, a deep gold glow flowed into the carved sigil and the ancient stone answered him until the entire dais ignited with light.

A roar rose from the ocean as the rune awakened. Chains of molten gold burst forth from the dragon's heart, racing across the Karrasova Bridge until they reached its very middle, where they plunged into the waters of the Solari Ocean. A handful of heartbeats passed before the chains began to withdraw into the rune once more, and from the depths beneath the bridge, great golden gates rose from either side of the sea, their ancient weight grinding against stone and water alike as they slowly sealed the passage.

Dahvine and Vehome looked at one another as the Gate began its slow, thunderous closing, and in the last quiet breath before the world returned to its clamor, they rested their foreheads together and smiled, the kind of smile only two souls ever shared after surviving the fiercest of storms, unaware that theirs had not yet ended.

“For whatever it is you have just done, Commander,” Dahvine murmured, “you shall have a child from me.”

“That sounds a great deal more terrifying, my Queen,” Vehome laughed. “Coming from you than it ought to.”

He leaned in to steal her mouth, certain at last that the danger had passed, but before his lips could find hers, she was gone, and his eyes understood it a half-breath too late.

Oneme stood with his hand outstretched precisely where the two halves of the Gate were closing. Ropes of molten gold coiled around his body, and Dahvine was lifted clean from her feet, wrenched backwards through the air as though an unseen fist had seized the whole of her at once.

Dahvine's hand flew up, casting a single thread of golden light straight towards him. Vehome caught it, and in the next blink hurled himself through the thread's far end, willing his body to appear beside her wrist in one violent surge of magic, but three things came to pass within the same impossible instant.

Dahvine was dragged through the closing Gate a heartbeat before it sealed. The Gate sheared clean through the golden thread she had cast, severing it as though it had never existed. Vehome struck the cold, unyielding stone with the whole force of his own momentum, arriving only a fraction of a heartbeat too late.

“DAHVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!”

His anguished scream tore through hearts, the Heavens, and all of Myris. He hurled himself against the Gate with both hands, clawing at stone that had already chosen to remain shut. “Dahvine!” his screams drove her name into the ancient rock that would not answer him. “Dahvine! Dahvine! Dahvine!”

“My Prince!” his guard reached him at last with desperate speed, catching hold of his arms, dragging him backwards inch by inch while he fought like a man being torn from his own soul. “My Prince,” the guard forced the prince's gaze away from the blood-smeared Gate. “Call Vynarra.”

Vehome stared at him a moment, then his right hand came to rest over his heart, the other rose towards the Heavens, and a great golden mandala began weaving itself into the air of Myris, circle within circle, until the sky itself seemed to answer its prince.

“VYNARRA!”

The great golden eagle answered before her name had fully left his lips, cleaving through the heavens from wherever she had been and descending beside Vehome in a storm of golden feathers and wind. Vehome mounted her back without a heartbeat's delay, and his guard climbed on behind him.

“Take us across,” Vehome commanded.

Vynarra's wings burst wide, hurling fire and ash into the wind. One beat lifted them from the earth, another carried them above the sealed Gate, and with a single mighty sweep she crossed the whole span of Karasova Bridge. When her talons struck stone once more, they landed upon the far side of the bridge.

Vehome was already moving. His eyes found Dahvine where she stood near first stair of the keep, the Soul of Solari coiled about her throat in blazing strands of orange light, and beside her stood Oneme, one hand wrapped around the burning tether as though it were no heavier than silk.

The Sword of Ashke sang through the smoke-laden air as Vehome drew it free, and his guard landed beside him with the Sword of Sylvaria already bared.

“Let her go,” Vehome pointed the blade straight at Oneme.

“Stand aside, my nephew,” Oneme ordered. “Let me break this Gate, and no one standing here need die.”

“Step aside?” Vehome switched to Myris Tongue, his hand rose, pointing the tip of Ashke towards the battlements of the Great Keep of Miranda, where a lone figure stood amidst the smoke. “Step aside and make way for him?”

“Emperor Aen,” Prince Nervave Vialthor smiled with unsettling fondness, “you wound me.”

“This is what it took for you to defeat us,” Vehome's gaze hardened upon him. “Empires are conquered by worthy men. You needed an Aen to defeat an Aen. When history remembers this day, will it not name you the lesser man?”

“Then we shall wipe history clean and write it anew.” Nervave's smile vanished as though it had never existed. “In new history, the Aens are war criminals,” he held Vehome's gaze without blinking. “Tell me, Emperor, how do you favor that version?”

“Myris breathes us,” Vehome raised his chin while his body had started working spell. “You would have to wipe Myris itself clean, all Nine across the Seven Lands, before you could erase House Aen.”

Nervave's eyes turned cold, and Vehome held them while working the spell. Golden threads gathered beneath his wounded palm, another heartbeat and he would have torn the Soul of Solari from Oneme's grasp, but the Solari Salvo sounded across the bridge, and the spell snapped back into nothing.

Dahvine ran and crashed into him the instant the cords slipped from her throat, and Vehome caught her as though the world had returned to him in a single embrace.

“Why is he calling you Emperor?” Dahvine asked between sobs.

“Is it not the law of war, Empress?” Nervave said quietly. “The eldest living child becomes sovereign the moment the reigning emperor falls.”

Dahvine pulled back and looked at Vehome, hope flooded her face, but Vehome only lowered his eyes.

“You are lying,” she turned on Nervave. “You are doing all this just to have your way and take Ryska.”

“So fiercely you love your husband's mother and father?A tale worthy of the bards,” Nervave watched them with a quiet smile.

“Vehome, tell me Father and Mother are alive," Dahvine shook his shoulders, pleading for him to deny it, but Vehome only gathered her into his chest and n that embrace, she understood the truth.

“So much love dwells between husband and wife as well," Nervave sighed. "I regret that it must end here, for you are the only obstacle standing between me and Ryska.”

“You are far too small a man to stand beside my precious sister,” Vehome's gaze hardened once more. “Forget possessing her, you are unworthy even of her shadow.”

“Bring Ryska and Vyere to me with every honor owed to the future queen and to her brother,” Nervave ordered, turning to the warlord of his army. “But if he stands between me and her, kill him, kill them all, and burn the entire city if that is what it takes," he turned and left.

Vehome's hand rose toward Great Keep of Miranda as the salvo globe left the horn and his magic returned. Blood streamed down his arm while gold raced beneath Miranda's fortress through foundations older than either empire. He poured everything into them, choosing to destroy their keep if it bought Vyere enough time to evacuate Ryska before the enemy army could ever touch the soil of Viana.

Towers lurched, walls split from their foundations, and Miranda's fortress collapsed into itself as though Myris had come to reclaim its own.

The bridge shook with terrible fury, dust swallowed the sky, and Vehome staggered as the last of his magic left him with the falling keep. Only in the ringing silence did he realize Dahvine no longer stood beside him. His eyes searched in desperation until they found her beneath the broken stone, he reached her in a single stride and fell to his knees and found that her face was more blood than skin.

“Dahvine,” his voice cracked as his hands tore the rubble away from her. “Why did... when did you come to be here?”

She lifted a hand toward Oneme, who stood in the distance cradling the ruin of his severed wrist, before Vehome's strike brought the Keep down, he had hurled one final act of spite into its collapsing heart, meant to bury her beneath the ruin her own husband had summoned.

“In the next life, Commander,” she pressed her lips against his.

“I am still a Commander?” A laugh escaped him despite himself.

“Always a Commander.” She smiled through tears.

“Find me sooner," his mouth found hers, he felt her and then he did not feel her.

His heart faltered as he pulled back to search her eyes and found nothing where they had once held the whole of Solari.

He gathered her against his chest and wept without restraint, forgetting that he was an uncrowned Emperor, while the burning orb of the Salvo struck the Gate, tearing it open for the Vialthor army to pour into Solari and burn everything... the records, the names, the clans, and an empire into the past tense.