“We face four cohorts of the Fifth Legion,” says Jarl Ragna of Kellheim. “Not a full Legion’s worth of soldiers, some two thousand if my count is right. That is the good news, if you could call it such.”

She stands across the war room table from us, a hand emerging from her dark cloak to rest on the map. Her fingers brush over a fallen blue figurine, and there is a pained expression on her face for a moment when she touches it.

“The bad news is that the rest of the Fifth Legion marches north to meet them, with the promise of more to come. Should we repel this first attack, we are likely to face a protracted siege afterward.”

“Have you heard from Sigrun?” Arcadia blurts out. Then she realizes how loud she said it, and her cheeks flush a little. “I’ve been trying to reach her for two weeks.”

Ragna nods, leans over the map and lays a fingertip on a patch of forest to the south of us. “Sigrun, and what remains of her warband, shelter here. I had hoped they could have prepared an ambush for the Eceans, but the opportunity has passed.”

Ragna’s face remains half hidden by her long, flaxen hair. The one pale gray eye I can see fixes itself on Arcadia.

“I am told you have schooling in the Lore of Air and Water,” she says.

Arcadia's eyes widen. As do mine. It’s a little surprising, encountering someone who knows enough about magic to name its disciplines. But then again we aren’t in Ecea anymore. Arcadia’s gaze shifts to me as her brows furrow slightly, then she looks back to the Jarl and nods, "That's right."

The Jarl nods. “Good. Your skills will be most useful to us.”

Some of the warriors in the room glance amongst each other then, their expressions dark. There is a bit of muttered conversation around us, as Jarl Ragna stares at Arcadia and I, unmoving. I feel like she’s sizing us up.

“The question I must ask you, Arcadia,” says Ragna. “Is this. Are you prepared to use your skills to fight your own countrymen?”

Arcadia looks to me once again, searching my face as if to find the answer to the question. I give her a smile, reach down to take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.

"I.."

There's a pause, before she lets out a long sigh. "I don't think I would survive being captured by them. And I owe Sigrun my life. I wish there was another way, but I'll do what needs to be done."

Every eye is upon us as Arcadia speaks. The Jarl seems to watch her more intensely than the rest, her gray eye flinty. When she’s done, the room is deathly quiet for a moment. It’s unclear whether or not her answer satisfied them. There’s only one person in the room we know of that speaks Ecean at all, but still.

“Very well,” says the Jarl. “We must discuss your capabilities, and how best to use them.”

Arcadia nods, takes a breath to center herself. Her explanation begins haltingly, but when she sees that the Jarl is earnestly interested in what she can do, she seems to relax and the conversation flows from there. In the midst of listening, I learn we have a week to prepare before the Eceans are at our doorstep. Time enough for the townsfolk to be evacuated to the inside of the curtain wall, and to lay a few traps, but not much else. I also hear her mention that the keep has stores of food for several months, in the event of a siege.

There comes a point in their dialog where I see Arcadia’s eyes light up suddenly, like she’s just had an idea. But she doesn’t speak on it then and there. There’s a tiny hint of strain in her demeanor for the rest of the conversation, however, and when she gets the first opportunity to do so, she excuses herself from the war room and has me come along with her.

Once we’re out in the hallway together, I give her a little bump on the hip with my knuckles.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

She glances up at me and nods, though she’s chewing her lower lip. “We need to talk to somebody.”

* * * *

Irvin’s gaze shifts in our direction as we come down the steps to the cargo hold of The Dove. At the moment he’s sitting with his back against his cage, one leg straight out in front of him, his other knee bent, an arm draped over it. Cadie lies asleep in the cage next door, curled up as close to Irvin’s cage as she can get, a hand lying outside the bars. Maybe they were holding hands, or trying to.

Arcadia grabs a box as we walk up to Irvin’s cage, pulls it around and sits down on it like she did when we first spoke to him down here. She leans forward a bit, meeting his gaze, an urgent expression on her face.

“We need your help,” she says.

One of Irvin’s eyebrows rises. It’s the only part of him that moves at all.

“Did you forget what I told you, when last we talked?” he asks.

Arcadia huffs out a sigh, and closes her eyes as she reaches up to rub over her face. "Of course not. I wouldn't be here asking your aid if it didn't concern you too."

Her eyes open again and fix on him hard. "The Ecean legions are about to attack this city and lay siege to it, with us inside."

Irvin stares at her. He looks exhausted, but there’s still resolve in his eyes. He must have overheard the sailors talking during our voyage, because the news doesn’t seem overly surprising to him.

“Your own treason brings you to such an end,” he says. “Very good. Fitting that the armies of our homeland should succeed where I failed.”

Arcadia’s eyes brighten with fury. "My treason!? My only crime was wishing to live my own life. Besides, you think they'll kill me? They'll take me back home and put me on the throne."

“You’re willing to kill your own people to avoid this fate?” he asks, looking mildly amused.

Arcadia nods. “And to protect the innocent, and the people I care about.”

Irvin frowns ever so slightly. She might have found a chink in this man’s armor, because he doesn’t have a retort ready for her. I notice him glance down for a moment, at Cadie’s hand.

Arcadia notices too, apparently. “Do you know what happens to a city after it’s been sacked?” she asks. “Rape, and murder. And the ones who survive are rounded up and sold as human chattel. If I can spare even one person from a fate like that, I’m fighting.”

Irvin’s chest begins to rise and fall, slowly but visibly, as I see stress fill him up inside. His brows draw together, and he looks at the floor for a few moments of quiet contemplation. His eyes shift to Cadie’s sleeping form again, and then to Arcadia.

“What would you ask of me,” he says.

“I have an idea,” says Arcadia, leaning forward eagerly.

What follows is a conversation I can’t quite keep track of. They’re throwing around a lot of terminology I don’t know, talking about conduction, resistance, water salinity, step potential. Irvin appears surprised Arcadia knows these things, as they’re talking I see sincere curiosity in his eyes, and something like respect.

Irvin is stroking his lower lip with a bent knuckle, considering whatever it is these two are talking about. “You would need iron rods, each taller than a legionnaire. Many of them”

“There’s a forge in the keep,” says Arcadia, with a grin. “And plenty of iron ore.”

“He’ll have to make a cast,” says Irvin. “I doubt a smith would need to be shown how, but he should be supervised to ensure the right dimensions.”

“Let’s go there together,” says Arcadia.

If Irvin was surprised before, he now looks plainly shocked.

* * * *

And so the Candlebearer is released from his cage. Arcadia hasn’t taken complete leave of her senses, however, she keeps Cadie locked up on The Dove as insurance against any treachery from our new ‘friend.’ Then there’s me, watching him like a hawk every step of the way back up to Kellheim Keep. He’s within the reach of my arm the entire time, and I make sure he knows it.

There is a troubled look on Irvin’s face as we walk along, however. He keeps glancing up at the sky.

“Your plan depends on there being a storm,” he says.

“Yes?” says Arcadia, not looking up.

“There isn’t one. And it doesn’t look as though there’s one forming, either.”

She gives him a lopsided grin. “Leave that to me.”

The castle smith seems like an amicable fellow, but the problem is that he doesn’t speak a word of Ecean. We have to go back to the main hall of the keep to fetch Gredder, who, luckily, is still loitering around with Posca and Hook. Once we have a translator, everything seems to proceed more smoothly, even though the smith is rather confused about our request. And there are parts of Arcadia’s instructions that seem to leave even Irvin scratching his head. But we have the authority of the Jarl on our side, and it seems the smith was told to expect us, so he gets to work regardless of a lack of understanding.

And then we take a stroll through the city. All around the outer curtain wall we go, Irvin choosing places to stick these metal rods into the dirt when they’re completed. Arcadia’s slipped her hand into mine, letting me guide her as she closes her eyes, turns her focus inward. She’s chanting something under her breath during our entire lap around the walls, and while I’m familiar with this sort of thing by now, Irvin is visibly disturbed by it.

“It’s unnatural, what she’s doing,” he mutters.

“So is building a flying chariot.”

He glances at me, a hint of a glare in his eyes. “That was the product of reason, of science,” he says. “From an understanding of the laws of nature.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “How do you know this is any different?”

He doesn’t answer. Either he doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to examine his own biases at the moment. We walk the rest of the way through Kellheim without conversing, and when our lap is completed Arcadia finishes her chant and opens her eyes again. She smiles up at me, leans on her tiptoes to put a kiss on my cheek. Just then it begins to rain.

And the rain continues for the entire week.

It starts at a light drizzle, but by the morning of the next day it’s grown into a downpour that turns the streets of Kellheim into shallow, muddy rivers. The townsfolk making their way into the walls for safety do so under a deluge that shows no signs of slowing. Jarl Ragna’s warriors labor in the rain as well, driving those iron rods into the ground near each of the wall’s gatehouses. I don’t yet understand what they’re doing, but work is work, so I give them a hand.

On the morning of the seventh day, the Fifth Legion appears on the horizon, a neatly rectangular column of soldiers marching toward Kellheim. A looser formation of camp followers trails behind them, along with a few rolling battering rams I can clearly make out regardless of the distance.

I can see it all through the window of the room we’ve been given by the Jarl, high up in the keep. I don’t even have to get out of bed to see it, in fact. Which is good. Arcadia is cuddled up against me, and I don’t feel like disturbing her just yet.

Arcadia eventually begins to stir, as I stroke her hair. Her arms tighten around me as she sticks her legs out, trembling, a whine squeaking out of her as she stretches. Then she suddenly relaxes with a happy sigh, and climbs up to nuzzle into my neck.

"Mmmorning."

I grin, and slide my hand up into her hair. “Morning, love,” I say. Then I put a kiss on her forehead, and nod in the direction of the window. “Our visitors are right on time.”

She doesn’t look. Instead, she lets out a long sigh into my neck. “Damn.”

Then she climbs up and straddles my lap, one hand reaching up to rub one of her eyes, the other thrown out wide as she yawns and stretches again. Her arms fall to her sides afterward, and she stares at me for a moment, a searching look in her eyes.

“Do you regret coming with me?” she asks.

The question makes me cock my head to the side. Where is this coming from?

I reach out and place my hands on her hips, give them a little squeeze as I smile up at her. “That’s a silly question.”

I see relief on her face, but then it’s shadowed by a guilty frown. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just… It’s been one thing after another, because of the mistakes I’ve made. And this journey itself. You never asked for any of this.”

“You asked for me though,” I say, grinning up at her. “And you have me much more completely than you did when we started, I think.”

Arcadia pouts at me. I’d ask her why she’s looking at me so forlornly, but before I can she leans in and places a kiss on my lips. I sneak a hand up to the small of her back while she’s doing it, to hold her close for a few more.

“I love you,” she whispers, between kisses. “More than anything.”

“I love you too.”

And that’s how we spend our morning. I know there are things to do. I know there’s an army coming to pay us a call, but right now it doesn’t concern me. For this girl in my arms, I could find the strength to slay them all.