Raina! Raina! Raina!

Raina was startled when she had the low rumbling. Goosebumps formed on her skin and her heart quickened. She gripped her stomach but the sound hadn't come from there. It was just the wind rustling the heavy flaps of her tent.

She still felt the phantom aches in her stomach a month later. She startled at the smallest of sounds and her body chilled whenever she felt her stomach move even in the slightest.

Raina had left Glory Point to escape a poisoner but whoever it was had followed her here. She didn't know who. Over a hundred of her father's men were still in the camp as were half a dozen servants.

Raina spent her days obsessively trying to figure out who the poisoner was but she hadn't been able to narrow down the list of suspects. She had deliberately brought no servants from home because she trusted no one but her handmaiden Melilla, Hyrman's daughter. But she couldn't keep away the soldiers or the servants who accompanied them.

Raina wanted an end to the cursed siege so she could send all the Lamanbhurg men home and be safe at last. But she wasn't in charge; her husband was. Willy had been gone for a month and left one of his uncles, another Willarn Karkbhurg, in command of the siege.

They only received sporadic reports from Willy. The last one was ten days old. He was still skirmishing with the Reendeni relief army while avoiding battle entirely. He refused offers of reinforcements and ordered them to maintain the siege.

The siege itself was as dull as Willy had promised. At least the men could look forward to a shift manning the catapults or beating drums to deny the defenders inside the castle any sleep. They also amused themselves with wrestling matches, chariot races, mock battles, and all kinds of games inside the camp. All Raina could do was wait and worry.

She was surrounded by thousands of people but had never felt more alone. Partly it was because none of the officers had brought their wives or sisters to the siege. The only women in the camp were servants and whores. Raina could consort with neither. The closest thing she had to a friend was Melilla.

Raina missed Melilla. She desperately needed someone to talk to. She was slowly going insane from her self-imposed isolation— she was sure of it. She had sent the handmaiden out but now wished she hadn't. If it hadn't been for Hyrman's antidote, Raina would be ash by now.

Melilla was the only one who knew of the danger. She had shared Raina's supper that night and got poisoned too. Melilla hadn't been as calm about the whole thing as Raina wished but she had agreed to keep it quiet.

Now Melilla supervised the preparation of all their meals. But even then, Raina ate little. She preferred fruit and milk, things that were a lot harder to poison. Melilla was off milking one of the cows they had brought.

Raina also had two of Willy's men watch over her just in case her would-be killer discarded poison in favor of the sword. She found it strange that she trusted her husband's men, complete strangers, more than her father's men— many of whom she had known all her life. She was sure many were loyal but one of them was trying to kill her and she couldn't risk it until she knew who.

What a sad state of affairs, Raina thought. Her efforts to run away from Willarn Karkbhurg had only driven her farther into the man's arms.

He was the only man she was certain wasn't trying to kill her. He was a ninth-born son. Marrying a landed bride was his only path to having holdings of his own besides conquest. He needed Raina just as much as she needed him. If her husband died on his expedition…

"They're returning, my lady," one of Raina's bodyguards said.

"Who?" Raina asked.

"Your lord husband, my lady."

Raina was on her feet and out of her tent before she knew it. The rest of the camp was running too. Everyone wanted to see Willy but they all made way for Raina. She saw the banners first.

The first banner in sight was the Rhexbhurg tricolor that every Rhexian army carried as a show of fealty to the king: three horizontal stripes of gold, violet, and scarlet. Then came the royal banner of Caedmyr XIII Rhexbhurg himself: a black double-headed eagle flying out of a golden sun on a field of purple. Then the Karkbhurg banner: a winged golden bear holding a black battle-axe on a green field. There were another half a dozen banners from lesser houses but Raina ignored those. At last, she saw the Lamanbhurg banner: three spinning silver blades beneath a crowned head dripping blood onto them.

After the banner bearers came the actual soldiers. Big Roror carried an urn containing the ashes of Sherhor the Shearer, the ancestor of all Lamanbhurgs. The Shearer had been rewarded with a lordship for shearing off the head of an enemy king with the blades of his scythed chariot in a battle a thousand years ago.

The bronze urn bearing The Shearer's ashes was mounted on an intricately decorated goldenwood staff. This was the standard Lamanbhurg soldiers had carried with them to every battle for a thousand years. It had only been returned recently after being lost at the Battle of Siiruch's Roost, the battle that claimed Robyr's life.

But there was another standard, fresher and more grisly: the head of a thirty-something-year-old man dipped in tar and mounted on a pike. The tar had distorted his features but he was unmistakably Reendeni. He had shoulder-length yellow hair and a braided beard dyed green. Raina's husband carried this grisly trophy himself.

"By Aemlilon that's Lord Artapharnes!" a nearby soldier gasped, and a buzz spread through the crowd of soldiers and camp followers.

Willy trotted up to the castle, stopping just out of arrow range. He planted the pike into the ground as defenders massed on the ramparts of First Fork, bows drawn. Willy rotated Count Artapharnes' head to face the castle.

"Help is not coming!" he announced with a roar. "Yield by sundown and I will let you go home unmolested. Refuse and I will kill every last one of you."

Then Willy turned and trotted back to his cheering men. Soldiers chanted his name and laid their cloaks on the ground for his horse to walk upon. The boy king rode by his side and the rest of his men behind him. 828 men had ridden out. 809 returned. "Only nineteen lost," the men kept whispering with awe.

Willy brought his horse to a stop in front of Raina. He dismounted, grabbed her by the armpits, and spun her around.

Raina giggled at the dizziness and ticklishness. Willy planted her feet back on the ground and took her into his arms, crushing her in a hug. He stank of horse and sweat and stale blood but Raina was weirdly unbothered. She shivered when she realized she was happy to see him. "You won," Raina whispered.

"I did," Willy whispered back.

"How?"

"Tactics, my dear. Good tactics beat numbers every time. The Reendeni fight well on a battlefield but hit-and-run attacks on a marching column are much harder to counter. We harassed them until they broke and ran. Then we killed them as they fled." Willy released her and stroked her cheek.

Jeers took Raina's attention from Willy. The Reendeni garrison of First Fork was leaving the castle, weapons held above their heads. Karkbhurg soldiers surrounded them while the rest jeered. "Pig worshipers! Goat fuckers! Donkeyspawn! Snail eaters! Filthy heathens!" the soldiers taunted.

Raina's husband released her, mounted his horse, and rode up to the surrendering enemy soldiers. His men took all their weapons, horses, and anything else of value, leaving them only their boots, cloaks, and daggers.

Each of the surrendering Reendeni was given a three-day food ration and sent on his way while Willy's men checked the castle for booby traps. Once the all-clear was given, a priest sacrificed a lamb and sanctified the castle. Then Willy carried an apprehensive Raina through the castle gates as custom dictated.

He took her up a flight of stairs and came to a stop atop the tallest tower in First Fork. Here, Raina tore down Count Artapharnes' banner. In its place, she raised the Rhexbhurg tricolor and the Lamanbhurg banner while her husband's soldiers pumped their fists and chanted her name, "Raina! Raina! Raina!"

Raina had never been the target of so much adoration. She found herself blushing. Her father's soldiers joined in the chanting and Raina watched them intently, trying to see who wasn't cheering.

The smile faded from Raina's face and she felt herself shrivel. Half the Lamanbhurg men met her gaze with cold stares and locked lips.