Kenna stared at Laryn. He held his face still, willing himself not to react to her revelation. She was married to Prince Harrat? He wasn’t surprised, so much as he was angry with her for not telling him sooner. It would have been so easy.

  “Oh, by the way, that mysterious kingdom that you’re worried about? It’s probably my husband looking for me.”

  But then again, how could she have known that’s who it was? What good would revealing that do Kenna? For all she knew, he’d simply box her up and deliver her to him with a bow.

  “You’re angry,” Kenna said.

  “Yes, I am. But I’m withholding judgement until I hear the whole story.”

  “My full name is Anadakenna of Coronathar,” she said. “My father is king of Coronathar. It’s a small kingdom in the south of Cataria. Tier six. One of the remaining independent [Towns] of the southern coast. All the land east of the Withwyn on the south coast has been claimed for a generation. There were wars and fighting, but I was born at the end of a fifty year period of peace.”

  Kenna paced as she spoke. Laryn remained standing, watching her. She was clearly opening up to him now.

  “Ondwin is a neighboring [City]. One of the largest in the region. It was always more aggressive, and had several border disputes with our neighbors. It grew, slowly. And then it annexed a neighboring town through marriage, and became our problem.

  “I discovered that I had the spark at a young age, and I wanted my father to allow me to become a coresmith. But he refused, saying that I needed to be ready to seal an alliance through marriage, and no self respecting prince would be happy about marrying a coresmith.

  “I didn’t understand that and did my best to learn what I could about coresmithing, but I was highly restricted in what I was permitted to do. I always thought that we would form a league of independent towns one day to defend against the aggressions of the Ondwins, and I was happy to play a part in firming up one of those alliances.

  “To my dismay, my father ultimately decided that joining Ondwin would be the best way to protect our town. He offered me as a bride to their prince, the third son of the king. Two years ago we had our wedding. I moved to Ondwin. Only Bram came with me, my bodyguard since I was a little girl.”

  Kenna stared at the ground as she spoke now, her eyes shifting as she described the events.

  After a pause, she took a deep breath. “I won’t bore you with the details,” she said. “But I hated him. And he seemed content to ignore me. I suddenly had more freedom than I’d ever had in my life before, so long as I didn’t leave the palace.

  “So I found an old coresmith, and begged him to teach me. He was willing, and I started my late apprenticeship with him. He and several of the other coresmiths worked day and night on projects for Ondwin, and I wasn’t allowed to see or participate in those, but I listened. I knew that Harrat was trying to improve his core’s abilities to conquer his neighbors. I was afraid for my father and brothers in Coronathar.

  “Harrat’s older brothers died mysteriously shortly after our marriage. He became a candidate for heir to the throne. I soon realized how suspicious it was that key figures who opposed Harrat’s power seemed to disappear.

  “One night, just after our first wedding anniversary, I overheard him discussing troop movements and core spell modules with his lead coresmith. The coresmiths had made a breakthrough in reactivating a powerful old spell module, and they felt confident that they would be able to merge it with the Ondwin kingdom core.

  “I ran to Bram and told him everything that I had overheard. He agreed with me that we needed to do something. So we broke into the coresmith’s workshop. We stole the spell module. And we ran. Whatever Harrat would do to Coronathar as retribution would be nothing compared to the devastation that would happen if his plan succeeded and he was able to conquer all the neighboring towns.

  “But I didn’t dare flee back home, or else Harrat would have destroyed us, and had the support of our neighbors. So instead we ran to the north. We kept going, until we got so far north in to the wildlands that we thought he’d never be able to find us.

  “Bram was injured helping me escape, and he carried the spell module on his back for many miles.”

  Kenna stopped, choking up. “He didn’t live long in Jardensvale,” she said. “We hid the spell module, and swore that Harrat would never get it.”

  Laryn gave her a moment to recompose herself, his anger fading as he understood her story. “I’m sorry about Bram,” he said.

  Kenna wiped her eyes and then stood straight, looking Laryn in the eye.

  “I can’t let Harrat capture me,” she said. “He’ll torture me and I’ll tell him where we hid the spell module.”

  “He’s not here for you,” Laryn asked.

  Kenna waved her arm dismissively. “He doesn’t give a puff of air about me,” she said. “He’d prefer me dead. My only use to him is that I know where we hid his spell module.”

  “Where did you hide it?” Laryn asked.

  Kenna scoffed.

  “I will kill myself before I risk letting it fall into Harrat’s hands,” she said. “I’m not telling anyone.”

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  “What does it do?”

  “I don’t know the extent of it. Just what I overheard, and what I was able to decipher from my own investigation of it. The spell module, when added to a core, creates a new spell. It can be used to instantly deploy prefabricated structures in battle.”

  Laryn understood the power of a spell like that instantly. “You could place siege towers right against your enemy’s walls,” he said. “Or put trebuchets in position without your opponent scouting them. That would be… powerful.”

  “And I won’t let Harrat get it,” Kenna said. “So I have to leave.”

  “You’re going to take the spell module and hide it somewhere else?”

  “It’s too heavy. I can barely shift it when its lying on the ground,” she said.

  “It’s bigger than the kingdom core?”

  “It’s a similar size,” she said. “You’ve seen a spell module before, right?”

  Laryn nodded. “They’re like small kingdom cores,” he said. “They connect to the core. But I didn’t know they were heavy.”

  “Well think about it,” Kenna said. “Was your kingdom core heavy?”

  Laryn nodded. He’d struggled to tip it up right. He’d also been injured, but, without a wagon he’d never have been able to transport the thing.

  “Bram must have been a strong man,” he said.

  “He was,” Kenna said curtly. She stared at him, waiting for him to speak. Her hand strayed toward the knife at her belt.

  “I’m not going to turn you over to him,” Laryn said.

  She relaxed. “I’d fight you to the death first.”

  “You don’t want him to gain more power,” Laryn said. “What would he do with my kingdom core? The legendary power of a Conqueror’s Core?”

  Kenna’s eyes widened.

  “This Harrat seems to be a cruel, vicious man. I’ve met men like him, in my father’s court. They’re never satisfied with anything. You give them what they want, and the just keep taking more.”

  Kenna nodded.

  “What good would it do us if I gave you to him? I’d earn favor in his eyes? Then what? I become his subject? He takes my kingdom core for himself, and then I follow him back to join his conquest of Cataria? That’s the best case scenario. More likely, he kills you, he kills me, and then he takes my core home with him. This core is more powerful than the spell module you took from him.”

  “We need to keep it out of his hands,” Kenna said, looking distressed again. “Destroy it if we have to.”

  “Calm down,” Laryn said, holding his hand out to her. “No need to leap to drastic action yet. He still doesn’t even know where we are, or about our core. Devlin seems to have been traveling alone, and I don’t think he knows that you’re here with us.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “Hide as long as we can. I need you to figure out how to deactivate and move the core, somewhere where he won’t find us. If he finds us before that, we’ll fight as long as we can.”

  Kenna nodded in agreement. After all, that was what she’d been doing.

  “There’s no need for you to run any further, right now,” Laryn said. “It might be wise to share some of what you told me with other members of the council, though.”

  “Please no,” Kenna begged. “The less that people know, the harder it will be for Harrat to find me.”

  “I won’t tell them,” Laryn said. “But please think about telling them yourself.”

  They parted, and Laryn returned to the kingdom core to work on sifting with his mages. Increasing essence and influence seemed all the more important after the day’s revelations. He sent Ollen to ride to Alvanasara and seek help from the elves, without much hope of success.

  Perhaps Hober would return soon.

  He doubted it.

  So they shifted into full fortification mode. High influence made work easier, and low stone walls soon lined the banks of the island. Reaching about mid chest, they provided plenty of cover from arrows, while still allowing defenders to spear anyone attempting to ford the river.

  Watch towers were constructed, camouflaged by foliage, but rising just high enough to allow a man atop one to see any potentially approaching enemy.

  Laryn also sent a rotating set of scouts out to monitor the way south. Harrat would known the general direction that he sent his scouts, and when Devlin failed to return, he’d know something was going on. He’d send more scouts looking for the man, and Vallor would be discovered.

  Until then, all they could do was prepare.

  Kenna oversaw the storage and preservation of food. Water on the island wasn’t a problem, since the Ebil provided fresh, clear water. But much of the bounty of the elven southern shore was harvested and preserved as best as possible.

  Tension grew on the island, but, with the emergence of an external enemy, Laryn was pleased to note that it seemed to draw people closer together, strengthening their bonds with one another rather than ripping his subjects apart.

  Three days passed, and Laryn and his mages finally gathered enough essence that they could push the kingdom to tier four if they wished to. He didn’t, yet. What mattered now was influence.

  Laryn knew the rules of thumb for manpower requirements for assaulting an entrenched position. Three to one against an enemy who’d had a few days to prepare. Five to one against a fortified outpost, and as high as ten to one against a castle, fortress, or city.

  Vallor probably offered a three or four to one advantage in their current situation, thanks to the positioning of the river. Then taking influence into account would be necessary. To win a battle, you wanted at least a soldier for each point of influence an enemy had. One man with five influence might be able to take on five of your soldiers while influence worked against them.

  Multiplying those numbers together gave Vallor between a fifteen to one and a twenty to one advantage against any assaulting enemy. Any enemy would need at least 600 men to assault Vallor effectively.

  Not a great comfort, considering the fact that Harrat had ten times that number at his disposal.

  Laryn knew that without reinforcements or more men, he was probably going to have to resort to other methods to keep Harrat at bay. They’d never win in a straight fight. Especially not with the number of mages the prince could muster.

  The only thing to do was keep working. Enough things could change that making contingency plans for every possibility was a fruitless task.

  On the evening of the third day after Devlin’s capture, Ondwinian scouts were spotted in the woods near Vallor. Laryn’s men chased them off, but they escaped into the wilderness.

  Laryn sent his scouts to watch the Townshold road, and two days later they returned with news.

  Harrat had ridden down from the plateau, at the head of an entire banner of men: 864.