Prince Baldair, the second son, had stopped into the library right before returning to war. One of the princes was injured, but which one?Įndless cerulean eyes filled her mind. Pulling herself from the rain, she closed her shutter and ignored the small puddle around her feet. Vhalla stood on her tiptoes, doubled at the waist and drenched halfway down her back, craning out the window until the injured man was carried away. She couldn’t hear the words shouted over the storm, but they seemed frantic and angry. The servants helped the slumped royal from his saddle, pulling off the limp and sluggish body. An Imperial White cape draped the haunch of a horse.

Palace servants rushed to meet the party and, by the flickering light of their torches, Vhalla was able to make out people. This was a messenger party, a delivery, an escort, a. Victory waited until better weather for their parades. Victory rode through the city in full force with sunlit pennons fluttering in the wind.

Through the intermittent flashes of lightning she only made out twenty horsemen. Had they won? Was the war against Shaldan over? Leaning out as far as she could, Vhalla ignored the rain splattering her cheeks, straining to make out the shifting shadows of soldiers home from the front. Her dark brown eyes-flecked with gold-fixed on the Imperial Gate far below as it opened to allow a military party to race inside. The shutter was quickly forgotten as horns echoed their call on the palace wall below, and Vhalla blinked into the howling wind.

Unlatching the shutter proved to be a poor idea as the wind grabbed it, slamming it against the palace stone so hard that she thought it would rip from its hinges. Vhalla jumped to her feet, rushing to the small archer’s slit that served as her window. The noise faded before resounding once more.

The burst of light through the shutter slats hadn’t set her heart to racing tonight it was the solemn, low cry of a horn resonating off every post in the city that slowed her world with each reverberation. But lightning and thunder were never welcome guests. SUMMER STORMS WERE common in the capital and Vhalla Yarl had endured their visits in the seven years since she had moved from the East.

The air awakens series