CHAPTER 39

The enemy’s army arrived not in three days,
or four, but five.
A blessing and a curse, Nesryn decided. A
blessing, for the time it granted them to
prepare, for the ruks to carry some of the most
vulnerable of Anielle’s people to a snow-
blasted camp beyond the Fangs.
And a curse for the fear it allowed to fester
in the keep, now teeming with those who
would not or could not make the journey. By
sunset on the fourth day, they could see the
black lines marching for them through the
swaths of Oakwald that they hewed down.