fear. The hunter who had never stopped
waiting for her to return, even when he was an
old man.
For them, for the family she had lost,
Manon knew her Second would fight today.
So it might never happen again.
Manon would fight today to make sure it
never did, too.
“So we come to it after five hundred
years,” said Glennis, her voice unwavering yet
distant, as if pulled into the depths of
memory. The rising sun bathed the white
walls of Orynth in gold. “The final stand of
the Crochans.”
As if the words themselves were a signal,
Bronwen lifted the horn of Telyn Vanora to
her lips and blew.
Most believed the Florine River flowed down
from the Staghorns, right past the western