still wondered what, exactly, she was doing in
these meetings. Wondered at the fact that she
sat with the royal siblings, the Heir to the
khaganate at her side.
Empress. The word seemed to hang over
her every breath, every movement.
Sartaq said, “Our people have faced odds
like this before. We’ll face them again.”
Indeed, Sartaq had stayed up long into the
night these weeks reading the accounts and
journals of khaganate warriors and leaders
from generations past. They’d brought a trunk
of them from the khaganate—for this reason.
Most Sartaq had already read, he’d told her.
But it never hurt to refresh one’s mind.
If it bought them a shot against a hundred
thousand soldiers, she wouldn’t complain.
“We won’t be facing them at all if this
storm doesn’t let up,” Hasar said, frowning
toward her sealed tent flaps. “When I return to
lily
(lily)
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