Chapter 577: Reckoning
The grassy hills of Dusk Valley stretched out all around them. Stryga and her army had marched out from Lunis yesterday at noon. They had only stopped to rest for the night. The sun was already beginning to dip over the horizon and yet, when Stryga looked behind her she could still see the faint pillars of smoke in the distance.
Her soldiers had burned half of Lunis to the ground and ransacked the rest. They had razed the oldest city in the Ebon Realm to the ground. They had left the beautiful Sapphire of the East in ruins.
Anger boiled inside her as she stared at the back of the man walking ahead of her, his feet almost gliding off the grass thanks to Orange magic. Ravellan was her liege and her soon-to-be husband. He was the man she had fallen in love with and it made his betrayal sting that much more. He knew she would never have given the orders to attack the city if she thought there wasn’t an army gathering inside its walls.
Instead, Stryga had believed his lie and had ordered her soldiers to fight without quarter. She had tried to squash the rising army before it was too late. By the time she realized the truth, her soldiers were already engaged in battle all across the city. What could she have done…?
Excuses, she thought bitterly.
At the end of the day, it was her decision. She was the War Master of Holo’s Shade. The final decision to attack was hers. War was already and she would continue to fight, for her House, for her friends, and for the soldiers who placed their trust in her.
“I said I’m fine,” Lana yelled from behind her.
“You’re bleeding,” said Syrak insistently.
Lana pulled her arm away and hid it underneath her cloak. “It’s just a scrape.”