"Can something expected be unexpected?" Keefe turned the knife, point down, round in circles beneath his hand.

"Far too often." Sylvia smiled and shared that smile with Cian. The years had caught up to them fast. The tenderness of his child cheeks were already showing a widening of jaw and hallowing of the planes of his face. Beata's birthday was but six days away. Fours years without Kieran. Four years closer to Cian's reclamation of the Yransea seat.

Keefe nodded, understanding in the sigh as he sat back. The knife dropped to the table with a resigned clunk. "Always that northwestern coast line."

Cian leaned over to peer at the map. It was an unofficial meeting around the table in the family's rooms. Keefe spent many of his evening hours in that room when Lyana was out with her warband touring the countryside. "Uncle Keefe, is that not near the Sedlaral forests?"

The forests born in blood, alive and dangerous. Keefe glanced to Sylvia and she nodded. Too well Cian was aware of those forests. He looked for them on each map. Studied the distances. He could not remember his father, he often told her, but he knew where he had been wounded. He knew where he had been slain.

"Yes, Cian, but not too far. They stay to the coasts, the pirates. Every summer. This year, they do not dare come too far south." The lord protectorate pinched at the bridge of his nose, eyes clinched tight. "I suppose we can be thankful for that. But it does make sending aid a trial."

"Perhaps word of the Elementals spread across the seas and diverted them to an easier target." Sylvia was compelled to add. It was never luck, by her way of thinking. There was always a reason, and this one the most likely of answers.

Keefe seemed less convinced. "But why not try their metal against them? The word of what the Elementals could do --well, we do not even know fully. I've never thought the Fiery sisters to be cautious during raiding season."

That was true enough. The raids came at summer only, and seven years apart. One could craft a calendar based on its certainty. Cian was just a baby the last time, and the far western country having set up its on invasion in that northwestern region of Palendies had shaken up the pirate raids. It had been a grim year. Sylvia kept in Rhydin for safety of Cian and the child she carried. The country in chaos, the blood magic, and the toll on the people.

They had to stop it from happening again.

The smoke huddled in the deep rolls of the battlefield like conspirators. Halberds rose behind the trenches, prickly quills of defiance. Sylvia stood just behind on the rise of the earthen mound crafted from what they dug to create the trenches. She scanned the horizon where sea met sky in a tangle of grey-blue. The shadows were forming into steady shapes. Ships sailed with their orange canvas unfurled and puffed large with the gales of winter.

Furs and cloaks wrapped soldiers shivering with chill and nerves. But their enemy had no worry over the season's frost. Their first wave had fallen, leaving behind the fire destruction of their strike. The second wave of the Fiery Sisters would not need to sacrifice their fighters in marking out the defenders. Those were clear enough, and there was no time to remake their barricades.

Sylvia looked to Kiema and Anthralis. The former gave a smile and wiggled one brow. "There is grey in your hair, and not from ash. Do not worry. You have not sacrificed the goose."

A laugh, she shook her head. "Leave it to you to know that fairy tale."

Anthralis was justifiably perplexed, but he just gave them a narrow-eyed look and then turned his gaze back to the growing ships. "Are you ready to keep the souls at bay?"

"It is becoming easier to do, I am sad to say." Kiema sighed and gave a reassuring nod. "Take them down, Anthralis."

Sylvia bellowed her orders. "Archers to the ready!"

The first volley came from the far port side ship in an arch of fire that fell as a stone of flame against their fortifications. Sylvia heard Anthralis take in a big breath, and the battlefield was aflame once more.