Mayor Vatho and Feradnor watched from a mountain outpost as a division of Emperor Duronaht's troops marched north along the narrow and winding road below them that led deep into Vedous territory and, ultimately, to the border with Bohruum. It was a lethargic march, without even drums playing to try to keep the column's spirits up. Given the horrible nature of their mission, Feradnor couldn't blame them.

"So, the rumors are right. Bohruum is marching now," Feradnor said, nodding his head as he did. "This makes our task so much easier."

"Yes and no," Vatho replied, his voice playful and lyrical. "Don't forget how much people in this part of the country live in terror of Bohruum's invasions. It's not a simple matter that those who are skpetical of Emperor Duronaht will accept an invasion from Bohruum to save them."

"A fair point," Feradnor laughed, rubbing his left thumb on the nubs of what were once his fingers. "Yeah, it could make it harder, now that I think of it. I was so eager for an easy solution that I just wasn't thinking about it."

Vatho rubbed his wrinkled eyes and started turning back to the trail returning to Odekan village, slumped and shuffling as he did. Feradnor took a few more moments to observe Duronaht's soldiers. It wasn't just his imagination. They were dragging. Badly.

"My wife and I wanted to have you and yours over for dinner," Vatho called out, his voice crackling a bit. "You're free to refuse, but..."

"I'll be there," Feradnor shouted back, only just barely managing to take his eyes off the road. He lightly trotted back to join Vatho as the older man shuffled along the rocky path toward the gray skies above the Odekan Highlands. "Spring comes late here, doesn't it?"

"There's almost nothing to mark it," Vatho spat and scratched at a spot on his head through his silver and sandy hair. "This isn't like the south where the trees tell us. We have crops, yes, but it's more subtle. Takes a bit longer, too. Ground has to thaw from the deep cold."

"Etylsa used to tell me about life in the north, and, well, this isn't even properly north, is it?" Feradnor asked with a laugh.

"Certainly not," Vatho coughed and nodded. "Though, when you get far enough up there, the steam vents keep everything so warm that you don't notice it. That's until you get to Bohruum, at any rate."

Feradnor paused as he observed some farmers off to the side of the trail starting to plow the rocky fields for the upcoming harvest. Root vegetables were the norm up in the highlands. Little else could grow.

"You know, I've been to Bohruum before," Feradnor commented, pointing vaguely to the northwest. "Actually met King Rogaf, if you can believe that."

"It's Rogaf the... fifth? Is that right?" the mayor asked, his voice straining.

"Close. Fourth."

"Ah. Which little border crisis was that you were part of?"

"Oh, that must've been twenty years ago now, maybe more. I forget these things," Feradnor shrugged. "Rogaf is getting long in the tooth, but given that the angel Myrvaness killed his son, there's little doubt he would align with Forynda."

"Good memory. I keep forgetting that happened and it wasn't that long ago," Vatho mumbled. "It barely affected us here."

"Down in Zarmand it would've been the same, but I remember being the one who had to read to Duronaht the declaration of war by Bohruum," he remembered with a wince. "No one else down there could've given a damn about the Segrison Marche. We sent hundreds of thousands of men to fight and die over it."

"I remember that much," Vatho said. "And now I imagine that Bohruum must want more than just a pile of steam spewing rocks."

"Forynda willing, we'll be able to give it to them," Feradnor said with a smile.

Later that evening, with the sun setting, Etylsa joined her husband at Mayor Vatho's modest stone house that overlooked a small river valley some hundreds of feet below where the cliffs dropped off sharply. Feradnor had snuck a look over the cliffs and instantly felt ill. It was a dizzying plung if one were to be that unfortunate.

Inside the house, things felt much more grounded than they were a mere thirty feet away. Nice and tidy with simple, though tasteful, wood furnishings and a smoothed stone dining table just off the kitchen. Vatho's wife, Hifandi, worked tirelessly in the kitchen while Mayor Vatho entertained the former Lord and Lady Feradnor in the adjoining small living area. It was a far cry from the grand halls of noble houses that Feradnor had been used to for so many years now. Two bookshelves, a small desk, and a few sturdy, if unimpressive, chairs.

Once dinner came around, Feradnor saw that it was a surprisingly wide array of highland food. Roasted Elandi, a local ground-dwelling bird, was the main course along with pickled Bellroots and Heartspring Peppers. There were a number of other dishes that he didn't recognize, but he knew those when he saw them.

"I just wanted to thank you again for your hospitality," Feradnor said. "Truly, I am grateful."

"Of course, I feel more than the same," Etylsa added, patting his hand. "Your generosity in this..."

"Oh, please," Mayor Vatho interrupted, raising both hands as though he were interrupting the clamor of a grand banquet hall. His matronly, and yet still beautiful, wife Hifandi looked on with an eyebrow raised. "I could never have refused a request like yours. After all, as I'm sure we all agree here, we're supporters of the High Angel. Her commands to be generous aren't optional."

"That's why I spent a lot of time on this tonight, so... enjoy," Hifandi laughed, pointing toward all the food.

"First, let's join our hands and pray," Mayor Vatho said, reaching around the table and grabbing Feradnor's hand. Feradnor grasped Etylsa's and she grasped Hifandi's. Dropping into a low rumble, Vatho began, "Mighty and Just Forynda, you and you alone look after the peace of this world. No matter what lies and deceptions have confused of brothers and sisters, we'll welcome them back into your fold to see your will done. We ask only that you watch over our souls, whatever may happen to us in this world."

Feradnor's skin prickled at that last sentence and the table was silent as everyone's hands fell away from one another.

"Now, let's eat," the mayor continued.

And so they did, each person at the table taking their shares of each dish back to their plate and they began to eat. The sweet northern green wines weren't entirely to Feradnor's liking, but they paired well enough with the meal.

"Tell me, Lord... I apologize," Vatho started again, chewing on his food. "You don't have the title anymore."

"You can still use it if you want," Feradnor laughed, eating some of the delicious pickled Bellroots.

"Then I will. Feels better," Vatho smiled. "Lord Feradnor, I've been meaning to ask you about this in some detail because I've been afraid to ask before... How should I say this? The event that brought you into the High Angel's fold, the destruction of Zarmand and the killing of so many, you must be the only person in the world who came her way after that. Millions left her. Millions. It's the whole reason Emperor Rohmhelt's back on his heels. And yet, here you are, missing fingers because of it, seeing things you couldn't imagine, and so on. How?"

Feradnor slowly chewed the bit of roasted bird in his mouth and swallowed. When he blinked, he saw those haunting eyes from that pathetic slice of that woman floating on top of him in the river when he survived Forynda's terrible judgment. The desolation around him from what had once been one of the world's most bustling cities. Brought to ruin because of him. Every time he thought of it, he wanted to cry, even after all those months.

"You're not trying to make him doubt, are you?" Hifandi nervously chuckled. "We're all pretty invested in this to back out now."

"No, no. It's just that, of everyone in the whole world, it just warps my mind," Vatho said, swigging a bit of his wine. "You, the sole survivor. I get the sense that it's not just that she spared you. It wouldn't be this sincere. I want to know, as best as you can describe it, why you think you're where you are now."

The former lord pondered that question and it was one he himself had trouble thinking through beyond his fervent pledge to the High Angel, made in the crucible of that desperate moment. It wasn't just that he had wanted to live. He had wanted to die. He tried to put himself back there, amidst that horrific golden glow that rendered unto oblivion the whole great city and all of its people. Thousands of years of history, art, culture, and over one million people all wiped clean in an instant. Because of him. Because of Lord Mecan Feradnor and his mistake.

"There were so many things I felt that day, countless things in just those seconds," he began in a mumble, his eyes looking down at his permanently truncated hand. "First among all of it though was the sense of being at a pivot in history, neither inherently good nor bad, but that things would never be the same. Forynda's mind is unknowable. Mortals aren't meant to understand it. I know that angers some people a great deal and it used to anger me, hence why I did the things I did. She erred in that moment, in a way no one else could've done, and I was there for it. I felt the regret. And it goes beyond that. The grief at an unalterable course."

"Grief? Even then?" Vatho asked, taking another swig of wine.

"I don't know how to describe it other than that there was a crushing sadness I feel now when remembering that moment, and it wasn't mine. It was so much deeper than anything I've ever known. Take the worst moments of my life and multiply them by a million fold and you wouldn't get there. It was so intense at that time that I couldn't absorb it with what I felt myself and I realized that I made no note of it in that moment," Feradnor continued as Etylsa grasped his hand tighter. "It's only clear now with the benefit of time and distance."

"And that draws you to her?"

"In large part, yes," he replied, tears welling up in his eyes. "The fact that it pained her so proved her boundless love. I think she knew what awaited her and the whole of existence and did it all anyway because it was the only course that could be taken. And there's so much more to come."

His haunting invocation silenced the table, causing the whole party to stop eating. His tears flowed down his cheeks. He tried to recompose himself, but it was impossible after recalling what he felt from the High Angel. It was the first time he'd allowed himself to embrace all of his experience that day and how he'd come to think about it since.

"Lord Feradnor," Vatho started and put down a bronze medallion that had a crude manifestation of the High Angel's likeness on it, "there are those who'll fight and die for her because they've seen this. This. This damn little trinket! And they've heard some words and songs and prayers and poems and blah blah blah. I've never seen her, much less talked to her. And yet I still feel what you feel now. She has a draw that's damn hard to explain rationally."

"That's fair," Feradnor quipped, sniffing back his now runny nose.

"I think it's because we know deep down that she's right and we should be lucky for the opportunity to serve her," the mayor said, his hands slamming on the table. "Damn it all. Now I see how younger people get so excited."

All of four of them chuckled, Vatho most of all.

"Well, we should probably finish eating and then we've got more to talk about," Vatho continued. "Long days ahead."

Indeed, the next several days were exceptionally brutal ones where Mayor Vatho and Feradnor worked with their allies to speed along the creation of more militia units both in the Odekan Highlands and the surrounding regions. Doing so without drawing attention of Duronaht's loyalists became impossible.

The provincial governor, a man named Undyn Madarious, resided down in Rafnious and had been tasked with Duronaht with maintaining a grip on not only Rafnious but also almost all lands north and east of that city, stretching clear up to the border with Bohruum. While not the most competent figure, he clearly started having his suspicions and sent summons to Warden Seraka, Mayor Vatho, and several dozen other local officials to explain themselves.

"I was wondering how long that'd take him," Vatho said in a gathering of the elders and other prominent figures from the region at the stone terraced meeting area in the eastern part of the village. "I think the moment of truth is upon us."

"Do ya think we're ready?" a younger Vedous man with an intricately patterned black beard asked.

Before Mayor Vatho could respond, an even older Caylanchan man, bald and with a thick mustache, coughed to gain the attention of the others.

"I don't think we're going to pick whether we're ready or not," he said. "As the mayor said, the moment is upon us. We do this now or we don't do it at all."

"Fine by me!" the booming voice of another Vedous man, this one older and with a scar across his forehead, responded. "Lord Feradnor, you look like you've got something to say, yahno?"

As it happened, he did. He rose from his seat on the lowest terrace and looked up to the gathering of several dozen elders around him.

"Do I think we're ready? Truthfully, no. But I know something about Governor Madarious and the other men who run that part of the country: Neither are they," he said with a smirk. "Readiness is a purely relative thing. It's all about your opponent. If you're drunk at a tavern and pick a fight with another drunk at that tavern, you're on even footing."

That triggered a hearty round of laughter from the gathering.

"If you're a drunk at a tavern and pick a fight with a trained city watchman, that's a different story," Feradnor continued. "In this case, I think we're on the better end of it, actually. Madarious is trying to intimidate us, but his forces are drained. He's had to send almost everything north to Bohruum or west to fill out Duronaht's ranks. He's thinking we don't have the nerve. Let's prove him wrong. Declare ourselves to be in open revolt against Duronaht. When we put together our lands, Hokatan, and that whole swath of Vedous lands to the west and north, that's enough to fight off what Madarious has."

"Hear, hear!" several of the elders chanted and stomped their feet.

"What of the Vedous fighting with Duronaht's army?" an older Vedous man wearing all black robes asked. "When they see their homelands revolt, what will become of them?"

That question struck the gathering utterly silent. Feradnor hadn't even considered the question until that moment.

"I don't know. I'd be lying to you if I said I did," he confessed. That triggered a round of whispers in the gathering. "But I do know that, should they choose to follow our lead, they'll do so in a position where they can do great damage to Duronaht and catch him off balance. Think of it, a revolt within his own main field army? And at this point that's better for their own safety than continuing to follow his misrule. He's leading them to their deaths. We'd be giving them their best chance to make it out of this alive."

A much more favorable round of whispers greeted his answer. He was proud of that one. It reminded him of his more nimble days navigating the Imperial Court.

"Very well, we put it to a vote," Vatho said. "All in favor of declaring our revolt against Duronaht, stand."

Without hesitation, the whole gathering rose to their feet, even the older Vedous man who had probed Feradnor. The former lord couldn't help but smile.

"It's agreed, then," Vatho happily announced. "I will work with Warden Seraka and the others on the precise timing of our declaration, but it'll be very soon. Be ready for when we strike our banners. For the High Angel!"

"For the High Angel!" the entire gathering answered.

As the gathering dispersed, Mayor Vatho approached Feradnor and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I decided not to raise the whole issue of Bohruum's invasion at this time. We'll be on the same side, of course, but so many people in this area won't be happy about Bohruum descending upon them," Vatho grumbled. "You mentioned that you've met King Rogaf before."

"That was so many years ago. I doubt he remembers me," Feradnor nervously laughed, seeing precisely where this was going.

"Let's hope he does. You're our best choice for trying to strike some kind of agreement with the Bohruumites before they're marching through our lands," Vatho said, his eyebrows raised. "That's vitally important before we get swarmed by them. We need to have this all sorted out or we could have a terrible challenge to our unity that strangles our revolt before it's out of the crib."

"That means I have to go..." Feradnor began, but Vatho cut him off.

"North toward Bohruum. You've played the role of traitor and now you get to be an ambassador."