Preface

Greetings RRL readers. The posting of draft 2.0 is dedicated to the few RRL readers following this. I'm posting the second draft since it helps me review the material a little more before its eventual release on Amazon Kindle in April.

I'll be deleting the old chapters a few at a time as I post the second draft of the story here.

Hopefully some of you will find this better than the original. The first few chapters have been fixed up , so the prose and grammar are better, however, the second draft also contains 10 news chapters, and the latter half of the story has been significantly adjusted because of the changes to the story.

This has pushed the overall length of the book to around 210,000 words but it's quite a ways shorter than "A Game of Thrones" which stands at 280,000 words. I have considered breaking the book into two parts and releasing it that way, otherwise I will release it as a complete novel.

Please note: this is NOT web fiction. It is written like a novel. It is written in past tense -- like the vast majority of novels -- and the chapters are between 5000 to 8000 words (like a novel).

Though I intend to self-publish this book, I am thinking of submitting it to an agent or two, just to try my luck.

The maps will be made available on my blogsite this week.

Thank you to those of you who read draft 1.0 all the way to the end.

[The Prologue remains unchanged]

[Keen readers will note one important change between this version and release 1.0.]

Chapter 1.

There are certain fundamentals about life on this world that we need to establish.

Foremost amongst them is the Ether.

Put simply, the Ether is the spill of energy from the Galactic Ley Lines that crisscross a planetary body.

More accurate would be to say that the Ley Lines intersected with the celestial body – a planet or moon – a broke into many arterial and veinal lines that flowed over and through the world. They would reform at many points of confluence, and sometimes the emergent thicker and stronger Ley Line would then continue its journey through space, and onto the next world or moon it encountered.

Drawn into a map, these Galactic Lines formed a vast network connecting countless star systems across the immensity of space.

However, what is of great import is that the Ether that radiated out of the Ley Lines flowed in vast quantities over the land, the oceans and the air.

The Ether had a several unique properties.

It could turn inorganic matter into a material or substance aptly named Etherite. This happened over a period of thousands of years and not all inorganic matter transmuted as easily or as quickly, so it was safe to say that despite the Ether permeating the world for countless millennia, the land was not covered in Etherite, nor was it found in all places. Also, the Ether could not transmute water any more than it could reorganize the substance of organic material.

Actually, the Ether could alter living tissue but we’ll discuss that in another chapter.

Etherite had a very important property. When refined, it could be blended into other materials and used to conduct the Ether. This gave rise to a specialized field of science and engineering that dealt entirely with the application of Etherite into common, everyday items.

Etherite’s main value was in its property to be willfully, physically manipulated by people, and more specifically by men that possessed an Ether Kinetic talent.

In simple terms, Etherite and the Ether gifted men with the ability to move matter using their awareness. In other words, it was quite literally a kinetic ability that required a human male to exert his will through the Ether as his medium, and influence the Etherite found in the immediate to near vicinity.

Women possessed this Ether Kinetic talent to a far lesser degree.. There were some exceptions to the rule, but the vast majority of women could only manifest a weak Ether Kinetic ability. However, it was sufficient for them to operate many common household items, though not enough to fight alongside men in the field of battle.

That said, women possess a talent of their own.

It is called an Ether Empathic Weaver talent – the ability to read emotions imprinted on the Ether, and to manipulate the Ether directly. A woman could feel the emotions being radiated by a person or an animal; emotions carried along by the flowing Ether. They could choose to rewrite those emotions, or cleanse them from the Ether. They could also influence individuals by using the Ether to alter their emotional state.

I should point out the latter is considered a crime in many lands, but it doesn’t stop women from employing it upon their hapless male partners or husbands whom they suspect of being less than faithful to them.

For now, we have established that the Ley Lines radiate the Ether, and the Ether transmutes inorganic matter into Etherite that is blended into machinery and other items. These items and devices can then be operated courtesy of a person’s Awareness, ergo the very definition of an Ether Kinetic talent.

I have mentioned that Etherite was incorporated into household items and other machinery.

It was also extensively used in instruments of destruction.

Amongst these were machines of war that dwarfed many of the largest mammals on land.

Humanity referred to these devilish tools as…Jotnar.

Excerpt from The World As We Know It.

What I never told anyone was of the letter I received a week before setting off for the border.

My homeland of Caldera shared its western and northwestern border with the mountainous, prosperous land of Kaitain. While our respective territories were not at war, our relations had become strained, and in recent months we’d endured a number of skirmishes with House Kurama’s military. My visit to the border was to assure our men and women stationed there that I, the Archduke of Caldera, and head of House Claymore had not forgotten them.

The letter that arrived was delivered through less than official channels.

It was a letter from Terumi, whom I hadn’t seen or spoken to since representatives of House Kurama, the family that ruled Kaitain, attended my father’s funeral more than a year ago.

Back then it was a surprise to many of us when House Kurama’s people arrived at our border, requesting passage to attend the funeral service. Relations between our lands were frosty at best, and their arrival at the border caused much commotion between my advisors and immediate family. However, though I was only interim ruler at the time, I made the decision to grant them passage.

With my father having died at sea there was no body to bury, so the funeral was merely a formality but a necessary one. Issen Kurama, the head of the family and ruler of Kaitain, had expressed his apologies for not being able to pay his respects in person to a worthy rival.

In his place, he had sent his eldest daughter, Terumi.

Everyone has a first love.

For me, it was Terumi.

The first time I saw her, I must have been thirteen years old, but I fell in love with her then and there, in the garden of her family’s palatial estate.

Along with my parents, I had travelled with my younger siblings – my brother, Kaden, and sister, Alleyne – to Kaitain as part of an official visit. Back then, ties with Kaitain had been warm and pleasant, with strong trade between our lands. You could say relations between Kaitain and Caldera were closer than those with our longtime ally to the north, Reinvald.

I had wandered into a secluded garden, drawn to it because my mother had a large garden of her own within our home of Calandor. Curious to see what plants and flowers it held, I’d entered the garden and encountered Terumi.

Yes, I fell in love with her, and I spent as much time as I could with her until the day we had to return to Caldera.

Upon our return to the mountain-citadel of Calandor, I announced to my parents that when I was of age, I would marry Terumi Kurama, and forge a bond between our two lands. I dare say my parents were flabbergasted, especially since I was already promised to Lisanna of Reinvald. However, I was adamant I would marry no one but Terumi, and no amount of reasoning would change my mind.

Perhaps because of this contact between Terumi and I grew thready as fewer and fewer of her letters reached me, no doubt due to interference from my parents.

When I was briefly reunited with Terumi at the funeral service – twelve years after our fated encounter in her palace’s garden – I saw that she was more beautiful now than I could have ever imagined, and I realized that my feelings for her were not those of a childhood crush. However, I buried those feelings under a mountain of duty, and promised myself while assuring others that the marriage to Lisanna would go ahead as planned.

Thus, when I received her letter, a week prior to my departure, I spent a great deal of time debating whether to open it. I believed she had risked a great deal sending me the letter by such secretive means, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it.

In the end, I burned it, and departed for the border fortresses ignorant of the danger that lay ahead.

Ignorant of the danger Terumi had tried to warn me of.

A danger foretold in a recurring dream she had endured for many nights.

A nightmare where I fell in battle and died at the hands of her family’s soldiers.

Excerpt from A Falken’s Point Of View.

An autobiography of Falken Galen Claymore Kaiser.

(Falken)

The rain had eased to a faint drizzle.

I considered it a small blessing.

Combat in the rain was unpleasant and unpredictable.

It was bad enough to be fighting on foot upon wet ground.

It grew decidedly more complicated when fighting on foot meant battle between fifteen-foot tall giants constructed of metal, fabric, and wood.

However, though it was already late morning, said battle had yet to be joined.

Nonetheless, I was certain it was only a matter of time before it pounced upon us.

The terrain underfoot was not the best for moving stealthily. The forest of trees through which we traversed northwest stood no shorter than a hundred feet. It was an ancient forest with a thick canopy of branches and leaves, one of thousands protected by the Archons across the Northern Continent, and to cut them en masse was a crime they – our custodians – would not tolerate.

Rounding the base of a thick tree, I peered ahead through the domed glass canopy reinforced by a metal cage, then stepped carefully over giant roots that snaked along the forest floor.

The Jotunn I piloted was a fifteen-foot tall, armored goliath customized for my personal use.

The Etheric Drive mounted to its back resembled an oversized wine barrel. It drew in rich amounts of the surrounding Ether that was then distributed throughout the machine’s skeletal chassis. With its bones and joints enriched with fine Etherite, and using the Ether flowing them as a medium, I was able to employ my Ether Kinetic talent and exert my will over the goliath.

Thus, I was able to control the giant machine as an extension of my body.

My Jotunn was one of twenty-one belonging to the heavy infantry platoon I’d been hastily assigned to.

Platoon Two, Gryphon Company, under the overall command of Knight-Commander Chiren Kell, a woman with an extraordinary Ether Kinetic talent and a deadly combat sense.

Regardless of my title of Archduke, my rank was that of a Jotunn-Knight. As such, there was little chance I would have been granted command of the twenty-man platoon I now accompanied through the forest.

Somewhere to my right, my younger brother Kaden led a platoon of his own, also part of Gryphon Company. He too had a customized goliath bearing our family crest of House Claymore.

Through the armored canopy, I looked east in his direction, hoping to glimpse his machine and those of his men moving between the trees.

However, it was simply not to be.

The overcast, intermittently drizzling sky had blanketed the forest in darkness akin to a late afternoon or early evening. Without glancing at my chronometer mounted to the interior of the Jotunn’s cockpit, I would not have believed it was late morning.

For the past two hours, we had trekked over the undulating plains of my homeland of Caldera. The journey from the army’s sprawling camp to Gaellen Forest had been unnervingly quiet and uneventful. It was as though all those quiet moments were building up to a crescendo that was soon to erupt within this forest in an unavoidable clash between opposing forces.

The moment House Kurama’s heavy infantry of Jotnar breached our border and entered Caldera, a battle between our respective military forces was inevitable.

The incursion through the northwest border between Caldera and Kaitain had been sighted during the early morning hours by a patrolling flyer riding the strong currents of Ether. However, we were late to respond, the weather hampering our progress, and instead of meeting Kurama’s Jotnar on the open ground to the northwest of Gaellen Forest, we were now certain to encounter them amongst the trees, many, many kilometers deep into Caldera.

What shamed our commanders was the fact this breach was not entirely unexpected.

Of late, Kurama had been testing the long expanse of our border quite often, and it was one reason why I’d chosen to depart the mountain-citadel of Calandor – much to my sister Alleyne’s consternation – and ‘tour’ the fortifications of the west and northwestern borders between Kaitain and Caldera. I wanted our men and women at the frontline to see that I was taking the matter of House Kurama seriously.

That was another reason why I was now strapped into my Jotunn, and walking through the dense forest. Even if I wasn’t allowed to command the platoon, at the very least I was allowed to participate in the oncoming battle.

I felt the sweat on my hands, and felt it trickle under my Ether conductive clothing. I didn’t miss this feeling, nor the heat and humidity inside the Jotunn’s cockpit made worse by the outside drizzle.

I didn’t miss it at all, but I had made the choice to be here and there was no turning back.

A flash of light far to the left, rising quickly into the sky, grabbed my attention.

It was a flare to indicate contact with the enemy.

Our platoons of the First Army’s four companies of heavy infantry had finally encountered the Jotnar of House Kurama.

If not for the rain, I would have thought it dangerous to let loose a flare under a canopy of branches for the risk of starting a fire. For that reason, Jotnar were equipped with powerful signal lights powered by the Ether syphoned from their surroundings by their Etheric Drives. However, using signal lights was akin to painting a target upon oneself. It was harder to trace the path of the flare back to the Jotunn that fired it.

Whoever launched the flare had good aim. It sailed straight up through the enshrouding branches and leaves, peaked well into the sky, then began to fall leisurely back down to the forest floor. Through the gaps in the overhead branches, I watched it descend.

Depending on how well the individual platoons had kept to formation as they advanced through the forest, I hazarded a guess the flare had come from Chiren’s platoon that should be roughly a few hundred feet to the west of us. If not from her men, then perhaps it was launched further west by someone from Wyvern Company led by Knight-Commander Aiden Krannach.

I briefly debated whether to fire a flare of our own, or to use the Jotunn’s signal lights to indicate our platoon should head in that direction. However, I reminded myself it was not my platoon to command.

Abruptly, I spied a large shadow moving between the trees in the distance to the north-northwest.

It was too far ahead to be one of our Jotnar.

While willing my Jotunn forward, I reached my hand into the recessed cockpit tubing that held the flare gun. The cartridge was already loaded. All I had to do was squeeze the trigger.

The flare fired upwards through a gun port just outside the domed canopy’s metal cage.

I caught sight of it in the corner of my eye as it soared into the sky, and breached the overhead canopy of branches, yet my attention was on the approaching shadow that soon resolved itself into the familiar form of a Jotunn. Its stylized, skirted armor was all I needed to see to know it belonged to House Kurama.

Behind it, more of its comrades approached between the trees.

I spoke into the mouthpiece that would amplify my voice, and called out the sighting of enemy Jotnar. However, I quickened my pace only a little.

Charging forward with reckless abandon was not my style.

Nor was it to risk a fall in the damp, uneven ground.

Readying the enormous axe in my Jotunn’s immense right hand, I hefted the shield attached to its left forearm, and chose my first opponent for the day – a black goliath with armor trimmed in gold.

Silently, I prayed for the safety of my men.

I prayed for Chiren and for Kaden.

Then I sent a silent prayer to the gods for my sister, Alleyne, safe and sound back at the mountain-citadel of Calandor.

I chose not consider I may never see her again.

Harboring doubts for my mortality was the first step in admitting the possibility of defeat…and death.

I banished the thought from my mind, as my Jotunn’s axe met the enemy’s downward slashing blade.

A muted clang reached my ears, and part of the impact travelled up my Jotunn’s arm and across its barrel chest, rattling my vision a little.

An unpleasant greeting as there ever was, and the first of many blows to be exchanged this morning.

#

(Chiren)

Somewhere to my distant right, within the depths of the sprawling forest, was Falken Claymore, travelling with Platoon Two.

He had insisted on taking part in the battle, and despite argument from General Karmine, myself, and Falken’s brother, Kaden, the Archduke had boarded his customized war machine and formed up with the rest of the First Army as it advanced northwest toward the heavily forested lands that lay between Kaitain and Caldera.

Catching up to him, I used my rank of Knight-Commander to hastily assign him to a platoon belonging to my company.

Regardless of his title and being the ruler of Caldera, his military rank of Jotunn-Knight did not grant him the authority to take command of one of my platoons. Before hurrying to join up with the men of my Platoon One, I pointedly reminded Falken that I was granting him permission to participate, and that he was to follow orders rather than issue them.

At least he would be somewhere nearby and part of a trusted group of men.

However, now that battle had commenced and I faced my first opponent of the day, I was kicking myself inwardly for not assigning him to my own platoon. I could have kept a watchful eye on him, even if he resented my decision and suffered a bruised ego.

I prayed that I would not come to regret the choice I’d made by the time battle had ended.

Pushing my concerns aside, I focused on taking down my immediate opponent.

The Kuraman Jotunn before me swung its immense axe downward, but I deflected it by angling my shield moments before impact. Already stepping into his attack, I plunged my Jotunn’s broadsword straight into the machine’s barrel chest before my opponent could block it with the chevron shaped shield adorning his Jotunn’s left arm.

I pushed the sword in only as far as need be.

Too deep and I ran the risk of getting the blade caught up when I withdrew it.

I could almost feel the sensation of the metal passing through the man strapped into his machine.

I had no prayers or mercy to spare for these men.

They had crossed into our lands with the intent to kill, and I silently promised that those I fought would not return to Kaitain alive.

#

(Falken)

The first Jotunn had fallen easily enough, as had the second, and then the third that I encountered in a battle that degenerated into a confusing melee between the trees.

However, the fourth Jotunn I faced cost me my machine’s left forearm before going down to my axe.

My fifth adversary knocked me to the ground against a high ridge. As a result, my Jotunn was left sitting at an angle on the ground.

I concentrated every ounce of my Ether Kinetic ability on the Ether the drive was syphoning into the Jotunn’s skeletal frame inside the rounded armored body.

I raised the machine’s right leg, kicking back at the Kuraman Jotunn charging toward me.

I succeeded in halting its advance, but not the weapon it swung down at me.

For that I used the axe.

But my guidance was imperfect. The enemy axe bounced off mine then skewered my Jotunn’s right arm. I felt the blow translate through the machine and my brain jarred within my skull. Though I lost concentration only for a moment, I failed to protect myself against the Kuraman operator’s second attempt to crush me where I sat in my domed cockpit.

My Jotunn raised its arm to shield me, but it was too slow.

The axe blade came down…and stopped mere feet above my head.

To my utter disbelief, the giant blade was held back by a black clawed hand, attached to a long, slender arm wrapped in thin, flimsy armor that was like paper compared to a Jotunn’s heavy plating. My gaze followed the arm to a domed, cowled shoulder, and then to a body that looked odd and incomplete. Strange chevron-linked chains were attached to its limbs as though lending the weak appendages a degree of strength.

Then I looked up at the face of a young girl with green eyes, and dirty black hair that could do with a good wash.

She appeared to be ‘growing’ out of the armored body surrounding her.

I could see her torso, head and arms, but from the thighs down her legs were encased in armor that connected to the rest of the strange, skeletal machine.

As I said, it was as though she was growing ‘out’ of the machine.

Then the proverbial anvil dropped and I realized what I was looking at.

A horrible sensation of dread washed over me.

I was accosted by a fear for the present, and for the future, should I survive the immediate danger my life was in.

The girl had a strange smile on her face, just shy of a grimace and I realized it was due to the strain she was enduring.

The Jotunn’s blade refused to budge while in the grip of the black claw.

The Jotunn also shuddered but failed to break away or push against her.

It took me another moment to understand why.

The Ether had stopped flowing into my Jotunn and the drive was slowly spinning down because there was no Ether to draw upon. A void surrounded the girl and her skeletal machine, preventing the Ether from reaching both my goliath and that of the Kuraman soldier trying to kill me. As long as she remained within our vicinity, both the Kuraman and I were helpless to move our giant war machines.

I looked up at the girl and saw her lips move. I heard her quite clearly through the circular vents in my domed canopy.

“Do you need a hand?”

I blinked at the sound of her offer.

Her smile or grimace wavered. “I said, do you want a hand?”

A subtle rephrasing. Did I need a hand? Yes. Did I want a hand?

Before I could answer, I noticed more Jotnar emerging from the depths of the forest.

She noticed them too, then hastily looked back down at me.

I saw her impatience mar her pretty features.

“Tell me, do you need a hand or not?”

In the corner of my eye, I could see the new Jotnar charge toward us, weapons held high.

I leaned forward to the mouthpiece fitted to the interior of my Jotunn’s cockpit.

“Yes.”

I almost heard the sigh that I watched her release.

She shook her head quickly. “Finally, I get an answer.”

With the ease of an adult fending of a child, the skeletal giant pushed back the powerless Jotunn, sending it tumbling across the ground and then to a crashing halt against the trunk of a giant tree.

I watched the incredible machine take surprisingly unsteady steps away from my downed Jotunn. As it did, I felt the Ether flow once more, and quickly concentrated my kinetic talent upon my Jotunn’s Etheric Drive, spooling it up in heartbeats and drawing in precious Ether that would course through the machine’s body, thus allowing me to use my Ether Kinetic talent to operate it.

Across the clearing, the skeletal giant that I now recognized as a Warlord, stepped up to the newcomers.

A short-lived white mist surrounded the Warlord’s clawed hands, and mysteriously delivered two curved swords into its possession. With a giant sword in each hand, the Warlord moved with a disturbing degree of awkwardness as it met the three Kuraman Jotnar head on.

As I watched from within my Jotunn’s cockpit, the Warlord swung its swords wildly, and I wondered if I would be the one saving it.

Then the first of the newcomers fell, cleaved in two from dome to navel when it failed to protect itself from a wild slash delivered downward by the Warlord.

After that I stopped wondering who would be saving whom because the remaining three Jotnar abruptly turned tail and ran.

#

(Kaden)

If I had to describe the end of the battle it would be like this.

A flurry of green flares signaling a retreat, and neither side knowing which side had fired them.

It didn’t stop me from killing my distracted opponent, but it did leave me wondering as to the state of the rest of the battle.

The overhead canopy of trees was weak here, so spotting the flares wasn’t difficult.

However, if our respective armies were spread throughout the forest, I doubted everyone had seen them.

Then I heard a trumpeting sound blare through the forest.

Blare is a relative term since it was rather faint.

When I failed to recognize the trumpeted tune, I surmised it had come from a Kuraman Jotunn.

From within my domed cockpit, I looked about anxiously, then walked my machine toward the first Jotunn I spied between the trees. To my relief, the machine happened to belong to my platoon.

I approached the giant and spoke into my Jotunn’s mouthpiece.

“What happened? Do you know why they’re retreating?”

I could see the head of the man operating the goliath shake unevenly as he answered, “No, but my opponent turned and fled without a second swing.”

I looked about me.

Gods damn it. What the Hell was going on?

For the next few minutes we walked about the forest, calling out to the other members of the platoon, and anyone else belonging to our company of Jotnar. We came across a number of downed giants, but a greater number of survivors bearing the scars of the recent skirmish.

However, there was no sign of my brother.

My anxiety was growing with each passing minute, and I was having trouble keeping it down. I gave the order to fall back to the southern tree line. We would hold station just within the edge of the forest. However, while it was I issuing the order to withdraw, I chose to ignore it and go in search of my brother.

Accompanied by two other Jotnar from my platoon, one of whom trumpeted the retreat order every couple of minutes, I wandered the forest calling out to Falken.

After searching for long anxious minutes, we found him in a wide clearing.

His Jotunn was a wreck, but to my immense relief he looked unharmed as he sat on its rounded shoulder guard with a quiet look on his face, one that I knew well since childhood.

It was a look of worry, and I turned in the direction he was facing.

There was a Jotunn sitting on the ground near the middle of the clearing.

Like all Jotnar it resembled a stout dwarf, wearing thick, inflated clothing fit for an icy winter. It had been sliced into two, from its domed cockpit down to its navel. It resembled firewood cleaved down the middle but not quite divided.

There was a girl sitting in front of it, a few meters away from its massive metal-shod feet.

Her clothes were ragged as though she’d been wearing them while travelling through thick bushlands for a month.

She was sitting there, staring up at the ruined machine.

Something about the scene chilled my blood.

I didn’t know whether to approach her, or my brother. I stood undecided until I saw Falken wave me closer. I walked my Jotunn over to him, and called out to him.

“Falken? Are you alright?”

He indicated I should step even closer, so I cautiously complied.

When my Jotunn stood within a few meters of his crippled machine, I used my Ether Kinetic talent to reach over to him. In response, my Jotunn raised its right arm and placed it on the shoulder of Falken’s motionless machine. Before climbing onto it, Falken dove back into his Jotunn’s cockpit. He emerged with a sword and knife buckled at his waist. Then he climbed onto my Jotunn’s outstretched arm and then clambered up to my machine’s shoulder. I watched him lean down toward my domed canopy.

Before he could speak, I asked, “Falken, what’s going on? Who is she?”

He hesitated then answered with a question of his own. “What’s the situation?”

He was sidestepping my question, and he knew it.

I swallowed and reported, “Kurama’s troops retreated. We should secure the border.”

He glanced at his chronometer with a nod. “By now, General Milerna’s troops should have circled round the forest and be at the border. We’ll know more when our reconnaissance flyers report back.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the kneeling girl. “Kaden, we’re falling back to camp.”

Glancing at the kneeling girl, I asked, “Falken, what about her?”

“We’re bringing her back with us.”

“What?”

“No arguments, Kaden. Step closer to her.”

For a heartbeat, I pressed my lips into a thin, displeased line.

“Don’t fall off,” I warned him.

Falken didn’t reply, instead taking hold of the hand grips welded to my Jotunn near the canopy. Seeing he was holding on tightly, I began walking my machine toward the girl.

Falken spoke loud enough for me to hear. “Kaden, be careful. If you touch her or she touches your Jotunn, you’ll lose the Ether flowing through it.”

I stopped walking.

Lose the Ether? That meant only one thing.

I turned my head and faced my brother. “Dear gods, Falken…are you telling me—are you telling me she’s a—?”

He nodded. “Yes, she is a Khan.”

I looked at the girl.

Even at a short distance I could tell she was a young girl, though she was blossoming remarkably well into womanhood. However, I wasn’t thinking of her feminine charms.

A Khan Wilder? Here in this forest? A young girl like her branded with the Seal of Arcala and thus made into a Khan?

My thoughts must have been written all over my face, because Falken spoke in a serious tone into a circular vent in the domed canopy. “Kaden, not a word of this. For now, she’s simply someone we found in the forest.”

I shook my head. “Falken, it will be impossible to hide her from the men. They’ll notice her effect on the Ether straight away.”

“Nonetheless, we’ll keep her a secret for as long as we can.”

I noticed the girl was rising cautiously to her feet. She turned and faced us, then slowly walked up to my Jotunn, coming to a halt a few meters away.

Falken jumped down to the ground, then stepped up to her. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but she nodded to his words and then he turned in my direction.

“Kaden, we’ll need a couple of horses when we clear the forest. It’s simply too far to walk back to camp.”

I turned to my two escorts who’d chosen to remain behind, and now stood a few meters into the clearing. I spoke to them through the mouthpiece fitted to my cockpit. “Head to camp. Round up a couple of horses for his Grace and the girl.”

I watched them salute awkwardly because their arms were restricted by Jotnar physiology. Then they turned and began to walk fast out of the clearing, heading south if my compass was still working properly.

My brother and the girl also began walking south, and I watched over them from behind.