Page 18 of The Kingdom of Flames

“It is a final and great comfort to lend your hand to a dying man's brow.”

Celestine didn’t know what to say to that. There was no honor or glory in men who screamed and convulsed and died in agony. Who begged for their mothers long gone.

“Hail, Lord Encarmine.” A young man walked past. He was maimed, missing several fingers, and a wicked scar had cleaved his palate. Many she saw, were like this.

“Hail.” Encarmine saluted to a young man walking past. Celestine turned as he went on his way.

“Foolishness is the great recruiter of all wars,” Encarmine stated. "Not the missing leg nor the father’s grave warn young men away from my ways.”

“Can you not know peace?” Celestine asked.

The sun shone on them as they walked to the edge of town.

“Not yet,” he answered.

They walked towards his proud fortress. Celestine thought of her father and of her home, which was so different from this place but similar. Calendar had felt like a dream in a fever. The Realm of the Red Banner felt so very real. A realness that would burn away the fog of life and replace it with steadfast discipline.

His estate, would it be lovely and plush inside? Or efficient and practical like him? She was not sure what he meant by the three challenges. Celestine clenched the three ribbons in her fist as they traveled. The promise of his courtship in her very hand.

It was the longest time she had ever spent alone with a man unsupervised. An entire day. Aside from her father, of course.

When she looked at Encarmine, she felt the fluttering of wings in her chest. This man could be her groom. His lustful need held back by stark laws of conduct. Laws, and oaths so strong they shaped his realm and his people followed.

Celestine imagined it. To be Queen here. It likely didn’t mean finery. It likely did not mean softness. Not that she had ever craved such items. But she would rule with him. Ride with him. She as his prize, as he declared. His bounty. This courting, she guessed, would show her more of him. And more of these strange worlds mirrored upon her own.

A flash of light caught her eye. Like someone holding a mirror. But when she looked to the hill it had come from, there was nothing. Encarmine seemed to notice, but said nothing.

Longer and longer they walked, under a vast sky lit by sunlight. The dried grasses crunched under her feet.

As they neared his keep, she felt a tremble in the ground. The sound of hooves thundered as they walked. Celestine looked around. His grand castle was so close now.

“That which is won is not easily kept,” Encarmine stated, more to himself than her.

He dropped his pack and planted his standard atop his great spear into the ground, where faintest edge of his tattered banner remained.

Riders approached, bearing a banner of his color but with a differing sigil.

Celestine looked around wildly as twenty, then thirty men rode around up to them. The men were scarred, yet noble in their bearing. Was this rebellion? Was this insurrection?

Encarmine drew his sword and stood with grim defiance.

The riders slowed, their horses pacing. A beast of a man stared down Encarmine with a challenge.

“Your keep was undefended in your absence, Lord of the Red Banner.”

“So it was.” Encarmine pointed his sword at the chieftain. “Are you here to attempt to claim it?”

“A throne won is a throne defended, always. As you teach.”

“As I teach,” Encarmine echoed the words.

The riders now stared at Celestine. Encarmine would don his circlet now, she knew. These men would be corpses. She had seen him fight the Champion of Autumn for her touch. These men would be nothing to him.

“Let us begin the lesson then,” the chieftain drew his sword.

Encarmine looked back at her, sadness in his eyes.

“Above all things, war is a thief. It steals the future and all it could have held.”

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