Page 159 of Red Ruin

Remy’s bedroom furnishings are as rich as you’d expect from the son of a Supreme and a titled duke. I can’t name the wood the furniture is carved from. The desk is this deep, glossy red, like a piece from a museum. Humans haven’t logged as much since most forests turned into battlegrounds.

Remy’s personal messaging orbs sit on shelves made from the same antique wood. I climb his upholstered chair to scan them in the candlelight.

A delicate, 3D symbol glows at the center of each glass. Some are personal sigils I don’t recognize. Some are cracked, suggesting whoever owned its other half is long gone.

I don’t want to call for help.

If I could, I’d fight the king myself.

But I’m just one Guide and the stakes are too high.

Human territory has been shrinking for centuries.

We can’t afford to lose anything else.

I can’t lose anything else.

After covering myself with a shirt from Remy’s fancy armoire, I make sure the guys are still out, then settle at the desk. I take down the orb with the tower-and-thorns symbol of the Azrids’ Northern Legion.

Its dust wipes off on my fingers. Remy clearly hasn’t been making any calls.

The owner probably shoved the paired orb to the back of a cupboard before I was born. I connect a silk and pump in mental energy hard enough to ring the other side at full volume.

My fingertips buzz, so I know the request is going through.

After a long wait, the light blurs into a red-eyed Sentinel’s pissed-off face. A brocade dressing robe hangs off his shoulders. The sharp features that should be handsome are ruined by his nasty scowl.

“Is he dead?” the man snaps.

“Excuse me?”

He makes a noise at the back of his throat. “If you’re ringing at this hour, through this line, it must be because my brother rampaged for the final time. You can dispose of the body.” He shuffles the orb with the sleeve of his robe, already shifting to end the call. “I’ll assign the Farguard a new major when the sun is in the sky where it belongs. Goodn?—”

“Remington is alive,” I interrupt.No thanks to you.

The man huffs. “You don’t know who I am?”

“I don’t care.” I should kiss ass and tell him what he wants to hear, but it’s been a long day, and I’m saving my lips for better Sentinels’ fangs. “The Farguard is about to be sieged by a lich king. The same one that sired the Kyorgos line. This thing is Apocalypse-tier, and it’s rising with an undead army. If you don’t send reinforcements, it’ll sweep past the border and?—”

“Bullshit.” The man lifts his chin. “My father dismembered the Kyorgos’ sire centuries ago.”

I squeeze the orb.

All I want is the power to choke men from afar.“You were lied to. Imperial forces couldn’t kill the lich, so they buried it instead. Remy, Vhex, and Simms are the only S-classes left to stop it from rising again.”

“Trezzoran lives as well?” Remy’s “brother” rubs the bridge of his nose. “What terrible news. His family will be devastated.”

My face twists.

Iseveryonein a position of power a self-centered sociopath?

Right. Of course they are.

I repeat myself more slowly, emphasizing every word so that he understands he’s also going to be affected. “We will lose the north. After we’re overrun, the Sentinels who made their last stand here will be the vanguard in the undead army sweeping toward Azrid’s cities.”

“True,” he says and taps his chin. “Send Remington and Trezzoran to suicide-attack the horde. Their rampage will give the Northern Legion time to pull back to a safe distance.”

What the hell?“You can’t retreat.”

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