#Chapter 124: Echoes of the Past

Ember The council chamber smells like pine resin and old stone, and I stand behind Kaine's chair in full guard uniform—leather vest buckled tight, hair pulled back, sword at my hip—occupying the position I've only recently earned as Personal Guard to the Crown Prince, my feet planted wide and my hands clasped at the small of my back, every inch of me projecting the kind of alert stillness that says I belong here even when half the council members still do a double-take at a woman in the guard line. The King sits at the head of the long table with eight council members flanking him, and a border captain I don't recognize stands at the far end with a rolled map under his arm and the road-worn look of a man who has ridden hard to deliver bad news. The captain spreads his map across the table and begins his report in the clipped, methodical voice of a field officer who has rehearsed this briefing on horseback for the past day and a half. Eastern border patrols have noted increased mo