After the Earl’s short, gratitude-laced speech, the Magisteria soldiers moved out alongside a few hundred reinforcements — local guild members, mercenary units, and the hired blades the Earl’s brother had managed to gather. Together, they left the castle behind and marched toward the battlefield, which lay only a few hours from the city walls.
The journey itself was silent enough to weigh on everyone. It took barely four or five hours to reach the outskirts, and on the way, Cassian finally saw the true damage the cult had carved into the land.
Village after village stood hollow, houses abandoned, doors swaying loosely on broken hinges. Not a single soul remained — not even animals. The only sounds were the low murmur of soldiers and the dull, steady thud of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels rolling over dirt roads.
Closer to the city, a few settlements still had life in them. Soldiers of the Earldom had turned those villages into makeshift camps, fortifying them as a buffer line in case the cult managed to break through the battlefront. Even there, though, the tension hung thick, every villager’s face carrying the same quiet fear.
"Why would he put that woman in charge when our guild master is ten times better than her..." Cassian caught the words drifting from a pair of guild members riding a few rows ahead. The man’s voice was low but laced with anger as his eyes swept over the hollow, empty villages they passed.
"If not for her, these places would still have people living in them," he muttered, his companion nodding grimly in agreement.
Another voice joined in. "And the guild master didn’t even take offense. He’s the one who had his uncle reach out to the Magisteria for reinforcements in the first place, then sent us to bolster the Earl’s army."
"Yeah. He even sponsored the evacuation of these villages, gave people a place to stay... while she sat back and let the cultists torch everything," another muttered, spitting into the dirt.
Cassian’s brows furrowed slightly as the pieces clicked together. The woman they were ripping into could only be the Earl’s daughter, Aria Kiew Karmen.
Leaning slightly toward Shera, who was riding just beside him, he dropped his voice. "Who’s this guild master they keep bringing up?"
Shera glanced at the group of guild members ahead, listening to their hushed conversation before replying in a low tone. "Morningstar Guild’s master. Zeek Kiew Karmen — the Earl’s son."
She adjusted her reins, continuing, "He and his guild are supposed to be pretty capable. Got branches in other noble territories too. And they’re loaded — the Karmen prince has connections everywhere. A lot of nobles buy the rare goods his people bring in and resell them through their own markets. Heard it’s a big part of why the guild’s so influential."
"They don’t look too happy with the current leadership... can’t say I blame them," Cassian muttered, his eyes drifting toward the mercenaries marching a little apart from the main column. They weren’t locals — outsiders hired by the prince. Some of the Morningstar guild members were speaking quietly with them, their faces hard.
Shera followed his gaze and gave a dry laugh. "Unhappy? They’ve got every right to be. What kind of ’capable leader’ loses thousands of soldiers to a pack of monsters — and not even strong ones at that? I heard the princess herself had to be rescued... more than once. Each time cost dozens of lives."
Cassian’s brow furrowed. Hearing the Karmen princess dragged through the mud like that was strange. "Aria Kiew Karmen..." he muttered under his breath, testing the name in his head.
Shera continued, lowering her voice just a fraction. "Rumor is, ever since she took command of the Earl’s forces, it’s been one disaster after another. Charging into battles she couldn’t win, ignoring orders, then needing to be pulled out while everyone else bled for her mistakes."
Cassian had heard plenty about her, and one of the things that kept coming up was how she was too much like her father — arrogant, didn’t like being questioned, and if someone did, they’d end up thrown into fights no one was supposed to survive just to prove her point.
He wasn’t sure if any of it was true or just the usual soldier talk, but after seeing the empty villages on the way here, it was hard to just shrug the rumors off.
There were a lot of stories floating around — maybe just gossip, maybe things that actually happened. If they were true, then fighting under her command was going to be a problem. And if they were just rumors, he had to wonder who was spreading them and why.
The whole thing also poked at the thought he’d been carrying since Valtross: the clone. Both she and her brother had gone through the academy back in the day. Anyone from that group could’ve been it, but right now, all the hints seemed to be stacking up around Aria.
That didn’t mean Cassian was ruling the others out. He’d only been here a day, and there was still a lot he didn’t know — like the fact the prince had been the one to push for Magisteria’s reinforcements through his uncle. There were too many moving pieces, and Cassian needed at least a clearer picture before he could even start figuring out if there really was a clone involved or if all of this was just the result of bad leadership.
He glanced at Shera and asked, "Tell me more about this prince. He’s a mage, right? Like his uncle?"
"Yeah," Shera said with a small nod. "A luminara. Trained directly under his uncle, while his sister learned under their father. Makes things between the two of them... complicated."
Unlike Cassian, Shera had already been briefed about the situation here. A lot of it came from her local contacts — she’d traveled these territories before, which was one of the reasons she’d been sent along despite only recently breaking through to Third Warrior Circle.