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Page 49 of Knight from the Ashes (Crown and Crest 1)

I jerk my head to the stable. “You’ll need a horse. You can’t keep riding Bartholomew’s.”

No less than five of my men who have been lingering at the edge of the group step forward, all offering their steeds to the pretty noblewoman they’re desperate to impress.

“Henrik,” Simon says, “Allow me to come with you.”

I shake my head. “You’re in charge here while I’m gone. Bartholomew, you’re with us. The rest of you, stay with the wagons and listen to Simon. We’ll be back before nightfall.”

* * *

“Have you ever seen an aynauth?”Bartholomew asks Clover as we ride down the forest road.

Yesterday’s storm clouds skirted Denmel, and the day is pleasant, with a cool breeze that blows through the trees. Golden leaves fall like snow, gently drifting to the ground around us. We must be nearing the ruins by now, but we haven’t seen any sign of the monster or the elf Clover is determined to rescue.

“I’ve never crossed the Ileastra River before,” Clover answers.

“Neither have I.” Bartholomew grins as if delighted they found common ground. “It’s a grand adventure, isn’t it?”

We turn around a bend, and I raise my hand, asking for silence. Up ahead, the base of a worn stone wall becomes visible through the trees.

Clover brings her borrowed horse close to mine. Dropping her voice, she asks, “Have we reached the ruins?”

“I believe so.”

“Do you think we’ll find an aynauth in there?”

“I don’t know. I’m not familiar with their territory or their ways.”

She lifts her brows. “Have we discovered something in which the mighty Henrik isn’t an expert?”

Caldenbauer is full of odd creatures—things seldom seen in the other human-settled kingdoms. Many of them we’re now familiar with, but others remain a mystery to all except the elves who are native to the land.

I shoot Clover a wry look. “Until recently, I wasn’t acquainted with jacquesalaupes either, and now I’m an authority on the subject.”

She laughs as if startled, and the bright sound of it travels through the quiet trees. Immediately, she presses her lips together.

“Sorry,” she murmurs with a guilty smile. “I didn’t realize you knew how to make a joke, and it took me by surprise.”

My response is lost as we pass the last of the trees and pause atop the bridge that leads into the city. Bartholomew makes an exclamation under his breath as we take in the structures that have crumbled with age and battle. Below us, the remnants of High Vale architecture stretch like skeletal hands into the sky.

The mighty city of Furlaskin fell a hundred years ago in one of the bloodiest battles between man and elf, several years before we came out victorious. It’s now a ghost of its former glory.

“Careful,” I warn as we continue through the open gates and down the road that leads into the heart of the city. “There could be elven creations.”

“Any remaining golems are likely rusted by now, wouldn’t you think?” Bartholomew asks warily.

“One would hope.”

Even Clover is solemn as we ride through the abandoned streets. “It’s just as Pranmore said—the flora is reclaiming the land.”

A massive tree, as wide as a manor and far too large to grow unaided, rises from the center of the city. Its leaves are spring green, shining in the sunlight. Bits of stone towers cling to the lower limbs—as if the tree simply grew through windows and doors and ripped pieces of the abandoned masonry from its foundation.

“It must be the work of Woodmore magic,” Bartholomew says in wonder. “Can we see it closer, Henrik?”

I nod. “We have to look for Pranmore anyway.”

Grass grows through the broken cobblestone streets, still green even though the surrounding wood is deep in autumn. Birds warble their afternoon songs from crumbling rooftops, and formal gardens now grow wild, their flowers vining over cottages so densely, it’s difficult to see the stones underneath.

The ruin is thick with the elves’ earth magic—completely different from that which humans conjure with blood and death and foreign from what their mechanically inclined cousins create.


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