The grapes were bleeding.
General Vespera wiped her hands on her rough linen apron, staining the fabric with the sticky, dark purple juice of the harvest. It was a good year for the vineyard. The sun had been kind to the southern valleys of Aethelgard, and the soil was rich.
For ten years, Vespera had convinced herself that this was enough. She had convinced herself that the weight of pruning shears was a suitable replacement for the weight of a broadsword.
She was forty-two years old. Her sons were grown men now, trading in the capital, living soft lives that she had purchased with two decades of bloodshed. She was retired. She was safe.
So why did the sound of galloping hooves make her pulse hammer against her ribs?
Vespera stood up, her back protesting with a dull ache that hadn't been there in her thirties. She brushed a stray lock of copper hair—vibrant red, though now threaded with the faintest strands of silver—from her forehead. She looked down the long, dusty road leading to her estate.
A single rider.
He was moving fast, pushing his mount hard. Vespera narrowed her eyes, her vision still as sharp as a hawk's. The horse was blowing foam, its flanks heaving. The rider was slumped forward, exhaustion clinging to him like a shroud. But it was the colors on his tabard that made Vespera's blood run hot.
Royal Blue and Gold. The King's Messenger.
"Madam?"
Vespera turned. Her steward, old Silas, had come up behind her, holding a basket of grapes. He was looking at the road, too, his face pale.
"Go inside, Silas," Vespera said, her voice dropping an octave, losing the softness of the lady of the manor and returning to the steel of the commander. "Prepare a fresh horse. And fetch water."
"My Lady, is it…?"
"Go."
By the time the messenger clattered into the courtyard, Vespera was waiting. The boy—he couldn't have been more than eighteen—practically fell out of the saddle. He scrambled to his feet, dust coating his face, and bowed so low he nearly tipped over.
"General Vespera," the boy wheezed. "Thank the Gods."
"I am not a General anymore," she said coldly, though she caught the reins of his horse to steady the beast. "I am a vintner. You have ridden a long way to speak to a farmer."
"The King..." The boy fumbled with a leather scroll case at his belt. His hands were shaking. "The King said only you would answer. The Northern Wall has been breached, My Lady. The Frostborn... they aren't just raiding. They are marching."
Vespera felt a spike of heat in her chest—the Ember Blood. It was a subtle magic, a gift of her ancestry, keeping her core temperature burning like a furnace even in the chill of the evening. It flared now, a warning sign.
She took the scroll case. The wax seal was the King's personal signet. She cracked it open.
Vespera,I do not ask as your King. I beg as a father. The armies are in disarray. The new commanders are boys playing at war. If the North falls, the Capital will burn before winter's end. I need the Iron Phoenix. I need you.
She stared at the parchment. She could smell the ink. She could smell the desperation.
"There are other Generals," Vespera said quietly. "General Thorne. Duke Kaelis."
"Dead," the messenger whispered. "Both of them. Ambushed three days ago."
Silence stretched across the courtyard, heavy and suffocating. Vespera looked at her hands. They were stained purple from the grapes, but in the dimming light, it looked too much like dried blood.
She sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand ghosts.
"Silas!" she barked, the command cracking through the air like a whip.
The old steward appeared at the door. "My Lady?"
"Feed the boy. Give him a bed." Vespera turned toward the main house, her stride lengthening, her shoulders squaring. "And open the crying room."
"The crying room, My Lady?"
"The armory, Silas. Open the damn armory."
Vespera descended the stone steps into the cellar beneath the manor. It didn't smell of wine down here; it smelled of oil and cold iron.
At the far end, covered by a heavy canvas tarp, stood a mannequin.
Vespera pulled the tarp away. Dust motes danced in the light of her torch.
The armor was black steel, trimmed with burnished bronze. It was battered, scratched, and imperfect. There was a dent in the breastplate where an ogre's club had nearly crushed her ribs at the Battle of High Falls. There was a deep gouge in the left pauldron from a saber.
She ran a finger over the metal. It was cold, but as soon as she touched it, her skin seemed to hum.
Next to the armor sat her shield. It was kite-shaped, painted white, bearing the emblem of a rising phoenix in gold and red. The paint was chipped, fading, but the bird still looked defiant.
She began to strip off her dress. The linen fell to the floor, revealing a body that was strong, solid, and mapped with history. Thin, shimmering silver lines—the scars of the Ember Blood—traced paths across her arms and ribs, glowing faintly in the gloom.
She pulled on the padded under-tunic. Then the mail. Then the plate.
It was heavy. Heavier than she remembered. It pressed down on her shoulders, a suffocating embrace. But as she clasped the final buckle and picked up her sword belt, the ache in her back disappeared. The weariness in her eyes vanished.
Vespera looked at her reflection in a polished bronze mirror. The vintner was gone. The mother was gone.
The Matriarch had returned.
She turned to the stairs, the steel boots ringing out a death knell against the stone.
"One last time," she whispered to the darkness. "One last time into the fire."