Contents
Chapter 52
Overview
Galva reaches Durain with rescued dams and helps hold the fortress. Mireya, now married off to Oustrim, uses Galva’s grief in a spell that brings early snows and drives the Horde south. Galva later trains and commands massive raven waves that break the goblins, forcing peace.
As corvids grow rebellious, King Kalith orders cullings, which Galva defies. Fulvir, failing, tattoos her birds. Court intrigue culminates in Peya Dolón Milat’s exposure and suicide, Pol’s coerced lie and promotion, and his sea-suicide, estranging Galva from her father.
Summary
Galva, unable to reach besieged Arvise, marches a week east to Durain with rescued dams, supporting an Espalle woman maimed under Hordelaw. Gaunt but resolute, she helps defend Durain; rocky ground and strong engines bleed the Horde’s assaults and hold the walls.
Infanta Mireya arrives en route north and west, newly remarried by Kalith to King Hagli of Oustrim. She and Galva rekindle their affair. Seeking to scatter the goblins, Mireya performs a major working: after ritual baths, she cuts a “thorn of ice” from Galva’s heart, binds it to a copper-headed, willow arrow with Dalgatha feathers, royal thread, and Amiel’s ribbon, and sends it skyward while singing to Aevri. Early snows blanket the Hounds of Mour and drive the Horde south.
Recalled to Seveda and Galimbur, Galva trains successive raven-knight waves, then commands the largest as campamachur. The corvid onslaught burns mounds, lifts sieges, frees coastal cities including Espalle, and compels peace from Our Friends. Yet the birds grow more bonded to each other and clever; a colony deserts to the mountains, prompting Kalith to order most culled at age two and confined to fortresses. Galva refuses and keeps Dalgatha.
Galva visits the ailing Fulvir Lightningbinder, who returns Amiel’s effects and, under a priestess’s eye, gives Galva the cut of Dal-Gaata and tattoos her birds, spending more of his failing strength. Afterward, Galva recounts the fall of Prima-General Peya Dolón Milat: lauded for saving the Western Army at the Hounds yet reviled for lottery sacrifices and then exposed as a high priestess of Dal-Gaata, Peya is removed.
Pressed by the Duke of Braga, Pol dom Braga accepts a lie that he demanded the stand at Haros Horn and replaces Peya, but the deceit hollows him. Peya, the Pragmatist, falls on her sword. Pol, grieving and bound to Arvarescan lover Samera dom Vinescu, walks into the sea and dies. The loss devastates the duke and estranges Galva from her father.
Who Appears
- Galva dom BragaNarrator; leads dams to Durain, helps hold the walls, enables Mireya’s snow-spell, later trains and commands raven waves, defies corvid culls.
- Infanta MireyaNow wed to King Hagli; rekindles love with Galva; uses Galva’s heart-splinter in a ritual that brings early snows, driving goblins south.
- DalgathaGalva’s raven; feathers used in Mireya’s spell; later tattooed onto Galva as she defies orders to cull corvids.
- King KalithThe Usurper; marries Mireya to Oustrim’s king and later orders most corvids culled and confined to fortresses.
- Fulvir LightningbinderWar-weary mage; gives Galva Amiel’s effects; consecrates her to Dal-Gaata and tattoos her birds despite failing health.
- Peya Dolón Milat (the Pragmatist)Prima-General, revealed as a Dal-Gaata high priestess; ousted and dies by suicide after political backlash.
- Pol dom BragaGalva’s brother; coerced to lie about Haros Horn, becomes Prima-general, then suicides in the sea near Arvaresca.
- Duke of BragaGalva’s father; engineers Peya’s removal, pressures Pol into a lie; devastated by Pol’s death; estranged from Galva.
- Segunth-General Samera dom VinescuPol’s lover from Arvaresca; her favorite rocky beach is where Pol ends his life.
- King Hagli of OustrimMireya’s new husband by Kalith’s design; his marriage removes her from Ispanthian politics.