THE SECOND CRADLE - BOOK TWO OF THE IRON CRADLE SAGA Chapter 21: CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Preparing the Valley for War

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Preparing the Valley for War ARi and I sat on the outer lip of the keep with our legs hanging over the side. The stone beneath me still held some of the day’s heat, though the air had cooled as the sun dropped toward the savannah. Wind moved across the top of the keep, carrying woodsmoke from the camps below. ARi sat beside me with her heels resting against the outside wall. She had her hands braced on the stone on either side of her, her hair moving slightly in the breeze as she looked out over everything she’d done. The walls she’d raised stretched far beyond the original footprint of the keep. They wrapped around the ground where the kobold legions had made their camps, enclosing a huge section of the savannah in a protective sweep of stone and bronze. The smooth walls caught the last of the sun and held it in a warm dull shine. Inside the walls, she’d cleared enough ground for the airships. A massive cobblestone landing area filled the open space below, laid out in long straight sections with markings worked into the stone for approach lanes, unloading zones, and supply routes. Even from the top of the keep, I could see how carefully it had been designed. There were open corridors between the landing field and the storage areas, space for the kobold legions to move without blocking each other, and broad cleared paths leading back toward the keep itself. The tether towers stood around the landing ground like huge stone monoliths. They rose well above the walls, thick and square, with bronze-banded anchor housings near their tops and recessed channels cut down their sides. One of the massive airships had already been sent back to Meilun, while the other two ships now sat on the ground, neatly adjacent to each other in the new yard. Fires burned across the camps below in rows and clusters, small orange points spread across the enclosed plain. “You seem really distant tonight,” I said as I pulled her closer. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this,” she said, leaning into me. “All of this feels so...” “Big,” I finished for her. “Yeah.” “Tell me about it. We’re going to meet with the captains of the airships and the legion commanders from Meilun soon. I noticed you’ve been doing your best to avoid them,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s not funny, Gavin. Having them treat me like some kind of deity is worse than when everybody was treating me like a princess.” “I was talking with Tim and Kyle yesterday,” I said as I glanced back out to watch the last of the sun dip below the horizon. “There really is no limit to our progression, is there? This thing that the Ascendancy has done to us, I don’t think it ever stops.” “It’s not supposed to work that way, is it?” I asked, looking back to her. “No, it’s not,” she said, without any further explanation. We sat in the quiet for a moment. “ARi, what happens when this competition is over? I understand that even the Ascended can’t directly interfere while it’s happening, but I don’t think they’re going to leave us be, you know?” She took a deep breath and looked back at me with a sad smile. “Gav, they weren’t going to leave us alone regardless. I’m afraid war was coming. It was inevitable.” I stood up, brushed the dust from my pants, and reached down for her hand. “Well then, Princess ARi, goddess of the kobolds, let’s go have a sit-down with our generals.” She took my hand and let me help her up, scoffing at me. “That’s not funny, Gavin!” “It’s a little funny.” She pouted and followed me back down the stairs toward the den. We made our way back down into the lower level, and as we walked toward the circular hearth to meet the others, ARi suddenly stopped. Her eyes went wide. Tanya caught it before I did, and I turned around just as ARi fell to her knees, tears freely making tracks down her cheeks. “What’s wrong?” I said, rushing back to her. I could see that she was reading some kind of system window. Her eyes looked distant, and her mouth opened just slightly.