3
The combined armies of Ghavan and the lost clan of the Gumiren had marched for forty days. Adelaida, who had never walked more than half a circuit of Ghavan Isle at a time, was almost constantly overwhelmed. The ever-shifting landscape, the impossible profusion of animal life, the sheer expanse of land with no sea anywhere near it—she couldn’t have imagined it in her most frightening dreams. But that was nothing compared to the stench of corpses and burnt wood and sweaty leather that accompanied them nearly at every step as soon as they entered Nebesta. From battleground to battleground they trudged, from one hell to another. She wasn’t sure if she had gone mad, or if the world itself had.
But all that was nothing compared to the palpable sense of wrongness that pressed upon her like a
