The banners of the army standing between them and Vasyllia were unfamiliar to Adelaida. It turned out they were unfamiliar to her mother as well, which surprised her. Her father, though, visibly changed when he saw them. It was as though he were a string on an instrument suddenly tuned up to the point of snapping.
“What is it, my love?” asked Lebía.
“I have read about that banner,” he said. “It is the banner of the Children of the Priest-King.”
Something jingled in Adelaida’s memory. It was connected to that sense inside her, still present, that the Artisan was near.
“Highness,” said one of the Ghavanites. “Look!”
Across the Vasyllia River, on the other side of the army of the Children, as her father had called them, was yet another army. Their banners bore a golden sun on a black fie
