His father looked sorry. Sorry for everything... but he wasn’t a coward and he explained. “In all our fuss about warfare and defending our kingdom, have you ever noticed that we are never attacked from the north?”

Torsten had not noticed. They fought the Barbarians to the east and the Pagans to the south, and they had an alliance with the Mustards to the west, but he had never even thought that they faced a possible invasion to the north. The land northward was wilderness, thick forests, jagged mountains, wild beasts, and monsters everywhere.

“If you need every soldier, Father, I am ready to fight,” Torsten said roughly, trying to echo the way his father spoke instead of the way his mother had taught him to speak.

The King’s unsettled eyes rested on Torsten’s copper ones and he slowly looked down at his frame until his gaze lingered on his son’s boots. He put a hand on his shoulder. “I see that you have