Liam Dunn counted the fires without meaning to.
Six great bonfires ringed the frosted ground at the heart of the grove, and he'd already marked who had claimed each of them. The Blackwell men held the fire nearest the fortress path, close enough to see the princess the moment she appeared. The people of Reunion had gathered around the mothers and the great serpent. His father's knights held another fire on the eastern side, with their wives and children packed in tight against the cold.
It was a habit Sir Gavin and his other mentors had beaten into him when he came home from the academy in Keating to learn how to fight against the Eldritch. Know where your people are, and which way you'll run if the night goes wrong.
Tonight, for the first time he could remember, Liam had no idea which way he would run. Forward, he hoped. If something went wrong, he still liked to think of himself as a man who would run toward it.
