Hermi gripped the reins as if holding on for dear life. At this point, she was convinced everything in Ferramonte was, instinctively and irrationally, set against her.
It wasn't just the humans who refused to serve her. The stubborn brown horse Otho had selected for her seemed to share their sentiment as well.
When she had first mounted the beast, it had tossed its head violently from side to side in protest, nearly throwing her into the dust. The struggle had lasted nearly an hour, but Hermi had ultimately prevailed. The horse finally ceased its rebellion, yielding as she steered it across the jagged volcanic slopes.
Otho led her higher up the mountain, but the landscape looked no different from her journey to the Black Fortress. It was a monotonous stretch of black stone and gray ash, devoid of a single living tree.
The Commander rode just ahead of Hermi. He moved with a speed born of years spent chasing monsters, or perhaps being chased by them. While Otho's horse navigated the uneven route with ease, Hermi struggled to match the pace, each jolt tugging painfully at the fresh stitches in her arm.
Otho's voice suddenly carried back to her on the wind. "Your Majesty, you ride better than I anticipated," he said, not slowing his pace. "Was horsemanship also included in a princess's education in Aurellanza?"
"It was," Hermi replied, weaving yet another lie. "But I would appreciate it if you slowed your pace. Must I remind you that I have a wound freshly stitched merely an hour ago?"
Otho's answer was maddeningly blunt. "Would you ask to slow down if your wounds were fully open, and ten monsters were behind you with no better intention than filling their bellies with your meat?"
Hermi's face darkened at the mental image. "I value my life enough not to ask for something so foolish."
"Good!" Otho barked, sounding as though that were the only acceptable reply. "We don't even have a monster chasing us yet. This pace is barely half the speed you'll need for a real hunt. If you can't tolerate this pain now, you won't survive the field. The injuries there are far more severe than a stray arrow, Your Majesty."
Understanding dawned on Hermi. Otho was using this ride to teach her the actual skills required for the field. She clenched her teeth and refocused, keeping her eyes locked on his back as she urged her mount to match his pace.
Seeing her effort, Otho let out an exhilarated laugh that sliced through the wind. "That is the spirit! Ferramonte finally has itself a queen who is a warrior!"
The praise brought unexpected heat to Hermi's cheeks. A strange blend of thrill and pride swelled within her, spurring her to press even faster.
Within five minutes, Hermi caught up to Otho's pace. When she rode past the Commander, she stole a glance at him. The look on Otho's face was one of genuine pride. He was watching her with unmistakable approval.
A sudden heat tinged the corners of Hermi's eyes, and she forced her gaze away to hide any vulnerability she might have let slip out carelessly. Having grown up without a father, Hermi wondered if this was what it felt like to have one: to be guided and praised by an older, wiser man, who prepared her for the grit her mother couldn't teach, even if those lessons were merely about how to run for her life.
After another thirty minutes of riding, they finally pulled up at a vantage point. It was a massive shelf of rock jutting out from the mountain's flank. The late afternoon sky had turned a murky orange, bruised with bluish-grey patches of cloud.
Up here, the air was thin and dry, biting at her skin with a high-altitude chill. The world fell away below them, vast and massive, as if the entirety of Ferramonte had been laid out before her eyes.
"Your Majesty, we've arrived," Otho said, dismounting. He strode toward the edge of the precipice, planting his hands on his hips in a commanding pose as he surveyed the horizon.
Hermi followed his lead, climbing down and picking her way carefully over the jagged surface. "If we have arrived, Commander," she said, "then I am ready to hear exactly why I had to come all the way up here, just to understand why you knights bear no resentment toward your King."
Otho did not turn around to face her. His voice carried clear and unwavering against the wind. "It is only from here that you can see for yourself just how kind this place we call our kingdom truly is."
Hermi's face twisted in shock. The veteran Commander surely had suffered a mental lapse from the long grueling ride.
"Commander, I beg your pardon. Did you somehow confuse unkind with kind?"
Hermi had spent a week traveling through Ferramonte. She had witnessed firsthand how harsh, barren, and utterly lifeless the land was. She knew, with the certainty of someone whose lungs still burned from volcanic dust, that this place was anything but kind.
Otho let out a hearty laugh, the sound echoing off the rocks. "The land is unkind, yes. But the entirety of what you are seeing? That is kindness. It is only from here that you can see all the people who make up your kingdom, Your Majesty."
Hermi frowned, still looking thoroughly perplexed. She stepped a little further toward Otho, then followed his gaze downward into the vast expanse once more, forcing herself to observe again.
From this height, the Black Fortress was the easiest to spot. It was merely an obsidian stain against the rocky, ashy grey of the mountain.
Lower down the slopes, villages were scattered like handfuls of small clusters of houses, clinging stubbornly to the earth. Not far from them lay the mines, which were basically gaping wounds in the mountainside, with tiny flickers of torchlight pulsing like a rhythmic heartbeat against the dark stone.
Seeing the confusion etched on Hermi's face, Otho finally offered an answer to clear the fog. "Have you any idea who lives in those villages, who works in those mines, or who protects our fortress city?"
Hermi turned to him, her voice skeptical. "Starving people? The terribly mistreated?"
Otho had himself another good laugh, which only confused Hermi further. "Starving, perhaps. Mistreated? At times. But compared to the lives they once endured, this place is salvation."
Hermi said nothing for a long moment. She looked at the mines again, where the torchlight pulsed like the heartbeat of a dying man.
"You're... telling me... this is salvation?" she muttered at last, her voice fractured with disbelief.
Otho's expression remained as solid as stone. "It is. Your Majesty, your kingdom is not made up of ordinary citizens like the other six realms. We are a massive collection of the continent's worst criminals and exiles."
Hermi's eyes widened, a fragment of her mother's stories resurfacing in her mind. Ferramonte had always been the dumping ground where the six kingdoms discarded the people they no longer wanted.
"And you were one of them?" she asked, her voice going quiet.
"Indeed," Otho confirmed without a hint of shame. "I came from the coast, from the wealthy and powerful Olyndros. The islands were lush and radiant, all connected by great sweeping stone bridges."
"What happened?" she pressed.
"It is a long story." Otho shook his head. "I was once a naval officer. My mistake was redeemable, but my opponents made sure I was erased once my sentence was served. That was how I ended up here."
Hermi sighed, looking out at the bleak horizon. "You're saying your life before Ferramonte was worse than this?"
Otho laughed again, but this time the sound carried a bitter edge. "You have no idea. But it wasn't just the treatment. It was the burden of being nothing. In our native kingdoms, as criminals, we were viewed as trash. Unwanted. Discardable. Here, in Ferramonte, we are no longer trash. We have purpose. We have identity. Under His Majesty, King Cassian, we are deemed useful once more."
Hermi fell into a state of utter speechlessness. The word useful echoed in her mind like a statement of defeated acceptance. Otho spoke of purpose, but all she saw was a man who had been broken by the world, and then taught to be grateful for the smallest scraps left in the dirt.
"Even so, you don't deserve this sort of life!" Hermi let out a frustrated cry. She felt a surge of prickly indignation on his behalf, a fury that he seemed either too tired, or too loyal to feel for himself.
Her voice leapt several octaves, the sheer force of it making Otho flinch in surprise. "Cassian could have done more, but he chose not to! Just because he gave you an identity doesn't mean he owns your souls!"
Otho stared at Hermi, taken aback by the ferocity of her outburst. For a moment, the seasoned Commander seemed to be at a total loss for words. He had clearly not anticipated such passion.
Hermi pressed on, shouting into the wind as if she didn't care if Cassian himself were standing right behind her.
"You should have clean water, free of the taste of minerals! You should have soil so fertile that fields of crops roll endlessly down these mountains! You deserve forests of pines and oaks that breathe life into the air, not this suffocating dust! If you claim you have found life in this wretched land, then you must live like you actually possess one. Not just barely hang on!"
Out of breath, Hermi finally forced herself to pause. She had plenty more to pour out, but her throat had gone painfully dry. Otho fell into a heavy silence, watching her as she gasped for air. It took a long moment before he found his voice again.
"If you truly believe that, Your Majesty... would you be the one to bring about such change?"
"I don't know how I will make any of it come true yet," Hermi said. "But as long as I still breathe, I will change all of this!"
Otho looked as though he were on the verge of tears. The old Commander suddenly dropped to one knee, lowering his head to hide his vulnerability against the setting sun.
"On behalf of all the people of Ferramonte," he said, his voice trembling with a weight Hermi had never felt before, "I offer our humble gratitude to you, Your Majesty. May you breathe until the very end of time."