Free Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) by Chrysoula Tzavelas

where they will come. You saw. This is where our job is.” She sat down on the top step of the dais and glanced at the crowd behind her family. Most of them were watching her now. She looked back, solemnly, and then turned to see Jant’s unexpected faint smile. He huddled under his umbrella with two guardsmen close behind him. Seandri and Seandri’s Regent Harthen stood at his elbows. Jant had insisted on coming, despite his dread of the open sky. It made the journey to the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts through the crowded streets even slower.
    Yithiere’s frown deepened. “Our ‘job’ is hardly soothing broken hearts. We have a war to fight.”
    Jerya sighed. “We have more than one. Everything is confused and disorganized, Uncle. The city is a mess. It’s two thirds its size suddenly, with much of the same population. That isn’t going to just sort itself out. Somebody will have to make decisions.”
    “The Justiciars and the mayor—”
    “I don’t trust the Justiciars and the mayor,” Jerya said, her voice rising. She caught herself and modulated her tone. “I want to be here. We can organize the war from here, can’t we? The Royal Guard has mobilized at Mousame. And if anybody wants our help with restoring the city, we’ll be easy to find.”
    The Justiciars had claimed another inn for their own court. Guards and clerks surrounded it, just like their Court. It was, she supposed, safe, but it was also isolated. She needed to be different than the Justiciars. She would be who the people thought about when they required guidance. She wanted, deep inside, to take that from the Justiciars. They’d tried so hard to shut her out of governance, keep her family as figureheads.
    “Oh, they’ll want your help,” said a new voice. “They’ll want answers, too, just like that young man. Well done, by the way.” Just beyond her uncles stood Lady Alanah, the Royal Family’s martial instructor. She was an ordinary looking woman, near forty: average height, with brown hair pulled back in a bun and her skin dark enough to show that some of her ancestors had been of Royal Blood. She was armed like a Guardsman, which was uncommon in a woman but not remarkable. Her snapping hazel eyes, fringed with dark lashes and vivid even at fifteen paces seemed to be the only reason anybody would notice her... until she moved, because she moved like a tiger. Even now, only weeks after she’d had her third child, she looked like she could embarrass a troop of Royal Guard while thinking about something else.
    “Alanah,” said Jerya, smiling. She’d known the noblewoman most of her life. Lady Alanah, the daughter of a local count, had a genius for tactics and combat that had earned her an appointment as Royal instructor before she was twenty-five. “I’m glad to see you. I hope the rest of your family escaped safely? How is the baby?”
    “Yes, everybody is well. Quite an orderly retreat. The children are with my mother in her house at Quinn Crescent.” She glanced toward the east side of the city. “As I was saying, I’m getting questions about what happened and why. People are starting to make up their own stories. It was an ill-omened night for the mountain to shrug. Good work on Shanasee’s part, though. That helped enormously, although we may need to remind people of it.” Alanah spoke in the brusque, diffident way she talked about everything except martial arts and her children.
    Jerya frowned. “We will.” She rested her hands on her knees. “You also said they’d ask for help? Have there been other requests? More survivors on roofs?”
    “No more of those, sadly. But dozens of another sort,” Alanah assured her. “Nothing you can reasonably grant.”
    “Like what?” Jerya asked with a flicker of annoyance that Alanah made that decision without her.
    Alanah glanced to her side, where another lieutenant of the Royal Guard stood waiting patiently. “People are trying to cross back over to the north side of