The hills of southern Valcres fell away beneath them, soft with winter's last breath.
Saint Joan rode at the head of her force, a white cloak flapping behind her like a banner of defiance, though no sigil adorned it.
She carried no standard.
She didn't need one.
The people followed her name, not her heraldry.
They had called her mad once.
A heretic.
A hallucination born of fever dreams and peasant prayers.
But now?
Now she was a commander through and through.
No — a symbol.
One that moved like light through the ruin Francia had become in the east.
Romanus had driven like an arrow through the flesh that is Francia, and in doing so thousands of people uprooted and fled for their lives, some were captured by the nobles and pressed into the impression forces sent to push the Romans back, while others successfully escaped, but then came news of the impression forces defeat.
