Page 50

Chapter 50

Thevin

“ Right side, rank up!” Lanna’s voice boomed in the fray of war. My sword was already drawn, slicing through a black vine, thick as my leg, as it crept over the decayed soil.

The Baron had been true to her word, portaling us only a dozen yards from where the Blight Line coursed over the tall green grasses of what once was Hyrithia .

But the city it had been was no more. We had fought over its ruin for years, pushing the Blight Line back and forth over the hills and city gates. Just weeks ago, it had been taken again, the Blightress sending an endless army of her Blighted creatures, capturing no less than eight of our Wieldwryns to turn to syphoner trees.

I gripped my sword with both hands, slicing up and through the Blight beast jumping toward me with a maw of grotesque canines dripping in black ooze.

“ Runners , forward push!” Lanna called.

We joined the line of them already assembled, ready to descend upon the ruins as soon as we arrived. Saelyn would be here by now, but I couldn’t turn back to look. I could only move forward, swiping long thick cuts across the beasts and vines that would consume the isle without those left to defend it.

Cut , turn, jab. Slash , duck, run.

It was always the same. A never-ending torrent of black flesh falling to pieces before more would rise again from the desiccated earth. Where we mourned our losses and searched far and wide for more to commit to our cause, the Blightress need only extend her hand and pull forth more of her dark monsters from the Blighted land.

Our only successes were born from clever tricks and distractions, wearing her power down and pushing forward as we did now.

The city walls half crumbled to the ground, and what was left of the Castle of Hyrithia remained tall in the distance, now covered in Blight since last I’d seen it.

It had been difficult to leave the last time the ruins had been captured. My parents and I had been a part of the last attempt to hold the city. At the dismal end of that last battle, I felt as if I fell with it, watching my friends patch up their wounds, several of them missing on the battlefield.

My father had patted my back, reminding me that we would not give up, that hope did not elude us. I had thought of Sae then, sunning somewhere in Felgren , safe and happy, waiting for her best friend to come back home.

It had been so hard not to tell her everything. Everything I knew, everything she was missing. I hadn’t been able to hold back that night when we danced, no more than I’d been able to step away from her lips pressed to mine last night.

“ Thevin ! On your left!”

I heard the warning before the prowling beast struck, this one not a creature formed of the Blight , but one long-dead muri, pinning me down to the blackened soil. Its mangled jaw exposed white bone with strips of flesh flapping in decay, slick with black blood.

I grabbed its throat, holding back its sharp teeth with one hand, reaching across my baldric for one of the daggers with the other. The palm of my hand sunk through dead flesh and skin, cutting on a broken bone at its neck. Ignoring the pain, I sliced into its chest, then up, stalling its force of claws like knives at my shoulders. Lanna was there before I could finish the job, one swift movement of her sword across its head and it fell from its body—right onto my face.

“ Fuck ,” I coughed, pushing the corpse from my chest and wiping the black blood from my eyes.

“ Keep your head on what’s in front of you, not behind you.” She breathed deep with a grin on her face and a hand out to pull me up.

I took it, rising to see the field covered in an emerald light domed above us, pushing toward the castle.

Lanna huffed a laugh, grinning wide as she looked over my shoulder. “ Baron Karus just lit the sun.”

I turned, shielding my eyes in the golden, blinding light, barely able to make out the Baron crossing the field with it held high in front of her.

The Simulair Solum spell was the first to be taught to the channelers that would one day enter the force of Wieldwryns , though I had never seen it so large and emitting such a heat as this.

The hiss of receding Blight was a sound I’d never get used to. I cringed hearing the death of what had brought destruction over these lands. I looked around for Sae , unable to see her as the Baron moved swiftly across the field with her army of Wieldwryns . As Runners , our job was almost done, making a cleared path to the castle gates. We would continue forward to cut down any more opposition, but we’d meet little push back, the Blight and beasts of its nature unable to withstand the light of the glowing sun for long. A lick of fire began to burn along the castle towers, no doubt produced somewhere by the Handless King himself.

“ Runners !” Lanna called with her sword held high, beaming in the light of the Baron’s spell. “ Tighten the line! Push to the castle doors!”

I spit black blood to the ground and wiped my mouth, gagging at the distinct taste of rotted flesh and bitter remnant of the Blight which had consumed the animal. I wrapped my bleeding palm in a strip of cloth Lanna handed to me, tying it at the back of my hand. Thankfully , it wasn’t my sword hand that stung like fire.

Glancing down the line of Runners , I counted around forty of us, recognizing plenty of faces who had seen the same amount of war as I had. A few of them more, a few less.

Lanna marched forward, the sun from the Baron’s spell directly overhead, shining a light into the black abyss and destroying all in its path. Of all the battles I’d fought, this was turning into the easiest to win. After seventeen years, we really might just have the power we needed to complete the Dimming and bring peace back to the isle.

We pushed on, meeting little resistance. With each swipe of our blades across the vines and creatures that dwelled under the city gates, ash soon followed, destroying the Blightress’s dark forces to nothing but a coat of dust on the land.

The westward city gate, only twenty feet away from our line, remained broken and open since Hyrithia had first fell to the Blight ten years ago. I had only been a boy, hearing my parents’ hushed whispers about the fall while we searched for Runners and Wieldwryns in the Attatok Mountains .

The Blight vines on the walls fell in tremendous crashes, torn from their purchase by the heat of the sun that hovered into the city. Lanna entered first, cutting through the vines and thorns like warm butter, their resistance muted in the power we now held on our side.

“ Runners ,” she called, “pair off and surround the castle!”

We did as our commander ordered, Lanna and I running into the city to find it empty, the growth of Blight receding as we raced to the castle doors.

“ She’s pulling her forces back,” I huffed.

“ Don’t let your guard down.”

I nodded, flexing my left hand, tightening it into a fist to ease the pain of my wound.

“ We need a Wieldwryn ,” she mumbled directly to me before amplifying her voice to reach through the city. “ This is Commander Lanna . I need a Wieldwryn Commander at the castle doors.”

I caught my breath, focusing on the formation of Runners who stood in pairs around the black-stained stone, swords at the ready.

A portal opened beside us and Clairannia stepped out, already focusing her power to form a sun of her own over her palm. It glowed a glittering crimson, the size of a dinner plate and nowhere near the enormity of the one that still hovered above us.

Clairannia stepped toward Lanna , speaking low, “ The Baron cannot hold this and the shield much longer.” She pointed above us to the flickering sun and glassy green dome. “ I’ve been ordered by the King to empty the throne room first, and then we will send the rest of the Wieldwryn forces inside to inspect the rest of the castle.”

Lanna nodded, replying, “ The Blightress is pulling her forces back. We’ve met little opposition.”

Clairannia glanced to me, and I gave her a short nod, lifting my sword again. She flicked her fingers, sending her simulated sun toward the castle doors. The hinges groaned and flew open. I stepped in front of Clairannia alongside Lanna , who gave a sharp whistle to the dozen Runners nearby to follow.

The castle was empty. Though stains of black painted the once gray-blue stone walls and tables, there was little sign of the Blight .

We stalked quietly through the foyer, turning left down a long hall. Clairannia sent her glowing light through the broken doors of the throne room, illuminating the mosaic of thistle on the floor. A spread of Blight roots recessed immediately, disintegrating into ash and staining the floor in a spread of black lines. The intricate tiles had been uprooted near the grand dais, now a gaping hole into the earth where the Blight had sprouted from underneath the castle.

I studied the domed glass ceiling, surveying for structural damage that could fall and kill us all. “ Call for the Lapis Wieldwryn , Ilyenna ,” I ordered, turning to Flynn , a Runner I recognized and trusted. He nodded, sprinting back down the hall to give the order to the army catching up to us.

Clairannia pulled her sun back to her hands, instead sending a shield of red to encircle the domed ceiling to prevent any possible debris falling onto the soldiers arriving into the throne room.

“ Thevin’s wounded,” Lanna noted and Clairannia , regaining her breath from the effort of holding the sun so long, reached out her hand to take mine.

“ It’s nothing,” I replied. I pointed across the hall to the Runner holding a torn shirt at her side, her head tucked between her legs as blood dripped to the floor. “ She’s first.”

Clairannia nodded, hurrying to the dais.

I sheathed my sword and ran my fingers through my hair. “ It was too much for her,” I commented, watching the throne room doors as Lanna did. “ The Blightress’s failed attack on the Spire was a loss for her hold on Hyrithia as well.”

“ I don’t trust it,” she said, sheathing her own sword and crossing her arms. “ Why would she give up Hyrithia so easily when she used so much force to take it back only a few weeks ago?”

“ She wouldn’t be able to hold it. Not with Baron Karus fighting now.”

She let out a weighing sigh. “ She just backed off entirely. Not a single casualty or stolen Wieldwryn on our side. It was too easy.”

Unsettled at her words, I just nodded, inspecting the gash on my palm. It wasn’t looking good.

“ Get to someone who can heal you,” Lanna said, cringing at the open flesh, “ That’s an order.”