Page 41

Leaving Kolreath behind, Aemyra peered through the rain for any sign of a cobalt dragon. Anxiety banded across her chest as she thought of what might have happened to her husband within those walls for him to fail so spectacularly.

Draevan was already striding toward Gealach, knowing the real battle was yet to come. The green dragon was stretching his neck experimentally; his injury didn’t seem life-threatening.

“Cailleach spare us, Beira lend us courage, Brigid grant us your strength, Cliodna we invoke your grace, and Brenna steady us,” Aemyra intoned as she mounted her dragon, weathering her fear.

The two dragons rose into the air in perfect synchronization.

The army was amassed outside the city gate. Orderly lines of men storming the walls where hundreds of their companions lay wounded in the shadow of the battlements. Adarian shone like burnished copper upon his horse as he roared orders at the front lines. Dùileach wielded their elements alongside their weapons. Roots sprang from the ground and crawled up the battlements, jets of steam shot up the walls, and archers were blown clean off their perches.

“Fall back!” she screamed as Terrea flew over the wall, picking up two archers with her claws.

Aemyra tried not to watch as the dragon released them, and their bodies broke apart on the rooftops.

She spared a glance for the caisteal, where no doubt Katherine, the princesses, and the children were gathered. Was Fiorean with them? Was he even still breathing?

Her heart clenched painfully at the thought of what Alfred might have done. Fiorean was a talented fighter, but if his magic was bound he was still just one man trapped inside a caisteal with hundreds of Covenanters.

If that was true, Aemyra couldn’t understand why Aervor was nowhere to be found.

Gealach aimed for the city gate and the archers atop the walls loosed their bolts, spearing through the membranous green wings. Draevan’s beathach let forth a frustrated roar as Terrea banked over the city.

The Covenanters were fighting in the streets with the city guards. Athair Alfred wasn’t hiding them inside the caisteal any longer. Despite the size of the force Evander had unleashed within the capital, Draevan did not balk as he pushed his dragon toward the battlements.

Gealach loosed another jet of flame upon the city gate. Huge chunks of stone flew into the air, tumbling to the ground on both sides of the wall.

Her army didn’t hesitate, even as the city guards abandoned their posts and fled from the fire. Through the sheeting rain and clouds of dust, her soldiers advanced toward the ruined gate, the Dùileach at the center protecting them from the smoke. Adarian was leading the charge with his golden armor gleaming and hammer held aloft.

The emerald dragon landed atop the crumbling battlements, and Draevan dismounted. Where Dorchadas swung, death followed.

“I need to get down there!” Aemyra shouted to Terrea.

Her dragon growled in bloodthirsty agreement. Her people needed to see their queen fighting for them. It no longer mattered that the original plan had been for Aemyra to remain safely on dragon back.

With Fiorean nowhere to be found, their plan was already fucked.

Terrea let out a menacing roar as she aimed for where the dust was settling. There was just enough space for the dragon to land before the vanguard reached the broken gate.

Her heart pounding as Terrea hit the ground with a thunderous crash, Aemyra slid from her dragon’s back and unsheathed Fearsolais.

Today she would not fail her people.

“With me!” she roared, sprinting ahead of the advancing army and scrambling over debris. Flames licked across her armor, lighting the way through the smoke.

With a decisive rumble, Terrea took to the skies after Gealach, her violet underbelly the same color as the bruised clouds pouring rain down on the city.

Despite the danger that awaited her on the other side of the wall, Aemyra was not afraid. She had never been more aware of her heartbeat as she clutched the runic hilt of Fearsolais and wreathed her left hand in fire. She had never felt more alive.

A cry rose up behind her, barely audible above the roars of the dragons and the screams of dying men. But as she crested the rubble and flung herself into the fray, the rain could not drown out what her soldiers were chanting.

“For the true queen!”

Almost rolling her ankle on a large chunk of what had once been the wall, Aemyra jumped into the street that was as familiar to her as the back of her hand.

The city gate was splintered and broken, dragonfire crackling from nearby buildings. Draevan, clad in obsidian armor, was climbing freshly dead corpses to reach the soldiers of àird Lasair battling behind the shattered wall.

Appearing out of the smoke, Aemyra watched her queen’s guard fight their way toward her. Laoise brandished fire and fighting knives with impressive dexterity. Nell wielded their vines like whips as Clea blew smoke to blind those who would wound the queen. Iona was ice personified, her eyes glacial as she froze the very blood of any city guard who got too close.

Aemyra pushed her greatest fears about Fiorean to the back of her mind.

“With me!” she yelled again, her voice carrying over the heads of the men and women fighting for her.

A fearsome cry went up from her army as they attacked the city with renewed vigor.

Despite all of Aemyra’s training, she hadn’t realized that battle would be pandemonium. Men and women were fighting on all sides, in such a crush of bodies that she could barely tell who was friend and who was foe.

She clutched her sword more tightly as they advanced past the gatehouse. For an indeterminable amount of time, they progressed at a crawl as those fighting in front of them tried to push through the rubble-strewn street.

Cutting down a woman in front of her, Aemyra lifted her chin to look through the wreckage and saw the reason they were struggling to gain ground.

Covenanters were blocking the street.

The soldiers of the True Religion were advancing, pendants around their necks and swords in hand.

Aemyra’s limbs began tingling, and fear speared through her core so acutely it made her stumble. The memory of the last time she had seen those pendants flooded her mind and suddenly she felt as though she were choking on incense.

“Brigid, Goddess of strength, power, and hope, be with me,” Aemyra muttered desperately.

With a heavy exhale, she allowed flames to snake up the blade of Fearsolais. She would not let the Covenanters lay hands on her today.

Propelled by the soldiers, Aemyra saw the walls pass on either side of her and suddenly she faced the enemy.

Heart in her mouth and chest tight, she slipped into the automatic rhythm of swinging her sword. Ears ringing as steel met steel, she parried and thrust against each person who turned against her. Aemyra lost herself to the rhythm of death.

Many of the Covenanters underestimated her strength because she was a woman. Several of them even hesitated before swinging for her. They all died for that mistake.

Her father was only meters away from her, felling more soldiers than anyone else. She ducked and swerved, dispatching one enemy only for another to advance before she even had time to breathe.

Aemyra twisted her blade and gutted a brown-haired man where he tried to strike her left side. He fell with a cry, his hands automatically cradling his stomach, trying to keep his innards from sliding out.

Aemyra didn’t spare him a glance before sprinting off into the alley that led up the hill toward the caisteal in pursuit of her father.

Gealach flew steadily through the air high above àird Lasair. Never straying far from Draevan but high enough that no more crossbow bolts could reach him.

Terrea clearly had no such qualms. Her dragon landed with a crash upon houses and towers, her jaws crunching around any Covenanter she could find. Soon stray limbs were raining down upon them as Terrea flung dismembered bodies from her mouth, her screeches of bloodlust filling the city streets.

Breath coming in great gasps as she sprinted, Aemyra swung her sword toward anyone who got too close. Her fire took care of those without pendants.

Halting her swings, she peered down the street, to find Màiri wielding what little fire she possessed, blowing smoke to blind soldiers, using her magic indirectly to get around the protective pendants.

Pàdraig’s friend Colm was farther behind, pulling water up from the well and fashioning it into shards of ice, which he shot toward the soldiers with a flick of his finger.

The people of àird Lasair were fighting for her.

The street was a crush of bodies. The blood that sprayed from the soldiers she killed reminded her too much of the last time she had smelled the bite of iron on her skin.

Despite this, she fought on.

The soldiers who battled beside her were determined, their swords unwavering. Like they believed Aemyra would be the queen to save them.

Out of nowhere, a hand closed around the end of her braid, yanking her back. But before her assailant could thrust his hammer through her head, she dropped her dagger and loosed a jet of fire from her left palm that burned through his face. The man dropped like a stone and Aemyra gave thanks that he hadn’t been wearing a pendant.

“Adarian!” Aemyra shouted as she spotted her brother, his hatchet buried in a man’s skull.

Sprinting for him, she became aware that the priestesses had launched themselves into the fray. Several soldiers had managed to break down the temple doors.

Searching in vain for Eilidh, Aemyra made her way to her brother. There was a cut across Adarian’s eyebrow that was dripping blood, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

“We need to get into the caisteal,” she gasped as her soldiers fought around them, guarding their queen.

Ducking automatically as Terrea swept low over the rooftops, her black wings spread wide, Aemyra connected to the Bond. Her dragon was on the cusp of razing the entire city to the ground. Pendants were no protection against dragonfire, but Aemyra wasn’t yet desperate enough to burn half of her army, or the innocent people trapped within the city.

With a rueful glance toward the bridge, Aemyra knew that their only hope to take the city without mass casualties would be to find Fiorean.

Aemyra shoved her twin in their father’s direction.

“For the Goddess,” Aemyra said to her brother.

“For you,” he replied.

Adarian assumed his position beside her, and the twins charged through the battle toward their father, who was an obsidian shadow as he cut a path through the Covenanters into the caisteal, already one step ahead of Aemyra.

Finding her path blocked, Aemyra launched herself at a large Covenanter swinging an axe.

“Hello, Queenie,” he said, licking his lips.

He swiped at her and she had to throw herself backward, landing heavily on the cobblestones with a cry.

Aemyra scrabbled for the hilt of her sword, having dropped it as she fell. The Covenanter’s heavy boots thudded behind her, and she turned in time to see a Savior’s pendant around his neck.

She just managed to clutch her sword and roll as the axe fell to the ground where her head had been mere moments before.

Adarian was battling three soldiers, his hatchet and sword swinging in tandem.

“Adarian!” she screamed.

Scrambling to her feet, Aemyra ducked as the axe flew over her head again, several strands of auburn hair falling to the ground.

“I wasn’t planning on cutting my hair, you dirty great oaf,” Aemyra seethed, launching herself at the giant of a man with renewed vigor.

Her arms shaking, she met his swing, catching the wood of his axe with the blade of her sword. The handle splintered but held fast. Using Aemyra’s momentum against her, she was flung away from him.

Aemyra landed on her back again, too winded to get up.

She gasped for breath, fingers stretching for her sword. She blinked the blood of the people she had killed from her eyes and watched as the man above her smiled. His teeth were stained red, and Aemyra felt her bowels turn to water.

The axe glinted as it fell, and Aemyra lifted one hand in front of her face fruitlessly.

Suddenly, a warrior wearing jet-black armor slid in between them. Knees braced under him, a magic-forged sword sliced directly through the wood of the axe.

The weapon clattered to the ground and Aemyra rolled to avoid losing a limb.

With a vengeful cry, Draevan stood and thrust Dorchadas right through the Covenanter’s belly. She felt faintly sick as she watched him pull it free, the blade covered in gore.

Her assailant dead, Draevan had his hand outstretched, and concern laced his bloodstained face. She gripped his fingers tightly, choking back a frightened sob as he pulled her to her feet.

Adarian hobbled over and without a word covered her back as their father half dragged her over the bridge to the caisteal.

The queen’s guard faced down any Covenanter or guard who tried to follow.

Ducking to avoid a jet of water thrown by Iona, Aemyra watched a great bubble form over the mouth and nose of a guard, and he clawed at his face, desperate for the air he could no longer reach. The water Dùileach wasted no time, and fashioned two icicles in her palms, which she wielded like daggers. Nell expertly snapped their vines around the guards, breaking bones like they were twigs.

Could Aemyra dare to hope that they might win even without Fiorean’s help?

The thick walls of the caisteal swallowed the horrific noise of the fighting outside, and Aemyra’s breath was loud in her ears as she followed her father up the eerily quiet corridor.

“They will have gathered in the throne room,” Draevan said. “With whatever guards and protection they could muster as a last defense.”

Adarian and Aemyra followed their father through the corridors at a light jog, weapons held aloft, peering carefully around corners lest any of them come face-to-face with a crossbow.

Draevan was gaining speed, almost accelerating into a sprint as they approached the throne room and Aemyra hurried after him, Adarian following behind.

“Aems, you should—”

Aemyra didn’t listen to her brother as she sprinted ahead of her father, desperate to arrive in the room first. She had to know if Fiorean was alive or in chains.

But the large doors weren’t barred and Aemyra skidded to a stop, her heavy footfalls echoing through the cavernous room as she suddenly understood why the city had not yielded to their queen.

Sitting on the golden throne that she herself had yet to even touch, looking for all the world like he was supposed to be there, was Fiorean.