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CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

K aiser used his possession to lead me through the streets of Cinder Vale at a ferocious pace while a sea of civilians raced for the protection of the citadel. The crowing magpies swooped overhead, urging on the city’s people as if they truly cared for them.

Children were gathered in their parents’ arms or running along at their feet, their faces pale with terror. I doubted Kaiser would need a single drop of fear from me to recharge his magic while the air was this thick with it.

I’d always thought my battles would be fought on open ground, warrior against warrior, but that had been foolish now I considered it. I’d witnessed first-hand the attack on Castelorain, and Cascada wasn’t above doing the same to our enemies.

My stomach knotted as a crying baby was carried past me.

Some of these people were going to die today.

The huge dam that held back the canal at the peak of the furthest hill came into view beyond the houses, but Kaiser pulled me to the right, turning me to the north.

We knocked into a teenage couple who were hand in hand and the girl staggered into me.

I righted her, our eyes meeting as a word of thanks passed her lips but I remained mute in response.

My people were the cause of the panic in her eyes.

She shouldn’t have been thanking me for anything and I shouldn’t have been helping her either.

But as I looked at her pale face, I couldn’t help but see her for the innocent adolescent she was instead of the enemy I’d been raised to despise.

She ran on with her partner and Kaiser forced me to keep running beside him with his possession.

A formation of flying Orders raced by overhead, a stream of Flamebringers splitting into two paths, one for the dam and the other for the rocky northern plain where Pyros planned to lure the Skyforgers and Raincarvers away from the city.

The brightly-coloured pelts of Pegasuses, the golden fur of Manticores and the flash of winged Harpies all blurred together as one as they headed for battle.

Cries of encouragement rang out from the civilians in the city, wishes of good luck and prayers to the stars.

Archers were gathering on the rooftops, leaping from one to the next before crouching down and vanishing into the haze of a concealment spell, ready to defend the streets if their enemies got this far.

I looked to Kaiser, my teeth clenching against his possession. I’d only used the Void on one person at a time before, did he really think I could subdue an entire army or more?

An old man was hobbling down the street ahead of us, and his entire family were surrounding him, urging him on.

“I’m going, I’m going,” he grumbled, his legs taking achingly small steps.

“I’ll carry you,” offered a teenager who I assumed was his grandson.

“Not a chance.” The old man waved his cane at the boy. “I won’t be carried like a sack of grain.”

We ran past them and I looked back over my shoulder, my throat tight with concern. These people didn’t deserve to die. They might have been Flamebringers, but they weren’t warriors. I doubted any one of them had struck a blade against Cascada.

“You’re afraid for them,” Kaiser commented.

Heat burned a line across my cheeks at being caught out.

“They’re civilians. No innocents deserve death in this war,” I growled. “Just like my mother didn’t deserve it.”

He said nothing in answer to that and a biting coldness took root in me. I didn’t mention his family, but the unsaid words were loud enough. Neither of us should have lost the people we loved in the ways we had. But I wasn’t the one who had been the deliverer of death.

The northern cliff loomed ahead, the towering expanse of volcanic rock curving up toward the star-lit sky.

A clash of magic rang out somewhere beyond that high ridge along with the roar of battle. It had started.

Kaiser guided me to a wide tunnel that cut right into the rock and we hurried into the pitch black space.

Calcifiend appeared from his jacket pocket, lighting his tail and taking off on small wings to guide the way.

The steps were as steep as the Escalade at Never Keep, the black rock polished to a sheen.

We began the climb, never slowing, and I was thankful for all the years I’d spent scaling the hills of Castelorain because this ascent would have been a bitch otherwise.

“Where are we going?” The pointless question left my lips.

Kaiser didn’t reply.

I thought of the Sky Witch back in that dungeon, wishing I could have gotten her out of that hellish place before the fighting started. I supposed her fate depended on who won this battle now.

Everything was out of my control. I wished to fight. To run to my people and join them in battle. But at the same time, I didn’t want to play a part in overrunning Cinder Vale. I couldn’t bear the thought of my homeland’s warriors spilling into the city and killing innocents.

We finally reached the top of the endless steps and my breaths came heavily as we ran out onto a high ridge that stood at the precipice of the northern cliff.

Beyond us, a field of volcanic wastes spread toward the horizon where mountains clustered like colluding beasts.

To the west, the Blackthorn canal cut through the wasteland like an arrow, the heated water steaming as it speared through the black rock all the way to the dam at the tip of the basin which housed Cinder Vale.

A fleet of Cascadian ships lined the canal, our finest war vessels waving the flag of Cascada, the sea serpent Typhon gazing hungrily out at enemy lands.

Shock jarred through me at the sight of the sky island above them, its imposing shadow casting the Cascadian fleet in darkness.

The air elementals were pouring off of Ironwraith to clash with the winged Flamebringers while the hulking mass of land continued ever onward toward the city, almost upon it already, but not one strike was made against the Cascadians beneath them.

I couldn’t understand what I was witnessing.

“Your land has allied with Stormfell to fight. They’re working together,” Kaiser said and I turned to him, every fibre of my being rejecting those words.

“Bullshit,” I snapped, feeling viscerally sick at the insinuation. “Cascada would never ally with them.”

The thunderous sound of war built around us as the Cascadians disembarked from their ships and blasted magic at the Flamebringers who had come to intercept them.

“See for yourself,” Kaiser said, pointing to them again and I forced myself to look.

Cascadian warriors were fighting side by side with the descending Skyforgers. Stormfell warriors were even landing on some of our ships and driving air into the sails to carry them faster toward the dam.

“No,” I refused. “They wouldn’t.”

“They have,” Kaiser said simply. “They know we have the Void. Their alliance is in aid of claiming you.”

I was silenced by those words for several seconds, shock rendering me speechless.

“How could they possibly know what I am?” I demanded.

“Mavus Angelico has been selling the information from land to land.”

Those words cut deeper than I ever imagined they might, gripping my heart and digging their claws in.

“Mavus sold me out?” I whispered to the wind.

He’d called me his friend and as pathetic as it was, I’d believed him.

I’d thought I’d meant something to him. But the second I’d shared my greatest secret with him, he’d travelled to the nearest place to sell it.

I was just another fucking product to him.

Goods to be traded to the highest bidder.

“Fuck!” Pure rage took the place of my shock and I released a cry of utter anger, kicking a nearby boulder. “That slimy, piece of shit conman. That manatee fucking trince o kaské . I’ll kill him. I’ll slice him open and feed every piece of his traitorous guts to the fishes!”

“It is inevitable that a man such as he would betray you. Are you truly surprised? I believe I am assessing your emotion correctly.”

“Oh just shut up,” I barked at him, hurt lancing through me.

Because of course Kaiser was right. His logical, basic, tree mind would never have fallen for Mavus’s compliments and sweet talking like mine had.

What care did a tree have for compliments about its apples?

But me? I’d been a damn fool who’d started to believe Mavus had my back, that he really wanted the best for me.

I’d actually thought he might come here to rescue me.

But that weaselly asshole had made whatever money he could out of me the second he’d seen the opportunity. And of course he had. It was so blindingly fucking obvious now. I’d let him talk me up, fallen for those lies he weaved about how great I was, how talented.

You fool, you fucking idiot, Everest. Mavus played you.