Page 20

CHAPTER 20

Elva could smell smoke drifting on the breeze and hoped they’d reach their campsite soon.

She couldn’t wait to stop for the evening so that she, Avi and Oriann could train.

Her pulse thrummed in anticipation – every time they moved through the fighting flow, she felt more and more like herself, a perfect distraction from the ceremony that would occur in a few days’ time on the full moon, on the exalted site of Tassos’ Ending.

‘That’s a lot of smoke,’ Avi said.

She looked in the direction he pointed, although it was easy to spot the plumes of grey rising above the trees.

The troops before her stopped, and she heard faint orders being relayed among them.

She raised an eyebrow in question at Avi, who groaned at her expression.

‘Please, don’t—’

She smirked and pressed her mount, leaving him with his mouth hanging open as she moved past the stationary ranks to find Fyn at the front of the troops, head bent in conversation with a soldier riding next to him.

She ignored the thrill of his focused expression as she pulled her horse to a halt.

‘Is there a village nearby?’ she asked.

‘Why would we tell you that?’ a voice spat at her.

She wasn’t surprised to turn and find Winsten glowering at her from under his helmet.

She’d gone out of her way to avoid him on the journey.

There was something specific about Winsten that made her blood boil.

She gritted her teeth, clamping down on the retort she desperately wanted to fling at him as he muttered, ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if it was your pack of ungodly maggots who caused this.

’

‘Vettona doesn’t burn villages,’ Avi said, coming to a halt on Winsten’s other side.

They didn’t.

It was well known that Vettona didn’t burn villages, or invade and murder innocents.

‘Says who?’ Winsten’s voice had a special twang to it that made her want to rip his tongue out, but again, she refrained from saying anything.

There was no point arguing with someone who couldn’t see the truth if it smacked them in the face.

She turned to Fyn, who was watching the back and forth with a flat stare.

For a second she thought he might side with Winsten.

‘Fires are a Clochain speciality; I doubt Vettona would suddenly have changed their tactics this far from the border with the peace treaty so close to being official. It’s probably an accident.

’

She thanked her lucky stars Vettona’s methods were so widely known.

It was one thing to defend the border, but another to raze a village, the livestock and the crops within, out of malice.

Wasteful and stupid was how she would describe that specific Clochain strategy if anyone asked her.

The smoke was acrid and had a deep note to it that struck a chord in her memory.

She shuddered, thinking back to the massacre at Anfa, the smells of blood and rotting flesh washed down with the rancid plumes of the fires.

She knew Fyn hadn’t been there, or Avi.

But she wondered if Winsten’s smirking face had been the one to set the blaze.

Anger seethed in her stomach at the thought.

‘Hey,’ the voice beside her said.

She snapped back into the present, expecting Avi to be by her side and was surprised to find it was Fyn.

‘I know Vettona wasn’t behind this.

The village we’ll be staying at is just around the bend.

They’re probably burning offerings.

’

She swallowed.

She didn’t think offerings would yield that much smoke, but she was thankful he seemed to agree it wasn’t her people.

The clatter of hooves sounded before two scouts rounded the corner, slowing as they neared the front of the procession.

Fyn, and a soldier Elva vaguely recognised as his second, pressed their horses into a trot to meet the approaching news, and without thinking much for the consequences, she matched their pace.

‘Get back in line,’ Fyn called to her when he realised she was following.

‘No.’

‘That’s an order, soldier.

’

‘Last I checked, I wasn’t your soldier,’ she shot back.

She had a bad feeling, and she couldn’t wait for this news to be relayed.

‘Sir, the village of Ard has been ransacked. We found no survivors, although...’ The scout trailed off, his breath coming in short gasps.

‘Although what?’ Fyn prompted, drawing his horse to a stop.

‘The bodies.’ The other scout looked at his partner, fear etched in the lines of his mouth, the only part of his face visible under the helmet.

‘The bodies have been... arranged.’

Her ears began ringing, and she pressed her horse closer to the scouts, eyes roaming over their uniforms to see if she could find—

‘Arranged how?’

‘It doesn’t make sense; there were no footsteps, no trails leaving the site.

’ Shock was starting to seep into the scouts, and if they didn’t get the information out of them right now then they wouldn’t at all.

Elva’s mind raced, thinking, thinking .

In a split second she made a decision.

‘Were they arranged in the shape of a star?’

All heads turned to look at her in disbelief but she didn’t care what Fyn or the soldiers thought if her hunch was correct.

Please, let me be wrong , she prayed to Rivalin.

One scout’s mouth dropped open, but the other nodded, blessing himself in the shape of a diamond as he confirmed her worst suspicion.

‘Are the bodies cold?’ she asked.

The scouts looked between them, confusion evident on their faces.

She could feel Fyn staring at her.

‘Are the bodies cold?’ she ground out again, trying to keep fear from trickling into her voice.

‘We didn’t check.

When we found no survivors, we left to report back.

’

Her gut dropped, and without a second thought she drove her horse forwards, moving into a gallop as she flew along the dirt road, the smoke of the fire growing thicker with every passing yard.

Shouts rang behind her and then hooves clattered as people gave chase, but she didn’t care, not when her worst nightmare was coming to life.

Again.

She reached into one of her saddle bags and brought out a cotton scarf to wrap around her face, shielding her breath from the ashes that fluttered like gems in the breeze.

Fyn hollered at her to stop, but she needed to see the wreckage before it was too late.

Ordering the horse to slow, she jumped from her saddle and ran forwards, taking several deep breaths to calm her rising panic.

The road ran through the middle of the small village, and steeling her nerves, she bolted down the side of a burning building to enter the town square.

What she beheld knocked the wind out of her.

Three of the shopfronts that lined the square were ablaze and flames licked the roofs, escaping from broken windows.

Doors hung from hinges and bags of grain lay scattered on the ground, as if whoever had done this had strewn the food as an offering.

At the heart of the square was a stone well with a wooden frame towering over it, a bronze bell hanging from its centre.

The bell was dripping blood, and every time the breeze picked up, it would rock with a quiet ring, red droplets falling into the water below.

Fanned out in the shape of a three-pointed star from the base of the well were the maimed, bloody corpses of the villagers.

The bodies were arranged, three to each spoke of the star.

She swallowed the urge to vomit and shoved away the memories that burst through her mental shield, of Neve’s lifeless body arranged in the same star.

No, a different star.

This is not the same massacre , she told herself.

A scream echoed in her head, and she couldn’t tell if it was Neve, or her own grief-stricken bellow.

The past and present merged: my fault, my fault, my fault.

The swell of the scream rose, but she took a deep breath, the smoke choking, and forced her mind to calm.

She was a warrior.

She could deal with this – she was trained to deal with this.

She opened her eyes and ran to the nearest body, a male in his forties whose bare feet and nightclothes suggested he’d been taken straight from bed.

She crouched and placed two fingers against his ankle.

The warmth of his body sent a jolt of anger straight into her gut.

She closed her eyes and sent a prayer to Avalon, knowing it would never be enough to amend the horror before her.

‘Get back here!’ Fyn called, his voice angry and close.

‘Elva!’

She rose slowly and turned to see him round the square, his footsteps faltering as he took in the massacre before him.

‘They’re warm,’ she called, moving to the next villager, a woman her mother’s age.

She touched her ankle, the heat of the corpse sending another shudder through her.

She sent another prayer to Avalon – the Bridge of Endings would be busy tonight.

‘What do you mean?’ Fyn called.

His voice cracked, and she closed her eyes.

She knew what he was feeling right then, the anger and fear and desperation.

But they didn’t have time.

Not now.

Not yet.

‘The bodies, they’re warm,’ she said, her eyes darting over the square, trying to find something.

.

.

she didn’t know what she was looking for, but she needed to find something.

Heavy footfalls sounded and someone gagged.

‘Private, send word to the platoon. All soldiers approach battle-ready. Units three and four spread out along the perimeter, the culprits are close by,’ Fyn called, and a soldier quickly pivoted and ran.

He gave the remaining three soldiers orders Elva didn’t hear, but she saw them spread out, eyes scanning the ground and she loosened a breath in relief, glad someone was looking for the culprits’ trail.

She moved on to the second spoke of the star and crouched near a woman whose neck was slashed.

It’s not Neve, she told herself, but that didn’t deter the urge to weep and howl and smash something at the injustice.

Fyn stopped near her shoulder and let out a string of low curses.

‘How did you know they would be arranged like this?’ he asked, voice husky from the smoke.

A breeze sent embers from the nearest house flying and he started coughing.

She unwrapped the scarf around her face and hacked a piece off with the knife hanging from her belt.

Walking to the well, she dunked the fabric into the half-full bucket and handed the cloth to Fyn.

He accepted it with a grateful look, his coughs subsiding as the mask softened the acrid air.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, surveying the carnage around them.

‘A year ago, at the Anfa massacre, we found a site similar to this. We assumed it was a message from Clochain.’ Scorn edged her words, and she looked at Fyn.

‘Was it?’

He met her gaze, the hostility of the last few weeks gone.

‘No. I’ve never heard of something like this.

’

Her emotions thrashed, but she locked them down again.

She didn’t want to believe him, but something in his words rang true, and her mind ran at a gallop trying to decipher what it meant.

‘Could it be your father?’ The words were treasonous, but standing in the wreckage she didn’t care.

Fyn shuddered and closed his eyes.

‘I’m not accusing him.

I’m asking if it’s a possibility.

’

He opened his eyes, pupils dilated with anger.

‘I don’t—’

A bang to their right sounded, and Elva ducked as the wall of a building collapsed, sending a billow of sparks and debris flying into the air.

Fyn moved quickly, leading her backwards from the wall of flame.

The fire was spreading and if they didn’t start moving the bodies they were going to lose any evidence the culprits may have left behind, just as they had in Anfa.

The heat was making her eyes burn, and the cloth around her face was already starting to dry.

She ran to the well again, dunking her mask back into the bucket and re-tied it around her face, thinking what to do next, thinking what to do—

A shout sounded behind her and she saw Avi on the edge of the square pointing at the temple to her right, where a bloodied hand waved from one of the broken windows.