Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

W e staged our attack at the onset of dawn. With bloated clouds choking out most of the rising sun, the ground still soggy from the rain and echoes of thunder still grumbling overhead, the engage and distract force approached Port Howl’s looming gate while somewhere beneath our feet a third of the army was creeping through a series of caves on the advice of a couple of smugglers. And if they could find their way through, their being able to get out and into the city before they were noticed by the enemy hinged on our ability to hold attention. Especially now that the enemy’s reply to Esario’s final attempt at a negotiation had been read. One simple word in response to a whole page of script. No. A reply so arrogant it had to have come from Draven himself. It smacked of him, to reply with so little effort or embellishment, as though the coming conflict and any attempts to avoid it were hardly worth his time.

There was movement on the wall as I reached the back of the army and turned my horse. Had I been visible enough for my presence with the army to be obvious? Would Draven have cared enough to come to the wall if I was? I stared hard at the collection of figures silhouetted against the stormy sky; we were so far back here that it was difficult to pick any of them out in any detail. But my gaze returned to one standing very still, seeming separate from the activity of everyone scurrying around them. No defences to prepare for this soldier, no bow to string or orders to convey or weaponry to prime. He leaned on the wall, and his gaze seemed trained on the rear of the army instead of the frontline. I watched him with a shiver raising the hairs of my neck, imagining grey eyes locked on me.

‘I think we’ve got their attention,’ I said to Morozov, who was seated on a horse beside mine.

‘Now to hold it,’ he said, turning toward the standard-bearer at his side and giving a sharp nod.

A horn sounded in a deep, mournful wail that echoed across the would-be battlefield, rallying the soldiers to prepare to fight. I observed it with a strange sense of detachment, still not quite believing that this day would end in battle. That people would die.

‘Archers, loose!’ Morozov bellowed, his voice carrying over the din.

Bow strings snapped and a volley of arrows arced into the sky, their flames painting streaks of light against the gloom. They rained down on the battlements, drawing cries of alarm from the defenders.

‘Battering ram to the gates!’ he ordered next, his hand slicing through the air.

A group of soldiers ahead surged forward, heaving the massive ram with its iron-tipped head between them. Immediately, they began to draw fire as the defenders worked to prevent the ram from reaching the gates.

‘To the walls!’ Morozov roared, his voice unyielding. ‘Ladders up! Give them no time to recover!’

Before him, the army roared to life, the clatter of weapons and shields rising in a cacophony of sound. The front line advanced towards the walls with lifted shields as the enemy archers returned fire, arrows launching into the masses of men, some striking shields and falling to the ground, some striking true, announced with moans and cries. Behind the front line, groups of ladder-bearers sprinted forwards carrying long wooden beams. The first ladder slammed into position against the wall as a second volley of arrows was loosed, one hitting the soldier trying to scurry up the ladder. He fell back to the ground as another took his place. I flinched as I watched a stream of liquid poured onto this soldier from the wall, and it was met with a splitting, piercing scream. He jerked away from the ladder, body writhing, engulfed a moment later in flame. Oil.

‘Are the ladders necessary?’ I muttered as I watched another few make it to the wall, their bearers immediately becoming targets of more arrows and hot oil attacks. ‘We’re only waiting for our soldiers inside to open the gates. Why are we trying to climb the wall?’

‘It needs to be convincing,’ Morozov muttered, eyes never leaving the battering ram as it heaved into motion, slamming into the gates as arrows rained down from above. A few of those handling it had already fallen, and they were hurled out of the way only to be immediately replaced. Already, the injured and dying were being ferried back by the recovery troops, to be given over to the care of Daethie and her tent of physicians and nurses. The battering ram smashed against the gates again, the iron tip splintering the heavy wood but then clanging as it struck a metal reinforcement. Along the wall, the ladder crews were faring better, some getting further up as our archers took out some of the defenders firing on them, getting so close to the top that for a moment, I felt a flicker of triumph. Perhaps we would breach the wall before our reinforcements even made it out of the caves.

But then something changed.

It was difficult to put my finger on what it was initially. It was perhaps a feeling, a shiver running over my skin as another growl of thunder rumbled overhead. Perhaps it was a collection of a dozen tiny indicators at once—torches beginning to waver in unsteady hands: the front ranks, so steadfast moments ago, rippling like unsteady water: heads swivelling, men shifting uneasily. My horse pranced beneath me, and I held tightly to the reins as he shook his head.

Then the first scream shattered the air.

It was sharp, high-pitched, splitting the night with the sounds of terror. Nothing like the groans of the injured and dying. Ahead of me, men swayed like a gale was pushing through their ranks, discipline unravelling as stalwart soldiers turned from the front lines and began to run towards the rear. I scanned the scene furiously to find the cause of their fear, expecting to see some monster of magic or nature, but there was only what had been there moments before: the gates, the wall, the defenders above.

‘What in Aether’s name is going on?’ Morozov bellowed. ‘Hold the line!’

But the men kept running. A mob of them, now, jostling through the ranks, and as they neared us, I could see how their eyes were wild with terror, mad with it. Something was terribly wrong. The world shifted as I was jostled, my horse rearing up beneath me. I yanked on the reins, hanging on, trying to retain control. I slammed against his rear end as his back legs lifted. The reins slipped from my grip as I fell. My breath rushed out of me as I crashed to the ground, the thunder of hoofbeats rattling my head as the horse galloped away. I staggered to my feet, gasping for breath, a hand to my stomach as I tried to reorient myself. I caught a hit of an acrid, smoky scent on the air, but then I stumbled as a soldier surged past me, clutching his head, weapons forgotten.

‘We’re all dead men! Dead men!’ I heard him wail as he fled the army, his comrades, his countrymen and the king he’d sworn himself to. I watched him disappear into a gloom punctured by the flickering fires behind us, and suddenly I was thinking of another flame, another night, a palace kitchen, mugs of warm, spiced milk.

‘I have no talent with fire. It costs me more.’

‘What do you have a talent with?’

‘Minds.’

Spinning back towards the wall, I sought that figure I’d picked out before, the one who’d merely stood watching. He was in the same spot, standing still amid the chaos. The heat of anger surged and curled through me, coaxing forth the pulsing hum of lightning in my blood.

‘He’s using magic,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure who was listening, whether Morozov was still even anywhere nearby. Draven was using magic to inflame the fear the soldiers would be feeling, leveraging their inexperience in the face of a battle. He was trying to break us before we even breached the walls.

And I was supposed to just hang back here and watch?

Pushing through the army was easy when there were flickers of lightning crackling along my shoulders and arms. Men stumbled and staggered away from me, their fear redirected from the vague promise of death at the wall to the very concrete threat of a woman wielding magic in their ranks. The wall appeared impossibly far away, but it didn’t seem to matter as I stalked across the battlefield, attention entirely fixated on that figure on the wall, magic rising and hissing. The thunder rumbled above again, louder this time, and I felt an answer rise inside me, rolling across my skin with an affinity that seemed to call me onwards. Because Draven’s tide of fear didn’t touch me. I was lightning, and lightning feared nothing.

The clamour of voices and armour and weapons grew louder as I approached the front. I could hear the shouts of commanders trying to reestablish order, trying to turn terrified men back to the task of overrunning the city wall. The battering ram came into view, sitting abandoned by the gates, licked with tongues of flame. It didn’t matter. We had no need of a battering ram.

I raised my hands, throbbing with pulses of white-hot energy, and flung them before me. A blinding flash split the battlefield, burning its way across my vision.

Crack!

The sound tore the air as the lightning struck stone and the wall exploded. Dust and debris rained down as soldiers were flung backwards and a sharp, metallic scent filled the air, magic or ozone or just the smell of scorched soldiers and earth. I blinked away the white burns from my vision as my head spun and elation sizzled through me, coaxing me to strike again. The air seemed to hum around me, and above, there was an answering flash of lightning in the clouds, like the storm itself was bending to my will, called forth by a sense of affinity with the magic below.

But I hadn’t struck the gate. My bolt had gone wide, instead hitting the point where several ladders had been balancing against the wall. Now little of those ladders remained. A crater shadowed the wall, and streams of rubble still poured to the ground at its base. The other bolt had struck the ground some distance in front of the wall, leaving behind another crater licked with flames.

And the bodies of those who’d been too close.

Bile surged in my throat and my stomach twisted with nausea. Whether it was the aftereffects of magic or just the sight of the squirming men I’d felled, I didn’t pause to contemplate. I snapped my gaze away, swallowing it down as I scanned the battlements, looking for that still, watchful figure. He was gone. Where had he gone? Had I scared him into taking cover? Had he fallen from the wall when I’d struck it?

I gathered the vague sense that the men in the army at my back were rallying, their commanders succeeding in bullying them back into positions as some began to surge forwards again, running with replacement ladders. A stone flung from a catapult whizzed past overhead, striking the wall, displaying the magical defences Lidello had said were embedded in the stone when it made no visible impact. I gathered the lightning to my palms again, buzzing with an energy that made me feel light-headed and a little drunk. Because I had damaged the wall. The blood in the mortar wasn’t enough to stop me. I would avenge the fallen, strike the enemy from their lofty perches. I just needed our own soldiers to get the fuck away from the wall.

Suddenly, a heavy stream of hot oil was sprayed from the gates, hitting the new crew of soldiers at the battering ram, sending them running and screaming. A volley of flaming arrows followed them, setting them alight where they struck true. The fire spread to anyone it touched, and a wide circle cleared around the gate as soldiers retreated to get away. But behind all that fire was the gates—the portcullis was lifting! The gates were opening! Our reinforcements must have already fought their way through to the mechanism!

A roar of triumph erupted from our ranks. The gates were ours.

But… something wasn’t right.

The portcullis was still rising, but there were no cries of alarm at a breach from the defenders, no renewed flurries of activity on the walls to indicate panic. The flames at the gate sputtered and died as if smothered, their work done. The heavy iron gates groaned open wide. The portcullis slammed open with a shuddering crash, and from behind that iron maw came the first line of soldiers, crashing into our front ranks with a force that shook the earth. Shields smashed against shields, pikes stabbed through gaps in armour, and the momentum of their charge sent our men sprawling back in chaos.

Because these weren’t our reinforcements. Our enemy had opened the gates themselves to meet us on the battlefield. And we weren’t prepared for that. Our chain of command was still trying to muster the terrified front line back into position. We didn’t have the numbers. We’d split our forces to send men into the tunnels. What good would it be for our reinforcements to emerge from the tunnels if the enemy had already torn through the forces waiting for them to open the gate?

‘ Hold the line! ’ someone screamed, but it was useless.

Behind the first wave, more poured out, driving forward with ruthless precision. Their weapons glinted through the smoke, cutting arcs of death into our scattered ranks. I saw a cluster of our soldiers scrambling to reform, their faces twisted with panic, only for a line of charging cavalry to split them apart.

And then the ranks around me were splintering, fracturing, and there were foot soldiers charging me.

But I still had palms full of lightning. And my fury was pulsating around me, thickening the air, choking it with static. They were going to charge me? They thought they could slaughter me , the Whore Queen, these insignificant soldiers who didn’t even warrant a horse to charge me on? Again, thunder rumbled, so loud I could hardly hear the battle. I raised my hands. Bright light arced around me in brilliant flashes of white. Something like understanding crossed the faces of the soldiers charging me. They tried to pull themselves up short, suddenly panicked. But it was too late for that.

Lightning tore out of me, arcing over their heads, ever impossible to aim.

And at that same moment, the sky tore open.

Lightning speared down from the sky, striking a moment after the bolts from my hands in the exact same spot with a roar of sound so deafening I clapped my hands over my ears, cringing down in sudden terror.

The very earth seemed to shift and shudder, so much that I thought the ground would open up beneath my feet, that Madeia was so furious at my attempt to wield a power that should be reserved for gods that she was going to consume me whole. I staggered, falling to a knee, hands still clapped over my ears. But then the ground stilled. Everything was strangely silent.

I opened my eyes and looked up blearily, rising to my feet to see the damage I’d wrought, taking in the enormous crater some hundred meters away from me, the spasming bodies and the strangely still ones scattered on the ground around it. I felt only dimly attached to it all, like I wasn’t part of the same scene, like I was floating above and looking down on what had happened. But somewhere deep, deep inside me, somewhere that felt both embedded within me and far, far away, grew a sense of horror at what I’d done.

I glanced up at the sky, squinting against a spatter of rain, to find the clouds above were whirling, flashing purple with follow-up streaks of lightning. And in this distant, floating state, I felt more connected to the lightning than I did to the battlefield. Because I had called it down. I could call it down again. In a volt of energy far more powerful than I could manage on my own without vomiting up the contents of my stomach or completely losing consciousness. And that dim horror, that sense of angry gods, of what I’d done being wrong , faded away, replaced by an overwhelming wash of bright, powerful awe. And elation.

‘Rhiandra.’

The sound of my name drew me back from the clouds, back down to the mud and chaos of the battlefield. My head spun. Pain lanced through my limbs, but that, too, seemed distant.

‘You have to stop.’

I scanned my surroundings groggily. I was on my own, an island in a sea of turmoil, surrounded by a stretch of stillness beyond which the battle still raged.

Alone except for a figure slowly approaching.

The air quivered as I recognised him, recognised the tousled dark hair, the sharp cut of his jaw, a gaze like a blade pinning me from thirty paces. And all that detachment lifted as a stunning whirl of rage and magic and pain and longing centred on him, like he was the anchor of the storm above and within me. Without thinking, my feet were moving in his direction. Energy surged through my veins, thrilling me. Burning me up from the inside out. It was pain. Pleasure. Thrill. Abject terror. Lightning struck across the field again, further away this time, the boom! thundering through me. Each step towards him felt like an echo of it. My hair had fallen loose. It was rising around me, a dark cloud crackling with power.

If anyone had been near us, they were either dead or gone.

‘You want me to stop ?’ I taunted. ‘What’s wrong? Are you afraid to look upon your own monster?’

He held his ground, eyeing me warily, the light cast by the flickers of lightning painting a strange, shifting gleam to his eyes. ‘Can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself? Punishing me isn’t worth it.’

I laughed. ‘Then stop me,’ I spat. ‘Try take my mind.’

His gaze didn’t waver. ‘I won’t.’

‘Or you can’t .’ I raised my arms. Another bolt of light smashed through the clouds, struck the ground on the other side of the wall, hitting somewhere within the city, and it was so easy compared to flinging the energy myself. So simple, to draw down the lightning from the clouds. If there was screaming from the strike, the pounding in my ears was too loud to hear it. ‘I’d like to see you try though. Then when I beat you, it’ll be because I was stronger, not because you gave in without a fight. So come on. Fight me.’

‘You’re losing, Rhiandra,’ he said. ‘Your general has called a retreat. The lightning isn’t going to change that. I can feel the fear pouring off your soldiers. They’re too afraid of you to regroup now.’

‘No, we’re not losing. Just you wait. The tide is about to turn,’ I snarled, thinking of the soldiers in the tunnels. Any moment now they’d be opening the gates, and this time it would be to let us into the city, joining our forces together. Then Draven would be eating his words.

‘Your reinforcements aren’t coming,’ he said softly, as though he was reading my thoughts. ‘We intercepted them before they ever reached the exits. I had sentries watching those caverns.’

‘But… sentries? How did you…’ That thrilling, thrumming energy was beginning to ebb, beginning to turn. I couldn’t pull my thoughts together, not with the after-effects of magic slowly tightening around me.

He almost sounded consoling as he replied to my unasked question. ‘How do you think we got inside the city in the first place? I know this city better than its king.’

My heart was thudding heavily. Keeping my eyes open was a struggle, but struggle I did. I knew this was important. But my groggy mind couldn’t quite pull together why it was. ‘You knew about the tunnels,’ I finally managed. My knees wobbled. I staggered. He surged forwards, catching my elbow. I gasped in a few breaths, looking up at him, suddenly far too close, closer than I’d prepared for. But there it was, that fear I’d been digging for, had been longing to see, was finally written all over his face. But it was all wrong. He was supposed to be afraid when I was charging towards him surrounded by lightning. Not now. Not like this.

‘You’re making yourself sick,’ he said, his tone so gentle. ‘You could make yourself so sick you’ll never be the same again. Let me help you.’

‘No!’ Suddenly, rage burned through me again, singing away all the exhaustion like a flare of white light burning away the shadows in a darkened room. I wrenched away from him. I didn’t want his help. I wanted him to suffer. The way I had suffered. The way I’d burned. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Lightning crackled between my fingers again, scorching away the pain and the nausea. A haze of red tunnelled my vision. The lightning in my veins turned molten, searing through me as if I were the conduit instead of the wielder. Strike, strike, strike, my heart seemed to thrum. Above, I felt the static gathering.

But Draven was backing away from me now, palms turned outwards. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Alright, you’ve made your point. What do you want? Do you want me on my knees again? Do you want me to beg you? I can do that. Just take a breath.’

But I could hardly catch that breath. My throat was thick with something I couldn’t swallow down at the idea that there was something, anything , he could do to make it better. He had twisted me into this corner where my own magic burned me alive. And now he wasn’t even defending himself. How dare he look at me like that? Like he cared. Like I mattered.

‘Why did you let me run that day at the river?’ I spluttered, voice cracked through. I wanted him to deny that he’d let me run at all. But I’d seen the soldiers fall to their knees. And in the grips of the feverish delirium of magic poisoning, I needed to know why.

‘Maybe for the same reason you didn’t cut my throat,’ he replied. But I wasn’t even sure that was what he said. Because I was on the ground. Because my vision was fading out. And the last thing I saw before my consciousness fled was that whirling grey sky.