Page 44 of Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Forty-One

I was strangely groggy as I was cleaved from one of the few good dreams I’d had since arriving in Port Howl. Someone was beating on my door with more force than necessary.

’What?’ I growled when I opened it, rubbing my stinging eyes, head fuzzy.

A rigid lieutenant stood at attention in the doorway. ‘The harbour is burning, sir.’

’Burning?’ I repeated, the words sifting through the haze of thwarted sleep. The harbour was full of water. It couldn’t burn.

’Yes, sir. The flames are threatening the fleet.’

My consciousness began to sharpen, and I realised we were under attack. I swore, turning back to the room to shrug on a shirt. Not a bad strategy, an attack on the harbour. More cunning of the good King Esario than I’d have given him credit for. I was yanking on my boots when a second lieutenant arrived in the doorway, almost crashing into the first as he skidded to a halt.

’Sir, the city gate is under attack!’ he gasped, clutching the door frame as he fought to catch his breath. I straightened, staring at him. Attacking two fronts at once. Risky if they’d split their forces to achieve it, but damn clever in driving us to split ours. Now I suspected it wasn’t Esario I could thank for the idea.

I didn’t get the full story until I encountered Kastian Vale while I was on my way to the gate.

‘Burning oil,’ he said, keeping pace beside me as we trekked through the city streets. ‘My last information was that only a few ships have gone up. We’re working to move the rest from the harbour and out of harm’s way.’

‘Good. And the gate?’

I could sense the shift in his mood as he turned his thoughts from one crisis to another, the increase of tension. ‘The enemy have breached the walls.’

‘How?’

‘The gate was opened. Someone let them in.’

Now I halted, turning on him, suspicion curling. It provoked the magic already heating my skin, hissing through my mind. Traitors. Traitors. Shredded minds. Secrets to steal . I ignored it. Now wasn’t the time. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. Our troops are holding the enemy at bay for now, but we could use your support.’

A shiver of anticipation. My support meant leveraging the heightened emotions of the enemy against them. An effective strategy that would cost me a lot less if they were already losing and riddled with fear and despair. A pernicious urge crept over me, one to push further than even that, to have them turn their swords on themselves. The shadows began to slither, to crawl, at the corners of my eyes, as I tried to smother the urge, to cage the voice, to strengthen my mental wards before I let magic run wild through my body.

A roar of thunder split the air. Lightning streaked down in a flash of blinding white, striking a building nearby. The crack! smacked against my eardrums, stifling all sound for a few moments after. My hearing slowly returned, ushered in with a faint ringing as I frowned up at the sky, seeing more flashes spearing through wreaths of cloud thick enough to deaden the starlight. Clouds that had rolled in far too quickly. I turned towards the harbour, where the glow of the flames was an orange aura against the night. ‘Burning oil, you said?’

‘Yes, sir. They’ve flooded the harbour with it.’

Above the orange glow, the brewing storm was a whirl of flaring light, more violent and frequent in the centre, as if drawn to a single point.

To a single person.

‘Your Majesty!’ Vale called out, racing after me as I switched direction, headed for the harbour now. ‘If you don’t take command at the gate, the men won’t keep holding it. They know their ships are burning. I won’t be able to stop them from running.’

I paused to stare at him, saying nothing for a long moment, weighing actions and consequences. The blood spilled. The sacrifices made. The deep, unrelenting darkness of the life I’d led with my focus fixed squarely on vengeance. The satisfaction I’d been anticipating I’d feel when I finally stood atop the ruins of the world that had ruined me. A moment that was supposed to make it worth it.

And the woman who had torn through it all

‘Then let them run,’ I said finally, wasting no more time before I was walking away from him again.

‘Abandon the gate?’ he called after me, tone saturated with disbelief.

‘Abandon the city. Let them run for the harbour and board their boats.’

The cliffs around the harbour were steep, plunging down toward an ocean licked with fire, the black water sporadically illuminated with the flashes of lightning above. A feral wind had stirred in the bowl of the cliffs, throwing embers onto the docks, coaxing the flames higher. As I watched, the mast on a wave skipper snapped, charred sails crashing to the deck below. But many of the ships were already on the move, making their way to the safety of the open ocean. Morwarian ships were strong and their hulls wouldn’t easily succumb to flame. We’d likely get most of them out of the harbour.

The wind was heavy with ocean spray and the smell of smoke, lashing at my face as I pushed through the chaos on the docks. Soldiers rushed past me, shouting orders as they scrambled to evacuate the remaining ships. None of it mattered. My focus was singular, my purpose nothing to do with the turmoil of the burning harbour and everything to do with that raging storm above. I could almost feel her energy crackling on the wind.

‘Draven!’

Lester’s voice cut through the noise, sharp and familiar. I turned to see him striding toward me, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, face soot-smeared and furious.

‘You’re supposed to be at the gate,’ he barked, shoving a soldier aside as he closed the distance. ‘Do you even know what’s happening there? They’re holding the line by a thread. This isn’t your problem.’

‘We lose these ships and we lose the war,’ I replied, scanning the dock, attention drawn to the bridge strung high above the quay that led to the lighthouse in the harbour. Soldiers were clustered around the steps, facing off against what looked like a handful of infiltrators.

Lester grabbed my arm, yanking me around to face him. ‘Let’s not pretend this has anything to do with the ships. This—’ he waved a hand at the lightning-streaked sky above ‘—is her own doing and it’s not your fucking job to save her from herself. Let her drown in her own damn storm!’

‘You’re going to have a lot of hands down here helping to fight the flames and move the fleet in a minute. Oceatold troops are already inside the walls,’ I said, shaking him off to head for the bridge.

‘You’re going to get yourself killed!’ he called, swearing loudly as he stumbled after me.

Ahead, the group of soldiers stumbled out of my way as I took the steps towards that swinging bridge above, and I caught my first sight of Rhiandra, moving quickly as she climbed, magic flickering around her, racing through the dark halo of her hair as it was whipped around by the wind. I caught the words of one of the fighters below her as I drew nearer, pushing my way past my own soldiers to reach her.

‘—to find a way off the dock!’ he bellowed up at her. ‘We’ve done what we came for!’

‘I can get the rest of them,’ she called back, eyes fixed on the lighthouse as she picked her way up the steps towards the bridge, hands gripping tight to the railings. ‘Just give me a little bit more time.’

I read her intent; to attack the ships that had already escaped the harbour. And I could vividly imagine the voices in her head egging her on, coaxing her to keep pushing forwards, to strike out again, to use just a bit more magic. Could vividly imagine it, because it was a chorus I was keenly familiar with, one swirling around in my own head, hissing at my stupidity for refusing to bend her to my resolve. I could take her mind, compel her down the steps. A battle of wills, hers against mine, and if I won she could be at my feet in minutes. I didn’t. Instead, I reached for the minds of the soldiers standing between us, bending their thoughts as easily as snapping a thread. Their weapons dropped first, clattering to the dock in unison. Then their bodies stiffened, frozen by my command. All except one. A frizzy blone woman who I immediately picked out as Yoxvese, with mental shields strong enough to give me pause. I didn’t have the time to break through them, and it didn’t seem to matter when she was weaponless and slight. I wondered if she’d try to bar my way. I paused when I reached her, halted by the thoughtful expression she wore as she scanned my face.

‘Do you think you can stop her before she kills herself?’ she asked.

I had to crush down the choking fear that Rhiandra might die, crush it down before it fed the insistent call of magic and began to warp my decisions. ‘I’m going to try.’

She nodded, then stepped clear.

Above, Rhiandra had taken her first step onto the bridge. Her magic sparked dangerously around her, fracturing the night like shards of glass, and I felt the sharp edge of it in my chest, the bitter taste of it in my mouth. The bridge swayed under her hurried steps, planks bowing and railings swaying, but she didn’t falter. She didn’t even glance back. Her gaze was locked on the lighthouse ahead. She didn’t care about the soldiers she’d left behind or the ships still in the harbor. All that mattered to her was the storm she could command from that tower and the destruction she could wield with it.

I surged forward, my boots pounding against the steps as I took them at a run. I stepped onto the bridge, feeling it groan beneath my weight, the boards slick with seawater and trembling under the storm’s fury.

Without warning, she turned on me. Her eyes were wild, glittering with the snapping threads of light leaping off her. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she snarled. She was destruction and vengeance and the power of the pulsating storm above, and her gaze weighed on me like a death sentence.

For the first time in years, I felt small.

‘Your friends want you to turn back,’ I said, trying to measure out my words, to be calm. I could see the way her hands were trembling from here. ‘Esario’s forces have breached the walls. We’re in retreat. You’ve already won.’

She showed no sign she’d heard me. Her magic lashed out, more instinct than intent, a jagged arc of lightning that split the air between us. I jumped back as it missed me, spiking down into the dark sea below, but I could feel the heat of it on my skin, the swell of static in the air. She turned her face to the sky, reaching up a hand like she wanted to grasp the clouds and climb her way up to them.

I knew her well enough to know where this was going. She’d always hankered for power. She was ready to let it consume her.

I reached for her mind.

Tasted the wild turmoil of the emotions running through her.

I felt her recoil immediately. She hadn’t thought I would do it. But she already thought me a monster. I would be one if it meant protecting her from herself.

‘Stop.’ The command rang with magic, slicing through the chaos of the storm, wrapping around her. She gasped as her body went rigid, the flickers of lightning dimming, retreating, as I tried to contain the hurricane of feral power burning through her. It was tearing at her mind with serrated teeth, but I could force her to still. I could force her to kneel if I wanted to, force her to crawl to me. I could feel the flare of temptation to do it, to render her completely at my mercy, could hear that hissing voice of magic tearing through the box I’d caged it in to urge me on. But if I’d thought Khatar’s will was strong, it was nothing to this. Wrestling with her felt like trying to lock a hurricane in a jar. Pain pierced my head as I slowly took a few steps closer. She was panting, breath ragged through bared teeth, dark eyes lit with fury.

‘You said you wouldn’t… never again,’ she grated, labouring to get the words out.

I paused, afflicted with the bite of uncertainty. I’d never thought she believed that I hadn’t touched her mind since I’d made that promise after I forced a secret from her. She’d always refused to believe it. My focus wavered, my control slipping. Magic surged around her again with a ferocious vengeance, and before I could touch her, she lashed out with one hand, all raw instinct and wild rage.

The lightning hit me square in the chest.

Pain ripped through me, white-hot and blinding, driving me to my knees. Everything went dark.

I opened my eyes to Lester’s face above me. He was knotted with worry as he slapped at my cheek.

‘Well shit, there must be a god up there who likes you!’ he called over the howling wind. ‘I thought you were bloody dead!’

I groaned as I tried to move. Every muscle in my body was tight and wracked with sharp bolts of pain. There was a ringing in my ears. I couldn’t quite figure out where I was or what had happened. I grasped for magic, trying to reach around me, to read who was near and get a sense of any immediate danger, and felt… nothing. No humming answer in my blood. No surge of anticipation. The hissing voices in my head were silent.

‘Come on, you’ve got to get up. Most of the fleet is already on the move, and Oceatold’s troops aren’t far from the harbour now,’ Lester yelled over the gale as I pushed myself up, squinting at the scene around me. I was on the ground at the end of that spindly bridge, the stone platform dug into the cliff face. Below me, the stairs stretched down, and Lester was already trying to jostle me in their direction. I shook him off.

‘Wait.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose, hissing against the splitting pain, reaching again for magic. No response. I thought I could almost feel a ghost of what had once been, a whisper of that latent power, but it slipped away from me. I pieced together what had happened, remembering the lightning. Slowly, a realisation began to form.

‘Right, waiting is over. I know you’ve just been struck by lightning—your own bloody fault, by the way—but we’ve really got to go.’ Lester was already a couple of steps below me, paused mid stride as he waited for me to follow, hand half-extended like he was prepared to catch me if I collapsed again.

But I looked to the bridge.

Rhiandra was halfway along it, still trying to reach the lighthouse. Her steps were laboured, her hand gripping tightly to the railing. Beneath her, the ocean was thrashing and angry, a black mass of waves below a sheer drop. Lightning was striking the ocean all around the harbour, a cacophony of light so bright it sheared straight through the black night and turned it to a stark, white day. There was no way she was going to be able to keep going. Her body couldn’t take it. Her consciousness would give out before her determination to push forward did.

I predicted what would happen a moment before it did.

She swayed.

I fumbled with the buttons of my heavy coat as she staggered. I was already kicking off my boots before the coat hit the ground.

She slumped, losing her hold on the handrail.

My heart tripped as fear chased its beat, and I stumbled as I climbed the rock wall ringing the platform. The drop was steep, the black water below tossing restlessly in response to the storm above.

Lester’s voice bellowed after me. ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’

But she slipped over and began to fall. I’d already jumped.

We hit the water at the same time.