Page 125 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

KILLIAN

He didn’t stay at the front lines.

Couldn’t stay.

Not with the charred ruin of land and bodies stretched out before him every time he looked north, forcing him to remember what he’d done.

Does this feel like victory, Killian Calorian? Does this feel like a battle won?

It had been a victory, of a sort, because the blighter army had taken enormous losses.

But it had not been wiped out entirely. They had moved west out of the path of the fire, which continued to rage its way north for Baird had not been able to stop the winds entirely.

The deimos still took to the wind, and Killian knew that Rufina would be looking for ways to bolster her strength yet again.

He’d sent runners with orders that every well in every town and village be kept under heavy guard, always with dogs, who seemed uniquely able to recognize blighters for what they were.

With the reprieve from the blighters, the Mudamorian army was able to shore up defenses against the blight without fear of constant attack.

It was the breath he’d hoped for, and yet every second Killian remained in sight of the fire, he felt strangled.

So when Dareena arrived to take command, he got on his horse and rode.

Baird came with him, but they traveled in silence. Though Killian had done what he could to be the one held responsible for the fire, the weight of it still hung heavy on the giant. In the darkness of night when they stopped to sleep, he heard Baird weeping more than once.

Yet Killian’s own face remained dry, all his grief spent in the moments he sat on the dam and watched Mudamora burn.

Seldrid’s spies must have spotted his approach to Serlania, because his brother himself rode out to greet him. At the sight of him, Baird muttered something about finding rest in Bercola’s cabin at Teradale and headed in the direction of the Calorian estates.

“Malahi and Agrippa have returned,” his brother said.

“Lydia and Sonia remained behind, but with the intention of leaving soon after. I’m afraid to say the Cel have laid siege to Revat, and there was little hope that Kaira would prevail against their numbers.

They stood strong when Malahi left, but it’s possible your vision has come to pass. ”

“So Lydia was there when Revat fell.” Killian stared numbly at the city as they rode closer. “Which means that the Cel have her. That he has her.”

“We have no confirmation of that. Lydia could be on the Kairense sailing this way as we speak.” Seldrid cleared his throat. “As it is, Malahi has returned with all we could have hoped for and more. A way to defeat the blight. She and Agrippa are staying at my home, and they will want to see you.”

Killian barely listened as Seldrid filled his ears with the news while they rode through the overcrowded city, his heart consumed with certainty that the man who’d tried to murder Lydia now had her as his prisoner.

Then his ears perked. “Did you just say that Teriana is free?”

Seldrid nodded. “The Cel apparently allowed her and the Quincense to go. She liberated her people from their capital, although no word has been heard from her since. I have informants watching and listening north and south.”

Part of Killian was overjoyed to hear his friend was now free, but the other part felt abruptly sick.

If Teriana had been with the legions, it was possible she could have intervened to help Lydia if she was captive.

But if Teriana was gone… “I need a ship, Seldrid. I need to get to Gamdesh to find Lydia.”

His brother’s lips parted as though to argue, then he nodded. “I’ll go to the harbor to make arrangements. But speak to Malahi first.”

He didn’t want to speak to Malahi. Didn’t want to see her face, knowing that she’d abandoned Lydia in Revat while fleeing to save her own neck.

“Hacken is in Teradale with the High Lords.” Seldrid shifted in his saddle.

“There was desire on their part to reinstate Malahi as High Lady of Rowenes, but Hacken has been stymieing the process, most likely because he doesn’t want anyone who is loyal to Lydia to have a vote.

He wants her beholden to him. But since Ria’s death, the High Lords trust him even less than they did before.

They see everything he does as a bid to make himself king, and rather than their focus being on the war, they’ve been infighting the entire time you’ve been gone with little care for Rufina, the blight, or the Cel.

It’s a gods-damned mess, and I half expect Mother to evict them from her house out of pure frustration.

We don’t just want Lydia back, Killian, we need her back.

Mudamora needs a ruler now more than ever. ”

“I’ll get her back,” Killian said softly. “And the Six have mercy on anyone who tries to stop me.”

Seldrid snorted. “Never mind mercy. Send anyone who tries to stop you to the Seventh. I’ll head to the harbor now.”

Killian carried on to his brother’s manor in the middle of Serlania. The guards at the gates opened them for him without question, and Killian handed off his horse to a stable hand.

Finn was sitting on the steps.

“Why aren’t you at Teradale,” he asked the boy, who had a bandage wrapped around his arm.

“Adra and Seldrid brought me back to Serlania with them,” Finn said. “After your dog bit me.”

“Socks bit you?” Killian blinked in surprise, because the dog didn’t have a mean bone in his body. “Are you all right?”

“Was nothing. We were just scrapping and it got out of hand, but Adra likes to mother me.” Finn shrugged. “I like Serlania better, anyway. My subjects are all here and it’s easier to keep them in line.”

It wasn’t safe in the streets of Serlania. Not with food scarce and the city bursting with refugees from the north. “Stay in the manor, Finn. It’s not safe in the streets.”

“Safer now than it was. I heard you killed the blighters that were coming toward Serlania,” his young friend said. “Then burned half of Rufina’s army alive.”

“They aren’t alive,” Killian muttered, his mouth turning sour as he remembered the smell. “Just walking corpses puppeted by the Seventh.”

“Still, you single-handedly killed half her army. That’s a victory.”

Does this feel like victory, Killian Calorian? Does this feel like a battle won?

“Finn, I’m not interested in reliving that moment,” Killian snapped. “I need to find Malahi. Please stay within the manor’s walls.”

Leaving the boy on the steps, he went inside, a servant directing him where to find Malahi.

With every step Killian took, his temper grew worse.

At Finn, for celebrating one of the worst atrocities of this war.

At Malahi, for leaving Lydia in Revat to be captured by the Cel.

But most of all at himself, because he’d been given every power to protect those he loved and yet all he left in his wake was death.

Malahi sat in the manor’s small library with Adra and Agrippa. “Killian!” She rose to her feet. “Gods, we heard—”

“Why did you leave her!” he shouted.

Agrippa was on his feet in a flash, stepping between Killian and Malahi. “Watch your tone, Killian. We tried to make Lydia leave, but she was having none of it. Short of trussing her up and dragging her onto the ship—”

“You should have. You should have made her go, but as usual, Malahi only thinks of herself and the kingdom . You had the information you needed, so of course you cut and run.”

Malahi blanched, but swiftly recovered. “We did find the answers to destroying the blight, but I can’t do it without Lydia. I didn’t want to leave her, but she was dead set on hunting down a solution for the infected. And though she never admitted it, a way to bring back the blighters themselves.”

Killian’s stomach dropped. “What? That’s… that’s impossible. You can’t cure death and it’s—”

“Death to the healer who tries, I know.” Malahi rested a calming hand on Agrippa’s arm. “But you know how Lydia is.”

Gods help him, Killian knew better than anyone. And while Lydia had been risking her life to find a way to save the Mudamorian blighters, he’d been busy burning them to ash. Endless thousands now beyond salvation no matter what Lydia had discovered.

Heedless that he was filthy, he sat on one of the sofas, shaking his head when Adra offered him a drink. “I need to find her.”

Adra set the whiskey down on the table, then knelt before him. “I know you had a vision of Revat falling, Killian, but we have heard no confirmation that it has come to pass. Lydia might well be on the Kairense and nearly in the harbor. Or Kaira might be successfully holding off the Cel.”

He lifted his head to meet Agrippa’s gaze, and his friend shook his head.

“Marcus has close to forty thousand legionnaires in his main force. I counted thirty catapults bombarding the walls, a dozen siege towers, and they blocked off the river that flows through the city. But worst of all, they have a good-sized fleet that looked like it was making ready to enter the harbor. It was just a matter of when, not if.”

Killian’s chest clenched, it suddenly so very hard to breathe.

“But we found the answers,” Malahi said. “A very old manuscript that detailed how the tenders cured Anukastre. They all died, but if Lydia is with me, she has the power to keep me alive. We can win this.”

He didn’t care. Without Lydia, nothing mattered, and in his heart, Killian knew that Lydia had been in Revat when the god towers fell.

I’ll get her back, he swore. I will kill them all if I have to, but I will free her.

Then a commotion caught his attention. Sounds of alarm.

Rising, Killian drew his sword and made his way through the manor. Only to discover the servants surrounding a naked Gamdeshian woman who was sprawled on the floor.

“Astara!” Adra shoved past him. “Get a blanket! Medicines! She’s injured.”

She pulled the woman into her arms, and Killian caught sight of a wound in the shifter’s thigh. It had been stitched, but the stitches had torn open and blood was leaking on the floor.

Astara sipped greedily from a cup of water Adra held to her lips, then whispered, “Revat has fallen to the Cel. Kaira is dead, and the towers of the Six have fallen.”

Killian dropped to his knees next to her. “Was a Mudamorian healer taken prisoner? A young woman named Lydia?”

“Sonia would have been with her,” Adra added. “They were in the library.”

“I don’t know.” Astara winced as a cloth was pressed to her bleeding wound.

“I was captured in Emrant. Kept as their prisoner. I’m only free because…

because…” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a long moment, and when they opened, her composure had returned.

“I barely escaped with my life to bring word that we need your aid in our time of great need.”

“Would that we had soldiers and ships to send, but all we can give is hope,” Malahi said. “In Revat’s final hours of freedom, it gave us the answers we needed to destroy the blight and drive back the Seventh. Once that is done, we will unite with all our allies and destroy the Cel incursion.”

Killian bit back a retort that none of this was Malahi’s decision to make, only for Seldrid to walk into his house, calmly taking in the scene as he said, “The Kairense has been spotted sailing this way, and Lydia has been seen on decks with Captain Vane. It will take them some time to get a space in the harbor, but our queen is here. And I, for one, think this will be the moment that the tides turn in our favor.”

Relief flooded Killian with such force that he was glad he was already on his knees. “I’m going to the harbor.”

Yet as he strode to the entrance, it was to come face-to-face with his mother. Her hair was tangled and her skirts stained with mud, but it was her eyes, which were red and swollen, that stopped Killian in his tracks. “Mother?”

“I bring fell news,” she whispered. “The High Lords pushed a vote this morning to take the crown from Lydia on the belief she is either dead or imprisoned, and to crown Helene Torrington, who has agreed to wed High Lord Pitolt’s son, Rodern.

Hacken opposed it, and Helene formally accused him of murdering Ria.

They had a trial and a vote, and the High Lords convicted him.

All our soldiers went north with you, and there was nothing to be done to stop the lords and their men.

They hanged your brother in my gardens.”

It took several moments for her words to register. To make sense. For him to understand exactly what his mother had said, because it seemed impossible. Yet the tears in her eyes told him it was no fabrication.

Hacken was dead.

He’d had more conflict with his brother than not, no love lost between them, yet Killian still waited for grief to rise. Or guilt. Yet he felt nothing but numbness.

“This will be calamity.” Seldrid’s voice was shaky. “A war for the crown while enemies press in on all sides. Gods-damn Helene for doing this!”

Does this feel like victory, Killian Calorian? Does this feel like a battle won?

Killian took a breath, then another. Because as long as he was still breathing, he could fight. “The queen is sailing into the harbor now,” he said over the tumult. “And by the Six, we will do all that it takes to keep the crown on her head.”