Page 60 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)
Chapter
Forty
August helps me stand, running his hands over my body, quickly checking for injury.
“I’m unharmed.” I pant, holding onto him for support.
Selene aids an injured priestess and glances over to make sure I am not in shock, letting August comfort me while she attends to others who need her more.
Through the billowing smoke and dust, we finally see 99 carrying a commander over his shoulder and laying him down for the next person to dress his wounds.
August and I both exhale in relief, knowing he was not in the tower when it fell, but many others were and some are still under the crushing stones.
99 strides to us, making sure we are both uninjured and looking to August for answers.
“They used the beacon to bypass the ward and our perimeter. I did not think it possible,” August tells him without having to be questioned.
“How do we stop them from using it to strike again?” 99 asks firmly.
“Disable Cosima’s beacon. That is the only way. I cannot, 99. A commander will have to.”
“I know.” He spits his frustration. The person he goes to for answers of this nature cannot stay to help. “I will send a specialist to the beacon tower. Can I comm you in?”
“Of course. I will aid them for as long as my ship is in range.”
“99th Commander!” A frantic commander stalks up to 99, stammering for more words.
“Speak!” 99 barks.
“The flying creature has landed on the battlefield.”
99 brushes past us to look out onto the valley below. “Omnesis circled above the ward before, and now it lands with the enemy?” He looks over his shoulder to glance at me for answers.
I gaze out to the now silent army. None of the enemy soldiers move except those in the path of Omnesis. They part and then quickly regain formation as she walks to the enormous vessel.
A sliver of light appears in a straight line, ascending halfway up the pillar-shaped ship, growing in width and brightness. A great door opens like a portal to another world, and from it comes a towering figure.
First Son.
The most wicked of First Mother’s children.
The god she birthed in the very beginning, the one who turned generations of her children against her.
His army straightens further, a loud clap on armor sounding as they stand at attention. He strides down the ramp of his dark ship toward Omnesis, adorned in black armor and an ominous helmet, the crown of it spiking up into the air like flames were captured in the metal as it was forged.
She bows her head, looking up to his form at least 10 feet from the ground.
I have seen old gods, the ones in the forest, Omnesis and the Albright in Ferren’s tethered memories, but none of them have struck such terror in me as First Son does now.
Omnesis’s glowing wings and skin are so vivid even from this distance, her robe trailing behind her as she approaches First Son directly.
“What is she doing?” August’s breath next to me is labored as he watches with the same fear in his eyes that is likely in mine.
“I’m not sure,” I tell them.
Every uninjured and able person around us beholds Omnesis in silence. From this distance, it is impossible to hear the two godly figures speaking to each other as they draw closer. The divine interaction is calm and with little movement.
My pulse punches in rhythm in my ears, dulling my senses and making my hands tremble and eyes water at the otherworldly spectacle.
And then without warning, her wings outstretch, reflecting the lights on the enemies’ tower weapons as she ascends upward into the air with powerful beats of her wings.
She soars overhead, circling the wall as if the ward does not affect her at all.
Soldiers duck and holler as she dives closer, soaring in and gracefully landing atop the nearest intact tower to us.
Omnesis perches there and waits, staring directly at me.
“She wants to speak,” I say and begin walking toward her, beckoned forward by her glowing orbs watching me.
“Callia, wait!” August shouts, striding behind me to keep up.
Soldiers part and make way as I rush down the walkway atop the wall. The ones posted closer to her landing spot brace and back farther away, too afraid to maintain their positions even in front of 99.
I can hear Selene and 99 speculating behind me, preparing for the worst and hurrying to stay close, but Omnesis is here for me, to speak to me alone.
As I approach her, she ruffles her wings, sending the last few brave Viathan commanders stepping back out of her wide reach.
“Omnesis.”
“Calliape.” She steps down from her perch and bows her head in greeting. Then she looks past me to August and Selene and 99. She pauses on him for several breaths before she steps closer to me. “I am pleased the other daughter is not present.”
She speaks in the language of the gods, her tone calm even as she refers to Ferren, whose absence was noted when she looked to 99, sensing it through him somehow.
“Why have you come?”
“To witness. I am the keeper of the balance,” she says proudly.
I inhale, a frustrated rage I am not familiar with rising within me. “I know what you are, but why do you speak with First Son, my enemy?”
“An attempt to reason with the side that will now tip the scales too far for my repair. My work is vast, and I have been gone too long.”
“To reason with First Son?” I huff. “After they have done this?”
“He searches for his daughters,” she hisses. “If he has them, then he has no true need to fight. The city and the lives within it will be spared.”
A sense of dread spreads across my skin, sinking into every pore and poisoning me. He wants me to give myself up to save the city?
“This is what you suggested to him?” I ask.
“No, this is a deal he struck. His weapons are greater than the ones your army has. Many will die, more than you can imagine. Many trees will grow where their bodies fertilize the sand.”
I look back at August standing among 99 and Selene. They observe, only understanding my own words and not the terrifying proposition Omnesis has brought us to save the city.
“It will take my scales a thousand years to tilt back after this battle if you do not surrender.”
“Is that why you tell me this, simply because you don’t want to fix our aftermath?” I spit.
“Yes, and because now I am no longer in your debt. The balance between us is restored. Freedom for capture,” she says as if it hurts her, bowing her head and averting her eyes in such a human way, I forget she does not have a human face at all.
“We are balanced then,” I agree.
“You have until the conjunction peaks. After that, he will attack again.” She turns away from me, leaving an air of frustration lingering between us and once again unfurling her wings to take off, soaring downward into the valley and disappearing into the darkness she came from.
99 takes us to one of the still standing towers along the wall to speak about my visit from Omnesis away from others.
However, knowing the towers are being targeted keeps me from feeling safe within the stone walls.
He tells us that he has received news that Lord General has been gravely wounded during the attack, leaving 99 as the sole leader of the Viathan army in his stead.
August holds my hand, stroking with his thumb, sensing the anxiety soaring through me as I tell them every word Omnesis said, and then repeating it again, knowing 99 will ask for such.
“It was pleased Ferren had left Cosima?” Selene asks.
I nod. “It suggested we separate. She noticed Ferren’s absence when she was not standing next to 99.” When I glance at him, he heaves a breath like my words are a painful reminder.
“Well, we are not surrendering you to First Son. Omnesis cannot predict the conclusion of this battle. . . can she?” August starts out very sure, and then slowly trails off, stepping closer, uncertain of Omnesis’s abilities.
“She said they had weapons far more advanced than Viathan’s,” I report.
“He came for two of you. If he believes you are both here in the city still, will he not realize Ferren is gone when he sees only one?” Selene points out.
“I’m not sure,” I answer firmly. “That is why I should go now, long before the conjunction, so he believes the other woman is still considering. I can draw his army forward and then fold at the last moment, just as planned. Nothing has changed.”
August shakes his head. “Everything has changed. You can’t truly be contemplating giving yourself up.”
“No, of course not, but you both said they need to be closer, so I will bring him closer. It’s the only way to ensure no one else dies. He has already shown us he can bypass the ward. First Mother only knows what else he can do with that pillar.”
“She could stall them until we shut down the beacon so it can’t be used against us again,” 99 offers.
“It’s still too dangerous to get that close,” August snaps.
“He doesn’t want to kill me.”
“How can you be certain?” 99 interjects.
I don’t have an answer because I’m not entirely sure what he wants me for, Ferren and me. A ritual is all Omnesis said, the purpose as unknown as the third woman in his grasp.
“This is madness.” August scrubs a calloused palm down his face.
“Yes, but it is the only way.” I turn to him, urging him to listen because we are losing time I could be using to lure the enemy closer while he assists the other commanders with Cosima’s beacon. “99 will watch me. I won’t leave the turrets’ reach. You will go to the ship just as planned.”
“Don’t do this, Callia,” August begs, knowing the more sense I make, the more set in stone the plans become.
“I can fold to you just like before or if there is any danger. You know I can.”
August stares at 99, hoping his friend will say something to stop this, but he doesn’t. 99 would be in the same situation if Ferren were here. She would volunteer to do this too. But only I can fold to safety. This is how I save the city, not with a ward or waking First Mother.
The voice in the forest of Frith called out to me, and it may have been First Son guiding me closer, but there is another voice, much stronger, now deep within telling me I have to do this. That one is mine alone.
“This is what it is to love Calliape.” Selene places a soothing hand on August’s shoulder. “You know this, and you knew it long before I did.”
He takes a shaky breath and pulls me close against him. We have no other solutions, and even though it kills him, I can feel the moment he realizes and his whole body gives in.
“I can do this.” My voice is muffled by his embrace.
“I will be ready for you to fold to me, and then I am taking you to Frith,” he declares firmly.
Selene steps toward me and kisses my forehead. “You know who you are, Calliape, what you are capable of. Never again will I smother those flames. I will see you on the sacred mountain again, this I promise you.”
I reach for Selene’s hand, holding it and wishing I had better words to tell her goodbye.
“Can you fold August to his ship? He should depart now, and we are far from the cargo bay.” 99’s voice is snappy with impatience.
“Keep this on.” August brings my wrist up, making sure to show 99 while reminding me.
“I will. Are you ready?”
He kisses me deeply, then places a hand on either side of my jaw, his eyes shiny and lined with moisture. “The best part of my life has been spent lost somewhere on the three worlds with you, Callia. I am ready and I will be waiting.”
I kiss him again, pressing forward and forcing my body to fold, going against every fiber of me that wants to stay together, to forget everything else and depart, hiding up on the sacred mountain away from the chaos of the other worlds.
But my family is here, my friends, and this is my battle as much as it is theirs. First Son seeks me, and I won’t leave until I know our forces have a fighting chance.
I savor August against me as I fold us across the distance to his ship, giving little warning and acting on the urgency building at the front lines.
Once I sense the air of his ship, I let go of him regretfully and fold away. Because I know without a doubt if I stay for even a blink, I won’t be able to leave. My body will cling to safety. To him. By the time he realizes he is in the cockpit, I will already be gone.