Page 69

Fight With Everything You Have

Eidolon’s army, almost as one entity, wheels around like a flock of birds, but it’s too late. The Wanderers are on top of them, and they can’t regroup fast enough. The Wanderers plow into the Tyndran army like a physical blow to a body. Lots of bodies.

More Wanderers continue to pour around the bend, Vanished among their numbers, and anyone with working sight can see that we have the Tyndrans outnumbered.

A spout of water shoots into the air. Cain. We’re in the desert, but Oaesys sits on a huge lake. Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of the city.

Reven looks in the direction I am. “Why isn’t he using more?”

“He’d have to pull the water up and over the city.”

“He did more than that in Tropikis.”

“Yeah. And it nearly killed him.” Still, I frown. It’s not like Cain to hold back in battle. “He must be saving his power for the Alignment to hold off Eidolon or the goddesses or something.”

And sacrificing his people for that, I realize. If I’d known, I would have argued against it.

“Damn it.” Reven’s brows snap down. “He knows I’m here for that.”

The land Hylorae sends a new ripple at the melee now, rather than at my wall. The Wanderers on their horses jump the wave, which then rushes through the first row of Tyndran soldiers. It topples them to the ground and launches a few bodies into the air, then the land settles abruptly, probably because the Imperium realized their mistake. Right behind the wave, the Wanderers turn again, plowing back into the Tyndrans, cutting down soldiers as they get to their feet like a scythe through fields of grain.

“Oh my goddess,” I whisper. We’ve gone up against Eidolon so many times now, and never—not once—have we had the upper hand. We might just do this. We might keep him out.

The day grows dimmer, and I glance up to the skies.

That’s when a burst of cold hits my blood.

I close my eyes and check the Shadows, but the cage holds. It doesn’t feel like they’re trying to get out, but what do I know? My gut is telling me to pay attention to that sensation. It can’t be a coincidence. It just can’t.

“Meren?” Reven asks.

“I think… I think Eidolon is here.”

I open my eyes to catch the way his brows snap lower. “Why would you—”

A solid blanket of shadow erupts over a huge swath of land, obscuring the desert floor. Then the shadow morphs to a black mist, dissipating to reveal more soldiers. Green armor. Not Tyndran soldiers—a different army dotted throughout, bolstering his numbers.

Horror surges up my throat. This is the Tropikan army that Eidolon disappeared from the palace in Pantrea when Cain tried to drown them with a tidal wave of ocean water. The day I lost Reven. The king didn’t kill them, and he didn’t turn them into shadows—he took them away.

To wait for today.

Too many. There’s too many now. We are outnumbered. They’ll be overrun. Slaughtered.

Goddess, what a fool I was to think, even for a second, that we had a chance.

Only…screw that. I didn’t come all this way to lie down and take it now.

I bring up my hands.

“What are you going to do?” Reven demands.

“They’re in my dominion now.” I drag as much sand as I can from the dunes. I don’t know what I’m going to do—hurl the lot of it at the bastards, maybe, bury them—but I’ve got to do something. “Time they learn the power the desert can unleash.”

Reven grabs my wrist, swinging me around to face him. “You can’t.”

“What?” I tug, but he only tightens his grip. “Why?”

“You’ll bury our friends.”

“I can avoid them.” I tug again. “Let me go.”

His face flickers with an odd determination. “You need to conserve your power. To release the goddesses and in case we have to fight the king.”

I can’t bring myself to care if he’s right. I need to save my people. It’s not like I can release the goddesses if we fall before the Alignment.

Frustration building, I check the glooming skies. Tabra’s going to send up a signal when it’s time, but it’s getting close. Once I’m not here to repair the wall, I need Aryd’s armies waiting inside the city to hold off invasion should Eidolon’s forces get in. But we also need more soldiers to join this fight. Now.

Reven holds his hands out, palms upward, and then yanks down. On the field, I can see shadowy hands reach up, dozens of them, and a patch of soldiers are dragged to the ground. No, not just to the ground…into it. Buried up to their necks. None of our people though, just Eidolon’s. He does it again.

“You should be down there,” I say.

“I’m not leaving you.” Another patch of soldiers go down.

Lightning crashes into the fray, sending soldiers flying. Hakan is out there, which means Pella is, too. Vos, Tziah, and Horus as well, no doubt.

A deadly sort of calm settles over me.

I know exactly what I can do next, but I was really hoping not to have to. “Fine,” I say. “I have a different lever I can pull.”

“What?”

“Take me down. Outside the wall, right at the base of it.”

Reven doesn’t question me. We shadow to the ground, and I slap my palms to the wall of sand before me, commanding it to heat. Warmth hits my face and sparks pour off the spot I’m touching like a waterfall of tiny flames that fizzle in the air. The sparks move outward from where I’m touching, traveling the length of the wall as far as I can see, eating the sand away, leaving molten liquid behind.

“Are you turning the wall to glass?” Reven asks. “Isn’t that weaker?”

It is, but worth the risk for the reward.

“I’m making part of the wall a giant portal to bring the Wildernyss army through.” Trysolde and Istrella have their army gathered and waiting through the Alignment, just in case.

“Their portal is too small,” Reven says. “It will take them too long.”

“I built a bigger one in their barracks the day after I made the walls here.”

“What?” He rears back like I slapped him. “When did you do that?”

“That day I was resting in my glass garden. I got the idea when it hit me that I had a giant wall of sand already built. Why not make it a portal? Either to evacuate my own armies quickly, or to bring help.”

“Impressive.” I think he is going to say more, but I’m vaguely aware of the way he turns his head. “Faster. The soldiers are starting to notice.”

I can only go so fast. “Go warn Wildernyss to be ready.”

“No way—”

“Please. They need to hurry.”

He goes without another word, leaving a hole next to me.

I keep working.

And working.

And—

The sound of someone running at me is all the warning I get. I whirl to face my attacker, knives already in hand. White Tyndran armor flashes in my sight for a heartbeat before a Wanderer on the back of a midnight-hued horse plows into the soldier from behind. The horse rears up at the rider’s command and tramples the soldier until he’s limp and twisted on the ground.

Then the rider turns in his saddle, and I see his face.

“Cain.” Relief is immediate. Thank the goddess.

“I’ll hold them off,” he says as he jumps to the ground. “Keep going.” He doesn’t even know what I’m doing, but he trusts me that much.

I catch his quick, semi-bloodthirsty smirk as I face my glass again. It’s solidified enough where I stand. Hopefully the other end is as well. Pressing my hand to the smooth surface that is still ruthlessly hot, I will my power into the glass.

A clang of sword meeting sword is followed by a grunt behind me, punctuated by a gurgle that sounds like water and someone drowning. Cain fighting.

Focus, Meren.

I don’t immediately try to open it, giving the magical force I wield time to work its way down the long stretch of glass.

“Duck!” Cain yells.

Managing to keep my hand to the glass, I drop just in time as a dagger to ricochets off my wall.

Need to move faster.

I picture the portal I made in Wildernyss.

It takes longer than usual, though, the glass doing nothing.

“What’s supposed to happen?” Cain calls back to me.

“It’s supposed to—”

The portal turns opaque and then beautifully, miraculously clear, and an iron-armored military stands on the other side, assembled and ready to go. With no hesitation, they bolt through the portal with a shout, pouring from Wildernyss onto the Arydian battlefield.

“Holy shit!” I hear Cain yell behind me.

I glance over my shoulder. The man has blood splattered across his face and a rip in his shirt that hopefully wasn’t made by a weapon that struck flesh. And still, the grin he gives me is beautiful. I’d laugh at how ridiculous that is if not for the battle raging around us.

“That’s for you,” I call.

With a wave, he runs off with a Wanderer’s scream ripping from his throat, a tornado of water shooting up from the dry ground in front of him.

I stay where I am, keeping the portal open, even after Reven reappears at my side. He says nothing, and neither do I. When the last fighter from Wildernyss is through, I close it.

As fast as I am to do that, he’s even faster to shadow us back up onto the tower where we watch the four armies clash, brutality in the sounds of battle, the yells of the injured, and the neighs of the horses. In the distance, I catch sight of a flat, circular silver blade the size of a small tree cleaving through Tyndran soldiers. I follow it back to Trysolde, who seems to be using his own metal armor to create the weapon. Farther out, a blast of ice tells me exactly where Vos is. I don’t see Tziah, but I’m sure she’s with him.

I smile grimly. “Take that, Eidolon.”

“Unless you have any more surprises, that’s everything we can throw at him. Right?” Reven asks.

“That’s all of it.” The darkness is growing, shading the battle in ways that feels heavy. Ominous. “We just need to keep him busy long enough to release the goddesses. You ready?”

Strong arms wrap around me, and I lean into his hold. His very…firm hold? I stiffen and he tightens his grip, pinning my arms to my sides so forcefully that I gasp at the sudden pressure on my still bruised ribs. What—

A dark, grating laugh sends a cascade of fear shivering all over me. The same laugh I’ve heard once before, in circumstances so like this that I want to weep.

Because that’s Reven’s voice in my ear, but not.

“Who are you?” I whisper. It can’t be Eidolon controlling him. Reven has none of the king left inside him anymore. This is more like when Tabra was infected. “One of Eidolon’s ghosts escaped from the burning lands?”

“Smart girl.”

Eidolon’s ghost nuzzles the side of my neck, even as he holds a knife to my side. “Did you miss me, love?”

“Got you,” a Shadow inside me taunts.

Mother fucking mistakes.

We were so focused on the danger I posed, we forgot about Reven.