Page 32

Chapter Thirty-two

Keda’s body hits the ground at my feet.

The Reaver who killed her jerks his weapon free, grunts, and spits—a gob of saliva flying from his iron-pierced lips to the sidewalk. His eyes are completely devoid of emotion as they lift to mine. His head cocks to one side, regarding me like a quarrelsome pest to be exterminated.

He raises his sword once more.

I do not think. I merely react, the coiled snake of power in my chest striking out before I can second-guess it. My palm comes up and shoots a stream of pure, focused air directly at the Reaver’s chest. He flies backward like a puppet on invisible strings, sailing clear across the street and smashing through the window of the cobbler’s shop. I stare at the jagged hole his body leaves behind for a fleeting moment, hoping he will not come back through it.

Hoping he is dead.

When he does not reappear, I drop to my knees on the sidewalk. Keda is already gone. A pool of blood surrounds her prone form, seeping into the fabric of her pretty yellow dress. She’d been embroidering it for weeks, stitching tiny, perfect daffodil blooms along the sleeves and hemline. For spring, she insisted, there was nothing like daffodils.

She will never see them bloom again.

She will never see anything again.

Her eyes, always so bright before, are sightless as they stare upward at the midnight sky. I swipe my hand across her face to close them, then get shakily to my feet. The street is abandoned. Everyone has fled or been killed trying. My gaze follows the sound of glass shattering to the end of the block, where three more Reavers are bashing out windows with their axe handles. They move methodically down the row of shops, thorough in their destruction. I do not take my eyes off them as I reach into the quiver across my back and pull an arrow free.

If I could feel anything but numb in this moment, I might be afraid. They are a fearsome sight—clad in leather and pelts, tattoos snaking across their pale skin in otherworldly patterns that make them, even as mortals, appear more maegical than any fae I have ever met. Their hair is twisted into braids, their cheeks streaked with black war paint. Discs of dark iron wrap their wrists and pierce their brows, thread through their lobes and bolt their nipples. Around their necks, displayed on lengths of rope, lumpy bits of flesh hang like jewelry.

Fae ears.

“Another damned point! Over there!”

They’ve spotted me. They roar as they charge, their guttural war cries ringing in my ears. I step carefully around my dead friend to meet them head-on, casting out a prayer that Carys and Farley are wise enough to bolt the door. I do not glance back to check as I lift my bow.

The first Reaver catches an arrow between the eyes. The second through the heart. The third makes it too close for me to fire. With a flick of my wrist, I send him flying across the street, a stream of air blasting from me like a cracking whip. He hits the stone wall of the apothecary’s shop headfirst. I hear the snap of his neck and a grim sort of satisfaction bubbles beneath the icy well of detachment within my chest.

Four men dead at my hands. Five, including Gower. Five tally marks on my soul. Five cracks in the foundation of my once-pristine morality.

And I cannot bring myself to care.

I feel cold as ice. Cold as my Remnant mark. Cold as Keda’s body will grow, lying in the rubble as the city comes apart around her.

“Rhya!” Farley is shaking me. “Rhya, are you all right?”

I blink, startled by the sight of him. I had not heard him leave the shop, but here he is—standing on the street, his red hair shining in the firelight that still burns all around us in merry torches, the only remaining vestige of a ruined celebration.

Carys stands beside him, baby Nevin bound against her chest to free up her hands. She clutches the saber in a white-knuckled grip.

“Keda is dead,” I tell her, barely recognizing my own voice. It is empty. Eerily empty. As though all my emotions have been cleaved out.

“I know,” Carys whispers. Her eyes are full of tears as they flicker behind me, to where the Reavers lie dead. “Rhya, love…”

I shake my head. “More will come. We cannot stay here.”

There is no more argument from Carys. Not this time. We move in silence, picking a path through the streets to the palace—a walk I have made nearly every day since I first arrived in this city. A walk I have done so many times, I could probably find my way back blindfolded. It typically takes me no more than a half hour, if I am in a hurry.

Tonight, the journey lasts far longer. Our progress is excruciatingly slow. Carys has the babe to carry, and Farley, gods bless him, is only able to move so fast with his cane. My feet itch to run. My body crackles with unexpended power as I creep around corners, checking for threats before waving my friends forward. We pass the bank, its stately windows smashed, and hurry by the blacksmith, his forge gone cold.

At the start, we see no one. No one save the dead, left to lie on the streets where they have fallen. Some are missing their ears—taken as trophies by the Reavers who cut them down. I swallow hard and avert my gaze.

As we near the lakeshore, the very air grows perfused with an apprehension that makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The sounds of battle rise from an undercurrent to a crushing riptide, washing over us without relenting. Carys’s and Farley’s faces are the picture of trepidation as we reach the perimeter of the marketplace.

We all draw up short, stunned into stillness.

Tonight, there are no happy vendors selling spices, stirring wine, roasting chestnuts; no patrons wandering the stalls with fat coin purses, bartering for the freshest produce. No. Tonight, it is a graveyard. A pile of dead, Reaver and Caelderan alike, tangle together like partners in a macabre dance that will outlast any fiddler’s tune. The ancient apothecary is slumped by my favorite fountain, his wizened hands clutching the belly wound that killed him. None of the powerful elixirs he stocks in his orderly shop can call him back.

“Gods help us,” Farley mutters, tracing a three-fingered sigil in the air, the meaning of which I can only guess. “Gods help us all.”

Under her breath, Carys chants the words of a prayer. I catch snippets as we move across the marketplace. “…may their souls journey safely from shadow into flame, from flame into aether…”

I say nothing, gripping my bow tighter. Trying not to look too closely at the carnage. We are halfway across the square when a woman starts screaming for help—a sound of such suffering, we all glance at one another in alarm. I jolt into motion only to pull up short, remembering my companions.

“For gods’ sake, go !” Carys cries, pushing at my back. “We’ll only slow you down. We can make it the rest of the way without you.”

“But—”

“Rhya.” Farley grips his sword tightly. “There are people who need your protection far more than we do tonight. We are well armed and well trained. We know the way. Go. ”

The woman shrieks again, a bloodcurdling wail.

“Just…get to the keep!” I bark at Farley and Carys, blinking back tears. “I’ll catch up as soon as I can!”

“Be careful!” Carys calls after me.

But I am already running. The woman’s screams are fainter now. I follow them down a short alleyway that splits in two, picking the leftward fork at random. Hoping it might lead me to her. In my head, I see that mother with her two tiny children, running for their lives. I see more bodies being added to that pile in the marketplace.

I run faster, bounding on currents of wind. Practically flying . Barreling from the mouth of the empty alley, I suddenly find myself on King’s Avenue. Battle rages on all sides. Guild members and common foot soldiers swing broadswords and shields against the Reavers’ double-bit battle-axes. There is no sign of the woman whose cries drew me into the fray, nor is there any chance to find her. The moment my foot hits the street, I am ducking blows and spinning beyond the reach of blades.

My hands move without executive command, firing on autopilot. I let my arrows fly, one after another, taking down more Reavers than I can count. When I spot a fallen Dyvedi archer with a near-full quiver on his back, I snatch it up without thinking twice.

He will not need it anymore.

In the distance, I spot Cadogan leading a charge of troops toward the tunnel, sword held aloft as they drive the enemy back from whence it came. Jac is by his side, matching his strikes, his axe swinging like a windmill above his head. A bit of the ice encasing my heart cracks open when I see them.

Still alive.

Still fighting.

I waste several precious seconds looking for Penn but cannot find him anywhere. He is likely by the tunnel where the fighting appears thickest, taking on half the invaders singlehandedly—even exhausted nearly to his limits. I can sense only the faintest pulse of his maegic through the bond. It lets me know he is still alive.

For now, that is enough.

I move in the direction of the lake, slipping through pockets of combat like a ghost. My arrows find their marks. I lose track of how many lives I take, how many Reavers I bring down. I no longer care to tally them, even if I know that later, when all this is over, I will carry the weight of their deaths on my heart for the rest of my life.

I have nearly reached the bridge when a shadowy figure appears in my peripheral vision without warning. I whirl around, bow aloft, arrow nocked, string taught. My hands still as I recognize the set of crystalline blue eyes looking back at me.

“Hello, skylark,” Soren practically purrs. Maegic hums in the air around him, thick as syrup. His irises are liquid with it, churning like the deepest ocean currents, the blue striated with silver. He wears no weapons that I can see and seems not at all ruffled by the absolute chaos unfolding to every side.

“Soren,” I say dumbly, staring at him.

“Behind you.”

“What?”

His eyes flash with annoyance as he sidesteps me. I pivot to see a Reaver not five paces away, his battle-axe lifting for what will surely be a death blow. Or what would have been.

The warrior’s face, contorted in battle fury, shifts to something akin to panic. His weapon clatters to the ground and he grabs at his throat, clawing with increasing zeal, as though his airway is blocked. Red mottles his cheeks. His eyes go bloodshot, then glaze over. He seems to be suffocating. Suffocating on nothing, so far as I can tell. Yet, when he collapses in a heap at my feet, going limp as death claims him, water floods from the corner of his slackened mouth.

“Drowning on dry land…” Soren tsk-tsks from beside me. “A shame he didn’t have gills…”

“You—” I gape at him. “How did you do that?”

But Soren has no answer for me. He is already turning to face another string of attackers. I stand there, paralyzed, watching as he conjures a stream of water from the nearby fountain with no more than the flick of two fingers, then sends tendrils of it toward the trio of incoming Reavers.

He showed me this same trick once, the day we met—a dance of globules around a goblet. I remember thinking it was beautiful.

There is nothing beautiful about this.

The clansmen do not even have a chance to steel themselves as the water invades their mouths, their noses. Fills their throats, surges into their lungs. They drown where they stand, falling lifeless to our feet when their strength gives out.

“Gods,” I whisper.

“Godlike though I may appear, I assure you I am not one.” Soren’s eyes swim with so much maegic, it nearly overflows. Silver flashes in aqueous blue. “And you would not be so impressed by my power if you had learned to wield your own.”

“You…you…you suffocated them.”

“No, I drowned them. But if you desire, you could suffocate them. You could snatch the air from their lungs in a blink, wind weaver.”

I start to shake my head, but another tattooed behemoth is running from the fray, eyes locked on us with deadly intent. I send an arrow flying through his heart before Soren has time to turn around.

“Thanks,” he says drolly, blasting more tendrils of water at a group of nearby Reavers who have gained the upper hand over a contingent of foot soldiers.

“No problem,” I mutter, firing two more arrows.

We fall into a natural attack rhythm, battling back to back as we make our way toward the lakeshore. He covers my blind side; I shield his. Together, we take down a fair number of the Reavers who are chasing terrified civilians as they flee onto the bridge—me with my bow, Soren with less conventional methods. He does not just favor water as a weapon; he fights like water. There is a fluid strength to his every action, a fathomless power fueling his every move and countermove.

“I’m almost out of arrows,” I call over my shoulder to him. “If you happen to see a quiver—”

“You don’t need arrows.”

He declares this as he hurls a massive ball of lake water at a group of six charging warriors. It sweeps them backward across the sand, into the shallows. They swing their axes and brandish their fists, but there is no fighting this sort of enemy. Their heads vanish beneath the teal surface, never to reappear.

I glance at Soren. He isn’t even winded. “A handy trick, that.”

“Mmm.”

“But I do need arrows,” I say stiffly, reaching into my near-empty quiver. “If I’m going to be of any use.”

He turns to face me. The perfect symmetry of his chiseled features is marred by the quirk of one dark brow. “You have a far better weapon at your disposal. You need only use it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I can’t control my power like you do. It surges out in a blast, all at once, and…sweeps me away.”

“Sweeps you away?”

“I lose control. Lose consciousness . And I don’t favor my odds of survival if I spend the rest of the night asleep, at the mercy of anyone who stumbles across my body.”

Soren’s mouth is a flat line of disapproval. “Has Pendefyre taught you nothing at all?”

“He taught me to keep the storm inside contained!” I nock another arrow. It is one of my last. “To shut the gate within, so it does not rip off the hinges and kill me in the process.”

He shakes his head and growls, “Godsdamned Pendefyre and his godsdamned need for control.”

“Can we focus?” I fire an arrow at a particularly large Reaver who has cornered a family by the foot of the bridge. “There are more important things tonight than my inability to weave the wind.”

“No, there aren’t,” he snaps, an uncharacteristic bolt of temper. His hand finds my arm and he jerks me to a stop. Beneath the maegic, his eyes are full of tightly leashed frustration. “Listen to me.”

“Soren—”

“Pendefyre wants you to lock down your power because that’s how he manages to coexist with his own. Like an alcoholic at the bottle, he consumes in extremes. All or nothing. Feast or famine. It is simpler for him to abstain when the alternative is annihilation.” Soren leans in so his face is a hairsbreadth from mine. “But you do not share his vices. You do not possess the same issues with control. You simply need to learn to drink in moderation—and from someone who knows how.”

I jolt back an inch. “I don’t think—”

“Deep down, you know I am right. Think of the times your maegic has come to you naturally. Not when you’ve forced it out, not when you’ve coerced it with brute strength. When it flowed without thought, easy as a breath in your lungs.”

I see my arrows sailing, always finding their marks. I see my feet flying over cobblestones, wings of air beneath me. I see my palms lifting, a pure blast of power sending Keda’s killer through a windowpane.

All those times, I had not forced the maegic. I had not even thought about it. It had come to me just as Soren said—like a natural extension of self.

“Your power is not the problem,” he murmurs. “Your teacher is.”

I jolt. “But—”

“You are not like him, skylark. You are like me .” Soren’s liquid eyes are a roving tide, shifting over my face. His hand rises for the briefest moment to where my bodice plunges, coming to rest on the exposed whorls of my Remnant.

I nearly leap out of my skin. No one else has ever touched my bare mark before. It is excruciatingly sensitive under his fingers, the skin tingling in a way that makes it impossible to breathe, let alone speak.

“You said there is a storm inside you—one that needs taming. I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” he tells me softly. The tingling intensifies, a flood of pure sensation, as he sends a pulse of maegic directly into my skin. “It is not a monster to be shoved into a cage, nor a daemon to be subdued. There is no storm to tame. You are the storm, Rhya Fleetwood.”

We jerk apart as another group of Reavers run at us, shattering the moment. But as I reach for another arrow in my quiver, I cannot stop thinking of Soren’s words and what they will mean for my future…assuming any of us lives through this night.

You are not like him, skylark.

You are like me.

My quiver is empty when I catch sight of a familiar face racing toward the bridge. Racing toward me. His gray hair streaks back from his face as he runs to my side. In his eyes, worry wars with steadfast composure.

“Uther!”

“Have you seen Carys?” He is winded and sweaty but otherwise appears unharmed. “I went to the shop; there’s no sign—”

“She and Farley were making their way to the keep, last I knew. I was with them until we hit the marketplace, but I got drawn into the battle and lost track of them.”

His worried gaze sweeps the lakeshore. My own follows, widening in surprise at what I see. The fighting is dying down. The sand is littered with dead—mostly Reavers, I note with no small amount of satisfaction. The few who remain alive are being driven back down King’s Avenue. Some are fleeing outright toward the tunnel. However impossible, it seems that we might actually win this fight.

“I’m sure Carys and Nevin are safe inside the keep,” I assure Uther, grabbing his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “She did not want to leave the shop. She wanted to wait for you there. But when the fighting hit High Street, I gave her no choice.”

“You did the right thing. Thank you, Rhya. For going to her, and for forcing her to head for safety. I know how stubborn my wife can be.”

“Oh, she would’ve been just fine without me. She has her saber, after all.”

He smiles. “I’m relieved to hear it. Still, I’ll feel better when I confirm it with my own eyes. We have seen heavy losses—soldier and civilian.”

“But the worst of the fighting seems to be over.”

“For now,” he agrees. “Pendefyre and Mabon have sealed the tunnel again. For how long, we cannot say. Whatever enemies remain in the city are being executed by Cadogan’s and Jac’s units as we speak. But the clans are only a precursor. Efnysien’s army awaits outside the city perimeter. Five thousand men in red, prepared to crush us if the Reavers do not succeed.”

I inhale sharply. “So many.”

“Take heart, Rhya. All is not yet lost.” He clasps me lightly on the arm. “Not while we still have breath left to do battle. No matter how dark the night, dawn always arrives eventually.”

“And with it, a full battalion of Ll?rian reinforcements,” I say, as much for his benefit as my own.

“Never thought I’d see the day King Soren fought shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers of Dyved.” He looks past me to the sandy shore. I follow his gaze to the Water Remnant, who is simultaneously drowning two iron-studded warriors in the shallows. Even from this distance, I can see the ultra-bright flash of his grin.

“Can’t say he hasn’t been useful,” Uther murmurs. “He’s nearly cleared the whole shoreline. Should make it easier to get folks into the keep, where it’s safe.”

“I’ll help direct them.”

“Thanks, Rhya,” he says, but his eyes are on the bridge, where a steady stream of people are still making their way toward the proffered sanctuary of the palace. I know he is looking for Carys and Nevin in the crowd. Just as I know he will not be able to think of anything else until he knows they are safe.

“Go on,” I urge gently. “Go see if you can find them.”

“There’s no time.”

“Uther. This may be the only time.” I grab his hand again. “The red army may wait until dawn to unleash fresh hell upon us. Or they may not. We may survive the night. We may not. Either way…you’ll fight better knowing your family is behind those thick stone walls.”

Uther hesitates for a moment, weighing personal desire against his unshakable sense of responsibility.

“Penn would want you to take care of your family,” I add softly. “He would not fault you for this.”

I see the moment he makes his decision; his steady gray eyes light with pure, unadulterated relief. He shoots me a fleeting smile as he takes off toward the bridge. His words carry back to me as he melds into the crowd.

“I’ll be right back!”

I lose sight of him almost instantly. He must be no more than a fourth of the way across when an earsplitting clatter draws my attention sharply upward. I can scarcely believe what I am seeing at first.

Rocks are plummeting down the cliffs to either side of the waterfalls, a great avalanche of stone. Boulders big as wagons roll from the upper reaches, shattering houses into splinters as they tumble toward the ground. At first, I think it must be a rockslide—that perhaps the foundations of the city shook loose as the wards fell, destabilizing the petrified lava flows that encircle us. But the origins of this avalanche soon become alarmingly apparent.

All the blood leaves my face at the sight of the mammoth forms climbing over the rim of the crater. They are vaguely human-shaped, but that is where the similarities end. At least five times the height of the average man, their skin is the grayish-white hue of a frozen lake, their clothing a cobbled mess of hides from dozens of animals. Hanks of dirty hair hang down around wide-set eyes in blunt-featured faces. They have no weapons. They do not need them.

I know, even before I hear it confirmed by the screaming soldier ten paces from me on the shore, what they are.

“ ICE GIANTS! ”

They scale the walls like I might shimmy down a tree, their colossal feet crashing through the copper rooftops of homes that cling to the highest reaches of the cliffs. I hope like hell that those who live there have already evacuated.

Horse-sized hands close around rocks and pieces of shattered foundation. There is no time to prepare as the giants begin hurling debris onto the city. It rains down, smashing through buildings and splashing into the lake. Ants beneath a hailstorm, we scatter in every conceivable direction along the shore, seeking cover wherever it can be found. I find myself completely alone, dodging and weaving, one eye fixed on the sky for incoming projectiles, the other trying to chart a safe course through the panicked crush. Helplessness crackles in my veins.

Only moments ago, I thought we had the upper hand, that the battle might be over. Now, as I watch the ice giants making their way down the cliffs, my throat tightens so much I can no longer pull in breath.

“Watch out!”

The cry comes a split second before what looks like the foundation of a house hurtles through the air, toward the stretch of shore where I, along with about a dozen soldiers, am seeking shelter. Their battle-weary faces contort in terror as they catch sight of the death heading straight for us.

My hand shoots up without thought, rising high over my head, my fingers flexed straight. I call the wind and, in a blink, it comes—unfurling from my chest in a thick coil. I take a breath and give it shape, envisioning a solid wall of air dense enough to stop just about anything, large enough to shield everyone around me.

I stumble backward as the heavy chunk of foundation slams into my air shield, feeling like I’ve been socked in the gut. But I merely grit my teeth and, with a grunt of exertion, shove with all my might. The foundation lurches backward, then lands in the lake with a massive splash. The soldiers shoot me looks of gratitude before they bolt off the sand, out of range of whatever the giants choose to toss next.

Luckily for those of us on the ground, most of their attention is focused on the palace. For every boulder that hits the city, three pelt the keep’s stone walls, where so many Caelderans have gone to seek shelter.

Where Carys, Nevin, and Farley have gone to seek shelter.

My eyes widen as I watch the spire where I sleep smashed to bits. The tower shakes beneath the onslaught. In increasing horror, I realize this was always their plan. A first wave to herd us like cattle into one convenient location. And just when we begin to lower our guard, a second wave to carry out the slaughter.

Distracted by dark thoughts, I bleat in undeniable terror as a boulder the size of a barrel hits the sand not six paces from me. Leaping backward, I collide with a warm, firm chest.

“You’re okay,” Penn rasps. “I’ve got you.”

I whip around to look at him, drinking in the sight of his face—streaked with blood from a wound at his temple, covered in dust, dotted with sweat. The shadows under his eyes look like bruises. The sword in his hand is caked in gore and glowing red. I have less than a heartbeat to appreciate the fact that he is still breathing before his hand envelops mine and he starts tugging me along.

“Penn, they’re attacking the palace—”

“I know.” He sounds grim. “I need to get you clear, then I’ll go back and help.”

“Carys and Farley are in there!”

“No, they aren’t.” He pulls me up three wooden steps, onto the pier that runs the length of the lake. “There’s a root cellar beneath the barracks. I brought them there myself.”

“They’re safe?”

“They’re safe.”

The warmth that floods me at this news is snatched away before it can take proper form. I dig in my heels, dragging Penn to a stop.

“Rhya, we can’t stop here—”

“Uther.”

His dark eyes narrow. “What?”

“Uther!” I dart a glance back at the palace. Thousands who fled there are now reversing course, streaming into the bloodstained ruins of their city as fast as their feet can carry them. I search in vain for a head of gray hair among them. “He’s on the bridge. He went to find Carys in the keep. I sent him in there, Penn. We have to—”

My words splutter into useless silence. Because, as I watch, the tallest tower gives one last shudder as a boulder clips it in the middle, and it topples sideways. It collides with the middle tower, the crack of stone so loud it cleaves the atmosphere like thunder. Both turrets wobble for a moment, then fall as one from that impossible height all the way down onto the palace below. They crack the domed roof of the Great Hall like the shell of an egg, cave in the outer wall of the courtyard, then pitch forward onto the lake.

Onto the bridge.

Time seems to slow in the seconds before impact. From the safety of the shore, I watch as those stuck halfway across look up and see the sky falling down upon them. There is no time to move. No time to even scream. There is no escaping it. No outrunning it. No air shield to save them from their fate. The impact shakes the whole city, a bone-rattling reverberation that echoes throughout the crater.

Hundreds of Caelderans are still on the bridge when it is buried under tons of rock and stone. Nearly all of them innocent civilians.

At least one of them a soldier.

A decorated lieutenant of the Ember Guild.

A man of stalwart spirit and fierce loyalty and unflagging kindness.

A leader of men.

A loving husband.

A new father.

A friend.

My friend.

I’ll be right back , he said to me.

The last words he spoke.

The last words he would ever speak.

In the silence that follows the fall, watching the teal waters of the lake swallow the mangled mess of stone, I feel my heart shatter into irreparable pieces.

“I sent him in there,” I whisper brokenly. In the distance, screams rise to a crescendo. “ I sent him in there. ”