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Chapter Thirty-three

There is no time to wonder about Uther, no time to mourn the unfathomable loss of so many all at once. With the palace brought down, the ice giants bellow guttural cries of victory that pierce my eardrums and chill my heart.

Then they begin to climb down into the city.

“Form ranks!” Penn yells. “Jac, Cadogan, Mabon—gather your men! Take position at the shoreline!”

I cannot move. I cannot breathe. I can only watch as my friends fire orders at their units, swords at the ready as they prepare to face this new threat. Dyvedi foot soldiers form orderly lines along King’s Avenue, preparing for a second bombardment. Soren, shoulders tense, fixes his eyes on the fallen palace and the giants who brought it down.

There are ten of them, by my count, each as tall as a building and nearly as wide. They wade across the lake, waist-deep in the teal water, their sights fixed on us with lethal promise.

They will kill us all , I think, watching them come closer. Stomp our city flat beneath their feet. Devour us whole and use our bones as toothpicks when they are finished…

“Crossbows!” Mabon bellows from the left flank. “On my signal!”

A volley of bolts sails across the lake. Many find their marks, striking the giants in their arms, their legs, their fleshy abdomens.

Still, they keep coming.

“Archers, hold steady!” Jac commands from the right flank. A line of men with longbows draw back their bowstrings. “ Fire! ”

The arrows, too, hit home. But the giants pause for no longer than a breath—momentarily annoyed by the barrage of pointy sticks ricocheting off their skin, but not deterred. Their anemic faces are set in masks of rage as they continue to wade our way. The lake steams around them as they move through it, their flesh so cold it instantly turns the surrounding water to frozen pulp.

I understand now why they are called ice giants. It is not so much their hoarfrost skin, nor their inclination to make their homes in the coldest reaches of the world. It is the utter lack of warmth in their eyes. Their stares are cold as death, unfeeling as the snow of the Cimmerians. I have never felt so sure of my own impending death as I do in that moment, standing on the shoreline, watching them approach. The soldiers around me shuffle nervously. Someone is praying under his breath, a plea on the wind.

“…may ever the gods shield those who are faithful and true…”

The giants cross the midway point.

“Swords at the ready!” Cadogan is yelling at his contingent of soldiers. “Shields aloft!”

But I am no longer paying much attention to the soldiers. I am, instead, fixated on the sight of the two men standing side by side at the water’s edge. Both broad of shoulder, their stances a mirror of sheer fortitude. Through the bond, I feel a surge of power unlike any I have experienced before.

As one, their arms lift. In Penn’s hands, twin balls of flame; in Soren’s, two massive globes of water. Like a dance they choreographed so long ago the steps are ingrained in the marrow of their bones, their maegic blasts out across the lake in a coordinated attack. Fire engulfs two of the ice giants, burning their frosted skin and catching their hair. They roar in pain and fury, clutching their melting faces and stumbling backward.

Soren brings two others down. Water invades their gaping mouths, just as it had the Reavers in the streets. They choke and gag, their mammoth hands grabbing uselessly at their throats as they slip beneath the surface. The water is quick to close over their heads, a current under Soren’s command.

Mabon’s and Jac’s voices ring out, calling for volley after volley of arrows and bolts. Penn’s immolating giants lose their battle. They, too, are swallowed by the lake.

Four down.

Six remaining.

They march on, water surging around their waists. Three-quarters of the way across now and gaining speed. If Soren and Penn can take them down, perhaps we are not done for after all. Perhaps we will not perish. Perhaps—

I feel the moment Penn’s maegic splutters to an end, his fire extinguishing. He has pushed himself beyond the pale this night, has given all of himself. Both muscle and maegic. His knees hit the sand, his shoulders concave as he gasps for breath, then collapses forward in a heap. Panic sluices through me as I see him fall. Through our bond, he is no more than a faint flicker. A brittle heartbeat, only half breathing.

I come unglued from my spot behind the contingent of swordsmen—the city’s last line of defense. Penn had told me, in a tone of granite, that under no circumstances was I to leave their ranks. I’d agreed, but that was before. Before I watched him burn out. Before I saw Soren grappling with the six remaining giants at once, his face a portrait of strain.

I run down the shore on winged feet, crossing the divide in three great strides. My heart is a battering ram, slamming against my rib cage as I sail to a halt between the two men. Soren, to my left, still battling; Penn, to my right, barely breathing.

In the distance, soldiers are shouting orders, sending volleys across the sky. Their voices are snatched away beneath the growing roar of wind that sweeps across the lake, churning still water into froth. Their arrows are yanked off course as the air through which they fly begins to whip round and round, a torrent gathering strength, growing faster and faster with each passing second. Sand kicks up around me, forming a funnel cloud. I allow my arms to extend at my sides, the golden sleeves of my dress flapping wildly as the sheer force of the tornado I have unleashed lifts me off my feet.

Soren’s eyes flicker to me—just once, just for a second. Long enough for me to see the surprise in their depths as he beholds me rising into the sky. Higher and higher. I am nearly at eye level with the ice giants now. They stare at me, not twenty paces away, their vacuous gazes struggling to comprehend what they are seeing. Their steps falter, a moment of uncertainty.

I close my eyes.

You are the storm, Rhya Fleetwood.

And I am. I feel it there, inside me, not so very deep beneath the surface. A hurricane, a tempest. Dark clouds swirl, spurred by destructive winds. I do not attempt to tame them. Instead, I pull them close—invite them out to play like old friends, long overdue for a visit.

For so many years, I feared the darkness inside. All my life, afraid of what I was. Of who I was. I’d been running long before I ever left Seahaven. Holding back those clouds for fear of what would happen if I allowed them to close in.

I am not running anymore.

I let the darkness fold over me. Surge through me. Under my skin, into my marrow. I let it take me in its arms and waltz me, slowly, toward the end. And it is not half so dark as I had feared. For inside those clouds, there is light. Not the sun shining through, nor the heat of flame…but the white-hot flash of an electrical current, striking across my storm.

I taste copper on my lips and know my eyes are leaking blood. Electricity sparks down my spine, tiny volts of pain. Every hair on my body stands on end as the air inside my tornado turns to pure static. My chest aches like one of the ice giants has closed a fist around it and is gradually squeezing the life from me. But I cling to my last remaining shreds of cognizance, letting the maegic gather strength, letting the charge build within me until I cannot hold it any longer.

My eyes slit open at the moment of release. The bolts race through me, shooting from the mark at my breast, then down my arms and out my fingertips.

Lightning.

It branches out in beautiful arcs, hitting the ice giants squarely at the center of their chests, piercing the surface of the water. The lake absorbs the charge, then amplifies it a thousandfold, the water conducting the electricity in an outburst that illuminates the night sky into daylight.

The giants writhe as they are electrocuted. Eyes rolling white, toothless mouths gaping, spines arching as convulsions splice their bones. Their bodies are no more than steaming husks when the lightning storm finally dissipates.

I smile at the sight as my own body, pushed past the point of all endurance, loses hold of the vortex keeping me aloft. I plummet back to earth in a tangle of gold skirts. I do not even have the strength to try to catch myself.

Thankfully, Soren is there to do it for me.

He lets out a low grunt as his arms close around my body. I can do no more than blink up at his face as he cradles me to his chest.

“A handy trick, that,” he says, eyes swirling with maegic and something else. Something like wonderment.

My lips part to respond, but I cannot quite manage it. My strength is flagging, my consciousness hanging by a thread. As Soren’s gaze roves over my face, reading the exhaustion etched across my features, he sends a sudden pulse of pure power straight into my chest, lending me a bit of his seemingly bottomless reserves. It crashes through me like a tsunami and coils around my aching Remnant. It feels different from Penn’s—not a heated scorch, but a soothing swell. Shoring me up from the inside out, until my very soul feels saturated with his mercurial brand of maegic.

Still, it is not enough to keep me from fading.

A dark sea of exhaustion is beckoning me into the depths.

My lids flutter shut.

And I slip under.

When I awaken, I am lying on a simple pallet in an unfamiliar room. The flaming mountain of Dyved is painted over the door. A rack of weaponry rests against the wall. It takes me a moment to realize I must be in the soldiers’ barracks.

Every muscle in my body protests as I push to my feet. My head spins so much, I have to catch myself with one hand on the wall before I collapse. I wait until the waves of dizziness subside before I leave the room.

Outside, it is chaos. The communal dining room has been turned into a makeshift field hospital. Injured Caelderans are everywhere, draped over tables, slung across stacks of chairs, being treated by anyone with a free set of hands. Before I’ve made it three feet, I find myself assisting an old woman who is attempting to wrench a soldier’s dislocated shoulder joint back into place. When the deed is done, she meets my eyes—the first time she’s truly looked at me since I stopped to help—and gapes.

“Wind weaver.” Her whisper is reverent. She makes the sign of the tetrad in the air. “Gods bless you.”

I do not know how to respond to that, so I merely nod and continue on my way. There are more survivors than I’d dared hope for, with all manner of battle wounds. I’ve stopped again to help—this time aiding a set of distressed parents who are stitching up a rather nasty gash in their daughter’s leg—when I feel the warmth of Penn’s presence.

He waits until I am done bandaging the wound before he claims me. He says nothing as he comes to a stop by my side, merely intertwines my fingers with his and leads me slowly out of the sickbay, into the early light of day. The sparring pits outside house more survivors. I spot the old chestnut roaster moving among them, passing out parcels of steaming nuts to bleary-eyed Caelderans. His wrinkled face is streaked with blood and etched with sorrow, but he manages a small, gap-toothed smile when our gazes catch.

Penn leads me down toward the lake. There are still bodies littering the shore, blood staining the sand. His jaw is tight with tension. The air is heavy with unspoken words.

Dawn has broken while I slept. I look around the ashen pallor of morning, stunned silent by the devastation. The palace has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The lake steams faintly, still far too hot to risk wading in. The surface is dotted with thousands of dead fish—unintentional casualties of my electrical storm.

I look for a long moment at the submerged remains of the bridge, buried beneath the fallen turrets. I know the answer to my question before I voice it. Still, I have to ask. Have to hear it spoken aloud before I can convince myself to believe it.

“Uther?” My voice cracks.

Penn shakes his head.

“Damn it.” Tears—long held back during the endless night—fill my eyes. “ Gods damn it. ”

Penn says nothing at all. There is nothing to say. His friend is dead, his city in ruins. And yet, we are still here. Still alive. So he pulls me into his arms and lets me weep against the hollow of his throat. His chin comes down to rest upon the top of my head as he holds me close, his hands gripping me so firmly I can hardly draw breath.

“Carys is asking for you,” he says when I’ve quelled my tears. “She’s at her shop. She’s…not doing very well.”

I jerk my head back to meet his eyes. They are infinitely grave. “Does she know? That I was the one who sent him into the palace?”

“Rhya—”

“She will hate me.” Another wave of tears threatens to overtake me. “And I cannot blame her for it. It’s my fault.”

“It is not your fault.”

“I’m responsible. I practically killed him myself.”

“You did not kill Uther.” He shakes me lightly. “You saved countless lives during the battle. You saved us all, Rhya. Without you, we would be naught but pulp in the giants’ hands. Carys knows that. Everyone knows it. One day, they will write songs of this battle, and sing of the wind weaver who cast a light in the darkest of moments.”

My lips twist. I am not entirely sure I like the sound of that. Glancing around, I trace the lines of wreckage. It will take a long time to rebuild the fractured buildings and splintered homes. It will take even longer to heal the scars of all we have lost.

“Efnysien was already hesitant to enter the city when he heard Soren had joined the fight. But he turned tail and fled as soon as he saw your lightning,” Penn tells me. “He realized, without the Reavers or the ice giants, he had little chance of taking the city. His army was already fleeing south by the time the Ll?rian troops arrived. Soren is chasing them from our borders as we speak. He wants nothing more than to tear his brother-in-law limb from limb.”

“He’s not alone in that regard.”

“We will have our chance at retribution, Rhya.”

“You don’t think Soren will catch him, then?”

Penn shakes his head. “Efnysien is a coward above all. He values his own life much more highly than those of his men or his allies in battle. He fears our maegic almost as much as he covets it. So, for now, he will flee back to his dark kingdom of sand and shadow to reevaluate his plan of attack.”

I swallow hard. “He will come back.”

“He will come back,” Penn agrees. His tone hardens into a vow. “And if he does not, it matters little. For I will hunt him down and eradicate him from this earth, even if it is the last thing I do. He will pay—in blood—for all that he has taken from us.”

I shiver at the ferocity of his words. There is no doubting the truth in them. Efnysien has started a war. One we will finish.

For Keda.

For Uther.

For the hundreds lost.

For the futures stolen.

“Will Vanora sanction a war?”

Penn stills. “Vanora is dead, along with half the courtiers in the throne room. Crushed when the towers came down. The Ember Guild is still working to dig out any survivors.”

“Gods.”

He nods.

“Penn, I’m sorry.” The words feel woefully inadequate in the wake of such sweeping loss. “I know your relationship was… complicated . But she was still your family.”

“Vanora has never been my family. Not really.” He looks at me again. His eyes burn like embers, smoldering even beneath the crushing sadness that presses down on us. “The only family I care for is the one of my own choosing. My horse. My men.” He pauses. “You.”

My heart flips inside my chest. I want very much to stretch up onto my tiptoes and press my mouth to his, but a thought occurs to me before I can act on the urge.

“Wait a minute—you’re the king!”

“I suppose.”

My eyes bug out of my head. “You suppose ?”

“It doesn’t change anything.” He heaves an indifferent shrug. “I will continue on as I have for many years. I will rebuild my city, secure my borders, and see my people restored. And, when that is done…”

“War,” I whisper.

“War,” he confirms.

We stand there for quite some time, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, staring at the shattered skeleton of the keep. Saying nothing. Eventually, I close my eyes, slipping into the calm center of my mind. I feel Penn—the thread that tethers us together. Flame and heat, a furl of warmth in the lapping waves.

But…

There is something else beneath the surface.

Another tether, wrapping around my soul. The same, and yet altogether different. Cool and crisp, fluid as water as it falls over the smoothest rocks of a riverbed. It stretches out beyond the crushed city. Beyond even the confines of the crater. And I know, in the depths of my soul, if I were but to follow it…

I would find myself face-to-face with King Soren of Ll?r.

Penn’s arm tightens on my waist.

I open my eyes to meet his.

“Come,” he whispers, brushing his lips against mine—light as a feather, but heavy with promise. “There’s a world to remake.”