Ascend

by Amanda Hocking

  “When I have not understood?” Tove asked. “When have I not trusted you? When have I even tried to stop you from doing something?”

  “You haven’t,” I admitted quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Tove said. “Just don’t do it again. I want us to work. But to do that, you have to tell me what’s going on. You can’t risk your life or make major decisions about the kingdom without at least letting me know.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated and stared down at my lap.

  “Loki told me what you did,” Tove said, and I lifted my head.

  “What?”

  “What you exchanged for the peace now,” Tove said. “He told me the plan, and it’s a good plan. But we have a lot of work cut out for us.”

  “What?” Willa leaned forward between the seats. “What’s the plan?”

  I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to talk anymore. I was exhausted, and I knew how much work we had ahead of us if we wanted to have a chance against the Vittra. But right now, all I wanted to do is sleep.

  Thankfully, Loki had told Tove enough that he could explain it to Willa and Finn. I rested my head against the cold glass of the car window and listened to them talk about what we needed to do.

  Some of the trackers had already made it back to Förening, and the rest would be there in the next few days. Thomas had already begun a boot camp for them.

  Trackers had some combat training to help protect the changelings and other Trylle, but they weren’t soldiers. Thomas was charged with turning them into an army, but they were going up against an enemy they didn’t know how to defeat.

  Thanks to the extended peace treaty, we were now free to go to Oslinna. When we got back to Förening, we could set up another a team and head out the next day. This time, Willa volunteered to go. I would go, whether anyone liked it or not, but I didn’t say that during the car ride. I didn’t have the strength to argue.

  The hardest part would be convincing other Markis and Marksinna to join the fight. Loki had thought the only things stronger than the hobgoblins were our abilities, so the ones best equipped for a fight against them would be the higher Trylle.

  Willa said that we shouldn’t tell the other Trylle what I had exchanged to get our new peace treaty. They would revolt if they thought I’d risked the kingdom. I would tell them that I had seen Oren and extended the treaty by offering to go with him voluntarily in six months.

  The Trylle still wouldn’t like that, but they would feel much better if they only lost me. In the meantime, we would rally them for a fight against the Vittra and hope that it worked when it came time for war.

  We all had a mission when we got back to Förening. Willa was to start working on the Markis and Marksinna. They all seemed to like her, and she might be able to convince some of them to fight with us. She’d also been working on her own abilities, and she could work on training those that had let their abilities atrophy.

  Finn would work with his father and the trackers to build up the army. He even grudgingly agreed to enlist Loki to help him. Loki was physically as strong as a hobgoblin, so at the very least the trackers could practice fighting him and get an idea of what that kind of strength could do.

  Tove had to figure out who to appoint as temporary Chancellor until an election could be held. He’d volunteered to take care of the Chancellor position because he felt responsible for sending our old Chancellor to die. I assured him that it wasn’t his fault, but he wanted to take care of it anyway.

  And I had what sounded like the easiest job but felt like the most impossible. I had to find a way to kill the King.

  When we got back to the palace, there was a flurry of defense meetings going on. Tove had purposely not told anyone that I had left with Loki out of fear of starting a panic, but I called a meeting as soon as we were back to let them all know.

  Loki tried to slink off to his room to hide, but I made him go with us. As ridiculous as it was, I needed the Trylle to trust him. He had the most knowledge of the Vittra, so he would be the best equipped to help us fight.

  The meeting went about as well as I’d expected. Lots of yelling and disagreeing, although the Marksinna Laurent was quiet since Tove threatened to banish her. Once I got them calmed down and explained what I was going to do and what had to be done, they took it a bit better. A clear plan helped ease their fears.

  I ended the meeting by telling them that we were going on a recovery and fact-finding mission to Oslinna. Without even asking them, I volunteered myself, Willa, Tove, Loki, and Aurora to go. I was trying to ease them into the idea that Markis and Marksinna could do actual work, and hopefully, they would when I called upon them.

  Afterward, we all dispersed to complete our tasks. As desperately as I wanted to sleep, I didn’t have time. I had to go to the library and find every book on the Vittra I could. There had to have been other immortals before Oren, and there had to be ways of killing them.

  Of course, all the old texts were written in Tryllic in an attempt to disguise them from the Vittra. That’s where the most useful information would be kept on how to stop them. My Tryllic had gotten better, but it wasn’t fantastic. It took me ages to read a single page.

  “Wendy,” Tove said, and I looked up to see him standing in the doorway of the library. My vision was blurry, as I’d spent too long staring down at old texts.

  I was sitting on the floor amongst a pile of books near the far wall. I’d started out carrying books over to the desk before deciding that was a waste of time, and I had no time to waste. We were leaving for Oslinna in the morning, and we would be gone for a few days, so I wouldn’t be able to research then.

  “Did you need something?” I asked.

  “It’s late,” Tove said. “Very late.”

  “I have a few more things to go through.”

  “When was the last time you slept?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to sleep. There’s so much to do, and I don’t know how we can possibly do it. I don’t know how we can be ready, unless I’m working every minute.”

  “You need sleep.” He came into the room and walked over to me. “We need you to be strong, and that means you need to rest sometimes. It is a necessary evil.”

  “But what if I can’t do this?” I asked, staring up at him with tears in my eyes. “What if I can’t find a way to stop Oren?”

  “You will,” he assured me. “You’re the Princess.”

  “Tove,” I sighed.

  “Come on.” He held out his hand to me. “Sleep now. We can look more in the morning.”

  I let him take my hand and pull me to my feet. He was already in his pajamas, and his hair was even more disheveled than normal. I guessed he’d tried to sleep without me, but he’d gone looking for me when I hadn’t come to bed.

  My mind was racing, thinking of all the things I had to do. I didn’t think I’d ever really be able to sleep, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

  15. Oslinna

  It looked like a bomb had gone off. I’d never seen Oslinna before to have a real comparison, but everything was devastated.

  Oslinna was a small town, even smaller than Förening. It was settled in a valley at the base of several low mountains. By the looks of what was left of some of the buildings, it had been quite beautiful.

  All of the trackers’ homes were smashed. Trackers lived in small cottages, most of them nestled in trees or the mountains, and the floors were usually just dirt. They were very easily destroyed. But the nicer homes of the Markis and Marksinna were mostly decimated too, with parts of the roofs missing and walls collapsed.

  The palace in the center was the only thing still standing. It was like a version of my own palace, except on a smaller scale and with fewer windows. While the back of my palace overlooked the river, this one was built into the mountain behind it.

  Half of the palace had crumbled, and it was blackened, as if burnt. The other h
alf looked okay, at least from the outside. There had been some obvious damage, like broken windows and a destroyed fountain, but it looked much better than the rest of the town.

  We’d driven slowly through the town, in awe of the carnage, and Tove had to swerve a few times to miss debris in the road. He stopped in front of the palace, parking next to an uprooted oak tree.

  “This is too much for us to handle,” Aurora said from the backseat. She’d been complaining about helping the entire way here, but we’d left her without a choice. She was the strongest healer, and the people of Oslinna had been hurt.

  “We’ll do all that we can,” I said. “And if we can’t do any more, then so be it.”

  I got out of the car before she could voice any more complaints, and Duncan pulled up in another Cadillac behind us. He had Willa, Matt, and Loki with him. Finn had wanted to come too, but he was still healing and Thomas needed him to help with the trackers. Matt had insisted on coming along, and at first, I’d been against it, but we really could use all the hands we could get.

  “This is even worse than I thought it would be,” Willa said. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. “I can’t believe they did this.”

  “This is who you’re fighting?” Matt asked, looking around. “The people who did this?”

  “We’re not fighting anyone right now,” I said, cutting off his train of thought. “We’re cleaning this up, and that’s the only thing we need to worry about.”

  Loki lifted up a heavy branch and moved it off of the path to the palace. It had been cobblestone, but many of the stones were missing, tossed about the lawn.

  Tove and I approached the palace, trying to look both dignified and remorseful. The remorse part wasn’t that hard. Seeing that much damage was devastating.

  Before we got to the palace, the door was thrown open. A girl not much older me than came out, her dark hair pulled up in a tangled mess, and smudges of dirt and ash covered her face and clothes. She was small, even shorter than I was, and she looked as though she might cry.

  “Are you the Princess?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m the Princess from Förening,” I said, then gestured to Tove. “This is the Prince. We are here to help you.”

  “Oh, thank god.” She burst into tears and actually ran toward me and hugged me. “I didn’t think anybody would come.”

  “We’re here now.” I patted her head because I wasn’t sure what else to do and exchanged a look with Tove. “We’ll do everything we can for you.”

  “Sorry.” She pulled herself away from me and wiped at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve… There is much that needs to be done.” She shook her head. “My father would be angry at me for behaving this way. I’m sorry.”

  “There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “You’ve been through so much.”

  “No, I’m in charge now,” she said. “So I should act like it.”

  “Kenna Tomas?” I asked, hoping I remembered her name correctly.

  “Yes,” she smiled at that. “I’m Kenna, and with my parents dead, I’m now the Marksinna of Oslinna.”

  “Do you have any survivors here?” I asked. “Any people who need medical treatment? We brought a healer.”

  “Oh, yes!” Kenna nodded. “Come with me.”

  As we followed her into the palace, Kenna explained what had happened. While they were sleeping, the hobgoblins had come in and started tearing the town apart. As far as she could tell, that was actually their main goal. People got hurt because the hobgoblins happened to be destroying homes with people in them, or throwing trees that would land on bystanders. It was like a tornado hitting a town in the middle of the night, without any sirens to give warning.

  They had very few trackers here when the attack started, but they hadn’t lasted long. Kenna saw a tracker go up against a hobgoblin, and the hobgoblin snapped him in half. The hobgoblins retreated pretty quickly after the Markis and Marksinna started defending themselves.

  In the Oslinna palace, a small ballroom had been turned into a makeshift care unit. Some of the more injured Trylle had left to go to nearby hospitals, but most of them would rather die than be treated by humans.

  It was horrifying to see. Cots were set up all over for survivors, and most of them were bloody and battered. Mänsklig children with broken arms and dirty faces were crying as their host parents held them.

  Aurora immediately went to work without any prompting from me, which was nice. Willa and I went around talking to the people and giving them water, helping them if we could.

  Kenna took Tove, Duncan, Loki, and Matt outside to show them where the most work needed to be done, and I wanted to go out with them. I would be much more useful lifting heavy objects than Matt or Duncan, because I could move them with my mind.

  But I felt like I needed to be inside with the people, at least for a little while. Most of them I couldn’t help, other than handing out bottled water, but I think some of them just wanted to talk, to know that somebody cared.

  Their stories were heart-breaking. Wives had lost their husbands, children had lost their parents, and most trackers had lost everything. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. It felt wrong and selfish. I needed to be calm and assure them that we would fix this, that I would make everything better.

  I stayed long enough to talk to every person in the room, but then I had to move on. I could be of more help to them outside than I could in here. Willa went with me for the same reasons, leaving Aurora alone to heal them as much as she could.

  As we were leaving, Willa was tearing up. She had a small, dirty teddy bear clutched in her hands, and she wiped at her eyes.

  “That was pretty rough in there,” I said, holding back my own tears.

  “This little tracker boy gave me this.” She held up the bear. “His whole family died. His parents, his sister, even his dog. And he gave me this because I sang him a song.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to take it. But he said it was his sister’s, and she’d want another girl to have it.”

  I put my arm around her, giving her a half-hug as we walked down the hall toward the palace door.

  “We have to do more for these people,” Willa said. “That little boy isn’t hurt, but if he was, Aurora wouldn’t heal him. She wouldn’t want to waste her energy on him.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “It’s insane.”

  “That’s got to change.” Willa stopped and pointed back to the ballroom. “Every one of those people in there has been through hell, and they all deserve help just as equally.”

  “I know, and I’m trying to make it better,” I said. “When I’m going to all those meetings, this is what I’m trying do and why I want you to help me with them. I will change this, and I will make it better. But I need help.”

  “Good.” She sniffled and played with the teddy bear. “I will start going to the meetings. I want to be a part of what it is you’re doing.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling some small bit of relief in that. “But right now, the best way to help these people is to get this place cleaned up so they can go back to their homes.”

  Willa nodded and walked with me again. Outside, I could see some improvement. Half of a roof had been on the lawn of the palace, but it was gone now, as well as the uprooted oak by the cars. I could hear the boys a few houses down arguing about what to do with the debris.

  Matt suggested they make a pile in the road for now, and they could worry about moving it later. Loki started to argue against it, but Tove told him to just do it. They didn’t have time to waste arguing.

  Willa and I joined them, and we all went to work. Loki, Tove, and I did most of the lifting, while Matt, Duncan, and Willa tried to clean things and straighten up the houses. Just moving the garbage out of the way wouldn’t solve their problems, but it was the first step in being able to go back and fix it up.

  As the day wore on, I started to feel exhausted, but I pushed through it. Loki had to physically move everything, so desp
ite the chill, he ended up warm and sweaty. He took off his shirt, and the ordinarily pleasing sight pained me. The marks on his back looked better than they had before, but they were still there. Reminders of what he’d gone through, for me.

  “What happened to him?” Willa asked me while we cleaned out one of the houses. A tree had gone through the window. I got it out, and she cleaned up the glass and branches.

  “What?” I asked, but I saw her staring out the open window at Loki as he tossed a destroyed couch on the garbage pile in the road.

  “Loki’s back,” she said. “Is that what the King did to him? That’s why he has amnesty?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Wind came up around me, blowing my hair in my eyes, as Willa created a small tornado in the middle of the living room. It circled around, blowing all the glass and little bits of tree into the funnel, so Willa could send it out to the garbage.

  “So what’s going on with you and him?” Willa asked.

  “Who?” I said. I tried to pick up one of the couches that had been tipped over, and Willa came over to help me.

  “You and Loki.” She helped me flip the couch back on its feet. “Don’t play dumb. There’s something major there.”

  “There’s nothing anywhere.” I shook my head.

  “Whatever you say.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s the marriage going?”

  “The past three days have been fantastic,” I said dryly.

  “What about the wedding night?” Willa asked with a smile.

  “Willa! This isn’t the time to be talking about that.”

  “Of course it is! We need to lighten the mood,” she insisted. “And I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about any of this yet. Your life has been all drama since the wedding.”

  “You’re telling me,” I muttered.

  “Take five minutes.” Willa sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her. “You’re visibly exhausted. You need a break. So take five and talk to me.”

  “Fine,” I said, mostly because my head was beginning to throb from all the objects I’d moved. That last tree had been hard to get going. I sat down next to her, and a bit of dirt billowed up from the couch. “This is never going to be clean.”