She’d only gone a few miles when the trees that pressed in on all sides suddenly gave way to the lofty keep with its dark walls. The wind and snow howled around the cracked stone, tugging at Kaiya’s braid as she walked into the chilled shadow that fell below the castle’s crumbling ramparts. Torches from the windows blazed in the blackness, silhouetting a handful of Croeli lurking in the shadows.
Kaiya ignored these lighted beacons and the scowling masks in the crossbow slits. She looked past the poor cockroaches under Thinir’s thumb and forced her eyes upward until they landed on the central balcony of the foreboding keep’s top floor. Only a few torches lit the black stone there—a few bleak fires warming the dying bones of her wicked uncle. He did not need to see those halls that encased him—not while he looked through the glassy eyes of a dozen other warriors, who in turn saw through the lives of a thousand more. She knew that he waited there in the dark, commanding his forces across the worlds and valleys, controlling events miles from here—and yet completely unaware of how close his greatest enemy truly was.
Twice now have I died, Uncle. Do you think you can kill me a third time?
Stepping from the safety of the trees, Kaiya made her way to the foreboding keep. To her uncle.
To the end.
*~*
Lyn had just barely fallen into a troubled sleep when surprised, agonized screams filled the night without warning. The crash of metal upon metal and the cries of battle rang out over the camp. She was on her feet and reaching for her fantoii immediately. Eili was next to her in an instant, her one blue eye scanning the fray.
“This ain’t good, Lyn.” The sounds of battle were coming from the far side of their encampment—the area farthest from the blackened stronghold. While more trusting of the Faoii and their prowess, the small band of Croeli rebels had still chosen to use their prisoners as a buffer—a meaty shield against the possibility of approaching foes. But Thinir’s men had circled around and flanked the Croeli with ghostly ease.
“They must have Blinked,” Lyn snarled. She had expected this, but Amaenel had ignored her council. Now they’d all end up paying for his arrogance.
As if on cue, rustling from all sides suddenly surrounded the Faoii who were already in battle formation. Asanali and Emery joined Lyn and Eili, watching all around them as more of Thinir’s soulless-eyed warriors emerged from the darkness. Emery and Eili had no weapons, and Asanali carried only a rough-hewn branch she had picked up on their journey here. Briefly, Lyn wished she’d been able to bargain for more.
“May the War Watcher guide you.” Asanali’s voice was as soft as it had ever been, but her eyes were fierce.
Lyn tightened her grip on the fantoii as one lip curled. “She always has before.”
The collective war cry of the Faoii filled the sky as the Croeli broke from the trees, shattering the night with their howls. Lyn plunged her fantoii into one of the Croeli’s necks as he rushed her. Her foe didn’t even hit the ground before she pulled the blade out with a spray of blood and spun to cleave an arm off another opponent. He continued toward her, undeterred, swinging his criukli overhead. Lyn ducked beneath the blow and Asanali was there, swinging her staff with a trilling cry. It collided with the scowling mask, bending it in at the temple. Jellied eye and blood dripped from a socket as the Croeli crumpled.
Eili scooped up the two dropped criukli and tossed one to Emery, who caught it with his uninjured arm. They circled together, parrying the Croeli advance even as more poured in from the trees.
“We’re too open here!” Emery’s strained cry rose over the din. “We have to get to cover!”
“Watch yourself!” Eili spun to cleave open the face of a Croeli that had flanked him.
“Try to get to the trees!” Lyn’s voice held the full power of a Faoii, and the others fought to obey her command. Back to back, the quad desperately tried to make their way to the safety of the forest, and their kinship aided every stride.
The assembly had been trained to work together, to watch out for each other. The Croeli attackers had no sense of empathy, no altruism. They thought only about their own ends, their own swings—no care, no strategy, no help. Slowly, desperately, the Faoii gained higher ground.
A criukli shot out suddenly, snaking past Lyn’s deflecting fantoii with a grace she did not expect. It slid across her shoulder, near the neck, but did not quite cut deep enough to clip the collarbone. Lyn danced back a step as she scanned this newest foe.
A myriad of scars and healed wounds shone on what exposed skin she could see, and it surprised her. A true warrior, then—not a simple farmer masquerading as something more. Lyn smiled. If I am to die here, then at least the Eternal One saw fit to offer me a worthy battle. She centered her weight and rounded on the Croeli again, blood seeping across her chest. The masked warrior stumbled back beneath her blows, parrying her thrusts with the ease that comes from muscle memory.
Lyn pushed forward and brought her blade up under the horned helm, flicking the visor off with a twitch of her wrist. It tumbled through the air, end over end, and as it fell, Lyn paled. A long, ratted braid snaked down from where the casing had been, its metal rings clicking on the armored breastplate.
Lyn’s arm faltered. This was a Faoii in front of her. A sister. Her armor was different and her fantoii gone, but surely, somewhere in that shell, the Faoii remained? Surely Thinir had not been able to reach that part of her that made her Faoii?
Without reason, without logic, Lyn suddenly wanted to find that girl, that warrior who had been forced to face more than she could handle and who had received a punishment worse than death. It didn’t make any sense, but in that moment, Lyn wanted to bring her back.
The refurbished Faoii lunged at Lyn again, and this time the blade pierced the shoulder all the way through. Lyn released a tortured howl, snapped from her reverie. The pity was gone. The hope for this girl’s future was suddenly and brutally absent. Instead, there was only rage—rage at Thinir, rage at Kaiya’s death, rage at everything that had transpired since the Croeli had taken their first filthy steps onto her land. She rounded on her adversary again. This was no Faoii. This was an abomination. And whatever remained of her sister deserved better than this.
Lyn didn’t think about her training as she threw herself back into the fight. She didn’t think about Faoii-Ming’s voice in her head, shouting from across time and space, Faoii! Never attack from the shoulder unless you have no other options. You are Faoii, but your opponents will be no small child. An overhead strike will leave you open for a counterattack. Even with a shield, you will be unprotected. Block, Faoii! Always block! Lyn didn’t hear the voice that tried to snake its way to her from through the trees. She could only hear the sound of her fantoii striking against the criukli in front of her. She could only think about how each of her blows drove her opponent back another step—how each one of her attacks was stronger and more orderly than her opponent’s had been. She could only think about how the trees were so close, and by the Goddess, this abomination was going to die at her feet like a Faoii rather than live like a slave.
Liberation was near at hand. For all of them.
Her group had made it clear to the tree line, and Lyn had the upper hand. A single strike could clear the way and give her friends—her valiant friends, who were still fighting on all sides of her, tiring at the incessant onslaught—at least some reprieve in the trunks’ cover. She could do it. She could end this.
With a scream, Lyn lifted her blade over her head and brought it down toward the emotionless face with all her might. Goddess grant you a better eternity, sister. I will see you on another battlefield.
But her fantoii never made contact. Instead, the fallen Faoii brought forth her mighty shield and, with a swing of her arm that was unhindered by agony or strain, forcefully slammed it into Lyn’s side. Lyn flew through the air before crashing into one of the very trunks that she had sought as a refuge. The sudden impact made her head spin as she tried to focus. Her eyes cleared j
ust enough for her to see Asanali spin around to where Lyn had
been only a moment before.
Just in time for the broken Faoii’s criukli to slide down across her chest.
Lyn’s scream shook the forest. She tried to rise. Red anger fueled her. She lurched forward, rushing at Thinir’s shackled monster and the wide-eyed, ever-gentle Asanali, who was slowly— oh, so slowly—sinking to the ground.
A shadow appeared in front of Lyn before she could reach her target—a shadow that oozed from the trees above her, clad in dark, cracked leathers, with mocha skin . . . and pale blue eyes. Tendaji’s fantoii cut through the night with its terrifying scream, hewing Asanali’s assassin from collarbone to navel like a reed through water. The dead woman toppled without a sound.
“Get into the trees!” Tendaji bellowed as he scooped Asanali up into his arms and backed into the forest. Eili and Emery followed, still hacking at the surrounding Croeli, their movements fueled by adrenaline and pain. There were no angelic or demonic cries from their blades, only the sounds of bloody flesh and crunching bones as they followed Tendaji’s retreating footsteps. Lyn made her way to her feet and dashed after them.
They ran like gazelle, in zigzag patterns, Tendaji gripping Asanali’s body to his chest with white knuckles. Even with his uneven gait and rasping breath, he sped across the forest in a liquid dance. Eventually, the slower, brain-dead Croeli were left behind.
“Tendaji! Sir! We have to stop! We’re getting too close to the keep!” Emery’s hoarse cry broke over the sound of their pounding footfalls. Tendaji skidded to a halt, Asanali choking wetly in his arms.
“Here, let me see her.” Eili pulled Asanali from him with shaky fingers. Emery was already stripping down to the waist and laying his cloth tunic on the forest floor, his eyes wet and terrified. Eili immediately started barking orders to the young man, only glancing up from Asanali’s bleeding torso long enough to catch Lyn’s gaze. “Take watch, girl. They won’t be far behind.”
Obediently, Lyn spun on her heel to watch the trees. She was dizzy from pain and adrenaline, but even that was drowned out by the rage in her heart. She didn’t look at Tendaji as he stepped up next to her, his body tense.
“I thought you’d abandoned us.”
“My sister called you sister. She would have died to keep you well.” He drew his lips into a thin line. “I could do no less.” There was a racking sob behind him. Tendaji’s eyes stayed unnaturally steady at the sound. Lyn didn’t bother using the Sight to try and determine what he was feeling.
“We’re not going to be able to move her again,” she said through gritted teeth.
“No. And Thinir’s men are coming.”
“I won’t let them get to her again.”
“No. We will not.” Tendaji redrew his blade and circled until he was at Lyn’s back. They tensed as the Croeli emerged from the trees.
41
The men in the hallways and stairwells offered little resistance as Kaiya rushed past them on her way to the center balcony. They dropped limply, barely having time to raise their swords as she flew by. The stairs fell away before the Faoii as her pumping legs carried her higher. Nearer.
A solitary man stood at the top of the stairs that led to Kaiya’s final destination. Small and hunched, he was not much of a warrior, but he swung his sword and moved his legs like a good puppet, and Kaiya faced him as an adversary. His wooden, predictable movements did not offer much of a challenge, and when she swung her blade, his head rolled away without resistance, the helmet clanking down the steps into the darkness.
Kaiya was about to leap past the body and continue to her final goal when something caught her eye. She slowed, staring at the decapitated head that stared up at her with a mournful gaze. She recognized the face.
“Oh, Ray. I’m so sorry.” For the briefest of moments, Thinir was forgotten, and Kaiya’s heart was heavy as she knelt to close the open eyes, remembering the couple that had helped her in Resting Oak a lifetime ago. Astrid had told her that Thinir had taken their blood, but Kaiya had forgotten. She’d thought they would be safe. She’d thought Illindria would keep them out of this war.
She’d thought wrong. No one was untouched. Every person had been called to fight—to take a side whether they wanted to or not. Thinir’s horned god had promised unity, and that unity had been provided at a high cost. She said a prayer over Ray as she swore yet again that Thinir would not be allowed to “unify” another innocent soul.
The whispered oath did not take long. Even in her guilt, Kaiya could not afford to linger. She rose, stepping over the corpse of the fallen civilian with a silent stride. Calmly, soundlessly, she glided into the room at the top of the stairs.
Thinir’s chambers were empty except for a few stone columns and bits of broken furniture. Rain pelted in through the high balcony’s open doors. Tattered curtains blew in the wind. A few weak torches cast their dying lights across the stones, filling the room with twisted shadows.
From behind the ruined curtains, Kaiya saw him. Thinir’s tattooed scalp glowed eerily in the torchlight, his robes fanning out behind him in the wind and rain as he stared down across the battlefield. An icy chill filled Kaiya as she stared at the uncle that looked like her in so many ways. She’d never hated anything as much as she hated Thinir in that instant.
The chill spread into Kaiya’s chest as she took a step forward. Her heart thundered beneath it as she took in the room and its lone inhabitant. The lack of traps and guards infuriated her. Was her uncle really so sure of his invincibility?
Of course he was. This was a man who had looked through the eyes of others for so long that he no longer remembered what reality felt like—a man who had grown used to sacrificing the helpless so that he could linger on. This was a man who had no concept of humanity—or of fear.
The ice melted away, and in its place raged a fire so primordial that Kaiya could not contain it. It broke through her, pushing her forward with an anguished howl. She charged from the stairwell, her battle cry ringing against the columns, her heart and legs fueled with the deaths of every person that had fallen at this demon’s hands. Thinir turned toward the sound, his pale eyes shining in the darkness, infinitely large with the things they saw.
Was there a smile on those lips? A glint of fear in those pale eyes? Kaiya saw a million emotions under the clean slate of her uncle’s features and ignored them all. Those weren’t his emotions that she saw, only his puppets’ shadowy echoes. A thousand terrible, unholy deaths played within the cracked mosaic in his eyes.
The criukli in Thinir’s hand jerked, and Kaiya felt the power burst from it, rushing toward her as she sprinted forward. She Blinked past the force, and it hurtled into the iron stands that supported the room’s few torches. She ignored their clatter and drew up to Thinir with her sword raised high. One death too few, Uncle. Yours will be the last. The cold rain drenched her cheeks even as her inner fire burnt them from the inside out.
There was a hint of fear in Thinir’s eyes for a moment as she appeared before him, but it quickly gave way to amusement, and this time the look was his. He smiled in the darkness, so sure that her sword would be as harmless to him as all the others had been. So sure of the invincibility his god had granted.
Kaiya wondered whether Thinir had time to realize his mistake as her blade bit into his skull, slicing through the tattoos, the certainty, and the invisible chains with ease. Blood sprayed across the balcony in a warm, coppery fountain, drenching the stones at Kaiya’s feet.
Thinir dropped limply, his blood red and so very human. There was no clash of thunder, no screaming of demons.
His death was overwhelming in its simplicity.
Kaiya rested her hands on her knees, breathing heavily, trying to massage the cracked pieces of her mind back into place. Behind her, soldiers ran in from the stairway, evidently summoned by their now-dead lord. They took only a handful of steps before stopping, their teeth chattering in sudden fear and adrenaline that their undomin
ated minds were not prepared to face.
Kaiya sighed and straightened, rounding on these newest foes. Several turned and ran while others simply slumped to the ground, sobbing into bloodied hands. Horrid, frightening laughter bubbled up from Kaiya’s chest. Thinir had been so certain that no one would make it to him, he had not even bothered surrounding himself with real warriors. Only farmers. Merchants. Ray. At least they were free now.
The weary Faoii breathed deeply, trying to calm her shaking limbs. The air was thick with blood and gore. Her eyes stung with smoke. The fallen torches had lit the old, broken furniture strewn across the room, and the flames were spreading quickly. Kaiya turned to escape into the outside world, which promised fresh air and a fresh start. A fresh existence.
But something stopped her. There was someone there—a figure just behind the haze. Someone who shouldn’t be. Kaiya exhaled slowly and lifted her blade yet again, forcing her arms to steady despite their exhausted protests. Glassy laughter issued from the darkness.
The Last Faoii Page 31