Remember the Dawn

by A M Macdonald

  “You don't understand!” Veydun looked rattled and desperate, eyes wide, though he quickly regained his composure and attempted to deflect his outburst.

  “What don't I understand? Tell me.” Sotma kept calm, though he wanted to cut the Arbiter down where he stood for such insolence and insubordination. How dare he think himself equal?

  Veydun closed his eyes, sniffed the air, and took a deep breath. “Ezai.”

  Sotma's eyes burned. His vision was colored red from the starlight that burned inside, itching to be released. “What about Ezai?” he demanded.

  “He was there, in the promenade, fighting with the faithful.” Veydun sighed. “The girl was with him.”

  “I see.” Sotma's fury became so hot he struggled to control himself. “Did he give you these?” He poked Veydun's thigh and gestured to the back of his head. The man winced at the pain, but nodded.

  “Very well. Take four thousand of the remaining blackguard. I will spare a few singers—maybe Bril Vo has some to give as well.” Sotma waved his arm, sick at the sight of the disheveled Arbiter. “And Veydun?”

  “Yes, Sotma?

  The Raynlord grinned, hands clenching behind him. “Don't come back without that man's head.”

  Ahryn wandered unscathed. Pangs of guilt tortured her as she paced around the promenade between pockets of faithful enjoying sips of water and engaging in impromptu games of Celestial. They took a brief respite from the chaos, joyous from their small victory.

  What have I done? Not much.

  She’d watched Ezai's heroic assault without assisting in any way, not even helping those who continued to fight around her while she hovered, shielded by a bubble of light and safe in her protective shell. The spell had been a theoretical command she’d read about in the Doctrine; to her knowledge, only the Vo were known for such strange shielding techniques. She’d read about the theory behind those, too.

  Am I a coward?

  She wondered about her place in the world in these new times, even while offering blessings to bleeding, dirty faithful who approached her. They sought salvation from the Ferai daughter and the rightful heir to the holy seat.

  For all her brave talk and lust for vengeance, when it came down to reality of combat, face to face with another person and nose filled with the stench of sweat, did she have what it took to live up to her family’s legacy and become the last Ferai Starsinger? Several times now she had stared at her hands after snuffing out life, paralyzed by the significance.

  Why was it so hard?

  Her father would be ashamed. She was the last Ferai singer—there was no avoiding it—yet she was afraid to wield the power she possessed: the strong light of Ferai.

  She reached her destination, a gathering of faithful who stood straighter and looked fiercer than the rest. She wondered who the people were. Weavers? Bakers? Tailors? Fisherman? Were they even from Celaena, or had they come from the outer isles? Each man and woman had their own story, but here they were of one mind working toward one cause: revolution.

  In the midst of the gathering stood Ezai, taller and broader than the rest, face impassioned and wearied. Scarred. He spoke to them and discussed marginal victories. He outlined a plan to step by step regain control from the Astral, who seemed to be winning the war. In fact, from Ezai's speech, she gathered their band of faithful, a few thousand strong, were the last survivors. The rest were dead or captured, fallen to the joint force of singers and black soldiers led by Sotma Rayn, the man who had tried to lure her to his side in an attempt to control the faith.

  Ezai and the gathering, which included the staff-wielding man named Juppa, discussed the death count and the faith's losses. She frowned, despondent. This combat, this night of loss and tears, could have been avoided by accepting Sotma’s proposition and joining her Astral kin. She could have given up accepted a future of servitude in exchange for the lives of all the starless through Vespri.

  Would her father approve? How would he measure the lives lost versus the certainty of slavery for so many more? She wasn't ready for such a decision and was thankful she had people like Ezai and Juppa to take the responsibility.

  Am I a coward?

  Ezai spoke at her, but she didn't hear him, so consumed by thought. Eventually he walked over, rested a large hand upon her shoulder and looked her in her eyes. She saw emotion inside him, perhaps more than ever before. Who was this man, this forsaken champion of the Orange Dawn?

  “Ahryn.” She finally heard. “Try to find your star.”

  Why did he want her to sing? She couldn't get a grip on her reality, but she called to Ferai. It was much harder now, much more distant. Ahryn heard herself scream. Was that out loud or in her head? She didn't know. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. Tears dripped from her eyes. She squeezed them.

  At last she found Ferai, then reopened her eyes and felt a thin mist within them. Her body warmed against the rainy, foggy night, but not like usual. The warmth was thin and fleeting.

  Ezai knelt in front of her, inspecting her face, and then he called back to the gathering. “The obstruction grows deeper. The fog is heavier, and it's not going away.”

  Juppa approached the kneeling Arbiter, and he planted the base of his staff with a thud into the broken street. “We should push harder, take advantage of the worsening link.”

  “No,” Ezai said as he rose and turned to address Juppa. “We are surrounded. The Astral control the rest of Celaena. The promenade is where we make our last stand.”

  “We?” Juppa asked. “This is not your fight. Where is the Dawn? Not here, not preserving their balance. The faith entered this conflict alone, and we can finish it alone.”

  Ahryn, no longer tearful, watched the interaction. Juppa had a point: Why had the Order not come?

  Ezai looked at the seniority gathered around him. “You can't do this alone.”

  The faithful grumbled, Juppa's protest loudest of all, but none responded with zeal.

  They knew.

  They knew their remaining host could not stand alone against the singer army closing in around them. It seemed hopeless.

  Ezai guessed her mind. “This may be our last night, but at least it will be spent in honor. What more can a righteous man want? The coming tide will likely sweep us away.” Ezai stood straight, chin higher, and Ahryn saw him mumble to himself before continuing. “Maybe we will leave this world with an unheard whisper, with no stories of virtue to follow. But maybe we hold.” He looked around as he inspected their location. “This place is defensible. The channels are to our back, and the large bridge is a decent choke. There are elevated ridges around us that give the high ground, no chance for flanking. I say we form ranks, spread the survivors to strategic points, and wait out the night while the fog continues to thicken. Wait for the dawn, and use our friend here,” he pointed to her, “to gauge when to counterattack. Watch her connection, and be ready for when her light fails.”

  Ahryn nodded. She thought it a good plan. Stay safe, protected. But a debate ensued. Juppa wanted to run into the fight and seek out conflict and bloodshed. The man, who she had learned was a renowned prophet, yearned for death. Why else would he forget caution and planning in favor of an unbridled assault?

  After a few minutes of argument, Juppa thankfully lost his petition. Ezai would organize the faithful, draw up the battle lines, and prepare for the long wait until morning.

  Ahryn meandered behind Ezai, watching him while he dispatched his soldiers and explained tactics. She listened in earnest and tried to absorb his directions, to learn through diffusion. As they walked through the promenade, she asked questions: Why here? What about there? Where do you expect the assault to originate, and why? Ezai remained patient, giving her his thoughts and answers as best possible. She felt a paternal energy, as if he'd taken a mantle of instruction.

  Every so often, she saw him speak to himself, sometimes with closed eyes. One day, if they survived the night and escaped into the future, she'd ask him about the conver
sations he held with himself.

  But for now, she focused on being prepared as she maintained the link with Ferai. She felt the blue mist swirling within her eyes and the fleeting warmth that coursed throughout her body. If the night was her last, she didn't intend to leave the world a coward. The last Ferai singer would make her father proud, commanding starlight in protection of the starless faithful.

  Veydun approached the promenade with twenty singers and thousands of blackguard, wet from the unrelenting rain. In battle, when slashing with his rapier and running from starless to starless, his flowing blood had kept him warm. But now, he was apprehensive in the slow march and the chill from the fog storm seeped to his bones.

  The promenade, the largest quint junction in Celaena, was circled by a network of intersecting channels only a stone's throw away from the Nightmarkets. Nowhere else in Celaena offered so much open space, a mix of grass and stone, the most appropriate location for a final clash between warring factions.

  As they walked, the looming row of buildings bordering the promenade became visible, crumbling structures on the horizon. His feet felt heavy, and his arms were tired, exhausted from a night of unrelenting strokes and thrusts of his sword and jumps and rolls between bodies and blows.

  Is this really what I wanted? To drag myself from skirmish to skirmish, a servant dog to Sotma Rayn? Who am I but a butcher, cutting down starless in his name?

  All night he’d fought his inner conflict as hard as the war around him, resisting the overflowing shame brought to himself and his family. Firstborn Veydun, his parents almost as revered as the Eagle and the forebearers. Indeed, their parents had fought side by side a decade ago, the right arm of the Dawn and the saviors of the starless.

  But no, his blind devotion to the Dawn had departed a long time ago. He’d chosen his own path to a selfish life, power and wealth like never before imagined or desired.

  It was too late now. Too late for second thoughts or redemption. Now, walking into the promenade at the head of an unstoppable force of singer and steel, he needed to focus on the task ahead.

  The faithful did not scatter about the promenade, did not flail about with weapons flashing haphazardly in the air, as he’d expected. They’d been so easy to slaughter throughout the rest of the city. Here, however, they strategically positioned themselves on high ridges, water to their backs, assembled to cut off flanking points and funnel attackers into the central square.

  Ezai.

  Who else could marshal a loose collection of pretenders into a halfway decent defensive position? It was too bad for his Brother, as no tactics could defend against their approaching onslaught. Veydun’s host of blackguard outnumbered the faithful and were accompanied by almost two dozen singers.

  There, he saw his Brother, huddled near the bridge at the center of the ring of faithful. Tall, gleaming in his plate, his father's sword gripped in his hand. Even now, the last moments before the inevitable, he shouted orders and organized.

  Too late, Brother. Too late.

  Veydun raised his rapier as he screamed into the night, and the soldiers responded. Four thousand men ran in unison, rushing past him with thundering steps and raucous chants and cheers. They flowed into the promenade as water into a pool and filled it to its brim until face to face with their faithful opponents.

  As discussed, the Vo singers arced behind him, taking positions on their own elevated ridges and stretching out to cover the mass of blackguard collected below.

  Still the faithful didn't move or make a sound. Instead they watched Veydun's force take positions, even as the assault began. The blackguard began to push forward, spears down and jabbing, and the Vo interlaced yellow starlight between outstretched fingertips, working together on a collective spell.

  Finally, clangs of swords and spears filtered into the night, the threshold between black and blue filled with ferocious attacks and defenses. Veydun looked down into the promenade from an elevated position and watched the fight like a makeshift general, though he couldn't control what came next.

  Ezai surged forward from his huddle, a glow of blue starlight shimmering off his body as he breached the line of blackguard, his sword swinging wide arcs around him. A pocket opened around the shining Arbiter, and bodies began to fall. The change in circumstances emboldened the faith, and Ezai called behind him to give orders.

  Groups of faithful, maybe a hundred in each, charged at the blackguard in arrowhead formations. Most managed to cleave their way inside the ranks, though they bore their own casualties, and the pinpointed attacks disrupted the blackguard's positioning.

  Veydun saw the tactic right away. The groups of faithful cut paths around clumps of blackguard, isolating them from the rest, whose attention was kept focused on the attacks coming from the large ring. In the chaos, the blackguard allowed themselves to be cut off, and when they did their greater numbers became meaningless.

  A large cylinder of yellow starlight shot over his head and to the middle of the blackguard. The Vo magicians established their collective spell, one beam emerging from the connected ring, and the yellow light enveloped the entire army. As it did, their suits shone and glimmered, just as Ezai's glowed blue.

  Whatever the effect, it was still not enough to stop Ezai's tactic. Veydun needed to stop it before it snowballed and the blackguard fell. He yelled, then charged down into the promenade. A path opened before him as he ran, soldiers pressing forward to allow him through, and he made his way deep into the soldiers and directly for Ezai, whose blue glow lit up the darkness like a beacon.

  Suddenly his own armor began to glimmer yellow as the Vo starlight spell enveloped him. Now he understood: his lungs were clear and he gripped his rapier tighter; his armor was light, his vision was sharper, and the movement around his was slower. Somehow, the Vo were manipulating his senses, honing him into an even more powerful weapon.

  And then he came face to face with Ezai for the second time, the wounds on his leg and the back of his head barely perceptible under the spell of the Vo magicians.

  Ezai noticed him and broke away from his fight with three men of the blackguard, his place taken up instantly by several faithful. Ezai pointed his sword directly at Veydun, furious eyes contrasting a calm face.

  “There will no absolution for you, Brother. Only one of us will walk away.”

  Veydun rolled his eyes, detested Ezai's pompous preaching, how the man held himself like a legend of the past, like a storied better man from better days. What a joke. Any aspect of guilt or shame evaporated. It had been pushed away when he was confronted by what it meant to be an Arbiter, the restrictive and revolting obsession with nobility.

  “Spare me.” He lunged, the tip of his rapier flicking through the air faster than he'd ever managed previously, propelled by yellow light. But Ezai easily parried, his own reflexes surging from the blue light. Veydun tracked the source and spotted the Ferai girl standing in a circle of faithful who looked outward and kept guard. Her face strained in concentration as she maintained her own beam of starlight, a miniature version of what his Vo singers cast from the ridges above.

  They fought for an eternity, a flurry of crashing swords and shifting limbs. Neither struck the other, each moved quickly and defended adeptly, and the night's conflict progressed around them. Sweat trickled down Veydun’s brow, and his muscles strained. But as much as his body screamed against his exertions, he saw Ezai's struggle to be greater, as the man was much older with many more years of wear. So Veydun pushed harder and gritted his teeth against the pain. He struck faster, more violently, and Ezai grimaced as he defended. But, try as he might, Veydun could not break through.

  “Damn you, Ezai! Can't you see? It's hopeless. You'll all be slain! Throw down your sword and I'll spare the rest of your people. No more blood will be shed!”

  Ezai backed away, breathing heavily, shoulders sagging. “You are Sotma Rayn's pet, and your word is mud. Save your energy for the fight.”

  Veydun growled. “This is your last cha
nce, Ezai. I will not show any further mercy.”

  Deep laughter rumbled from Ezai, who threw his head back in a rare show of emotion. “You mistake yourself, Brother. Look around.”

  Veydun looked, and his face blanched: The faithful were winning. He didn't know how long he'd been locked in combat with Ezai, but all the while the faithful had carved into the blackguard and isolated groups of the combatants. Fallen Tsac soldiers littered the promenade, their numbers quickly falling despite the starlight augmentation. Indeed, the Vo abandoned their spell and now filled the air with crackles of starlight bursting into the faithful, singeing skin and blinding eyes. But even the Vo's assault seemed ineffective, the faithful numbers so great and their push so strong.

  Veydun disengaged from Ezai and ran back into the shelter of the remaining blackguard, still in the thousands, but looking defeated and tired. He wiped his face with the back of his arm and looked behind him in despair. They were going to lose. They were going to die.

  But bodies emerged on the ridge behind him behind the Vo singers. There were blackguard, many more, and singers too, from all Houses. And there, hovering in the air in a puff of light and brandishing a sword rippling red, Sotma Rayn.

  Sotma had expected Veydun’s failure. The overconfident Arbiter did not live up to the reputation of the Orange Dawn and had proven himself an embarrassment. Men like Ezai and his father before him—insufferable, intolerable, daring—were made of stronger stuff and were worthy of taking the field against Sotma and his kin.

  He'd waited for Veydun to lead the blackguard and the Vo singers, the least powerful of the Astral magicians, and followed behind with the remainder of his forces. How naive of the Arbiter to think Sotma would wait out the end of their glorious revolution while bent over maps and plans in the Nightmarkets. Soldiers did not hide, they ran toward hard-won honor. Men like Veydun could not understand.