“This is dire.”
We went directly to my father’s study from the infirmary. When the door closed, there was a stark transition. Calm reassurance was left outside. Inside, there was only cold focus.
“We have no need to be paranoid,” Klein said. “The House of Stone is a smaller nation, and they were unprepared. We have no such—”
“You sound as if you are suggesting that it’s the Stoneheld’s own fault that they were slaughtered,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“I am merely looking at the situation rationally.”
Rational. How could one be rational about thousands of Fey deaths?
“We still lack so much information,” Siobhan said. “I don’t understand how they managed to do this. The numbers were on their side, but this level of destruction is extreme. Nor do we know why they did it.”
“I’m not certain that there are answers to those questions that would make me feel any better about this, Commander Ai’Reid.” My father paused at his window. The view looked out over the farming settlements that lay just beyond the edge of the Pales. Beyond them was the wall, and we were so high up that the lush sprawl of the forest was visible beyond it.
Somewhere out there were the remnants of the House of Stone. Not so very far away at all.
“I agree,” Siobhan said. “But we still need to make it a priority to get those answers, rather than acting on impulse. And while I have every sympathy for the House of Stone, we must remember that we uphold Sidnee interests, not Stoneheld interests.”
My eyebrows lurched. I whirled to her, my anger flaring so violently I had to choke back my response.
“And what would Sidnee interests be?” my father mused. He peered over his shoulder, and his gaze fell to me. “You look as if you have something to say, Aefe.”
Normally, I was so unaccustomed to speaking to my father that even his stare left me frozen — I wasn’t even sure why he had allowed me to come here. But now, when I thought of the grief on Caduan’s face, I felt the kind of fury that made my thinking sloppy and my words too-quick. I was answering before I could measure myself.
“It was a coward’s fight,” I said. “To overwhelm an outnumbered enemy. If the humans did it to the House of Stone, they’d do it to others. We cannot allow that.”
“We still don’t know why they attacked,” Siobhan said. “It is early to make that assumption. Their quarrel may have been with the Stoneheld specifically.”
“Do you think that they care about the borders of our houses any more than we care about the borders of theirs? It was Fey blood spilled in that slaughter. That deserves to be avenged, no matter what house it belongs to.” I paused at the wall, pressed my palm against the cold stone. “At least we have the Pales to protect us. But the other Houses do not. And if more houses meet the same fate as the House of Stone, if the population of Fey is smothered out until we’re among the only ones left… then we’ll just be like mice hiding in our tunnels.”
I couldn’t bring myself to meet my father’s gaze. It was several long seconds before I lifted my head to see him still staring out the window. Siobhan turned to the map on the wall, silver engravings seared directly into obsidian.
“The Houses furthest south, closest to the human lands, would be in the greatest danger, and would also hold the greatest chance at having more information,” she said. She pressed her finger to the little sigils denoting Houses closest to the sea and the islands. The House of Reeds. The House of Roiled Seas. The House of Nautilus. “But they are all aligned with the Titherie.”
“Iero did not address it, but even Stone is technically an informal member of the Titherie,” Klein added. He said the word Titherie the way one might say, “runny horse shit,” and everyone let their noses wrinkle appropriately.
Most Fey Houses fell into one of two alliances. The Titherie was led by the House of Wayward Winds, while the House of Obsidian headed the banner of the Caidre. The two were… not on good terms. It had been many years since the two alliances had warred with each other, but when they had, it had been horrific. No one had been quick to forget it.
“Aefe is correct,” my father said, at last.
I couldn’t help but blink in surprise, to hear those words.
“This may be larger than House conflicts,” he went on. “And if getting the answers means working with the Titherie, then so be it.”
Klein’s eyebrows lurched. “With all respect, we cannot trust Wayward Winds. We can’t allow our fear of one imaginary threat to overshadow the one that’s already poised at our throat—”
“I’ve made my decision,” my father replied. “I’ll write to Wayward Winds tonight.”
Mere days after all of Stoneheld awoke, Caduan had his coronation ceremony.
It had been, unsurprisingly, my father’s idea — my father, who believed in upholding tradition above all else, even though the idea made Caduan pale two shades.
“A coronation for who?” he had said. “For a dozen people?”
And my father had looked at him as if this were a ridiculous question. “Yes, exactly,” he’d replied.
The ceremony took place upon the dais of my father’s throne room. The Stoneheld on the expanse of black glass — so few of them that they looked like lone ships lost at sea. Words were spoken, prayers were whispered, Stoneheld rituals mingling with Sidnee ones. My father was the one to bestow Caduan his crown. It was a beautiful creation of copper and polished stone that formed delicate peaks like a stag’s horns — one of the few artifacts that the Blades had been able to recover from the House of Stone.
Caduan had risen, and his handful of remaining subjects bowed, and the image made my eyes sting.
On the day of my father’s coronation, he had seemed like the most powerful man in the world. I had been in awe of him — his easy smile and bold confidence more befitting of a force of nature than a living, fallible creature.
But Caduan? Caduan just stood there, looking past his subjects, past my father, past the Pales, as if searching for the home that had once lay miles beyond them. He seemed so…lost.
At sunrise the next morning, the House of Wayward Winds arrived.
Chapter Eleven
Max
I really did try not to look back.
It seemed like it would be easier that way. When we rode out, I could barely breathe. I’d been handed so many lives and told to throw them like a battering ram against the most powerful cities in Ara. We would start with Antedale, a fortress of a city, and one of the key jewels in Zeryth’s path to victory. And that, of course, would only be the beginning.
Yes, I tried. But when we were nearly out of eyeshot from the base, I couldn’t help but turn. Tisaanah was standing on the balcony, a speck of red. I raised my hand and gave her one final wave.
Moth rode beside me. He’d been given a big, lumbering beast of a draft horse that had little interest in either moving or listening to him, which would have been very amusing had I been particularly inclined to find anything amusing in the moment. He turned in his saddle and followed my gaze.
“What will she do?” he asked.
Ascended above. What a question indeed.
“She’ll be defending Korvius.”
Moth’s brow furrowed. “Alone?”
My stomach turned.
I could have said, No, she’s not alone, she has the rest of Zeryth’s army.
I could have said, No, she’s with Zeryth, who betrayed her, and Nura, who has hidden knives poised at everyone’s throats.
I could have said, No, she’s with Reshaye, an ancient, bloodthirsty entity that does nothing but destroy.
Instead I said, “Yes.” And that felt much closer to the truth.
Moth didn’t say anything more, going uncharacteristically silent. But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him keep looking over his shoulder until the base was out of view, shrouded by the rolling clouds.
It would be a long journey to Antedale. My division was not entirely
comprised of Wielders, making Stratagram travel impractical — and of course, it was generally a bad idea to mobilize hundreds at once that way, with such a high risk of people accidentally landing on top of each other (or, in the case of one infamous freak accident, in each other).
I had two captains who each helped lead half of my forces.
One was Essanie, a Solarie woman who was taller than I was and bound her chestnut hair into one long coil piled atop her head. She was perhaps in her forties, eyes sharp with a constant take-no-shit stare. I’d known her during my time in the military, though not well. She had seemed strong and practical. Oddly, she’d also had an amiable friendship with Zeryth. Even then, that had surprised me.
The other was Arith, a Valtain man with an admirable white beard and large eyes that peered beneath an eternally-lowered brow. He was wiry and inclined to ramble. But he was also clearly intelligent, and his men admired him — a sign, I had long ago learned, of a leader worth keeping.
They both seemed like competent captains, skilled Wielders, and good soldiers. But I knew that surely they weren’t chosen for their skill alone. No matter whatever illusion of control Zeryth had bestowed upon me, he would be an idiot not to surround me with people he trusted implicitly. Essanie and Arith deferred to my commands, but Zeryth certainly had their true loyalty. And if I stepped out of line, they would report me to him in a heartbeat.
Not that I would.
As much as I hated it, Zeryth was right. I was a woefully cautious man, and Zeryth’s threats against Tisaanah echoed constantly in the back of my mind. I wanted to believe it was impossible. Hell, I still believed that it was impossible. But after so long, I had forgotten how potent it was — the fear of having something to lose. There were some things I just couldn’t risk.
That night, I watched the soldiers as we made camp. If any of them were nervous about what was to come, most didn’t show it. But some were so fucking young. None quite as young as Moth, but at least a few couldn’t have been much older. Those were the boisterous ones, stumbling about with manufactured swagger, making fools of themselves.
It made my stomach turn. My heavy eyelids and tired limbs told me that I should, theoretically, be hungry after a long day of travel. But I sat there and looked down at my soup with disinterest, ultimately handing it off to Moth, who gobbled it up in eleven genuinely impressive seconds.
After dinner, when most of the soldiers mulled about drinking, a tall, gangly young man approached me.
“Captain Farlione? If I may interrupt?”
I blinked. He was interrupting nothing but my silent, far-off stare into existential dread. I cleared my throat and rose to my feet. “Of course.”
It was dark, the only light now the moonlight and the dimming remnants of the campfires and lanterns. The man had a mop of mousy hair that fell so low it nearly covered his deep-set eyes, and a crooked, apologetic half-smile. I was struck by a wave of recognition I couldn’t quite place.
“I only wanted to meet you personally, sir.” He lifted his hand into a salute and bowed his head, a sight that made me viscerally uncomfortable.
“Ah, no need for— Just—” I stuck out my hand instead, and the man looked confusedly at it before grasping it in a quick handshake.
“It’s an honor, sir,” he said. “Phelyp. Phelyp Aleor.”
The realization hit me like a stone. “Aleor,” I repeated.
Phelyp’s eyebrows arched in surprise. He grinned. “You remember—”
“Of course I do.” My tone veered on unintentional annoyance — you actually think I’d forget? I cleared my throat. “What’s your relation?”
“Brother, sir.”
I eyed the young man before me. He was probably, what, nineteen? Twenty? Just around the same age as his brother had been when he stood in his place. The resemblance between the two was uncanny. Same awkward stance, same gangly limbs, same ridiculous floppy hair.
“Rian always spoke so highly of you,” Phelyp said. “So when I found out that you would be leading us, I was—” He shook his head. “Well, if I may speak frankly, you were a legend in our house when I was younger. And then with your victory at Sarlazai… It’s just an honor, sir. A real honor to fight behind you.”
Honor. That word made me sick.
“The honor was mine,” I said. “Rian was a good man. The world is worse off without him.”
Sadness flickered across Phelyp’s face. “Thank you, sir. He was a good soldier. And I know that it would have meant a lot to him to know that you thought so, too.”
It took everything in me not to correct him — No, that isn’t what I said. He was a good man, not a good soldier, and one is worth a thousand times the other.
I went silent for too long, and Phelyp shifted awkwardly. “Well. I should be getting back, but I just wanted to meet you for myself. Again, sir, thank you. It’s an honor.”
Ascended, that word.
“Likewise,” I grunted, as Phelyp saluted me again and turned back to the beachside fires, leaving me feeling as if I’d just had a conversation with a ghost.
It shouldn’t have hit me so hard. I was being ridiculous. But suddenly, I was so… what? Angry? That didn’t feel like quite the right word, but what other response was there to a world that threw Rian Aleor’s life away as if it were worth nothing, and then launched his little brother into the same gluttonous jaws?
“Are you alright, Max?”
Moth’s tentative voice pulled me from my thoughts. I turned around to see him clutching his empty bowl, looking up at me with wide eyes. He’d barely spoken to me all day, clearly somewhat terrified after my outburst the day before.
Instead of answering, I asked, “Why did you join the military?”
Moth’s round eyes grew rounder. “I told you, it was just that the other teacher wasn’t good, and—”
“No. Moth, I—” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m not asking so I can scold you. I’m asking so I can find out the answer.”
He stared at me warily.
“Truly,” I said. “From my heart of hearts.”
“I didn’t lie. It was all true. Helene wasn’t a very good teacher, not like Sammerin. And there was a lot, I mean a lot, of money, and you know that my father—”
“If your father needed money, we could have found another solution for that.”
His eyes were downcast. “It wasn’t just that. It’s just… You and Sammerin and Tisaanah were out there killing slavers! And I was just doing lessons that didn’t help with anything. So when they put out the call for recruits, I thought…” He shrugged. “This is how I can actually help with something instead of—”
“Moth, you’re twelve Ascended-damned years—”
“I’m thirteen.”
I threw up my hands. “Oh, well that just changes everything.”
“You and Sammerin were both twelve when you joined,” he shot back.
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. “That’s different.”
“Why? Because I’m not as good at Wielding as you were? I can get better. I have been getting better, I practice all the time. I haven’t even broken anything since you left for Threll. So I can be just as good as you.” His brow was knitted, hands balled up against the edges of his bowl. “I’ll work three times as hard. But I want to be just as good.”
I closed my eyes. A memory from long ago unfurled in the darkness. My brother, then seventeen, shoving a sword into my hands when I was ten years old. Or did I pick it up myself, after watching him wield it?
I drew in a breath and let it out slowly through my teeth. “Your value and skill as a Wielder has nothing to do with how much time you spend on a battlefield.”
“But—”
“Sammerin and I spent the better part of a decade trying to undo everything that the Ryvenai War did to us. Do you understand that?”
“But Max—”
I raised a finger. “Do not,” I said, “interrupt me. Listen. I had you moved to this divisi
on so that you could be my assistant. And when we arrive at Antedale, you will stay at the camp and mind all of the very important logistics to be minded, miles away from the fighting. Do you understand?”
A wrinkle deepened between Moth’s eyebrows. “But—”
“Do you understand, Moth?”
A long silence. He looked deep in thought. “So I won’t be helping,” he said, at last.
“Sometimes the best possible thing you can be is useless,” I said. And that was the end of that.
Chapter Twelve
Tisaanah
I dreamed of a memory. I dreamed of Esmaris.
I was fifteen years old, lounging in one of Esmaris’s many velvet-adorned salon rooms. Two other women were there, too, more of his slaves — by the end, I was his favorite, but that was not true just yet. They were older than me, and two of the most stunningly beautiful women I’d ever seen. They draped themselves over Esmaris and his general, both of whom treated them as mildly irritating scenery. Still, they knew their roles, and I knew mine. They were the open arms, and I was still the curiosity — the Fragmented girl with strange skin and strange eyes, who could make such beautiful butterflies.
Esmaris and the general were talking business. I floated about the room with my little performances, but kept one ear turned to their conversation. I was young, but I already understood the value in collecting scraps from conversations no one knew I heard.
Today, Esmaris was displeased.
He had been fighting with another powerful Threllian family for valuable land to the east. Through the sheer might of his military force, he’d claimed one small section with intention to tighten his fist around the rest. But his rivals had been so incensed by his victory that they’d sent in their men to burn the fields. It was a suicide mission. The men who’d lit the fires — slaves — had died doing it. The family would not reclaim their land. It was a move made out of spite, and nothing else.
But of course, that was how the Threllian Lords played their games. They were not hungry, so a few thousand pounds of destroyed food meant nothing to them. Their slaves were possessions, not people, and so a few discarded lives in the name of revenge was considered to be an appropriate cost.
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