I was so angry I could barely speak.
“Let them go. That is a Sidnee Blade Commander and one of our highest ranking allies that you’re—”
“My army’s orders come from the Teirna,” Klein said, coolly. “And where do yours come from?”
For a moment, the idea of my father being the source of Klein’s attack filled me with betrayal. Then a deeper dread rose over it.
Army?
I listened — listened, and heard a terrible sound coming from outside the palace.
I leapt to my feet, fighting away Klein’s men as they grabbed for me, and ran out to the balcony—
—Only to see Sidnee soldiers scaling the walls, rushing into the Nirajan palace like ants devouring a carcass.
I whirled back to Klein. “Call them off.”
“The Nirajans were only allowed to exist in this place because they agreed to absolute excommunication, with no interference in the Fey world.”
“They haven’t interfered. I made the decision to come here. Me.” I staggered forward. I didn’t realize how badly I was bleeding from my head until I began to taste iron. “This is a foolish move, Klein. Especially now, when the humans are—”
There was a deafening shatter.
A smear of gold flew into the room, and by the time the window’s broken glass hit the ground like drops of rain, the soldiers that held Ashraia were doubled over, clutching their faces. Rolling smoke dissipated to reveal Ishqa, his wings outstretched, sword drawn and pressed beneath Klein’s throat.
“This is a betrayal of our treaty,” he snarled. “You raised a blade against Wyshraj men?”
Klein sneered. “Our treaty has been dissolved.”
My heart stopped. “Dissolved?”
Ishqa’s face barely changed, save for the faintest twitch of muscle. “Pardon?” he said, deadly quiet.
“The treaty is gone,” Klein said. “Your people cannot be trusted. I knew it from the beginning. And this… this detour of yours only proves—”
“I am the Teirness, Klein,” I snarled “And it was on my authority that—”
But they were already moving before the words were out of my mouth.
I lurched forward. Even in the movement, I knew I was trying to stop the inevitable. Klein let out a shout, and his men attacked, lunging for Ishqa and Ashraia. I dove for the nearest Blade, who was attempting to attack Ishqa. I saw Siobhan moving out of the corner of my eye. Beneath the blood rushing in my ears, I could hear her command boom:
“As a Commander of the Blades, I order you to stand down!”
Too late. Tension had already devolved into violence. Ishqa’s back was pressed to mine, his sword raised — he was the only one of us who was properly armed, while I fought with whatever I could frantically yank from a dead man’s hands. I tasted blood. I heard a cry somewhere behind me, and I could not tell whose it was.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, and a deafening cracking sound. More windows shattered. I looked up to see ropes of ivy slithering through the open windows, so fast our opponents barely had time to react. It seized the throats of Klein’s men. The soldiers flailed, but it was no use -- the ropes of greenery pinned their every limb, tightening until they finally stopped moving.
Caduan slowly pushed to his feet, clutching his abdomen. The sight of his open eyes was so wonderful that my own relief briefly drowned me.
“It won’t be enough to keep them for long,” he rasped. Then his gaze fell to the other side of the room, and he went still.
I turned.
The other side of the room was a carnage. The floor was slick with blood. One of the Sidnee soldiers lay beside Siobhan, his own weapon protruding from his throat — Siobhan looked down at him, utterly frozen, face pale.
Beside her, Ashraia lay in a heap on the ground.
His wings were out, but one was nearly disconnected from his body, a mess of bones and tattered flesh and slick, blood-covered feathers. A spear was lodged between his ribs, a Sidnee soldier’s throat grasped in one of his massive hands.
He was not moving. No one spoke. We had all seen enough dead bodies to know what we were looking at.
Ishqa knelt beside him and muttered some words that I could not understand, pressing his thumb to his forehead, and then to Ashraia’s. Then he stood again.
“He’s gone,” he said, without turning.
Siobhan swore beneath her breath.
Words tangled in my throat. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hack the heads off of all the men in this room, just because I could — even though they were my own people. I wanted no association with them.
Ishqa turned and met my stare. I couldn’t breathe. I waited for him to strike me down. I was, after all, a Sidnee, a leader of the people who had betrayed him and killed his friend. I was his enemy.
“Did you know?” he said, calmly.
“No. No, I never would have allowed it to—”
“We can discuss this later,” Caduan said, gesturing to the bodies on the ground. “I cannot keep them down for long.”
“We have to leave,” Siobhan said. She could barely look away from the Sidnee soldier she had killed, her expression pained. “Before more of them come for us.”
Ishqa threw open the door, and we ran.
Mathira, how had it all happened so quickly? Klein’s men were already everywhere, spilling into the palace through doors and windows and balconies. We pressed ourselves to walls and slipped around corners. When we reached the main hallways, where the levels below were visible, my mouth went dry. Below us, the Nirajan people were being skewered by weapons and thrown out windows or simply left to bleed to death on the ground. The carnage was all-consuming.
“There are too many,” Siobhan muttered. “We need to leave here. Once we’re out, we can figure out what happened.” She turned to Ishqa. “Let us remain allies until, at least, we understand why. We are traitors to our own people now, too.”
Ishqa paused, then gave her a slow nod, mouth set. “I accept that.”
Caduan was silent, a muscle feathering in his jaw. I followed his gaze back down, to the violence below. Outside on one of the balconies, I watched one of the Sidnee soldiers grabbing a human maid by her hair and dragging her back, slicing her throat so viciously that her head dangled off her body.
The word came out of my mouth before I realized I was speaking.
“No.”
“No?” Siobhan hissed.
“I can’t leave them this way. We promised them that no harm would come to their city. The Nirajans barely have a standing army.”
I couldn’t say what lingered beneath those words: This is my family. This is my blood.
A slew of arrows flew past us, distracting Ishqa and Caduan as they turned to defend us. But Siobhan grabbed my arm and wrenched me close enough to whisper in my ear.
“You are talking about raising your blades against your own people,” she hissed. “There is no coming back from that, Aefe.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then my eyes fell beyond her. To a Sidnee soldier on the level below, his gaze looking to Siobhan’s unprotected back, his bow raised—
“No!” I dove forward, trying to shove Siobhan out of the way.
But I was too slow.
Sidnee archers were among the best in the world. Perhaps Siobhan herself had trained this one. The arrow struck her in the neck, lodging so deep that the point protruded from the other side of her throat. She staggered against me with such force that I fell against the wall, then together, we slipped down to the ground.
Her lips parted, but only gurgling noises came out. For the first time in our long friendship, I saw fear in her eyes. Fear, and sadness — because after centuries of loyal service, her own people did not hesitate to strike her down.
I could not look away from her face, even as Caduan rushed to her side, Ishqa still holding off the rest of the attack.
There were words coming out of my mouth, but I wasn’t sure what
they were until the fourth or fifth time I said them, muttered beneath my breath like prayers:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for taking you on this mission.
I’m sorry for turning you into a traitor.
And I’m sorry that I am not going to be the loyal, good Sidnee that you trained me to be.
I watched the life fade from Siobhan’s blue eyes quickly, like water draining. With it went the last of my restraint.
You would raise your hand against your own people? Siobhan had said, seconds before they killed her.
My own people?
What people?
They had just murdered their best, a woman who had given them everything that she had, who believed in loyalty until her dying breath.
All my life, I had been ashamed of everything that I was. Now? Now I was ashamed of everything I had been trying to be. I drowned my grief beneath a sea of anger.
Gently, I lay Siobhan on the ground. Closed her beautiful, lifeless blue eyes.
“I don’t care what you do,” I said, to Caduan and Ishqa. “But I’m not leaving them like this.”
I drew my eyes up and met Caduan’s gaze, and as always, it seemed to see something in me that even I hadn’t known how to confront. Not until this moment.
Wordlessly, he offered me his wrist. The scabbed-over wound from Yithara was still there. I didn’t hesitate as I broke it open again, letting his blood and his magic flow over my tongue.
It hit me even faster this time. Maybe the familiarity, maybe the rage, but in only seconds my senses were alight with Caduan’s magic crackling between us. His eyelids fluttered, and I knew he felt it too, this connection enhancing us both. I could see, feel, threads of life running through us — running through the stone and the soldiers and the ivy above us. And I was ready to tear it all to pieces.
We both looked to Ishqa, a wordless agreement passing between the three of us. He gave me a small, terse nod.
Not that I was even paying attention, by then.
I launched myself into the fight. I was acting on nothing but impulse, on anger-fueled instinct. I gave no thought to the fact that the Sidnee I killed were my own people. First I killed them with my sharpened teeth, burning with Caduan’s magic. Then, I tore a sword from a corpse and cut them down, one after another after another, too many to count.
I knew Caduan was beside me, fighting with me, not because I saw him but because I felt him, felt the magic between us feeding into itself. With every body I kicked off of my blade, it seemed to grow stronger. Ivy burrowed through the walls, growing up between the floorboards, tearing apart the soldiers I stabbed.
I was not sure where Ishqa had gone. I no longer cared.
We tore through the Nirajan palace, leaving a trail of death in our wake. I could barely see. I didn’t know if it was blood or tears that obscured my vision. We made it down the grand staircase, out into the main throne room where we had been greeted our first night here. It was unrecognizable, its beautiful stillness overtaken with bodies and blood, all blurred in the violet-red of my broken vision.
I jerked to a stop, faltering for reasons I didn’t understand. It was only when Caduan turned and slid his arm across my back, pulling me into a secluded corner, that I realized it was because I had been stabbed. I hadn’t felt it. Still barely felt it, save for the warmth of the blood now running down the backs of my thighs. But Caduan’s concern, deep enough that it reverberated in our connection, was enough to pull me from my rage.
I sagged against the wall, turning to him. Cold air surrounded us. We were on a balcony, just beyond the main throne room.
“I can keep going,” I panted, my voice ragged. But Caduan’s gaze slid beyond me, to the warriors pouring into the throne room, and the Nirajan soldiers being slowly overrun.
I heard what he did not voice.
“We can win this, Caduan,” I choked out. “We can save them.”
He leaned close to me. So close our noses brushed, so close that our shared magic burned in the breath we now shared.
“There is more than this,” he murmured. “And I want you to live to see it, Aefe. Don’t throw it away here. This is just a battle. Not the war.”
Just a battle? I was so tired of battles. Maybe I would be willing to die to end this one.
“Then where does it stop?” Tears were hot on my cheeks, and a wrinkle deepened between Caduan’s eyebrows as he leaned closer still—
And then blood spattered over me.
All at once, the warmth where Caduan’s body had been was now replaced with a spray of violet. He staggered back against the railing of the balcony. The magic linking us was violently severed.
Caduan stumbled towards me, his hand outstretched, doubled over. A bolt protruded from his chest, black smoke collecting around it.
I reached for him, our fingertips brushing—
Another shot.
One moment he was there. And the next, he was gone, tumbling from the balcony.
A cry tore from my throat, stifled by a vicious impact that flung me against the railing. Pain bloomed through my insides. I barely felt it. All I could think about was the emptiness where Caduan had once been.
I realized slowly that the pain was a bolt stuck in my back, digging straight through my barely-healed wounds from Yithara. On my hands and knees, I turned around.
Standing there was Athalena, her face twisted in rage, tears streaming down her cheeks. Light and shadow surrounded her, like her magic spilled from her every pore, directionless.
“I trusted you,” she screamed. “You swore to me! You swore to me that this would not happen!”
She limped closer. She was badly wounded. Maybe I could have taken her, even with this magic bolt sticking out of me. But suddenly I found it hard to care.
She loomed over me, her crossbow readied, magic bleeding from it.
“My children are dead,” she spat, and her voice cracked like shattered glass and broken bone, and I knew she would kill me.
Could I blame her?
I closed my eyes.
But instead of the impact, I felt the floor suddenly drop beneath me, and the sensation of falling.
I opened my eyes to see the world smearing around me, and the flash of golden wings. A bolt whizzed past my left ear. I looked down to see Athalena, shrinking into the distance, sinking to her knees.
I was being carried. I was flying.
“I have you.” Ishqa’s voice was steady and smooth in my ear.
I choked out, “We have to go back for him.”
Ishqa said, quietly, “He did not survive.”
“We have to go back.”
“Aefe… there is nothing to find.” Ishqa’s voice was pained. “Trust me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to argue, wanted to force him to turn around, tear apart the world to search for Caduan. But I had felt that connection between us sever. I watched him fall.
And so, I was traitorously silent.
With three powerful pumps of Ishqa’s wings, we launched into the sky. I looked down and watched Niraja shrink beneath me, corpses growing smaller and smaller. Down below, on the highest balcony of the Nirajan palace, Ezra watched his city fall. Beside him, Orin turned. His stare fell directly to us. His crossbow lifted, and our gazes met — his gaze that, even from this distance, reminded me so much of my own.
He held his aim for several long seconds, then lowered his weapon and turned away, joining his brother.
And all while Ezra just stood there as if made of marble, helpless as he watched his garden wither.
Chapter Sixty
Max
I had forgotten what it was like to be this carelessly content.
Tisaanah and I fell into it like we were drowning in a vat of honey. How many days had it been? Impossible to tell, considering that we may have lost an entire twenty-four hours to the deepest, longest sleep I’d ever had. Perhaps for the first time in my life, it was easy to be content, when I could roll over and open one b
leary eye to see Tisaanah’s face ungracefully smooshed against the pillow.
Years ago, I had foolishly taken that for granted — the ability to see the people I cared about in passing, unremarkable glances. Of course they were there. Of course they were safe. I knew that I’d never get that feeling of ease back. The pit at the bottom of my stomach, the tension in my chest, would probably linger there for the rest of my life. But in those sleepy days, I came closer to reclaiming it than I had in a long, long time.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been by the time I finally opened my eyes from the depths of hibernation, squinted out the window into the sun-drenched world beyond it, and dragged myself out of bed. I wrapped one of the blankets around my shoulders and shuffled out into the garden. Winter loomed. The sky was cloudless and the sun was warm, but the air so cold that my breath released clouds of mist with every exhale.
The garden was overgrown and messy. Before, I had woven an intricate series of spells to keep the plants happy in the wintertime. Those protections were weak, now — it had been months since they were last refreshed. I picked up a stick and walked the edges of the garden, drawing Stratagrams in the dirt and watching with satisfaction as drooping flower petals puffed back to life.
Then I settled before my rose bushes. Most of the flowers were dead, or close to it, the white and red petals shriveled at the edges. My knee nudged something hard, and I looked down to see that there was a pair of clippers, now pitifully rusted, lying in the dirt beneath a generous coating of dead leaves.
Right.
This was exactly that spot I had come to, months ago, when Tisaanah had made her Blood Pact. I had sat here spiraling into existential dread, desperately trying to tell myself that the clippers in my hand would be the closest thing I’d ever wield again to an actual weapon, and that I could stay here unmoving forever, and that I would be fucking right for it.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 40