by N. M. Howell
And then I realize that though the trees are still coming, Delara has disappeared. I hold my throat and scream as loud as I can: as the scream passes into my mouth, my magic amplifies it and the every tree in the air is obliterated. But the storm rages on. The rain pours and the thunder crashes through the night and the lightning beats at the earth. I cannot see. I cannot hear. But I can still sense her magic and it is only because of this instinct that I dodge Delara’s attack from behind me. She is holding a great sword in one hand and a great whip in the other. Both covered in black flames. I conjure a sword of my own.
“And where’s your shield, Nevena?” she asks.
“I need no defense against the night!”
We are charging each other. The storm is angry. The world is silent. Flashing before my eyes is our entire life together. Our secret meetings. Our laughs. Our hopes. Our embraces. The girl I knew and loved, walking the halls of Moerdra Castle cloaked in a grace I could only reckon at… and then our swords collide.
Back and forth we fight in this terrible storm, her flaming blade and my icy one. Her fiery whip snaps through the air and my free hand casts spells in desperation. In love and hate. At times we fight in the air, parrying as we soar in quick circles around the clearing, and then back to the earth, our blades clashing like cannon shots. I cast icicles and sheets of ice and she burns through them with her black fire. She cracks the flaming whip at my head and I hold my throat to repel it with a mighty, frosty breath.
At last I turn her storm into a blizzard and freeze the ground of the entire clearing. I hold my palm out to her and unleash a beam of cold, blue light, hitting her directly in the chest. She crashes to her knees. I move to approach her and she holds her blade straight in the air. The sky is suddenly alive with hundreds of bolts of lighting, all diving into Delara’s sword. The force of it is blinding, incredible, winds pushing out from her and that dark blade in every direction. And before I know it she points the blade at me and one horrific, twisted, gargantuan bolt of black lightning hits me.
And I’m tossed into the air. High, far, and fast. Above the trees. Flying, flying, until I come crashing down again. Just before I fall beneath the trees. I see Delara soaring past me, streaking through the night on bolts of her black lightning.
And the world fades away.
Chapter 7
I am dreaming. Surely I must be.
I am chained to a great stone wall. I cannot move. A cloth has been forced into my mouth. I cannot scream. I can look down just far enough to see a javelin protruding from my stomach. I have been impaled, staked to the wall. I look up. Delara is jumping in ecstasy some twenty feet before me.
“Did you see, my love?” she asks. “I’ve struck her dead center!”
“What beautiful aim, wife.”
The voice is Eduard’s. He is standing beside Delara. I realize now that they are both naked. And they are wearing wedding bands. She has wed him.
“But she’s still alive, wife,” says Eduard. “Now we’ll have to take her head.”
“Do not be so hasty, beloved. All good things in time. But first we will make her watch.”
Delara drops to her knees and pulls Eduard close to her.
“Now, now,” Delara says, looking at me and stroking Eduard’s leg. “None of your servant girl demure. He’s a real man, Nevena. And this is how you please him.”
I can’t see what she is doing to him, but he seems to enjoy it. He pulls her up to kiss him, their tongues burrowing into each other’s mouths. He brings Delara over to a table just in front of me.
And then I watch him make love to her across floor and table and chair and desk. Against the walls. Right next to me. They are sweating and writhing and moving through every possible position as they make mad, passionate, fierce, dangerous love. All the while they watch me, and I can’t turn my eyes away.
I faint. Or perhaps I die.
I open my eyes. It is the real world again. I am lying on a bed, surrounded by red-haired men and women. At the foot of my bed are two familiar faces: Yunger and Sister. And here, sitting beside me and holding my hand, a smiling white-haired beauty. Ciraa.
“Hello, precious girl. Welcome to Throdan.”
Chapter 8
“Destroy them all!”
This earth has run red with blood and not a single step can be taken without stepping over the dead. The night sky is blacker than shut eyes and in the fire light of torches we seek for slaughter. I cannot hear the winds in the trees or the sweet songs of birds, only the clash of steel and the screams of the dying. I do not even know whose blood covers my hand. A full day and night we have fought, from hill to dale to river bank and back again. Many hundreds have breathed their last meager breaths and laid down to the black bliss of nevermore. Above, the Aiglon soar like bolts as they snatch and tear the Meethrul—winged red wolves from the enemy, with teeth sharper and longer than a hunter’s dagger. Below humans and Stags—large, sharp-antlered deer who have given themselves the gift of speech—fiercely battle the enemy, who have amassed giants, spiders, wild men, and the Helkar. It is the greatest, most vicious battle of the new war and I am the commander of the side of good. The side of light.
Three long years have passed since the fall of the Doomed Mountains. Since I fought and lost Delara. Since Eduard was taken. Since then the road and battle have hardened me. The demure servant girl who dreamt only of family and love has died. I am her darker, stronger remnant. I am her cold, hard spirit. I am the Winter Queen.
The magic flows from my heart down my arm and into my blade. With one deft swipe I lay low twenty of the enemy and the wave of energy that still travels through the air from my swing lays low a dozen more.
“Make way!” I command.
My soldiers leave the path before me, but the enemy knows no better. I release a blinding beam of ice and lightning from the front of my body, and I know not how many die from this attack. Finally, the enemy gives pause and begins to look afraid. I grab my throat and amplify my voice so that it carries over the entire battlefield.
“I am the commander of this battalion,” I say, my voice booming out into the night around me. “Lay down your arms or I will lay down your very souls.”
And as far as the eye can see, the blades of the enemy fall.
The next morning the sun rises on a land of death and ruin. The Empress sought to take the Homeland, lands belonging to the Stags since time immemorial. She engaged the Meethrul, sworn enemy of the Stags, to accomplish her purpose, but she has failed. We have saved the land for the Stags and also won their allegiance for the great war that is sure to come. We leave the prisoners to be dealt with by the Stag council and I bid farewell to Bamfal, chief of his people. The army and I depart, with Ciraa by my side. We have a journey of six days to home, Throdan.
The night I fought Delara she struck me with truly powerful magic; were it not for my body’s ability to heal I would surely have died. But though Ciraa and Sister worked tirelessly to heal me, and though my body did heal strong, I have never healed completely. A thin scar stretches from my right shoulder across my chest to the left side of my rib cage. Even now my right hand is not of much use other than an abnormally tight grip, which is why I fight with a sword now. I’ve also lost all feeling in the arm. And to this day, whenever a storm comes or is even nearby, I feel the mor’lumière twisting inside me and the scar glows white. I feel a storm coming now. Ciraa notices.
“Oh, sweet girl,” she says. “I wish I could cure you of that.”
“A cure is not what I seek.”
“And what does the heart of our Queen seek?”
“Destruction.”
“I daresay you shall have it.”
I do not look at her. I cannot deny she has been good to me, but I am so full of anger and pain, and the battles I’ve fought have been so fierce, that joy and life seem distractions. Only the quest
matters.
“T’is a shame none of the prisoners had the information we sought,” Ciraa
continues. “We were getting so close to catching Erglon. Worse yet, we’ve not heard a peep about her in over a year now.”
“You may as well say her name, Ciraa. She is Delara, lady of the House of Thriscea, heir of Nethlamas and foremost general of the Empress.”
“I wish we’d never learned of her heritage,” Ciraa says, looking downcast. “Who could have guessed there had been darkness in her family since the last age of the world? And you may as well say my name. Jasslwyn. Ciraa was the disguise I wore for years. I wish now to go by the name I received in the home of our people.”
“Ciraa is the name I know you by. It is what I will call you.”
“This all-consuming rage you now live in is not the path to strength, dear cousin. Surely you must know that only those who wield the dark star can grow through fury. Hate will not make you strong enough to defeat her.”
“I am strong enough!” I shout, finally facing her and pulling my horse up short. “You speak of that which you do not understand.”
I face her down until she turns from me. I move on. For a time we move in silence, but she never holds her tongue for long.
“I remember the day my mother and father sent me after you,” she says softly. “They had the Queen use her magic to conceal my hair and skin. It was a cold, gray day. Men were killing men and I cannot remember why. It seems that must be the way of the world. My parents took me into a sort of cave. They kneeled in front of me and hugged me for the last time. My mother kissed my cheek while she cried gently. My father held me in his arms and the last thing he whispered to me was this: ‘Love her.’”
I do not react at all and she continues.
“I always wondered why he said that. Why he told me to love you and not to protect you or watch over you.”
“Because you cannot protect me,” I say, making no effort to hide my fury. “I’ve no time for your memories.”
“Yes. But one day you will, cousin. Queen. And perhaps on that day you will finally ask me to speak your real name.”
The journey home passes rather austerely; we are wounded and tired, and my battalion—six thousand remaining of the eight thousand we set forth with—longs for their beds and their families. We would have had half our number, but I convinced our general that women should be allowed to fight, too, just as in the age of the War of the Four Heavens. And time proved they could fight as fiercely and with as much courage as the men. Wearily, we descry our land from a hilltop and I hear the soldiers rejoice. They have been truly loyal and their loyalty reminds me of my own. My Red Oath. It seems ages ago, but I swore to protect Eduard. Yet now he is lost to me. I try not to think of it. Of him.
We pass through the Obsidian Gate and enter the heart of Golrend, capitol city of Throdan. Upon our arrival the people of the city come forth with open arms, healing ointments, and food and drink. I am offered Father’s Fruit, but I decline. I wish to speak to the general.
I climb the hill and enter the Citadel. I find him in his quarters, going over the battle map with the other commanders. He looks up at me as I enter the room.
“Nevena,” he says.
“Yunger.”
After the fall of Moerdra Castle, Yunger watched over Sister and Ciraa, keeping them safe and fed
on the long journey. He protected them and myself during my recovery, and when the first battles broke out and the lands began taking sides, he led the first defense attacks. It wasn’t long until he proved himself a stunning warrior and a truly courageous leader; he was then unanimously appointed general of our army and under his direction our campaign has been nearly unstoppable. Only when Delara was on the battlefield have we been defeated.
“What news do you bring?” he asks.
“The Meethrul are defeated and prisoners to the Stags. The Homeland is safe and remains on the side of light. They have sworn their aid when the war arrives.”
“And of Delara and Erglon?”
“Nothing of her,” I say, cursing myself for being so childish as to pale from saying her name. “And the traitor Erglon has escaped again. Rhon has said Erglon was one of the swiftest of their people.”
“I suppose it could be worse,” he says, pacing a bit. “So be it. Well done, commander.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Stay a bit. The rest of you may go.”
The other commanders leave, congratulating me on their way out. Yunger waits until they are far away.
“Nevena. . . So long it seems since those nights when you snuck through the castle to my wall. Do you remember stumbling up the dark stairs, planting a kiss on my cheek so I would let you stay above and watch the night?”
“Yes. It was another time.”
“Indeed. I may have a lead on Delara. I’m telling you this in private because it is perhaps the thinnest lead we’ve received so far, likely nothing at all, but I know what it means to you to be the one who defeats her.”
At this I’m rendered inert. A lead on Delara? The girl who has caused so much death and pain, who has wounded me beyond repair? I vowed that if I should ever see her again there would be no end to her suffering.
“From birth you have been called Nevena of Throdan. That is because Throdan was once a dominion of the rulers of the Winterlands. They did not intermarry, but the peoples were very close. Somehow the word has spread that the people of the Winterland may yet be alive. I know Ciraa has claimed this to be the truth, but no one has seen them since the razing of the Winterlands, millennia ago. Even I did not believe it until I saw you. But the enemy now believes it, too. Nevena, they fear you. They’re seeking a way to destroy you and your magic.”
“Let them come. Not a single soul shall escape my blade or the winter magic.”
“They do not wish to take you on in direct battle and they would not dare to attack Throdan, not in this land where we are at our strongest. Reports say they make for the Winterlands and when they get there they will torture and kill whoever is left of your people to learn how to kill you. Our Aiglon divisions have already spotted their movements. We know for a fact they will soon reach their target.”
“You claim this is a thin lead, but it seems more than substantial to me. Let me lead the battalion out at dusk. We shall have had enough rest by then.”
“No, you will not. The soldiers are tired, Nevena, and they wish to be with their families and to mourn their fallen comrades. And as for the lead, the thin part concerns Delara. We’re almost certain she’s leading the assault since it is without doubt the enemy’s greatest mission yet, but we have not proof of this.”
“A chance is fine enough for me,” I say. “Send me out again tonight.”
“You will rest tonight,” he says, or rather commands. “You are being promoted to a new battalion, twelve thousand men, women, and Aiglon. We also have giants coming from Basland and
Fox Lords from the Wheat Sea. In two days time you will lead your force out. And you will conquer.”
I stare at him for a moment, hoping he will change his mind. But of course he never does. It matters little. I now have my chance to face Delara. To kill her.
I leave the room and head to the roof of the Citadel. I mean to be alone, but I find Floron and Rhon talking with some of their soldiers. They turn and bow to me. Floron has learned to read my expressions and he can see I do not wish to be bothered.
“It is ever a pleasure to see you, my Queen,” he says. “We shall leave you now to your thoughts. Aiglon, behind me.”
He takes wing and all of the soldiers follow him. Everyone leaves except Rhon. A moment passes while I contemplate leaving, but I decide against it and walk to the parapet. Rhon does not join me, but cannot help himself from speaking.
“You know, Your Grace, a Queen should declare war and take credit when it is over. She should not fight it.”
“You would have a Queen who feared to die for her own people?”
“I would have a Queen who is still alive when the war is over,” he counters. “I mean not to reprimand, Your Gr
ace, only to advise. Jasslwyn has told me of your plans to restore the Winterlands and your people. May I ask how you intend to do so?”
“Ciraa claims there is a way. A mighty spell written by the last great Queen of my people. She had not the strength to use it, but I intend to amass enough power to use it. All that will remain is to find it.”
“And I shall rejoice on that day.”
I hear him approaching me and soon he stands beside me.
“You need rest, Your Grace. You cannot continue to fight every hour. Even you are not invincible. The only reason you have not the changing eyes of mor’lumière is because the winter magic is strong. But there are beings and abilities in the world that are stronger than yours.”
“Have you a purpose, sir, other than to insinuate how incompetent I shall prove in the coming war?”
“Forgive me,” he says, bowing low.
And with that he, too, takes wing. Straight up into the clouds he flies and disappears. At last, I am alone. Of course it is only moments before I realize that I have no desire to be left with just my thoughts. It is my condition these days to be either fighting the enemy or fighting myself. Spurning my comrades or spurning my own thoughts. All my dreams, all my thoughts and visions and desires, are of war.