by Terah Edun
“Yes, but the question is how? We all saw the activation blast but it has to be upheld by more than one mage,” Sara said. “Don’t forget, the empress forces camp nearby, just as our own do.”
“Well, there’s a grim thought,” said Karn. “So we’re blocked in by opposition mages and abandoned by our own forces.”
“She never said that,” Ezekiel said while looking over his shoulder warily. “Just that it’s possible to create with a larger group of mages.”
“Must be disturbing for you to realize just how badly you’re screwed,” said the Kade leader dryly.
“Shut up,” said several others at once.
“No one asked you,” said Reben to the Kade as she turned to Sara.
Sara turned the subject back to her original thought process as she said, “We need you to go out and scout for us. Can your magic get us through the dome wall?”
“You know I’m only half kith,” Reben replied to her.
“But you can do what we’re asking?” Ezekiel said as he knelt in the mud next to the two of them.
Sara kept a wary eye behind them on the prisoner, but he seemed complacent between Karn and Marx, as if he knew they wouldn’t kill him now. He wasn’t wrong.
“Yes,” Reben said firmly. “I can get out of the sight-and-sound shield holding us here just like I did before, I can see if there are more people out there, and hopefully, if our leadership is waiting and betrayed us, not alert them to my presence.”
“Good, that’s good,” Sara said.
“What else do you want me to do?” Reben asked.
Sara waited for a moment before she replied. She didn’t take Reben’s words lightly. She was no one’s commander legitimately, but had taken on that role, and if she accepted it, she would see it through.
Sara pinned Reben with her gaze. “Come back to us, no matter what. We’ll figure it out from there.”
Reben gave a sharp nod. “Always.”
The younger mercenary even saluted, and Sara gave a halfhearted one back, knowing that their actions from this moment on, and what they found out when Reben returned, could make or break a lot of people’s belief in the system they had been born under, the people they followed, the crown they served.
8
As Reben went out on her mission, Sara looked over at their prisoner.
He knew too much to die, apparently. It was both infuriating and relieving at once. She could back down if she chose, and so she did. Sara let go of her power and walked away from the abyss. Making the choice felt good, and with every mental step she took away from the cliff, she felt her mind returning to her. The darkness receded step by step, push by push. She wished she could make it go all at once, but she was no fool. It wasn’t compliant even now, as she practically coaxed herself back from the edge—doing anything that rushed the transition back to her normal self would be tantamount to violence, and even she wasn’t sure what would happen then.
Cease-fire or no.
Enemies dead or no.
She was still surrounded by bodies, living bodies that could be easily cleaved in two as her blade sang for more blood.
Trying to get those grim images from inside her head, images of her friends dying the same gruesome death she’d previously reserved for enemies, Sara turned to Ezekiel and said, “What do you think?”
“I think that either way this rolls, we’re going to end up with manure on our faces,” the scholar said with raised eyebrows.
Sara’s face twitched into a smile. Trust Ezekiel to say what they were all thinking.
Nodding, she said, “Still…there could be hope.”
“Yeah, and I’m not a scholar with a target on my back and no real clue what do with a weapon aside from my handy bow here,” Ezekiel said, hefting the weapon that had given him the target on his back.
Sara sighed and rubbed the back of her sore neck. “Out of the frying pan and right into the fire,” she said.
Ezekiel turned away from where he was now staring down the Kade leader, as if he could will him to tell them his secrets by sheer magnetism…that, or some secret mental abilities he hadn’t shared with Sara. Which was highly improbable, but possible she had to admit. Her gifts had given her insight into the more obvious aspects of those around her, but still she knew that they could hide abilities simply by not using them. Without tapping into those gifts as mages or practitioners, she could only guess at the strengths of their reserves. However she had a fairly good idea about their physical capabilities. Even their mental capacities. Benefits of being a battle mage who could spy on someone’s aura—it made her deadly in a fight even without tapping into the other side of her persona, the darker side. She’d used it to good effect when necessary time and again. And this time, she knew she was right.
But Ezekiel either had a new trick up his sleeve or he was just fed up. If she had to guess, it was a little of both, but she let him keep his own counsel as she looked around the group and thought about what she knew about them aside from what made them good—no, great—allies on the field of battle.
She liked to think she knew a bit of their hopes and dreams, too. But that had nothing to do with being a battle mage and everything to do with being a capable leader. Being able to tap into that ability to lead, meld it, even push it, was nothing she was ashamed of. She’d had to tap into their hopes and dreams to get them out of more scrapes than she could count, to get them to believe in something, a life somewhere that even she didn’t know was possible.
And now? Now, while they stood once more undefeated, she had to think it had been worth it.
Living, that was, through it all and even what they had become. Because Sara knew instinctively that she wasn’t the only one who had changed. She looked into bloodshot eyes and could tell they would be haunted in their dreams. She stared at terse lips that were seconds away from involuntary twitches and knew that it would take a long while before they stopped reacting to the possibilities of war, even during peace. And she looked at bodies that were practically falling down exhausted, even as they stood as straight and to attention as they could, given the circumstances, and she knew they would take days of sleep to recover from this night.
But the night isn’t over just yet, she reminded herself.
There was more work to do. She glanced over at their prisoner, knowing it all hinged on him. Were his words accurate? Had they been betrayed? If so, by whom and why? Did it even matter why? It hadn’t when it happened before.
But anything was possible tonight.
The Corcoran Guard and the Red Lion Guard could have been taken by surprise and ambushed tonight—just as they had been. The Kades could have placed the sight-and-sound shield around this area just to keep their allies out and focused on bringing the shielding down while they snuck off in camp with a smaller force to go after their prize.
Or her leaders could have been caught up in defending their territory and keeping the sun mage out of Kade hands so much that it was taking a few hours for them to even realize that their defenses had been breached elsewhere.
“And maybe hogs will fly,” Sara told herself bitterly as she kicked up a clod of dirt.
She tried to turn her thoughts away from such outward darkness but found herself right back where she started—contemplating her inner darkness. The deeds that had changed her, in the space of a few hours—she hoped for the better. Sara Fairchild was no fool—she knew that she was treading dangerous waters by even baiting her powers, let alone dipping into them. But if her father had survived his whole life as a battle mage, well, she could too.
She ignored the fact that he had died a relatively young death, because his death had not been a result of how he lived as a battle mage. Instead, it had been the choices he made that got him executed for treason.
That was why she was here on this battlefield right now.
To find answers.
To find a man named Matteas Hillan who might have the key to all of those secrets surrounding her father, and even carried the j
ournals that had never left his side. It was in those papers and those files that Sara would find the answers she sought. She had to believe that, because if she didn’t, she had nothing left to live for.
No home. No family.
Isabelle came up to her then and touched her on the shoulder lightly.
Sara jumped in shock and glared at Isabelle. It wasn’t often that anyone was able to sneak up on her and live to tell the tale. Sara managed to relax her stiff fingers from her blade and just barely kept herself from growling when she said, “Yes?”
Isabelle gave Sara a sympathetic smile. “You look like you could use a good, hot cup of tea.”
Sara looked down at Isabelle’s empty hands quizzically. “Yeah, and it doesn’t look like you have any.”
“You caught me,” Isabelle said, crossing her arms. “I left all my supplies in my tent and forgot to prepare for an impromptu service in the middle of the night.”
Sara couldn’t help it—she cracked a smile. A small one, but a smile nevertheless.
“All right,” she said with a chuckle. “Maybe I deserved that.”
Isabelle held up a hand and two fingers apart. “Just a little bit. So what’s got you strung up tighter than a mother hen?”
Sara raised an eyebrow.
Isabelle shrugged. “We all can see it.”
Sara looked around in surprise to note that no one would meet her eyes. Except the Kade leader, who was watching their exchange with curiosity. Sara ignored him just as much as everyone else ignored her, finding something more interesting to look at off in the distance—a rock, the night sky, a ragged banner still standing with bodies piled around.
Anything, really, but Sara Fairchild and the woman she now knew as Isabelle Farlon. Sara realized that Isabelle hadn’t been there. Not for the majority of the battle. But she had seen what Sara had transformed into. Something beyond a cold, merciless killer. A berserker. And she had seen Sara come back from it and stood beside her still.
Not exactly unafraid, Sara thought while looking at Isabelle closely. But certainly giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps because this woman knew what it was like to be shunned, or perhaps it was because Sara had saved her life. Whatever the case, Sara appreciated it.
So she didn’t turn away. Instead, Sara ducked her head while she thought about it.
When she finally looked up and spoke, she did so honestly. “I did something during the battle that I had never done before. It scared me.”
Isabelle slowly asked, “Because of what you did? Or what you had to do in order to get to it?”
Sara shrugged. “Both.”
Isabelle nodded. “That’s fair. But have you considered that you came out of whatever it was unscathed—mentally, that is?”
Sara looked down at herself as her fellow mercenary did. “Well, I suppose that was something,” Sara said, cataloguing the physical wounds on her body for the first time that night.
It wasn’t that the wounds weren’t painful. They were.
It also wasn’t that she wasn’t losing blood. She was.
But surviving had taken precedence above all, and in the end—unless a limb was cut off or a major organ pierced—Sara liked to think the wounds were superficial. An actual healer would vehemently disagree, but she would deal with that when they came.
Looking back up at Isabelle, Sara said, “I do look like I stepped into a vat of blood, don’t I?”
“Yeah, we’ve all had those days,” Isabelle said.
Sara snorted then laughed, and it was nice. Nice to feel free for once.
“Well, at least you didn’t burn a field of crocuses,” Isabelle said wryly.
“No, never that.”
They both laughed, and the tension, for at least a moment, was broken. Isabelle walked away with an airy “think about it,” and Sara watched her. All she could think was that she had been thinking about it. This whole time was a constant reminder. But she had to admit that she was relieved, in a way. It was like a child who was deathly afraid of equines of any size learning to ride their first pony. Getting up on the pony for that first ride was a bigger accomplishment than mastering the ride.
She was just glad she’d managed to hold on to a speck of her sanity while opening herself to so much of the battle mage power at once. It boded well for her future. Or, at least, she hoped it did.
They all continued to wait in tense silence as Reben surveyed the beyond. When she’d left, Sara hadn’t seen much more than a physical ripple when she hit a shield wall far enough away that if they hadn’t been looking for it, they wouldn’t have found it.
It almost felt like it would be kismet to find out that they’d been betrayed again, locked in with invaders and left to die, but Sara wasn’t going to take it to heart until she was sure, they were sure, what had happened.
So they waited. They waited and they wondered—what would their scout come back to tell them?
Was everyone dying?
Was their leadership dead?
What were the Kades after and what had they managed to accomplish?
As if he sensed that she needed comfort, Ezekiel walked over to her side. Isabelle had left Sara in a contemplative mood—a hopeful one about her own future, but where did that future leave her if everything else around them was crumbling?
“A shilling for your thoughts?” the scholar hesitantly said as he sat down next to her. She’d found an overturned bench that had miraculously managed to escape much of the bloodshed whole and dry. It was child’s play to upright the heavy wood after she’d spent so many weeks hammering away at the forge.
Now she sat and waited patiently. And for the first time that night, nothing was coming at her and no one was demanding her attention. No one that she resented, at least.
Looking at Ezekiel with a wistful smile, Sara said, “You know, when we came here, we had one goal: get the files and get out.”
He nodded. “But things change.”
“Slowly and surely,” she replied automatically.
“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.
“What is this—assess Sara night?” she asked while looking over at Isabelle. She had just asked the same, and Sara felt no different now. She said so, not really wanting to get into her internal turmoil with someone else, not yet.
“You’re looking at me like I might explode at any second,” she said. “Is that what you’re waiting for?”
He gave a small smile but didn’t take the bait and make a joke. “No,” Ezekiel said. “I’m not. I’m just hoping you realize that the others look up to you. They follow you. They need you.”
Sara said, “I kept them alive tonight, didn’t I? I sacrificed my sanity, even my well-being, to do so.”
Ezekiel didn’t flinch. “And as their leader, you’ll be called upon to do so again. Just as they would follow you to the ends of the earth. But the only thing they require is that you actually keep that sanity and be worthy of that devotion.”
“What are you saying?” Sara asked.
Ezekiel sighed and shrugged. “Sometimes the better part of valor is discretion, Sara.”
She crossed her arms, getting more irritated by the minute at his words, which were pretty but said nothing.
“Meaning?” she asked.
“You nearly died tonight.”
“And I nearly died last night, too,” she said. “Stepping in front of the captain while his whip was raised to slash Nissa Sardonien one more time. Remember that? He could have easily slashed open my throat with the strength a battle mage can call upon.”
Ezekiel nodded.
“And remember the days before that?” Sara said aggressively. “When I got pummeled to a pulp by my fellow mercenaries? I could have died then, too. As I recall, with a lung contusion—I almost did.”
Ezekiel held up a hand. “I’m not negating that.”
“Then what are you saying?” Sara said through clenched teeth.
“I’m saying it’s not just y
ou against the world now, Sara Fairchild,” Ezekiel said, shooting her a hurt look. “There are people now who would die for you. Who rely on you.”
“Maybe I don’t want them to,” Sara said. “I never asked them to.”
“Tough,” Ezekiel snapped. “Deal with it, because, as Reben is so adroitly proving right now, they believe in you, and you may be the only thing standing between them and death right now, as this hellish landscape has shown us time and again.”
Sara looked straight at him at that, shocked. It wasn’t what she had expected him to say.
She asked, “What if I don’t think I can handle that leadership? Handle that responsibility? I’m not ready. I’m not skilled enough. I don’t have the experience.”
“I don’t think powers make the man or woman, Sara,” Ezekiel quietly said. “Neither do decades of experience with no heart to show for it.”
“And the leadership qualities?” she asked. “Am I just to learn that on the fly?”
He looked up at the night sky and then back down to her with a sigh. “I think you already have. If you were to ask me, I’d say that people have gathered around you from the beginning like flies to honey—including me. They know a good thing when they see it. But you don’t want them to sign on for something if you’re not ready to commit to it yourself.”
Then he stood and walked away.
Sara was left wondering exactly what that was. Rebellion was a tricky thing, after all. How far would she go to rebel in the name of the people who were coming to depend on her for survival, and who was she rebelling against?
Staring pensively at the moon, she saw no answers.
9
It was half an hour later when Reben returned looking far worse for wear, breathing heavily and running as if a pack of creatures was on her tail, fear evident in every frantic movement she made. She jumped over bodies in her race to get back, her booted feet landing heavily in puddles of blood as she did so, but she ignored the red that now coated her from head to toe, and she didn’t stop until she came directly to the group.