She thrust into his mind. He yelped in surprise and pain, and she didn’t bother to be gentle as she scoured his memories. Any spark of pity she might have had for this man dissipated the instant she saw what he’d done—the men he’d butchered, the women he’d raped, the children he’d brutalized…
Krystia nearly pulled back. Kroll’s mind was like a fetid pool of depravity, and it made her sick to think that she was considering unleashing him upon loyal Alliance soldiers. But past all the man’s hate and corruption, she could also feel his power. Just like Ethan, Kroll could be a useful villain, a temporary but necessary evil whose actions would ultimately change all of Torsia for the better.
He glared at her, seething in impotent rage, as she continued to rummage through his mind. He clearly held great pride in his Unbound heritage; he found “normal” people pitiable, but he absolutely despised the Bound. Krystia followed that particular thread as it wound through his memories, and eventually she located his experiences as a Breaker. She saw mental images of him training with Zarul Imperators, severing their bonds and then allowing his mistress to restore them. The process was as brutally efficient as she had come to expect from the Crell, particularly the Zarul.
Just before his consciousness threatened to swallow hers, Krystia pulled back and let out a deep breath. She had wondered if learning his breaking technique would be as simple as tearing the information from his mind, but unfortunately that didn’t seem to be the case. Still, she did learn that the Zarul had only trained a handful of other Breakers thus far, and that was perhaps the best news of all.
“You will suffice,” she told him. “I will contact you soon with more details.”
“If you stand alongside the sheep,” Kroll whispered, “then you will be culled along with the flock. Remember this.”
Krystia snorted. “I remember everything, monster. You, on the other hand, will not be so lucky.”
With a final thrust into his mind, she wiped away all traces of her visit just in case the priests tried to interrogate him again. His body twitched in place before collapsing in an unconscious heap, and she turned away and resumed the rest of Dailyn’s routine. Once she was finished, she slipped back out of the prison and returned to her quarters to plan the rest of her insurrection.
And the death of her king.
***
Darius Iouna gazed wistfully out the window of the castle tower and admired the way the moonlight glinted off the new ballista on top of the forward battlements. Garos might have been more of a fortress than a city, but there was still a certain beauty here if one knew where to look. Regardless, he wasn’t really thinking about the moonlight or the battlements or anything else remotely strategic. He was thinking about Elade…and about how more than anything, he wished she were here with him right now.
He had spent most of the night chiding himself for his own juvenile fantasies. In any tangible sense, he had more than any man could possibly ask for. He was one of the highest-ranking officers in Torsia’s most powerful military, and his reputation as a war hero commanded him the respect of peasants and aristocrats alike. Most importantly, he had a gorgeous woman waiting for him back in Celenest, and with a few choice words he was certain he could convince her to spend the rest of her life with him and possibly even start a family.
But she wasn’t the one lighting fire to his dreams each night. Darius knew he was a warrior at heart, and the promise of a new conquest was always more seductive than a battle he’d already won. The problem, of course, was that deep down he knew he couldn’t win this new war. And that made him yearn for victory all the more.
He had tried to defeat his cravings with logic. Elade wasn’t human—she wasn’t human—she would outlive him by centuries, and they could never have children. He liked the fact that Krystia remained out of harm’s way, but Elade would always be at the forefront of any conflict, constantly threatened by death or injury. He had been taught from a boy that tattoos desecrated the sanctity of unblemished flesh, yet hers were an endemic part of her heritage. He liked short, petite women and she was tall and athletic.
Those arguments were just as futile, of course, and so instead of accomplishing anything productive before bed, he had been standing here staring into the darkness and wishing he were somewhere else.
Darius sighed as the door behind him cracked open, and he turned to see the familiar face of his adjutant, Lieutenant Selwin, poking his head inside. His face had completely drained of color.
“What’s wrong?” Darius asked.
“Our scouts have sent word from across the border, sir,” the lieutenant murmured. “The Crell invasion forces are on their way.”
Darius closed his eyes and pursed his lips. And so at long last, the day he had been warning the Council about for months had finally come. He offered a silent thanks to Sol that he had been able to fortify Garos so well in the past few weeks.
“All of their invasion forces?”
Selwin nodded. “Yes, sir. Every force from here to Aman-Dapor.”
“How long?”
“Our estimates remain the same, sir. They’ll cross the border in three days, possibly four.”
“Wake the senior officers and inform them,” he said. “Starting in the morning I want aerial patrols doubled, and I want all civilians evacuated from the city. I’m going to talk to the Council personally and see what else we can muster.”
“Yes, sir,” Selwin said with a brisk salute. He turned to head back out the door, but paused abruptly and glanced back over his shoulder. “They can’t really expect to defeat us with those numbers, can they?”
“The Crell are many things, but they’re not so bloodthirsty that they would start a war they didn’t think they could win. They have something else planned, and it’s our job to be ready for it.”
Selwin smiled thinly. “We will, sir, I know you’ll see to that.”
Darius turned back to the window as the man left. He had fought and commanded many battles since the Ash War, but nothing of the same size or scope as what he knew they were about to face. It seemed like a different lifetime when he’d been serving on the front lines at Isen with the Moore family, and in many ways it was. He was little more than a child, then, a fresh-faced youth with all the hopes, dreams, and idealism parents wished in their sons and daughters. Now he was living that dream, and he had everything a man could want. He held the support of thousands of loyal troops and the love of an amazing woman.
But he had also seen those things slip away from other men in the last war. Nothing was guaranteed to endure. He could lose his love, his country, perhaps even his own life. One way or another, he knew, this war would decide the future of Torsia—perhaps even the world. This would not be a war to protect the innocence of another country, but the sanctity of Solaria itself.
Darius placed a gloved hand in the windowsill. He wished that Elade were here again, not as a potential lover but as a soldier. Whatever the Crell had up their sleeves in this attack, he knew he would feel safer having her at his side. He could tell Krystia to contact Jason and let them know what was happening. The other soldiers might protest Elade’s presence, but Darius wasn’t worried about them. He wasn’t going to turn away a potential asset because of a silly paladin witch hunt.
Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the window and watched as the soft beams of moonlight reflected off the Ash Plains just visible on the horizon. The last war had left untold devastation in its wake. Ashenfel, Lyebel, all of Galvia had been consumed in chaos and death, but precious little of that destruction had spread across the border into Solaria.
This time, Darius knew, they wouldn’t be so lucky.
Chapter Eighteen
“True courage comes not from conviction, but from doubt.”
—Shau Losa, Solipean Philosopher
“We shouldn’t be surprised,” Jason commented as he leaned back in his chair. “We all knew this was coming. But somehow this makes it…real.”
“We’re ready fo
r them,” Krystia assured him. “And ultimately, this is for the best. Once we’ve broken the reign of the Sovereigns, all of Torsia will finally be free.”
Selvhara stirred in her chair. “Others have made similar predictions in the past. War is rarely so generous with its outcomes.”
“We have the Crell outnumbered three to one—I’m not even sure why they’re risking an invasion now while they’re still reeling from their skirmishes with the Talishites.”
“And that’s exactly why you should be worried,” the elysian replied. “The only predictable outcome of war is that people will die, and conflicts will remain unresolved.”
For a moment, it seemed like Krystia might argue the point, but then she simply turned away and shook her head. She had just arrived at the house a few minutes ago to inform them of the news about the Crell forces mobilizing along the border, and now they all needed to figure out exactly what they were going to do.
“I wonder if dad already succeeded in his mission,” Jason mused into the silence. “What I wouldn’t give to know his purpose here…”
“If I’d found him sooner, we could have answered that question,” Elade replied. She was looking better after a full night’s rest, but she still hadn’t moved from her position on the couch.
“That’s hardly your fault,” Jason reminded her, standing and stretching. When they had first arrived, he’d been completely confident that they would track down his father…but now this detour of theirs was looking more and more like a waste. Dad had probably fled the city days ago at this point.
Closing his eyes, Jason made a silent promise to himself that he would find his father before all of this was over…but for now, he was going to have to let it go. There was something much more important they all needed to do—something the others weren’t going to like one bit.
“We should return to Garos,” he told them. “We need to be there when the Crell attack.”
“What?” Tam stammered. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Remember that vision I told you about before? The one Malacross showed me where we were alone defending the fortress against the Crell? I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I think we need to be there just in case.”
“Just in case what, the crazy woman trapped in your head is right?”
Jason pursed his lips. “I know how it sounds, trust me. But the vision seemed to imply that we were the only ones who could defend the city.”
“Or that we’ll all be annihilated by the Crell.” Tam shook his head. “Look, I know you’ve been feeling weird recently, but this is crazy. If anything, we should be running away from the war right now. We have enough gold to buy a castle in Solipei or Yamata. Hell, we could hire a ship to take us all the way to Calhara if we wanted to.”
“The rest of you can do whatever you want with your gold,” Jason said. “But I’m heading back to Garos, and once the fighting is over, I’m going to track down my father.”
“This is a bad idea, Jason,” Selvhara warned. “You have been given an amazing gift by the gods, but you don’t know how to control it yet. You need to take some time to learn more about what’s happened to you.”
“I plan on it, and the first step is finding out why Malacross was having this premonition,” he told her, struggling to keep his voice calm. He’d assumed he would have to fight with them a little bit, but the expressions on their faces were a lot more obstinate than he’d expected. “I’m not planning on running out in the middle of the Crell army naked—Garos is as well-defended as any fortress in Torsia. I just know I need to be there during the coming siege.”
Krystia placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sure Malacross believes whatever she told you, but I agree with your friends—you should stay clear of the fighting. It’s hard to…”
She trailed off, her eyes flicking back and forth as if she’d just had a personal epiphany. “What’s wrong?” Jason asked.
“Um…” she muttered, struggling for words. “I don’t want you to get hurt is all.”
“There’s obviously more to it than that. Tell me.”
Her eyes flicked up to his. “It’s just that I had a similar vision recently. I’d dismissed it as a random nightmare until I thought about how closely it resembled yours.”
A cold tingle shuddered down the back of Jason’s neck. “What did you see, exactly?”
“Something terrible happening at Garos,” Krystia whispered. “The Crell burned down the entire city.”
Jason glanced back to the others. “Were any of us there?”
“The only one I saw was Elade, and she was badly wounded.”
“Are you sure this was the future and not the present?” the vaeyn muttered as she struggled to sit up. “The two of you are sharing some fraction of Malacross’s power—that’s probably why you both had the same premonition.”
“Good point,” Tam commented. “It’s all just the same crazy vision from the same crazy lady living inside your crazy head.”
“He’s right,” Sarina put in. “I don’t care what some half-dead spirit tells you—walking into the middle of a warzone based on a dream is insane.”
Krystia cocked an eyebrow. “I thought Asgardians lived for combat?”
“You don’t know anything about us, princess,” Sarina grumbled. “So why don’t you just head back to your temple and do whatever it is you do with your time.”
“Calm down,” Jason admonished, shooting her a warning glare. “We’re just having a pleasant little conversation here.”
“No, you’re wallowing in self-delusion” Sarina told him. “Tam is right for once.”
“Thanks…I guess,” the blond man murmured. “Anyway, the point is that—”
“I’m going,” Elade said quietly. She brought herself to her feet and flexed her right hand to make certain her wrist still worked. “If an attack is coming, I need to be on the front lines.”
“Great,” Sarina muttered. “So you and the cripple can go and hold off the Crell all by yourselves.”
“I will be with them,” Gor said.
Everyone in the room turned around to stare at the chagari. Jason had to replay the last few moments in his mind just to believe he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
“Huh?” he managed after a moment.
“I am going to Garos,” Gor repeated. “I doubt the Solarians would refuse the aid of a chagari mercenary.”
The second silence lasted even longer than the first, but eventually Tam shook his head and picked his jaw up off the floor.
“Who are you,” he whispered, “and what did you do with Gor?”
“I have no love for the Crell,” Gor said. “Spending time in Lyebel reminded me how they treat my people. If our presence in Garos can make a difference in this war, then I intend to be there.”
Sarina’s eyes narrowed as she studied the chagari. The guilt is killing you, isn’t it? After what you did during the attack on the rebel compound…
Jason blinked and turned away. He hadn’t intended to overhear her thoughts, but they had blasted into his mind regardless. Now his curiosity was piqued, of course, and he had to remind himself about Selvhara’s earlier lesson in controlling himself…
“You realize the Solarians probably won’t pay you anything, right?” Tam asked. “Certainly not enough to make a dent in your stack of gold bricks.”
“Gold is useless if there’s nowhere left to spend it,” Gor replied. “If the Crell destroy the Alliance, I will have nowhere else to go.”
Tam frowned. “I’ve never heard you tell a joke before, so I don’t know if you’re kidding. But either way, it’s creeping me out.”
Gor grunted but remained silent, and everyone continued to stare at him blankly for a few more seconds.
“I’m sure Darius would gladly accept help from any of you,” Krystia said eventually. “But you won’t be able to use the portal to return. With news of a pending attack, the army will be using them constantly to shuffle around troops and supplies.”<
br />
“Then we’ll have to set out tonight,” Elade said, wincing as she stretched out her muscles. “Unless we can purchase some griffons, reaching the border in three days won’t be easy.”
“The Legion Generals have already ordered the skies clear, and they’ll probably requisition any extra mounts for their own soldiers. You’ll have to travel on horseback.”
“So that’s it, then?” Tam asked, throwing up his hands. “The three of you are just going to ride off to Garos and hop into the middle of another war? I thought you still had nightmares about the last one!”
“I do,” Jason whispered. “But it doesn’t matter. I need to be there, and anyone else who wants to come is welcome.”
Selvhara sighed. “You know I’ll go with you. I just wish you would reconsider.”
Tam glared at her. “You’re not helping. Look, we all know this doesn’t really have anything to do with his ‘vision’ or whatever. He just feels guilty about leaving the Resistance.”
“This has nothing to do with them,” Jason insisted. “This goes beyond Galvia or Solaria or any other country. The Imperium can’t win this war, not like they did the last one.”
“That’s all well and good, but the six of us aren’t an army, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’re not going to make much of a difference either way.”
“He’s already made up his mind,” Sarina growled. Her green eyes locked on the side of Jason’s head, and he made a conscious effort to avoid reading her thoughts. Not that he needed to—he could feel the rage pouring off her without even trying. The problem was that he didn’t understand the source. She had been even less amicable than normal ever since he had awakened in Lyebel. “There’s no point trying to reason with him.”
“You’re seriously telling me you don’t care what happens?” Jason asked with a forcefulness that surprised him. “You’re the one who willingly joined the Resistance—you’re the one who has actively been fighting the Crell for the past year.”
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 73