Jason placed his hands on her shoulders. “Which is all the more reason for us to confront him as quickly as possible. We should be able to slip into the castle without too much trouble—Ethan doesn’t think the Crell have ever discovered the Hands’ old tunnel network.”
“And if they have?”
“Then…I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I promise you, we’re not going to commit suicide. If the right opportunity doesn’t present itself, we’ll back away.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Why don’t you?”
Selvhara turned to face him. She clasped his hands inside hers and then took a deep breath. “Because you’re more like your father than you know. This is exactly what he would do in your place.”
Jason started to reply but nothing came out. A strange tightness clutched at his chest, and he lowered his head and closed his eyes. “We have to do something.”
She kept her eyes locked on him for a long, uncomfortable moment before she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Promise me that you’ll take care of your friends.”
“I will.”
“And remember that you are not invincible.”
“I’ve never believed otherwise,” Jason assured her. “Now promise me that you won’t let Ethan get away with anything.”
“He won’t,” Selvhara said. “He will answer for what he’s done.”
Jason squeezed her arm, and even without using his powers he knew exactly what she was thinking. The anxiety, the dread, the sorrow…but most of all, the love. She had been his mother for half his life at this point, and he had a feeling that even if she hadn’t been exiled from her homeland, she would have been right here at his side regardless.
Tam and Sarina approached a few minutes later, and from the looks of it their horses were fully loaded. Jason held out hope that they would be able to enter the city peacefully, but there was always the chance this plan was even worse than he thought. Perhaps they would be driven off right away and this debate would have been for nothing…
“The army will be splitting up and setting camp soon,” Sarina said, gesturing with her chin towards the marching columns in the distance. She had scrubbed the “Pale Huntress” war paint off her cheeks and settled on more generic mercenary attire. Jason doubted that even a bribed conscript would allow an obvious Asgardian into the city with an army at the gates.
“Then it’s time to move,” he said. “We need to try and get inside the walls before nightfall.”
“I know I’m excited,” Tam muttered. “You want to remind me one last time why we’re doing this?”
“Because it has to be done,” Jason said, glancing over his shoulder to the hazy silhouette of the city he had once called home. “And because there’s no one else.”
***
“Gently, Your Majesty,” a soft, familiar voice whispered. “You must give the Aether time to work.”
Krystia slumped back into the pillow and blinked until her eyes finally focused. Her old friend Arven was sitting next to her, a warm smile on her face. “How long…?”
“You have been asleep for most of the day,” Arven said, pressing a wet cloth against her patient’s forehead. “Without the aid of your Unbound friend here, I think we would have lost you…”
Krystia turned her head. A lanky, middle-aged man was standing on the other side of her bed. At first she didn’t recognize him, but then her memories returned in a paralyzing flood of thoughts and images. His name was Varian, and he was one of the Unbound she and Sovan had rescued from the Asylum.
“Where is Sovan?” she rasped. “Where is Darius?”
“Once he saw that you were all right, Sovan gathered the rest of our kind in the courtyard for additional training,” Varian said. “I will send word that you have awakened.”
“Your betrothed is trying to find whoever is responsible for this,” Arven added. After a few more seconds, she removed the cloth and smiled. “He has come to check on you several times.”
Krystia tried to sit upright, but again the pain in her gut pinned her to the bed. She felt terrible, but remembering the details of the previous night made her feel even worse. Her own royal guardsmen had tried to kill her…and if not for Sovan’s intervention, they would have succeeded. Worse, she hadn’t sensed their duplicity until it was too late. The very idea of Bound turning against their own Ascendant seemed absurd. How could they have possibly masked their true intentions? Was she really so blind despite her enormous power?
“What happened to the men who attacked me?” she asked, her voice trembling with rage.
“Most of them are dead, Your Majesty,” Varian told her. “However, General Iouna had the rest of the royal guardsmen imprisoned for the time being as a precaution. Lord Sovan believes at least some of them were complicit.”
“Then I need to confront them. We need to learn who did this and why.”
“Right now, you need to rest,” Arven insisted, placing a comforting hand on Krystia’s arm. “You shouldn’t strain your body.”
“I don’t need my body to interrogate traitors.”
Arven sighed. “General Iouna said there is to be a battle tomorrow, and any unnecessary strain could—”
“I don’t care about the battle!” Krystia hissed, slapping the other woman’s arm away. “I must know who did this. I will know who did this!”
Arven recoiled and clutched at her reddening skin. “Your Majesty, I—”
“Get out, both of you. Now!”
The two healers shared concerned glances with one another, but they left without further protest. Once the door shut behind then, Krystia reached out to the Aether and began to study her own wounds. The familiar tingle of its power coursed through her limbs purged the worst of the weakness from her body, and she started feeling better almost immediately. Unfortunately, the others were more competent than she had expected; they had already repaired most of the damage. Despite her superior healing abilities, there wasn’t much else she could do besides wait and allow herself time to regenerate.
Swearing under her breath, Krystia pushed aside her sheets and ran her fingers across the deep scar on her belly. The instant she touched the skin, she recalled the sensation of the blade piercing her flesh, and her throat burned with imaginary blood rushing up to suffocate her—
“I’m glad you’re awake.”
Krystia gasped and glanced up. Sovan was standing in the doorway.
“Yes,” she managed, swallowing the memory. “I’m told I have you to thank for my rescue.”
“We were lucky.” He stepped inside and used the Aether to shut the door behind him. “I had only just returned from the Hatchery when I sensed that something was wrong.”
Krystia frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s difficult to describe. When I returned to the place, I felt a strange…dissonance. I’d never experienced anything like it before, but I knew something was wrong. When I asked the guards if they had noticed, it was clear they were up to something. I pulled the truth from their minds and chased after Guard-Captain Baras.”
“I still can’t believe he attacked me,” she breathed. “He was always so professional, so loyal. He served Areekan for almost ten years!”
“Which is precisely the problem,” Sovan told her. “You surrounded yourself with men loyal to the last king. Once they believed that you were involved in his death, they turned against you.”
Out of habit, Krystia glanced around the room to make certain that no one else was present. “Why would they suddenly believe I had anything to do with it?”
“Because that’s what Savilen and the rest of the Council told them, of course. They betrayed you, Your Majesty. Just like I warned from the very beginning.”
Krystia’s eyes narrowed at him. “What?”
“I saw it in the minds of Baras and the others before I killed them,” Sovan said. He stepped in close to her and offered her his hand. “Have a look for yourself. I keep no secrets.”
A knot twisted in the pit of Krystia’s stomach as she reached out and touched his hand. His mind instantly opened to her: she saw his return to the palace, his initial confrontation with the guards, his brief battle with Baras…and then all the memories he had stolen from the guards. Memories of bribes and meetings, sedition and treason…
“No,” she whispered, pulling away. “No, there must be some mistake…”
“I do not understand why everyone refuses to see what is plainly in front of them,” Sovan grumbled. “Margrove and Zorael have already betrayed you, and now the rest have finally decided to join them. They are traitors, Your Majesty. And they must be punished.”
Krystia collapsed back onto the bed. She had never been particularly fond of the Council, of course. Everyone hated politics, and the provincial lords had always been more concerned with their personal coffers than the prosperity of Solaria as a whole. But they were still a mighty step up from the Crell Sovereigns—at least the councilors were chosen by their people. Krystia never truly believed that Margrove and Zoreal had turned against her, and the thought of the others openly conspiring to kill her was absurd.
And yet…
“How could they even know what really happened?” she whispered. “You and Ethan are the only people in the world who know the truth.”
Sovan grunted. “They have suspected you from the beginning. You know that. Your Ascension was too well-timed for them to dismiss it as mere circumstance. And when they learned that you were Unbound…” He shrugged. “They already hate and fear us, and it doesn’t take a genius to recognize how quickly you tore down the Asylum. They have always believed you were a false queen.”
“I must speak with Savilen,” Krystia said. “Right now.”
“You can’t,” Sovan told her. “She, Alistan, and Jericho all left Celenest yesterday.”
Her head snapped upwards. “They never announced they were leaving.”
“Of course they didn’t. They wouldn’t risk being here in the event their plan backfired. But if they succeeded, you can bet their carriages would have turned around and dropped them off at the center of the city plaza. They would be proclaiming themselves the new rulers of Solaria.” Sovan flicked a hand in disgust. “Now they’re probably returning to their home provinces and planning to secede. They’re convinced that the war is already over. They’re just trying to save their own hides before it is too late.”
Krystia bit down on her lip. “Then we should send men to cut them off. I can have Darius’s soldiers bring them here for questioning.”
“Do you really believe he will listen? I already told him the truth, and he chose to ignore me.”
“He won’t ignore me,” she said. “We have to resolve this as quickly as possible, and there’s no other way.”
“There is always another way,” Sovan said. He stared at her for a long moment, and eventually his lip curled into a dark smile. “We have a unique opportunity here, Your Majesty. We can use this betrayal to our advantage. We can rally your armies and unify the Solarian people against the Crell.”
“What do you mean?”
“I bring glorious news from the Hatchery. Our accelerating breeding techniques have been working even faster than I’d anticipated. Soon we will have more than enough dragons to turn the tide of this war.”
Krystia shook her head. “What does that have to do with the Council?”
“Everything,” Sovan said. “Just lie down and allow me to explain.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Many battles have been won or lost in the long, cold hours of night before the first sword is drawn.”
—Krysta Vornell, Solarian General, 1853 A.G.
“Strange. There are a lot more people out on the streets than I expected,” Tam murmured from beneath the thick cowl of his hood. “Do you think they even know there’s an army gathering on their doorstep?”
“They know,” Jason said gravely. “There’s just nothing they can do about it, and I’m sure the local garrison commander has told them to keep going about their business.”
Sarina frowned as she continued surveying the nearby neighborhoods with her spyglass. “You would think the Crell would prefer to have everyone locked up in their homes.”
“Ashenfel may not be the thriving metropolis it used to be, but there are still tens of thousands of people living here. Sounding the alarm would just make people panic, and by the looks of it the Crell don’t have a large enough garrison to keep order for long.”
She didn’t reply. The three of them were currently huddled atop one of the tallest residential buildings at the heart of the city, and now that the sun had fallen they would hopefully be difficult to spot. All in all, things had gone as well as he could have reasonably expected so far. With the help of his telepathy and a little bit of guile, they had been able to smuggle themselves into what was probably the last shipment of supplies from the Crell mainland before the Asgardian forces blocked off all the roads. Leaving the city would be a much more difficult prospect, of course. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to get out of here until the dragons blasted a few dozen holes in the wall. The thought made him wish that Sel and Gor had come along with them…
“Hmm,” Tam mused. “Maybe we could use this to our advantage.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason asked.
“The fact that so many people are up and about despite the fact it’s the night before a battle. If we convince enough of them that the end is nigh, we might be able to start a riot. The Crell will have an even harder time organizing their defenses.”
Jason shook his head. “I considered that, but stirring up a frenzy makes it that much more likely that innocent people will get hurt. The more of them bunker down in their homes, the better.”
“If you say so. Personally, I’d rather organize all the help we can get. The faster the Sovereign surrenders—or dies—the better off everyone will be.”
“Assuming Verrator is even here,” Sarina said, lowering the spyglass and turning back to face them. “There’s something seriously wrong, Jason. I know the Crell weren’t expecting anyone to muster an army and attack, but this is the thinnest imperial garrison I’ve ever seen. There were more boots on the ground in Elashi.”
Jason nodded and pursed his lips. She was right, of course. They had been inside a lot of Crell-occupied towns and villages all across Torsia, and by any comparative standard Ashenfel was virtually empty. The wall patrols were half normal strength at best, and the streets weren’t any better off. He’d heard rumors about various underworld gangs essentially claiming whole districts of the city, and if that were true it would be highly out of character. The Imperium was nothing if not orderly, particularly in its urban centers.
“No one knows why they abandoned Lyebel or the rest of Galvia after Garos,” Jason said. “Not even my father.”
“Maybe the Crell are suffering from more serious personnel shortages than anyone realized,” Tam suggested. “I mean, they did just fight a bunch of skirmishes against the Talishites and put down a rebellion in the west. They just caught the Solarians with their trousers around their ankles, and so they rushed across the border as quickly as possible.”
Sarina’s green eyes narrowed. “Or they consolidated their forces in the Sea of Splintered Ice. You remember how many soldiers and resources they had up there—maybe all those men had previously been stationed in Galvia. What if this whole thing is a trap, and the hidden fleet is preparing to flank us the moment we attack?”
“That sounds pretty far-fetched,” Jason said. “The Solarian griffons swept a huge area north of us, and they haven’t spotted anything. The Crell couldn’t hide an army that size in the middle of the Galvian plains. Besides, there’s no way they could have anticipated my father convincing the Asgardians to help him. They probably didn’t even know he was alive.”
“Unless he set this whole thing up,” Tam grunted.
“That’s impossible. Ethan is many th
ings, but he’s not a Crell sympathizer. He wants this city liberated more than anything in the world.”
“Well, we could speculate forever and not get anywhere,” Sarina said, waving a hand. “You should tell Sel everything we’ve seen so far.”
Jason nodded. “Not that it’s likely to change anything. This should be an easy victory.”
“Uh huh,” Tam muttered. “I still say they have a throng of manticore hidden somewhere.”
“If so, there’s nothing we can do about it. We should probably just try and get some sleep.”
Tam peered down over the awning. “We could try and get our hands on one of the soldiers. With your telepathy, you might be able to pluck some answers from his mind.”
“The odds that a random grunt knows anything relevant are low, and if we try something crazy tonight we will just jeopardize our plans for tomorrow,” Jason said. “Our best bet is to lay low.”
Tam didn’t protest. He probably hadn’t actually wanted to try anything, but he’d felt obligated to suggest it anyway. “I hope Sel’s all right with your dad. I don’t trust him.”
“No one trusts him,” Sarina said. “But there’s nothing he can do, not with Sel and Gor and a whole army watching him.”
“And he wants to take this city,” Jason reiterated. “This is his endgame, for all intents and purposes. Once the Crell are driven out of Galvia, he might as well shrivel up into a ball and die.”
“We can only hope,” Tam muttered. He sighed and glanced out to the horizon. “I was just thinking how hard this must be for Sel. Given…you know.”
Jason winced. “The man she loved vanished a long time ago. She knows that.”
“Are you sure? From all the stories you’ve told me, your dad has always been like this. The only difference is that he’s grown more desperate.”
“Maybe,” Jason whispered. “But perhaps Sel has changed too. She hasn’t been home in almost twenty years. That’s a long time, even for a faeyn.”
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 125