by K. A. Linde
Slowly, everyone filed out of the war council. The meeting that she had just commandeered for her own. As she was the rightful ruler of this army now. Of all Doma.
Once everyone left, she turned to Vera. “How do I turn it off?”
Vera laughed. “Look into yourself. You are connected to the diamond. You can release that connection at any time. The golden glow is part of being true Doma. You just have to let it know you want to release it.”
Cyrene concentrated, and after a few minutes, the glow diminished and then disappeared. She breathed a sigh of relief. “You were right that I should keep it on for the meeting, but I am glad to get rid of it.”
“You will need to train with the diamond. There is so much more that you can unlock with it. I wish that I could train you with it, but it is a link that you must explore on your own.”
Cyrene felt like she had always known that. Like the diamond was beginning to show her all that her magic could do and all that she could really be if she opened herself up to that ancient Domina court that she was now connected to. Duty to all Doma past, present, and future.
“Thank you,” she said to Vera. “You will be a great teacher to these Doma.”
She frowned. “I don’t know how I will be able to do it without magic of my own, but I will try.”
“But you can’t be completely without magic,” Cyrene said. “You are still linked to Ameerath. Only those with magic can be bound.”
Vera opened her mouth and then closed it. As if she had never considered that. “That is true.”
“So, you must have the capacity for magic even if you feel as if you no longer have any.”
“I will think on that, Cyrene.” Vera looked pleasantly surprised. “And do my best for your army.”
“I know you will.” She turned to Avoca and Orden. “I believe that we have allies between us that we can reach out to. People who can bolster our numbers. Let’s figure out logistics for where we’re going to go once we’ve maybe had a moment to bathe.” She gestured to her blood-splattered clothing.
“That’s the Cyrene that I know.” Orden tipped his oversize hat at her.
Avoca grinned, slipping out her ice-white blade. “Let’s take down this false god.”
Cyrene nodded at her closest friends and then watched them head out of the tent. Both of them curiously glanced once at Dean before leaving.
“And where will we be going?” Dean asked once the tent was cleared and they were alone.
“We?” Cyrene asked.
“I noticed that you gave everyone else orders, except for me. I assume that means that I am going with you,” he said simply.
“I gave you orders, and you deferred them,” she told him. “I asked you to lead the training, and you said no.”
“It is a waste of my talents.” He held up a hand crackling with electricity.
“Fine. Then go teach some of the new recruits how to use their magic if you’d prefer.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Cyrene, I’m going with you.”
“You don’t even know where I’m going,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you defy orders when you were in the military, too?”
“Would you like me to bow and scrape like my military training?” he asked. “Because I don’t think that you would. You want someone who will challenge you.”
“What I want is to win this war,” she told him. “That is all I want right now. Which means that you and I are the two most powerful magical users in this camp. I can feel that a mile off. We cannot both leave the army undefended again. I have allies that I need to try to bring into the fold. You can stay with Halcyon and protect everyone.”
Dean just stared down at her. “You have several hundred magical users here and a full army. You don’t need me here. You need me with you.”
“I can take care of myself,” she told him. “And unless you have allies that I don’t know about that you can contact, then I need you here. So, do you have those allies?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He wouldn’t say no.
She hesitated over the next words. “Could I send you to Domara? Are there people there who would aid you?”
And then Dean exploded. The cool, calm exterior obliterated. He stormed away from her on a growled, “No! I cannot go back there. How could you even ask that of me? You have no idea what I went through.”
Cyrene stilled at the outburst. Had even half-expected it. “You’re right.”
He whirled on her.
“I don’t know what happened because you won’t tell me. And you don’t have to until you’re ready. But, if we cannot ask the land of the gods to assist us, then I don’t see where else to best use you right now. You are our first line of defense.”
He rushed forward, grasping her hands in his and forcing her to look up into his eyes. “Don’t you understand, Cyrene? You are the target. Malysa wants to get to you. You need someone to watch your back. Why won’t you let anyone take care of you?”
She swallowed at his words. At the fierceness and tenderness wrapped in every syllable. She was standing before him, covered in the blood of Indres, risking everything for the sake of her people, running headfirst into destiny, and he was trying to save her.
“I don’t need to be taken care of,” she softly told him, bringing her hand to his cheek. “I need a partner in this madness.”
“Then let me be that.” He brushed a stray strand from her face. “I will stay if you think that best, but I would rather be at your back when the madness hits.”
She nodded. Because she wanted that, too. She had been leaving him here for practicality’s sake. Or at least, it was what she wanted to tell herself. That it wasn’t because every moment brought them closer together. They had no promises to each other anymore, and the closer he got, the more linked she felt. When she felt certain she was walking into imminent death.
22
The Journey
“Are you sure that you don’t want to take the portal at Tenchala?” Cyrene asked Avoca.
She gave Cyrene an annoyed look. “We do not even know if Eldora’s portal is open.”
“You know that I can open it from my end.”
“You don’t know if Malysa is watching. It’s best to limit it.” Avoca closed up her pack and then straightened. “Plus, I need to do this on foot. I don’t want to barge in like that. I haven’t been home in two years.”
“I know. I know how much you miss it.”
Avoca didn’t deign a response to that. She glanced off to the rest of their waiting party and then back to Cyrene. “Be safe, Cyrene.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I never…” She cleared her throat. “I never apologized for what I said.”
Cyrene swallowed. “You don’t need to apologize. I know where your head was at then.”
“I regretted it when you left. I wanted to take it back. But it was too late by then. And Ahlvie…” She choked on his name.
Cyrene reached out and grasped her hand. “I miss him, too. We will get him back.”
Avoca nodded. “He’s still in there, Cyrene. He had the opportunity to kill me, and he stopped the beast. I think we can still reach him.”
“And we will,” Cyrene told her.
Avoca shouldered her pack. She nudged Cyrene’s shoulder. “So, you and Dean?”
Cyrene glanced in his direction, worrying away at her bottom lip. Leave it to Avoca. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And yet, you said that you would marry for an alliance.”
“It’s not something that I can ask Brigette to do and not consider for myself,” she admitted. She was still surprised that he hadn’t brought that up yesterday during their argument. Also glad that it hadn’t come up.
Avoca put a hand on her shoulder. “As someone who was supposed to marry for an alliance, I can tell you that marrying for love is infinitely better.” She tipped her chin down and looke
d at Cyrene from under big black lashes. “And worth pursuing.”
Cyrene understood her meaning perfectly. And blushed a shade of scarlet to match.
Avoca chuckled and hugged her friend. “I will see you again soon. Good luck.”
“You too,” she said softly and then watched Avoca trek off into the forest toward her home.
Cyrene knew that she was sending her there, but it didn’t make their separation hurt any less. At least they were walking away in a better place than the last time.
She sighed and turned back toward the rest of their party. Dean, Orden, and Fenix were packed and waiting for her. She steadied her mind and let go of what she couldn’t control. Part of leading was delegating. She needed Avoca to go to Eldora, and they didn’t have time to do it all together. She knew that Avoca could take care of herself.
“Let’s head out,” she said. “It should still take a few hours to fly to Tenchala.”
Dean nodded and gestured for Orden to follow him to Halcyon. But Fenix didn’t move. He just stared over Cyrene’s shoulder and waited. She knew what…or more specifically, who he was waiting on. Rhea hadn’t come to say good-bye. She had been furious from the start that Cyrene was sending Fenix in as a spy. Furious with Fenix for volunteering for such a life-threatening mission.
No matter how they’d explained it was a necessity, Rhea wouldn’t hear it. And Cyrene couldn’t blame her. Not after Eren. Not after she had lost the first man she loved. It was asking a lot.
But they had all lost someone in this war. Cyrene knew the weight of her suffering. She had experienced it all again in the Domina court. She was still continuing on despite it. She knew Rhea was strong enough to do it, too.
Still, she had thought Rhea would show.
“Do you want to…find her?” Cyrene asked sympathetically.
He just straightened further. “She will come.”
“She’s stubborn.”
“You’re stubborn.”
Cyrene grinned. “We have always shared that quality.”
“We’re eating daylight,” he said in frustration as the minutes ticked by. “I thought she would come.”
Cyrene had thought so, too. It wasn’t like Rhea to let anyone go off like this. If they left without a good-bye, she knew that both Rhea and Fenix would regret it. Regret was not a quality she wanted in her spymaster.
“There,” he breathed as if he were seeing a vision.
And Cyrene saw her finally. Rhea strode toward them, clothed in a dark dress, with her own pack on her back.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Fenix asked.
“Coming with you,” she snapped.
“Absolutely not.”
Cyrene winced. “Rhea…”
“Don’t,” Rhea snarled at her. She took a deep breath. “My entire life, I have said that I belong in the background. That I belong with my books and my inventions. I was one to blend into the background while Cyrene took the spotlight. I preferred that.” Her eyes were insistent. “You asked me so many times to be a part of this adventure. For me to join you on your quest. And I always said no. I said that I belonged here. Well, all that has gotten me was tortured, the person I cared for killed, and then my invention used to destroy an entire island. I will not sit on the sidelines any longer. I’m going with you to Byern. This is my fight, too.”
Cyrene flicked her eyes to Fenix, waiting to see his reaction.
He just smiled. “It’s about time, Rhea Gramm.”
Then he slid his arm around her waist and kissed her long and hard on the mouth. She pulled away, gasping.
“I thought you were going to argue with me,” she sputtered.
Fenix shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for you to find your own agency for a long time. Come with me. We will find a way to be together in this.”
Rhea nodded, clearly a little surprised that she didn’t have to argue more. Then she tipped her gaze to Cyrene. “Um…is that okay?”
Cyrene just chortled and strode to Sarielle. “Get on, lovebirds.”
“This is a one-way trip,” Cyrene told Orden. She passed Orden the packet of letters she had finished writing late last night. He secured them in the pocket of his jacket. “We’ll come to Bienco once we’re through with our plans. Leave us a sign at the portal if you decide to depart. We’ll check it when we get there. Good luck.”
Orden tipped his hat. “You too, girl. You know I said that you had some crazy plans.”
“I know. I know. I’m rash.”
He grinned. “This isn’t one of them. I’m proud of you.”
“Oh,” she whispered. And then smiled fondly. “I’m glad I met you that time I almost died.”
He dropped his head back and laughed. “I bet you are. Now, open that portal. Are we sure we know where it opens up?”
“I’d hope so. Vera created most of them.”
“Aye. I hope those Eleysian imbeciles figure out how to get my Aurum back by the time I return.”
“At least they have Gwynora and Quidera.”
Orden grinned. “Women should always run the world.”
Cyrene winked. “To that we agree.”
Then, she focused her energy on the coin in her hand. The Tenchala portal before her opened wide to reveal what looked like a dark underground cellar.
“Huh,” Orden said, unimpressed.
“Vera did say that most of Bienco flooded long ago, and they raised the city on top of it. I guess it makes sense the portal is underground.”
“Should be an adventure, I suppose.”
Then Orden walked through, and the portal closed behind him.
Cyrene went to work on rerouting their talisman. Vera had instructed her on how to do it in case they needed to jump from portal to portal. It had taken some getting used to. And had kept her mind busy while she went through the tiresome job of meeting and assigning every single Doma in the army. So few could manage more than one element. And most of them barely had a drop of Doma magic in their veins. But there were others who were promising, like Jenstad and Alchia and another boy, Estin, who was with the Network. She’d left it to Vera and Quidera to determine how to separate them all as to best learn. But she’d had to do the manual labor of determining elements and strengths first. It was draining in a way continual magic use typically was.
She’d had to take a couple of extra days to recover before they could go. She’d hated the delay, but it had been a necessary one.
And now, she was standing before the portal with her team—Dean, Fenix, Rhea, and their dragons. So much rested on whether or not they were successful here. She swallowed and directed the coin toward the portal one more time.
Before them was the ruins of a city.
“Wow,” Rhea breathed. “I thought…we were going to Byern.”
“The Byern portal isn’t safe,” Dean said.
“Welcome to the once-great Leif city of Aonia,” Cyrene said.
Then they stepped through the portal to the other side of Emporia in the blink of an eye.
Watching Rhea’s astonishment reminded Cyrene of the first time she’d ever truly left Byern. It reminded her why she loved to travel so much. How seeing the ruins of a lost world flipped her entire perspective. They were only here on this world for a short time. She wanted to live the best life she could.
“Aonia,” Rhea breathed. She stepped out of the half-crumbled building that held the portal and stared all around her. “It’s devastating. What happened?”
Cyrene sighed. “Indres attack. They came at night in numbers unheard of and slew everyone. There is only one living person left from Aonia.” And Ceis’f was unaccounted for in this war.
Rhea frowned. “You think an Indres attack did this?”
“That’s what I was told from the person I know who was there in the aftermath.”
“Hmm,” Rhea said. “Indres are just foot soldiers. They hardly seem like the type to do this much damage.”
Cyrene had never really thought about it. There
couldn’t have been that many more Indres than what they had seen from Malysa. Unless she was holding deep reserves.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “Perhaps they just wanted it to look like it was Indres, and there were others involved.”
Rhea sighed. “Aren’t there always?”
Halcyon and I are going to scout the area, Sarielle told her. We want to check for the Destroyer’s presence in the woods. Especially since you have witnessed a Nokkin in these parts in the past.
“Thank you, Sarielle,” she said affectionately to her dragon.
The rest of them trekked through the scattered ruins until they reached the edge of the city.
Cyrene pointed southwest. “Levin is about five to ten leagues due southwest. Once you hit there, I think you probably know your way to the capital.”
Fenix nodded crisply and followed the line of her hand. “If we get started right away, we might even be able to get to Levin today.”
“Um, I have much shorter legs than you. And, if we arrived at night, they might not even let us in the city. So, we’d have to sleep outside anyway. We should plan to moderate our travel so that we don’t kill ourselves,” Rhea told him crisply.
He grinned from ear to ear. “I forgot that I had a genius with me.”
She sputtered, “I am not a genius. I am highly logical.”
Cyrene chuckled. “You’re kind of a genius, too.”
“Whose side are you on?” Rhea asked.
Sarielle’s voice cut through their conversation. All clear, soul sister. We will hunt. The game is much better here.
“Enjoy,” Cyrene told her with a smile. “Dragons back in the mountains.”
It does feel more like home.
There was a longing there. And Cyrene hardly blamed her. She missed her home, too.
“All right,” Fenix said. “We’ll get going at an even pace. Don’t want to tire anyone out.” His eyes flicked to Cyrene. “I’ll report in when I can.”
She nodded. “Only when it’s safe.”
His eyes said that nothing about what he was about to do was safe.