by Mary Weber
He shakes his head. “No. Don’t even think that. That’s not it. Let’s just go back to the party and—”
“What the hulls is wrong with you?” I wrench my wrist away and stalk the fifteen paces to my tent.
If it had a door, I’d be slamming it.
Too late, he’s pushing back the cloth opening and entering too. “Nothing’s wrong with you or me. I’m just asking that we not do this tonight. We can wait until—”
“Do what tonight? I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable to actually confess what is wrong with me or why you can barely look at me sometimes. Or why every time I see you, your eyes say one thing while your fear says another. You know what? Forget it—yes, we can do this tonight. Because tomorrow we might be dead.”
He runs a hand through his hair and I step right in front of him and let the sky rumble, prompting his lips to quirk as he stalls and this time looks down at me.
“This had better not be about whether you’re still unsafe due to Draewulf’s blood inside your body,” I growl.
He opens his mouth. Shuts it. As if choosing his words is a force of will. Until finally, “I am trying to give you a choice, Nym. But you’re making it blasted hard.”
“I suggest you explain that.”
He shoves fingers through his bangs again and peers around. “I’m trying to set you free so you can make your own choices. You’ve spent your life having things chosen for you, and never had the opportunity to explore true freedom yourself. Until now.”
I think this is going somewhere.
This dratted well better be going somewhere.
He settles his gaze on me. “You’re so blasted busy trying to help everyone else earn freedom, you can’t even recognize it for yourself.”
What is he talking about? “Have you been drinking?”
“Look. What I’m trying to say is that you and I met under . . . rather different circumstances. And it would be wrong of me to hold you to a relationship status that was established then. You have your freedom, and I would be a very indecent person were I not to encourage you to explore how you’d like to live with that freedom. Thus . . .”
This is it. I’d bet my life on it.
“Did the queen tell you what I’d ultimately choose?” I say smoothly.
He raises a brow. “I asked. She said it’s not for others to know a person’s destiny unless that person wants to make it known.”
She did, did she? “Well then, let me make it known.” I slide my palms over his cheeks and pull his face down until those emerald eyes are level with mine. “You are the only man I’ve ever met who’s both respected me and managed to make me hate you for keeping me in line. And you are the only man I’ve ever known who makes me feel safe enough to breathe and believe there’s some actual good in this world.”
I plant a kiss on his bottom lip. “And you are the only man who makes me believe that this world would be worth a pile of hulls if you weren’t in it. So you can please stop acting like a daft fool and kiss me already.”
He arches a half smirk and gives me a look that says he’s still unsure.
“I’m waiting.”
“Perhaps you need more—”
“Why? Because I’ve not made myself clear? Or are you unsure of your feelings for me?”
He chuckles. “Bleeding hulls, have I ever told you I love your temper?” Then leans in to obey.
The sound of a clearing throat rattles the atmosphere. I pull back, but Eogan won’t release me. Just mutters, “What is it, Kenan?”
I glance over at the large soldier filling the tent opening.
“Your Majesty, King Sedric has requested your presence. I believe there’s a question as to Lady Isobel’s—”
A groan rumbles deep in Eogan’s throat. I look up to discover his eyes are torn between annoyance and desire and it’s all I can do not to tell Kenan to go to litches.
CHAPTER 35
MORNING DAWNS WITH A THICK, WHITE, blanketing mist rising up from the warm earth to greet the cool sky and blackened clouds. The sun is peeking between it on the eastern horizon, pale and dull and lifeless, as if it knows what today holds. As if it knows who will die today.
I step out of my tent fully dressed in my blue leather shirt and pants and boots. White hair braided back like I used to keep it when I was a slave. I pull my hood up. Like on auction day.
Oh hulls. That is the feeling I’m sensing—today feels like auction day, only it’s not just me who’s going. It’s every person here.
“Don’t let them die,” I whisper to the Creator, hoping the spirit of him still resides in the Valley of Origin and can hear me, and care.
A sudden breeze rustles from that direction and with it the sweet scent of lake water carrying the melody that plucks at the strings of my soul, then it’s gone and I’m blinking and left feeling a bit lighter, a bit stronger. I search around for Eogan and Sedric and the knights, whom I spot on a plateau surrounded by rank upon rank of our fellow countrymen.
It’s only when I’m descending the slight slope toward where they’re waiting that my breath catches. It’s the first time I’ve seen our army assembled—and while they look tattered and patchworked together, there are so many more than I realized. My eyes warm and my throat hitches. They’re all facing us—thousands of them—split into row upon row of farmers and mothers and soldiers.
But it’s not until I get closer that I notice it. The silence. It grows as I move forward, and then the mums’ and peasants’ and soldiers’ hands slip out to reach for me, like the words falling from their moving lips—whispers I can’t understand but that cling to me anyway.
My heart constricts. Oh litches.
I swallow and force my face to display a radiant hope for them—a smile of promise for the victory we will claim—as the thought from two weeks ago in my room nudges its way into focus. An observation I’ve noticed a million times throughout my years but had never felt so real as on that night. And now, again, here. With them. The observation there is a moment before every storm when the entire world pauses. As if the atmosphere, in unison with the ocean tides, the wind, the sky’s watery teardrops, is forced to hold its breath. A bracing against the violence it knows will come—the tempest that perhaps this time, this moment, might actually shred the world’s soul.
I’ve been in that moment in a physical storm so many times before.
I have been that moment.
But today . . .
I look around at the few pitched tents and the bedrolls littering the open ground behind us as far as my eye can see. I look at my people—some of whom are dressed in fancy clothes too idiotic for a battle, while most are dressed in rags hanging off bodies that are too thin, too cold, too overworked. Soldier and farmer and nobleman.
Today we are that moment.
We are the storm.
And I have never been more proud of my people.
Nor more afraid for them.
No matter how hopeful my face may be, my stomach’s performing flips so hard I’m wondering if my gut’s just going to jump out from my spine in front of them all.
Keep walking, keep smiling, keep breathing.
When I reach the plateau, Rolf and King Sedric are finishing up giving a final exhortation to the individual generals, and Eogan and Kenan are speaking with Allen the dwarf who’s hopping up and down on one foot as if he can’t wait to get started.
A loud trumpeting from a meadow a half terrameter away shows why. Not only are his oliphants enormous, but at some point between late last night and this morning’s dawn, they were fitted with giant, spiked
leather strips along the sides of their bodies as well as down each of their hind quarters and legs. Long silver blades have been attached to their trunks so that anyone within twenty paces of their faces will get sliced in half with a single head shake.
Impressive.
A burst of laughter bubbles up at the sight of Kel on top of the largest oliphant. He’s surrounded by a host of lethal-looking acrobats, and even from here I can make out his attitude. It declares he could own the whole Faelen island up there—the way he’s sitting so proud and serious. Next thing I know he’s waving like a madman at me.
I give him a salute and a whispered, “Creator, keep him safe,” before turning to the kings who’ve stopped talking and are now directing their attention at me.
“Nym.” King Sedric nods.
I return it, and the moment my gaze finds Eogan’s handsome face, he breaks into that half smile I love. He extends his hand and I don’t care what anyone will think—of who I am and who he is, or whether or not it’s appropriate in the face of a war we’re all going to die in. Perhaps it’s the reality that we are quite likely going to die that makes me walk straight up to him, take his fingers in my own, and lift my face to his.
His lips brush my forehead. “Stay near me today,” they whisper before he leans back to say to the others, “Gentlemen, it appears we are ready.”
A rumble through the ground jerks the earth beneath my feet, drawing my attention to the fact that it’s been building, growing louder like a herd of bolcranes. I’d been so overwhelmed by the sight of our people when walking down I’d barely noticed it. But now . . . now I release Eogan and stride forward to peer over the edge of the plateau. Down the steep hillside. Into the valley below.
My lungs shrivel.
If I thought the wraith army looked terrifying yesterday, this . . . this is beyond imagining. Have they been multiplying overnight?
“It seems Draewulf’s magic has been busy,” King Sedric says as if in answer.
I snort. “I think you mean out of control. This is obscene.” The massive black horde that existed yesterday has grown to twice its size, which, given the land space they’re occupying between us and the sea, seems hardly possible.
They’re so tightly packed together down there, they look like a bubbling black oil slick. Always moving, always simmering. Always that blasted hissing that, though duller to my ears than a week ago, still makes my veins itch.
“They’re moving, Your Highness.” Rolf points to the front of the horde where the wraiths appear to be assembling in some sort of straight line stretching from the edge of Litchfell Forest to the eastern base of the nearest Hythra Mountain.
Oh hulls.
“They’re simply going to march right into us,” Kenan mutters.
“Like a wave,” King Sedric says softly. “A tidal wave . . .” He doesn’t finish, but I can sense the words anyway: “of terror.”
“Stations!” he suddenly yells, so loud I about jump out of my skin. It immediately sets everyone in motion. The generals who’re still lingering hurry off to their ranks, Kenan strides over to stand with a very large unit made up of archers standing right along the plateau’s edge, and King Sedric and Rolf turn to mount the horses a soldier’s just brought up.
I’m peering around for Haven when Allen the dwarf flips his hat and bows at me. “M’lady.”
“Allen the Fabler, Travelling Baronet.”
He grins. “May the sun shine on us by the end of the day. But in the meantime . . .” He winks. “May your storms kick their sorry wraith hind ends all the way to hulls.” With that, he trots off to make the rather tedious trek for his short legs to his troupe of oliphants and what appear to be panther-monkeys and magicians.
I smirk and swallow, and the next moment Eogan is standing beside me.
“Where best can you battle from, m’lady?” King Sedric asks.
I look down on the wraiths just as a horn blare ricochets through the Valley. It’s so loud, so eerie, it’s clearly not from a natural horn. The sound has barely died out when a roar bigger than the sea waves at night, or the thundering of a morning storm, picks up and blasts across us—as if powerful enough to create wind in itself. And on it, I swear the seven airships are moving toward us.
Litch. “Right here.” I glance at Eogan, who nods his agreement.
“You’ll stay with her, yes? To increase her abilities?” Sedric’s now staring hard at Eogan.
Wait, what? I frown and turn. “You don’t have to—”
“I told you we stay together today.”
“And what about Rasha?” I glance around for the red-eyed princess and her assortment of Luminescents.
“She’s with Lord Myles and Lady Isobel, keeping them in line.” Sedric indicates a group standing around two caged carts thirty yards away.
Eogan holds out his hand to Rolf, who is gripping two metal gear things. They’re curved like an archer’s bow, but the metal string crossing them is latched onto a metal spiked frame. Even with my limited knowledge of such weapons, I can easily see the tiny barbed arrows they shoot will go much farther and faster than anything the archers have. I raise a brow at Eogan, who chuckles.
“You don’t have to look so impressed,” he says. “With that expression, people will suspect you think I’m quite incapable of brilliance.”
Despite the growing roar from the wraiths below, the airship engines beginning to drone toward us, and our own people’s prayers and chants, I smirk.
Litches, I love that man’s arrogance.
That eerie horn sounds a second time, and I feel it as strong as it shakes the air around us. Black mist that’d been sedated among the wraiths since last night filters up and around them, as if to block them from our eyes—or shield them from the morning sun casting its first rays into the Valley. Either way, the rumbling ground says the Dark Army’s moving. And they’re moving fast.
Gasps arise from our rows of archers on either side of us. Their view from the front line is the same as mine. Which means their stomachs have likely just fallen out the soles of their feet.
“We’re going to get slaughtered,” one of them murmurs.
“Hold your ground, men!” Rolf yells.
I glance up at Eogan and King Sedric. Then back at the ranks. They’re starting to squirm, their nerves showing through.
I turn to Sedric. “Perhaps a word from you might help stay their strength, Your Highness.”
He’s beckoning a soldier, and when I glance over, the man’s leading Haven to me.
“I’ve already spoken my piece to them this morning. They know what lies ahead. The time for words is past. Fighting for our kingdom is what we’re here for.”
I peer around at the nervous archers watching the wave of undead running toward them from a terrameter away—never swaying, never slowing. The archers’ faces pale. Then I look to the rows upon rows separated into ranks—the farmers, the mums, the fathers who’re holding everything from swords to pickaxes.
And I can see it in them. The sallowness starts in their arms and works its way up their necks and to their cheeks. Panic. Fear. A few are even inching toward the tents—as if that will save them from the death that’s coming.
Death.
The air is thick with it. My throat is thick with it. Is that what I’ve led these people to?
Bleeding hulls. I grab Haven’s reins and pull myself up. “Mind if I say something, then?”
I don’t wait for Sedric’s reply. I simply tug Haven around until I’m facing the masses made up from the individual faces of my Faelen countrymen.
“Brothers and sisters!�
�� I shout above the disgusting, snarling noise growing louder behind me as the hordes approach. Thankfully it appears the people can hear me. Either that or the sight of Haven baring her teeth at all the other horses in the calvary a few ranks down from us has them distracted for the moment.
“Today we fight together for a freedom long owed us. A freedom from evil that has haunted our land, our history, and our homes from the very time Draewulf sought our destruction one hundred years ago.”
Haven steps forward a few paces and I bring her round back, then pat her to stay. “Well, today . . . today we take back that freedom. Today we seek his destruction. And today we show the rest of the Hidden Lands what it means to be true people of Faelen—that we cannot, will not, be defeated!”
A cheer goes up so fast I feel the wave of it blast over me. I wait for it to taper a bit before holding up a hand.
“Fight for yourselves today. Fight hard. Fight strong. Fight as men and women who are alive—against a force that is but dead and empty shells. And for my part, I will promise you this.” I raise my voice along with my hand so the thunder I create rattles in perfect time with my voice. “I swear to you upon my Elemental blood that if you fight for yourselves, then I will fight for you. And if needed, I will die for you.”
CHAPTER 36
THE ARCHERS ARE THE FIRST TO ENGAGE.
Their arms pull back the strings of their longbows, then release them to send arrows raining down like hail upon the black roiling, oncoming mass.
My knees weaken as I watch from atop Haven. The shafts fly in volley after volley, hitting their targets like hornets going in for a kill. Except the arrows only take out some. The wraiths who find a shaft impaled into their chest or arms keep going—only those whose skulls have been hit drop dead. Or rather, more dead.