by Nhys Glover
"Stop it! For the gods' sake, stop it, you crazy bastard. Don't you leave me here alone. I need you!" I screamed at him, giving him a shove so hard he lost his balance and collapsed onto his butt beside Trace. It reminded me so much of what had happened with Laric that I sobbed afresh. I did this! I was responsible for all of this.
Zem rose to his feet faster than any normal man could. He pulled me to my feet and dragged me over to Spot.
"Get on!" he demanded, his face a frightening mask.
I obeyed, still sobbing. He cast one more glance Trace's way and then mounted Storm. The three airlings were in the air in moments. I was now too far away to pick up Zem's thoughts. It didn't matter, I wouldn't like them anyway. Either he was counting wing-beats or breaths, or he was railing at me in furious hurt for calling him crazy. I had alienated the one person who stood by me no matter what.
I lost track of time. The next thing I was aware of was the airlings dropping down and coming to land in a field where the rest of the flock grazed. I saw them looking our way, and it was as if they were all condemning me. We had gone to enlist more Elemental Masters to our cause and, because of me, we'd failed. Not just failed, lost a man. Lost a man Airsha loved. A man she would have made her husband if the situation had been different.
I heard the shouts go up and saw lads running out to meet us. Calun reached us first though. He looked at the empty Bay and then at me.
'Trace is dead?' he asked, though it really wasn't a question.
I nodded my head, my voice lost to me.
'Airsha collapsed a turn or so ago, and her grief was terrible. We knew someone she loved was dead. I'm a bastard for being glad it was him and not you.'
I tried to smile my gratitude for his love but it wasn't in me. 'It's all my fault. Again, it's all my fault.'
Calun put a comforting arm around me and I burrowed into him, desperate for his strength and his unconditional love. Zem came up behind us and dropped his head to my shoulder. His mind was frighteningly still. No counting, no lists, nothing but grief. For me. He was grieving for me!
Chapter Twenty
AIRSHA
I'd known when it happened. It was such a piercingly painful Knowing that it had me on my knees in an instant. Trace was dead. And though I ached for him, and for myself and what I'd lost, it wasn't a shock. For days now, as we settled into our new centre, I'd been expecting it. No, I'd known what I was doing when I sent him into enemy territory. I'd Known he would not come back.
Why did I let him go then? Why did I let fate play out as it would? Let the Goddess have her random and riotous way with us? She had given him to me, made me love him, and then taken him from me again.
Could it be because I wouldn't accept him as part of my harem? Was she paying me back for going against her wishes? It didn't feel like that. But what else could it be? I had healed his wounds, fed him from my breasts and half-carried him to safety... all for nothing. All for it to end less than a half moon later.
Was it only such a short time? It had felt like I'd known him my whole life. I'd felt like I'd known him as well as I did my husbands.
My mind threw up the memory of him kissing and making love to my nether-lips, of being half-dead of his wounds and yet needing to be inside me. Of the strange elation he experienced from our joining. Our bonding. Call it what it was. I had bonded to him as fully as I had my husbands. I loved him...
The smell and the taste of him assaulted my senses then. It was more than a memory. It felt like I was living those magical moments anew.
"What is it?" Rama demanded, dropping down beside me, his eyes wild, his rage close to the surface as it always was when he felt a threat to me.
"I need to lie down," was all I could get out. I didn't want to talk about this with anyone. There would be time for discussions later when Flea and Zem returned. If they returned.
Rama carried me to our bed and then stood looking down at me helplessly, not sure what to do.
"I need to sleep. Wake me when they get here. If they get here," I murmured, turning on my side and burying my head in a soft pillow. I wanted nothing but to be left alone with my memories and my grief.
I heard Rama shut the bedroom door behind him, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't want anyone hovering over me, worrying about me. I didn't deserve it.
Sleep must have claimed me, because the next thing I knew the door was opening again and Calun was there. I was annoyed with him. Why couldn't he leave me alone?
Then I saw that Flea and Zem were back. And Flea was blaming herself for the disastrous mission. Why? Why would she do that? It was not her fault. This was the Goddess' handiwork, pure and simple. And mine, because on some level or other I had known what was going to happen and I did nothing to stop it.
I dragged myself up onto my feet. It was as if I weighed as much as an airling. Far more than when I was pregnant. Calun put an arm under mine, to stabilise me. His strength suffused every part of me. But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.
We stagger-walked to Flea's new room where Calun had just taken her. Zem was with her, but she had closed herself off to everybody. I could relate to that. She was so much like me it was frightening sometimes.
Calun led me over to her bed. I sat with relief, my bones not strong enough to hold me up any longer. Slowly I looked down at the huddled mass covered with bedding.
"Calun tells me you think this is your fault." I said slowly, not sure how loud my voice was. It sounded loud to my ears. "I need to know what happened."
A head appeared from beneath the quilt and stared at me with big liquid eyes. It was like looking into a rain-soaked forest. I was immediately transported back to the time I'd lain with Trace in the forest as the rain poured down on our faces. He'd laughed with delight as he opened his mouth to get more of the life-giving droplets. The canopy above had been the same colour as Flea's eyes.
I had to hold back sobs that threatened to consume me. I had had my time. This was for Flea. She couldn't be left to think any of this was her fault.
"Our job... My job was to monitor the thoughts of people coming into the hostelry. Seven of Trace's brothers came in, suspicious and wanting to find him. I knew they were all open to changing their allegiance, so I started spouting off, telling them I was an Elemental Mistress and that I'd entertain them with my magic later at the meeting. The word entertain meant something different to them than me." She grimaced at her foolishness.
I gestured for her to go on. I knew how men would take the word entertain.
"One of them was just a lad, maybe a sun or two older than me. No more. But he thought himself quite the man. So he made a comment and I told him to think with his other brain, if he had one. I know it was stupid. I know how sensitive men are about being made fun of by women, especially in front of their friends. But I did it anyway. So Laric, that was his name, Laric. He jumped up and faced off with me, trying to scare me, though I could tell it was all bluff. But Zem didn't, and he charged in and knocked the lad onto his butt. The others laughed at him.
"It wasn't until later that we worried it might be enough to turn Laric from our cause. When he didn't turn up that night to the meeting, I told Trace immediately. He sent his friend Kean outside to listen for trouble. And it came just as the meeting broke up. Troops approached. We all took off, and everything went as well as could be expected, given the disaster of a trap closing around us. We got out of town and back to the airlings. But as we took off, troopers rode up and started firing arrows at us. One ..." She choked on the last word, not wanting to go on.
I laid my hand over one of hers, which had crept up to cling to the edge of the quilt as she'd spoken, trying to infuse as much understanding and acceptance into the gesture as I could. I waited for her to go on.
Eventually she did. "One of the arrows hit their mark. We didn't know at first. Then Bay started falling behind and dropping closer to the ground. I was afraid she'd been hit. But when we were down, Trace slipped off her back fully. The
re was an arrow in his chest and blood everywhere. Coming out of his mouth. He was drowning in his own blood." She let out a heart-wrenching sob and I steeled myself against it. I needed to be strong. I needed to hold myself together for Flea.
"He was conscious. And all his thoughts were of you."
"He blamed me. It is only to be −"
"Blamed you?" Flea interrupted, more firmly than she spoken so far. She even appeared fully from under her pile of bedding. "No, he wasn't blaming you. He was remembering all the moments you two shared. How much he loved you. How much he wished he could have lived a little longer to see you again. The only thing he managed to get out in words was, 'Tell her I don't regret my choices.'"
That was all it took. The wall of grief I'd dammed up inside me broke free again. I let out a choking sob and fell into Flea's reluctant arms. I cried and cried until I was hoarse with it, and then I cried some more until I was sick with it. Through it all Flea cried with me, while the men looked on helplessly.
When the tears receded, a kerchief appeared in front of my face. Calun offered a second to Flea. We both took them and mopped up the damage as best we could.
"If it was this lad Laric who betrayed his brothers then it is on him, not you. Falling on his butt after threatening a girl and being laughed at good-naturedly by his brothers should not be enough to turn someone. The thought to do it must have always been there, just not fully formed in his mind. If, and I say if, Laric caused this, it is all on him. To turn on your brothers so easily... Aye, it is all on him." There was steel in my voice by the end, and I could feel the Goddess' wrath simmering. She hadn't made this happen, but for some reason she let it. And it infuriated her that it had.
Mayhap she had wanted to test this lad and he had failed her test? I didn't know. But there had to be a reason for this. I was starting to feel as if the Goddess always had a reason for everything she allowed to happen.
By the time I left Flea's room I was sure that she was feeling better, because I was feeling better. It was the shadow inside me, the inner bitch who was at me to believe this was my fault, just as Flea's had been at her to take the blame for it. Her reasoning was foolish. Mine was too. This was always going to be a risky mission. Trace knew it and agreed to it, without hesitation. He loved the danger, the risk. And he wanted to bring his brothers to the side where they could feel accepted, as he had felt accepted.
No, neither the Goddess, Flea nor I were responsible for this tragedy. That lay with someone else, and ultimately with my father. The Godling had denied Trace and his brothers their proper place as Elemental Masters. He'd forced them into his secret army, and when they threatened to revolt he had them rounded up and likely put to death for their supposed crimes.
Their biggest crime? Showing the Godling he was not the gods' favoured one. He never had been. Nor had his grandfather before him, or the long line of Godlings that stretched back into the past. They had kept their power by using secrecy, misinformation, death and castration. It was horrendous. All of it!
And it would end. If it took my life, I would make it end!
Chapter Twenty-One
AIRSHA
I stood staring out at the battle-field where we would make our final stand. The moons since Trace died had flown by frighteningly fast. So much had happened in that time.
At the thought of Trace, his son kicked in my belly. I Knew it was Trace's son, in the same way I had Known he had magic like his father's. I had Known it as soon as I missed my first moon bleed.
But we had been heavily into training the new recruits and a fresh wave of airlings, all of whom had joined us at our new centre deep in Westsealund. It had shocked us to discover this was our new home. King Halwart had seemed so firmly tied to the Godling, even though my uncle had been assuring us for moons that he was continuing those ties simply to hide his own secret army. Having the airlings within his territory was yet another way the king was thumbing his nose at the Godling, it seemed.
The Godling, my father, was no more. He had been killed during a coup several moons ago when it became clear he'd lost favour with the other kinglunds. His grandson had assumed the throne. It had worried the rebels that this might be enough to take the wind out of the rebellion's sails. But my popularity had not waned, especially as the power-base on which the Godling's political structure rested was seen by all to be flawed. Not only were there women with magic, but there was a plentiful supply of Elemental Masters not born of the Godling. Magical sons whom the Godling had kept secret, castrated or killed, to keep his monopoly over magic.
My nephew had sent me a private message telling me that if I abandoned the rebellion, all sins would be forgiven and he would make a special point of arranging a right and suitable noble marriage for me. I laughed when I read it. But when I showed it to my husbands, play-acting that I could finally get to replace them with the 'right' husband for me, they hadn't been as amused by it as I was. I'd had to work doubly hard that night to prove I was with the right husbands and that no nobleman would ever be good enough for me. Not even Trace.
But because of Trace, thirty magical men and boys had found their way to the rebel stronghold. None but Trace had died in the trap set for them, and even more members of the Godling's Secret Army had left the ranks as soon as they heard what had happened to their brethren. We weren't there when they started trickling in − having already left for our new centre − but the news had quickly come to us.
Finally, I knew why Trace had been given to me for that short time. He was the one who could turn the tide of public opinion in our favour. The evidence of magical sons not born of the Godling was all the kinglunds needed to cast off the yoke Godslund had placed on them for millennia.
But Godslund was still a powerful force to be reckoned with, being larger and more populated than all the smaller kinglunds combined. And they had many magical sons to draw on. The new Godling and his priests of the false gods would not go down without a fight. And if my father had been willing to bring down the whole world to save his throne, his grandson, my nephew, was willing to do that and more. Having waited in the wings for ten suns for my father to abdicate in his favour, he'd had plenty of time to plan for his rule. When the war broke out, his fury at being thwarted had been monumental. And heads had rolled, including my father's.
I had waited for the grief to come, on the day of the summer solstice when word of his death reached us, but it hadn't. The man I had loved, and who had loved me as his favourite daughter, had died a suncycle ago. It felt like a lifetime ago. Not even loving memories of him remained to bedevil my dreams.
So now the new Godling and Godslund stood alone against the combined forces of the rest of the kinglunds and Badlunds. It might sound like a battle my nephew couldn't win, but the outcome was not assured. Godslund had a superior force of seasoned fighters and the willingness to do anything to win. But we had more Elemental Mages and the airlings, which had finally been made ready to fight. There were one hundred and six of them, including my four husbands, Flea and Zem. I would have flown with them had I not been four months pregnant. Not as monstrous as I was during my last pregnancy, but enough to force me to stay grounded and out of danger.
I had found a way to give away some of my more battle-useful magic. As with most of my magical discoveries it had come from a situation that needed solving.
A young lad had arrived to train as an airling trooper. But Julz wasn't like other recruits. He'd had his legs crushed by a wagon in a Godslunder raid on his village. His parents had been killed in the raid, as had his younger brothers and sisters. He had been determined to take his revenge and, as he could not fight by normal means, he'd decided his useless limbs might not prove an issue with an airling under him. He could sit, after all.
My husbands and I had been impressed with the lad. His confidence, determination and willingness to work knew no bounds. But it quickly became apparent that riding an airling was beyond him. A rider needed to use his legs to hold on and keep his balance.
And though we tried to rig up a saddle he could be strapped into, in the end it proved fruitless.
That was when Jaron had suggested giving him my air magic so he could do what I had done during the rescue of my mother. We had more airlings than riders, so rigging them with the stone bags had always been in our plans. But I had more than air magic now. And while I was releasing stones I couldn't be doing other things, like raining lightning strikes down on the enemies' heads.
So Julz had been the experiment. The first I tried to give my magic to. It had been terrifying. I had no idea how to do it, or even if it was possible. What if I killed the lad in the transfer? It was unheard of to pass magic on like I was planning to do.
But the look in Julz's eyes when we turned him down had spurred me on to take the risk.
"I have another suggestion," I'd said slowly, hoping to see a little of the sadness leave the lad's eyes. "I do not even know if it is possible. But we can try. If you are willing."
That was when the hope came, tremulous at first, cautious that we were simply going to hand him a desk job to placate him. That was the last thing he wanted, and I understood his need.
"I have so much magic. More than any one person could wield at one time. So we have been considering the possibility of passing on some of my magic to others."
I explained what we had done with the rocks during my mother's rescue. "If I could give you my air magic you could do what I did then. Release the lever when an airling is over the target and bombard the enemy with stones. But the transfer might be impossible and it might be dangerous. It has never been attempted before. If you agree, you must be prepared for the worst."
Julz, who was a lanky fifteen-suns-old with sandy hair and big blue eyes, looked at me with his characteristic determination. "I was fully prepared to die as an airling trooper, and I am fully prepared to face the risk of taking on magic to help the cause. Let's do it!"