I sit there in silence, my heart cracking wide open in my chest. I have nothing profound to say, nothing that will truly help him. My affection and my hand on his head are the best I can offer. He hugs my legs, his head in my lap, and I desperately want to share with him the hope I’ve found. But Elpis doesn’t work that way. Only Carver can know when he reaches the other side of his suffering and is ready to live again.
“Wine won’t help you,” I eventually say.
Silence. And then, “I know.”
“Can I take it away?”
He clears his throat. His arms tighten around my legs, but then he nods. “Give it to Bellanca.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because I avoid her at all costs.”
An unexpected laugh cracks out of me. “She’s that bad?”
Carver actually smiles. It’s small, barely moving his mouth, but I still see it. “Maybe not. But when I want a drink tonight, I’ll think twice about going to get it.”
“And if you give in to the urge, she won’t give it back.” I know her well enough now to know that.
He chuckles, genuine humor rounding out the sound. “She’ll do something to distract me. Lecture me for a while. Kick me a few times. Probably set me on fire.”
“Then it’s a good thing you won’t be steeped in spirits,” I say dryly. “You’d go up in a snap.”
Carver straightens, dragging his face off my thighs. There are crease marks on his cheek and temple. His hair is completely flattened on one side and sticking straight up on the other where my fingers have been working through it. He’s still as handsome as they come, strong, loyal, and funny. I can’t understand Konstantina. How could she turn her back on a man like Carver? Did she regret it? Did she care that she was shattering him in the process?
I reach out and touch his whiskered cheek. “The people in your family love with everything they have. Look at your parents. At Griffin and me. You.” I don’t mention his sisters, even though their devotion is just as strong. The loves they’re harboring and the people they’re harboring them for aren’t any of Carver’s business until they decide it is. “But you made a mistake.”
His eyes search mine, questioning. He doesn’t draw away from my hand.
“You didn’t choose wisely. You gave your love to someone who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, give theirs fully back. Choose better next time. It’ll be worth it. It’ll change everything.”
He swallows. “You think there’ll be a next time?”
I nod.
“How do you know?” He sounds curious when I expected belligerence. Maybe, deep down, Carver hasn’t truly given up on love.
Lowering my hand, I look at him like he’s one Centaur short of a herd. “Soothsayer, remember? I know stuff.”
A spark of the old, always-teasing Carver brightens his face. “You’re a fake. With a fake crystal ball and a flashy sign.”
My mouth pops open in protest. “I am not a fake! And in this case, I’m not even just making things up.”
Carver arches both brows, clearly skeptical. Standing, he pulls me up with him. “I don’t blame you for what happened to Piers,” he suddenly says.
I freeze, something jolting in my chest. Carver has lost a lover and a brother. I pray he gains from now on, rather than loses more.
Carver kisses my forehead and then folds me into his long arms. “If Piers had bothered to get to know you, he would have loved you. He almost ruined a lot of lives because he refused to see past his own nose. Whatever he’s doing in Attica, I hope the next time he gets involved in something he doesn’t understand, he does what you just advised me to do—make a better choice.”
CHAPTER 19
Volunteers arrive daily, mostly from Sinta and Tarva. Our army doubles in size, which gives Kato and Flynn plenty to contend with. Carver dedicates himself to the Fisans with the single-mindedness of someone who wants to forget everything else, and I hardly see Griffin because he’s so busy overseeing it all. Everyone but me is exhausted. Even Bellanca finally dims to a soft glow from the sheer fatigue of trying to wring useful magic out of people who don’t have very much.
My days consist of walking around, a crown on my head and Ianthe’s pearls at my belt, waving, nodding encouragement, and trying to look regal—if dusty. Being seen and not getting into any trouble seem to be all anyone needs or wants of me at the moment, leaving me bored, increasingly restless, and privately grumpy.
But while the inaction grates on me, I know this is the time we need to take in order to get the army fully equipped and into fighting shape. And more importantly—into a cohesive unit. The already mixed Tarvans and Sintans come together fairly easily. They’re mainly soldiers to begin with, or at least men and women with fighting experience. The Fisans mostly have no military background and some magic, setting them apart in all ways. And while I’m careful to spend equal time among the groups and to encourage them to mix together, my heart calls me toward the Fisans. Maybe they need me more. Or maybe I know what it’s like to not fit in.
Little Bean is hardly showing, but she certainly isn’t a secret anymore. I can barely move without dozens of people asking me if they should carry me on a litter, or bring me water, or go get the King. It’s incredibly annoying. Do I look like my feet don’t work? Do I look like I’m about to faint? Do I look like I need Griffin’s help to take the last two steps to the bloody chair that’s always waiting for me wherever I go?
By the end of each day, I’m growling to myself and ready to explode. But each day I sit, because that’s what’s expected of me, and I grind out a smile as I plant my bottom in the chair, because that’s what’s expected of me, too.
My knife hand starts to twitch more often, and the rest of me feels like it needs to take off at a run. Not to run away. Just to move. I’m trying to give the soldiers what they want, what seems to motivate them, but it’s strange and hard to reconcile. The warrior princess inspired them. Rallied them. The pregnant Queen had better sit down and fan herself, or the world might end. It makes no sense. Then again, human emotion rarely does.
People definitely look at me differently than they ever have before. I think it’s because of that very first day when we arrived at the army camp, and I humbled myself on my knees in front of a Fisan shepherd. Sure, I killed a Cyclops, but almost no one here actually saw that. Their first real impression of me came from watching a small woman dressed in regular clothing sedately ride into camp and then kneel in the dirt among her people, among Thalyrians. On my knees, I humanized myself in their eyes. In an instant, the legend got eclipsed by the person, while Griffin remains larger than life to them.
Was it a mistake? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I didn’t do it on purpose, that’s for sure. But I feel the difference everywhere around me—in looks, in whispers, in hearts and eyes. Before, these soldiers would have fought to please and impress me. Now, they’ll fight to protect me. I think I know what’s worth more.
And that’s why I let myself get plunked down in this bloody chair, day in and day out. Because it makes these people happy to take care of me. Because it makes them feel like there’s something they’ve already won—me. I’m theirs. I’m everyone’s. I’m Elpis.
At least the training sessions and interactions are interesting to watch, and the daily improvements are impressive. I only wish I were more actively helping them to come about. But maybe that’s not my role anymore. Maybe it never was.
Beta Team thankfully doesn’t treat me like I’m in need of constant rest or assistance, but we only come together for the evening meal. Griffin and I have the nights, and thank the Gods he doesn’t treat me any differently, either. He’s still tender when the mood takes him, just like he’s always been, but it’s not any more often than it was before. I would miss our wildness if he changed. He knows I want both, the fast and the slow.
Just like I want to be the warrior pri
ncess as well as the expecting Queen.
CHAPTER 20
I’m getting antsy enough to almost blur the lines and get involved in drills when Griffin proposes a training exercise and asks me to help oversee it. Something to do, thank the Gods. He wants to put a reduced number of soldiers—sixty men and women, but the best trained and most natural leaders we have—through the paces of a mock assault on a fortified city. He thinks it will help them to know roughly what to expect and to be better prepared to help organize and execute an attack on Fisa City, which we all know is the inevitable outcome.
He originally planned to have the war games play out in nearby Kitros, even though we all expressed concern over the possibility of the densely populated area housing spies that could report back to Mother about the state of our forces and our techniques. It’s Bellanca who suddenly has a stroke of brilliance, suggesting that we use the ruined city of Sykouri instead. The exercise can be even more realistic there. We can use catapults and battering rams, and it won’t matter in the least. The city is already vacant and wrecked.
Decided, we choose our players, gather materials, and then make our way to Sykouri, using the travel days to practice moving heavy equipment over rough roads and working together as a group. When we arrive, we set up a makeshift camp in the abandoned fields around the city and then pick our way up the debris-strewn main artery of the once-magnificent metropolis. On foot, we skirt fallen-down columns, tumbled archways, and crumbling buildings. Everyone is curious to see what’s left of the city. The shattered bones of Sykouri are mostly blackened, burned by a long-ago inferno ordered by one of my ancestors during a Power Bid. He and his Magoi lackey, a Fisan named Phoibos, destroyed Sykouri with Phoibos’s deadly fire, took the lives of most of its Tarvan inhabitants, and then pushed the Fisan border farther west to where it still stands today.
Nervous tension gripped my insides the moment we set foot in Fisa. But the Ipotane, only a day’s ride from here, protect everything to the west, and we’re nowhere near anything important or strategic to Mother. We’re barely into Fisan territory, and we’ll come and go so fast she’ll never know we were here.
More than simple curiosity, our exploration of Sykouri is also reconnaissance. Griffin would never attack a city, even a ruined and ostensibly empty one, without making sure there was no one inside. It would be irresponsible to do so, especially with the increased number of Fisans, both refugees and volunteers, moving toward the nearby Tarvan border. We passed a whole group of asylum-seekers on our way here. Only yesterday, we saw the Ipotane rounding them up to take them to Lycheron for his sniff check. If any of them decide to volunteer for the army, they’ll find Anatole taking names and barking out orders until our return. Beta Team, including Bellanca, is leading the practice attack.
The city is a mess. The destruction makes me shudder. My inquisitiveness turns into a sinking feeling as I take in the depressing evidence of what powerful magic and no conscience can do to a place. How it can rip lives from the world.
The deeper we move into Sykouri, the worse the feeling gets. “Does anyone else feel sick?” I ask quietly, rubbing my arms. There’s a tingle, almost like magic nipping at my skin, but other than Bellanca, our Magoi aren’t powerful enough to disturb my senses.
Kato absently scratches the tattoo on his neck. “Something feels off.”
Anxiety spikes in my blood. I’m pretty sure the Drakon Titos left some kind of magical mark on Kato besides the tattoo. If Kato has a bad feeling about this, I believe him.
My stomach starts to churn. Was that movement amid the rubble?
“Did you see that?” I discreetly tilt my head toward a burned-out building.
Griffin nods. “I saw.”
“Refugees?” Flynn squints in the same direction. “They might not know if we’re friend or foe.”
A blade glints, peeking out from behind the scattered debris and catching the afternoon sunlight.
My pulse leaps. “That’s not something a refugee would have.”
Griffin curses under his breath.
I turn to Bellanca. “Why Sykouri? Why here? Did someone suggest it to you?”
Her eyes widen. “No. No one. I…” She frowns. “I can’t remember. I had a headache.”
My heart sinks like a stone. “It’s a trap.” I unsheathe my sword. “Mother drew us here. She used Bellanca to get us beyond the Ipotane.”
“Compulsion?” Bellanca shakes her head. “But…”
“She can do it. She can get in your head and suggest things you never would have thought of. It comes with a bloody Gods damn headache,” I grind out.
“Oh my Gods.” Bellanca looks sick.
I lift my sword to get our squadron’s attention. “Out! Everybody out!”
As if I were shouting to them, Fisan soldiers crawl out from behind crumbling walls and ruins. They don’t waste any time and attack. Weapons clash. Our men and women fight back. Beta Team springs into action. Lukos joins us, helping to protect Bellanca as she becomes a weapon all by herself. He takes a hard hit but then pushes back. He’s gained muscle weight from Carver’s almost draconian training. He and Carver cover Bellanca as she throws fire at the oncoming Fisans. Carver is back to full speed and strength and looks rabid as he drives each new threat away from Bellanca. Flynn bellows. Kato swings his mace. Griffin and I fight back to back.
With Bellanca in full, flaming force, two of our Magoi, Elemental twins with wind, race over to blow her fire farther into the Fisan ranks. The enemy outnumbers us, and I can definitely feel their Magoi now—waiting, powerful, hiding all around us—but Bellanca is gloriously cutthroat and fierce. Fisans scream. Burn. Run away. With the twins’ help, Bellanca starts clearing a path toward the gate.
As a group, we battle our way toward the crumbling portcullis. If we can get out of the city, we stand a better chance. In here, we’re hemmed in, surrounded, and more Fisan soldiers keep surfacing. Son of a Cyclops! They’re everywhere.
Sykouri should have been empty. It’s been a ghost city for years. Mother’s spies must have gotten wind of our planning a training exercise, and then she used compulsion to lure us here. Bellanca couldn’t have known. Most people never experience the scraping pain of someone infiltrating their brain.
We’re almost to the gate when I feel her—Mother and her polluted magic pulling on the air. I kick out hard, getting rid of an oncoming attacker, swipe my dagger across the chest of another, and then whirl to face her, my sword glinting in the light of Bellanca’s fire.
Mother is next to the exit. She looks at me, and then a great, green blast of telekinetic power rattles the keystone and finishes off the utter destruction of the huge arched gateway into Sykouri. Stones fall with a nightmarish thud, crashing down on top of the nearest combatants, ally and enemy alike, and cutting off our escape.
No! It only takes a second for the demolition to happen. Dust billows. Grit in my eyes. I recoil. I can almost smell the blood.
Horrified, I watch Mother climb atop the fallen keystone. The noise of battle, previously clanging all around us, dies as all eyes turn to her, Sintan, Tarvan, and Fisan. Lingering power makes her black robes billow around her. Her green eyes glint in the sun, and the remnants of her magic reflect off her crown of Fisan pearls. It’s the Origin’s crown, the symbol of absolute power as old as Thalyria itself.
Mother uses a fresh graveyard as her podium, and the look on her face tells me everything I already know: we’re surrounded, outnumbered, and trapped in a ruin without a door.
I throw the knife in my hand straight at her. It veers to the side, right into the gauntleted hand of a Fisan Metal Mage.
Anger pounds through me. Trying again would be a waste of a blade.
“Less hesitation this time,” Mother says, her tone mocking. “Is it because I almost had your husband eaten by a horse?”
I narrow my eyes. It’s time to bluff like there’
s no tomorrow—because there might not be. If I can make my lightning work, I can still save the rest of our people. No Metal Mage or anyone else could stop me. I’ll use Mother’s own lesson against her. Conceive. Believe. Want it. Make it happen.
I reach into my well of power, searching for that elusive spark. “Surrender, and I’ll let you live.”
She chuckles, and her laughter makes the metal breastplate she’s wearing over her dress move. Like her, the armor is ostentatious and hard. “You never were this funny as a child. It’s almost a shame to end you. You’ve become so entertaining of late.”
“You didn’t find it entertaining when Ares and Persephone showed up and chased you off with your tail between your legs.”
She arches dark eyebrows. The withering expression on her face turns my stomach, mostly because I know I can look exactly the same way. “But it was vastly entertaining to throw you into a volcanic pit.”
I feel more than see Kato’s sharp look and know his cobalt eyes are boring into the side of my face. Flynn makes a growling sound deep in his throat. I probably should have told them about that myself.
“It must have been a lot less funny for you when I flew back out,” I say.
Her mouth pinches, and her body language screams disapproval. Mother never could stand it when I refused to enter into her mental games or managed to subvert her razor-edged questions.
“Which is why I’ve decided to concentrate less on the show and more on the result.” Magic gathers around her. “Any last words?”
Throwing my own words back at me is a joke to her, I suppose. I start to move forward. There are people between us, and she’ll go through them to get to me. Griffin, Flynn, and Kato follow my lead, flanking me.
I can’t help looking at the fallen. The twins are there. They were leading us toward the gate, blowing fire to clear a pathway. Bellanca, Carver, and Lukos nearly knew the same fate.
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