Ilvara points to a fallen enemy soldier, iron armour blackened with soot. Evelyn nods and reaches for his charred arm. She drags him behind the bushes and separates burned limb from armour while Ilvara sorts through his weapons. She lays them out: a bow and quiver, a huge longsword, a dagger, and a shield.
Ilvara taps the bow, then taps her own chest. Evelyn nods, sweeping her hand over the sword and dagger. She hands the shield to Ilvara, who looks down at the armour. With a sad smile, she passes Evelyn the breastplate marked with Esterden’s green crest.
Evelyn stares. Ilvara gazes at the walls of Lockmire behind Evelyn and meets Evelyn’s eyes again. She picks up the bow, points it at the men outside, and drags her finger from Evelyn to Lockmire.
Are you sure? Evelyn mouths.
Ilvara nods.
Quietly as she can, Evelyn slips on the armour, heavier than her usual outfit. The chainmail shirt and faulds prove too cumbersome for her, so she just slips into the cuirass and back plate, then piles her braid on top of her head before stuffing it into the helmet, which isn’t the style she prefers, but will do better for staying hidden, as it only has a slit for the eyes and tiny holes for breathing.
The iron boots and chainmail trousers are easy to slip into over her dress, though far too big and very heavy. She finishes her outfit with iron gauntlets and takes up the sword and dagger, affixing them to sheaths on her back and hip.
Except for her arms only covered with the sleeves of her dress, Evelyn is equipped for battle. She crouches behind the bush to calm herself before she proceeds. Ilvara touches her arm, letting out a tremulous breath.
Be safe, she mouths.
Since Ilvara is unable to see her mouth, Evelyn only nods. She touches her chest once, then Ilvara’s. With nothing else to do, she faces the chaos, taking a great gulp of air. As she walks forward, she hopes beyond reason that she won’t be paid any attention.
However, when she joins the others at the gates, she realizes it wouldn’t have mattered. Everyone is far too flustered to notice anything, even their own comrades being taken down by Ilvara’s arrows. She’s too good to kill many at once. She just picks off those farther away from the others.
Men and women dressed in hard leather and fur are joined with them. The sight of them heightens Evelyn’s fear to a near suffocating level. Herus, please! her heart cries out. The prayer has no solid, verbalized requests. Only a desperate plea. To stay alive. To stay away from these bandits. To find Caius unharmed.
The men around pummel the gates with their weapons, screaming—either out of fear of the dragons or of determination to get inside. Evelyn guesses it’s probably both. The nose-curling odours of charred flesh, sweat, and coppery blood swarm together in the hot air made sweltering by the fire. Under the layers of chainmail, iron, and wool, pools of sweat gather on Evelyn’s skin.
Very suddenly, the gate creaks open. Esterden soldiers and bandits pour inside, pushing them wide. Evelyn stays nearer the back in case there are Lockmire soldiers standing ready to fire. But not many front men fall. Evelyn stops to survey her city, half in flames, half already burned and crumbled. The sight nearly breaks her.
The few Lockmire soldiers around arrange themselves in loose squares. When Evelyn recognizes it, her heart misses a beat. Either Caius is here directing them, or his influence has lasted until now. Ducking her head, Evelyn follows the rest of the group forward through her bleeding, broken city.
Two Lockmire guards fall upon her. One swings at her torso, and the other elbows her against the throat, hard enough to knock her back. She wheezes harshly, trying to suck in a breath, trying to speak.
One guard seizes her throat just as she tries to take a breath, pointing his sword at the base of her exposed neck, under his hand. She slices at him with her dagger to dislodge his grip. The other guard’s blade cuts into her side, between her trousers and chestplate. It severs something in her hip. It must have. She would scream if she could.
She has no choice. These men will kill her, and she can’t allow that, not when she’s this close to seeing Caius again. She prays for forgiveness as she drives her dagger up the chestplate of the guard holding her, sinking it into his torso. The other dances around her and slashes her other side, up her ribs, opening a gash the length of her forearm.
Evelyn whips around, skidding her dagger against his throat just as he tries to swing again. He falls in a great heap of clanking metal.
Shaking with pain, Evelyn crumples to her knees. Her hard breaths echo inside the helmet. Sweat and moisture soak her face. She glances up, desperate for any comrade to find her, and spots Alec a few yards away, fighting an Esterden soldier. He cuts him down quickly, then finds Evelyn and rushes over to finish her off.
Before he can raise his sword, Evelyn wrenches off her helmet. Her golden braid unfolds down her back. She drags her eyes up to him.
“Evelyn,” he gasps. “Gods, what…I thought you were dead. You’re fighting for Esterden? Where’s Asher?”
“Tarreth,” she gets out. She stretches a hand up to him. “Help me.”
To her relief, Alec nods. His face blurs before her. The black tunnel is closing in. She fights it, drawing deep breaths. The pain is overwhelming. Blinding.
“I’ll get someone,” he says. “We’ll get you somewhere safe. Matthew, come here!”
Evelyn tries to say Caius’ name, but the word feels numb on her lips. All at once, everything goes dark.
✽ ✽ ✽
Evelyn floats through the main hall. Caius is there, dressed in a ivory tunic trimmed with scarlet. He smiles at her from the front, by the thrones. The sunlight makes him glow like a seraph. For a drawn-out moment, she can only see him, but then, others appear. Ilvara, Jacklyn, Mother and Father, her little brother. Asher is there, too. A priest is before them.
Evelyn’s feet don’t touch the ground until she is before Caius, facing him. He’s crying and smiling and telling her how much he missed her. And he has a ring for her. He is marrying her.
Paradise is real.
“We’re lucky they weren’t watching that exit. Maybe our men will still have a chance.”
The words come from nowhere specific and yet everywhere at once. The entire main hall shifts, wobbling, shaking. Tapestries and planters hit the ground. Evelyn feels suffocated by it. Something burns on both sides of her. She scratches at it, trying to ease the pain, but it won’t go away. It builds until the main hall and Caius and all her loved ones twist into darkness.
When Evelyn’s eyes open to Alec’s face above her, the grey smoky sky behind him, and the searing pain in her sides, her mind spins in disorientation. Sweat drips down into her ears, into her open mouth that she cannot shut. The world jerks and bounces violently. On a horse? In a wagon?
“What happened?” she gets out.
“You fainted. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“I got stabbed. Did I get stabbed?” She grimaces. The pain curdles her stomach. “How long has it been?”
“I think one of the Lockmire guards got you. We just got out of the city.”
Evelyn squeezes her eyes shut. Among the radiating pain, she feels a sharp pinching at her sides. Someone trying to stitch the wounds closed. Maven… Not Maven… Lockmire guards?
“Didn’t Countess Ilvara take your body to Tarreth to bury you?”
It all comes back in bits and pieces. “Herus Sanctuary. A minister raised me. I came back for Caius. Where is he?”
Alec’s hands freeze at her side. She looks up at his pale face. “I…I don’t know where he is. I saw him in the Lockmire courtyard. But Lockmire is gone now. We just need to save ourselves. You said a minister raised you? What, from the dead?”
Evelyn furrows her brows. “So you’re just going to leave him there? I thought you were a man of honour, Alec.”
“I am. But I am of more use to Lockmire alive, joining the army I hope they’ll make in Tarreth to fight back against Esterden. Just relax, all right? You’re making this harder.”
<
br /> Evelyn lays her head back and lets him stitch up her sides. She’s in the bed of a wagon—she can see it all now—with only Alec kneeling next to her and some other man driving it. She can see the tops of trees, but most of the gray sky is unobstructed. They must have reached the meadow.
As she lies there, Lockmire returns to Evelyn’s mind in a rush. Stealing the armour, getting attacked and immediately downed. What an incompetent fool, she thinks to herself. Why did I think that would work?
Evelyn stiffens suddenly. “Ilvara!”
“Easy there. Yes, she took you to Tarreth. She’s probably still there, with Asher,” Alec says. “Try not to move. I’m not very good at this.”
“No, Ilvara came with me. She’s back in Lockmire, outside the city gates.”
Alec rises to face her, eyes dark. “The dragons blew fire all through the entrance. The entire front of the city was destroyed, and so was everyone outside the gates.”
“What?” Evelyn struggles to sit up despite Alec’s protest. “We have to go back! We have to save her.”
“I want to save the countess as well, but you’re—oh look, you’ve opened your stitches. Sit back. Evelyn, you’re bleeding. There now, relax. Evelyn?”
Chapter 17
Sylvia
Running. Running.
There is no air, only smoke. It burns Ilvara’s eyes and throat. The heat from the fires singes the hairs on her body. She cannot breathe.
Behind her, their harsh laughter and threats make it sound as if the smoke does not bother them at all. But they are not Esterden soldiers. Ilvara has fought these kinds of monsters before, long ago. She heard stories of their ancient leader, able to breathe fire himself. Is that true of these men as well?
A cabin appears, half on fire. Would they expect her to be inside? If they would, they’d have her trapped. No, that is not an option.
A wall of flaming trees halts her. She whips her head in every direction, fighting the urge to drop to her knees and cough her lungs out. She dashes for an opening in the flames.
Everything hurts. Whatever does not ache from use burns from the fire. Ilvara does not hesitate at the edge of the stream. The blessed water is warmer than usual, but it cools her stinging skin so much that she splashes herself as she runs through it. The voices behind are too close. Just as she leaves the stream, she hears them splash in.
“Quit running!” one man shouts. “We’re going to catch you anyway.”
Ilvara stumbles on the muddy bank. Her foot lodges in the muck, taking her shoe with it. When she rips it out, something twinges in her ankle. She cries out in pain. The men laugh. She finally dislodges herself from the bank and continues up the short hill. Each step on her sore ankle is excruciating.
She emerges into the meadow a moment later. A smoky breeze whips across her damp skin. She gasps, the coughs tearing out of her. A small wagon bumps along through the meadow toward Tarreth, too far away to even hear her cries. Still, she runs. Can she make it to that wagon in this condition, when every step feels like her last?
With her eyes momentarily ahead, Ilvara doesn’t see whatever her foot hits. She falls hard onto her knees. Her dress rips in the middle. She smashes her knee on something hard.
Many hands grab her and turn her over. It’s three men and one woman, actually. She hadn’t even heard her in all the noise. Her broad, freckled face and dark eyes are very familiar.
“Ilvara,” the woman says. “I thought it was you.”
“Sylvia,” Ilvara returns, staring. “You—You’re a bandit?”
One man raises his sword. Sylvia stops him.
“This is the countess of Lockmire,” she says. “Lord Krassis wants her taken captive, like the count.”
Ilvara’s blood curdles at the thought of being held prisoner with her estranged husband.
“He’s dead,” another man says. “One of the men found him in his bedchambers. Poisoned himself.”
Ilvara blinks at him. “What?”
“Oh.” Sylvia glances once at Ilvara. “Are they ransacking the chamber?”
“He took what he could, but the whole thing was coming down. He got out just in time.”
“Take her,” Sylvia orders. “Tie her up, and we’ll walk her back. And remember—if she reports any other abuse, Krassis will have our heads, so for Tristus’ sake, be careful.”
Bandits grab Ilvara on either arm. “You only say that because you know her.”
Sylvia looks into Ilvara’s eyes. Her own are cold like the depths of Blackmist Pond in the middle of winter.
“I did,” she says. “Once.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Ilvara spun a daisy in her hand as she gazed out the window. She was seventeen, a full-grown woman. And yet, she had never seen outside her tiny village. Aranea held beautiful things, she was sure. She had read all about them in the books she hid from her mother under the hay in the chicken coop. Her siblings had known what other places looked like. Eight of her ten siblings were married and living in Nequa’s main city. Only she and two brothers, Jared and Gideon, remained.
A flick against the back of her head snapped Ilvara from her trance. Mother’s greenish eyes were stern.
“I told you to get the washing in. It’s still lying in the grass,” she said. “And you’re daydreaming again?”
Ilvara stood quickly, stuffing the daisy into her apron pocket. As she collected the clothes from the yard, she noticed Jared, her younger brother, crying pitifully by the fence post. When Mother had learned of his mental slowness, she’d nearly thrown him in the river. But Ilvara had promised she would take care of him. And so she had, for thirteen years.
She went to him then. Brushed a strand of mousey brown hair out of his face. “What is making you cry?”
“Belly,” he said, rubbing his abdomen.
“Again?”
He rolled his head back and forth. “Ow. Ow.”
Ilvara pulled him toward a bench and sat him down. “Just sit here. I’ll bring you water. All right? Sit here.”
He rose. “Vara, Vara, no… no go.”
She handed him the daisy she had been playing with this morning. He sniffed it and smiled.
“You stay, all right?” Ilvara said. “I’ll be back.”
Inside, she filled a mug with water from the barrel.
“His stomach hurts again,” she said to her mother. “I think it’s time we take him to the city to see a physician.”
“No need,” Mother replied, not taking her eyes from the hunk of meat she was browning. “I told you before. They can’t fix him. I think his insides are deformed.”
Ilvara bit her lip. “I’ll take him by myself. I’ll just see—”
“No.” Her head shot up. “It will take all day. And they’ll charge too much. We can’t afford it.”
“That’s all right. I’ll take him. I have those gold pieces saved up from selling the goat.”
“No. If you leave, then I have to do everything myself.” Mother slammed the spoon down into the pot. “Your father goes out all day, pretending to work, while I slave here like an animal.”
Ilvara shook her head. “Mama, I’m trying to help. Let me take him on the morrow, and you can rest at home.”
“No, no.” She gave a great sigh. “If you insist on going, I’ll go, too. He is my burden to bear.”
He isn’t a burden, Ilvara thought to herself. “All right. Can we leave early?”
“Get the washing in, finish the rest of your duties, and we will see on the morrow.”
Jared cried all through the night. Papa came in very late and didn’t acknowledge either of them before going to bed. Gideon always slept at the farm where he worked on the other side of the village. Ilvara rose to fetch Jared more water, but all the water caused him to soil the bed they shared. When dawn finally shed its rays across the village, Ilvara had just finished changing the bedding.
Though exhausted by the long night, Ilvara’s heart pounded with excitement at the prospect of seeing Nequa
for the first time. She set off with her mother and brother in the small wagon. Their old mare was slow, but this only annoyed Mother. Ilvara and Jared both took in the sights of the slow journey with wide eyes.
The arms of Nequa opened to them gradually. Greyish brown plateaus gave way to yellow sandstone houses and squat shacks. Scrubby trees and weeds grew thickly around. Instead of moving further into the city, Mother pulled the wagon to a stop outside the first physician’s shop they saw, marked with Medela’s symbol of health, a five-petaled scarlet flower.
“Hurry up now,” she ordered, stepping off the wagon.
Ilvara helped Jared down. He stared in wonder at new scenery. They entered the little shop, and a girl at the counter greeted them warmly. She appeared Ilvara’s age. The thought of working at a shop like this seemed wonderful.
“Can I help you?” she asked. Her face was paler than others who lived here, and covered in freckles. And there was something about her eyes that seemed closed off. Veiled.
“Yes, my son is ill,” Mother said. “I was up all night with him.”
Ilvara eyed her.
“I’ll tell the physician. What’s his name?”
“Jared Blathe.”
“Age?”
“Eight.”
“Thirteen,” Ilvara corrected her.
“Sh, darling. He’s eight years old.”
“All right.” The girl scratched the information onto a waxy tablet. “And what is his ailment?”
“It’s his stomach. As you can see, he has some other problems as well. They wanted me to get rid of him, but he’s my son, you know. I couldn’t get rid of him.”
Ilvara lowered her face. She had to bite her tongue to keep from speaking. She already earned a punishment by correcting Mother about his age. And often, Jared would receive the punishments meant for her.
“All right. I’ll be back,” the girl said, and left them.
They waited for nearly a half-hour. Mother sighed as she doted on Jared, wiping his drool and listening to his babble as if she had done so every day of his life. The other patients saw her only as a loving, compassionate mother. But Ilvara knew the truth. Her mother’s attitude sickened her.
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