“Go ahead,” Radamar murmured. He folded his knees toward his chest and rocked into the wall.
“Enough.” Benny tucked the needle into the jacket sleeve, then tossed the garment to Mordegan. “Take Juna to the other room and finish mending that yourself. You sew better than I do anyway. Radamar and I need to have a couple words.”
Mordegan looked down at Benny with concern in his bright eyes. “I'm taking you to Auberline. I spent too much time worrying about what happened to you to let you disappear again now. Juna can't navigate worth shit, so he's stuck with us. I'll leave you to your elf and go have a couple words with him. Again.” He pried the sword from Juna's blanched fingers before putting an arm around the Uldru's slight shoulders. “I'm serious, kid. Killing him won't make you feel any better.”
“It will make me feel wonderful,” Juna said, his shoulders sinking.
“Boys.” Benny made her voice as sharp as she could without outright snapping.
She waited until Juna and Mordegan were out of sight before scooting closer to Radamar. Irritated, and finding herself with less to say than she thought she did, she tilted her head back against the wall. A minute passed, possibly two, before Radamar leaned to the side and rested his head on her shoulder. More silence as the wind screamed through gaps in the battered masonry and the tiny fire in the hearth crackled. There was only darkness beyond the shuttered windows, and even without the sandstorm she wouldn't have been able to see much through them. The new moon gave no light to the Satlan Desert, and if the sky was clear the only illumination would be an infinite void of cold and distant stars.
“It's already been a day. How long do you think this storm could go on?” Benny slowly raised her hand and stroked the ragged ends of his hair. This was the first time he'd touched her since the night he found them on the cliffs.
“Could be three or four days. Maybe even five. I was stuck in one for nearly a week in the Auran Desert.” Radamar's voice was as sandy as the maelstrom outside. He held up his hand to reveal a scar running from the back of his thumb to his wrist. “That storm threw stones.”
“This one is, too. And cacti. We'll have to go out a window on the eastern side because there are piles of cacti blocking the doors.”
“Should bring a few of those in if they're the kind with pads. I know a couple ways to cook them.”
“If you want to cook them, you ought to try staying alive a little longer.” Benny withdrew her hand from Radamar's hair, then gently pushed his head off her shoulder. “Now will you tell me what happened to you? You were confident to the point of arrogant, but now you're suicidal.”
“Ranalae knew how to break people. She enjoyed it.” Radamar's head returned to her shoulder.
Benny kissed his dusty hair. “She's gone now. They're all gone. It's just us and Radella. I don't know what I want to do after we find her, but I do know I want you to keep being her father. We're already married and it's going to be a pain to convince a magistrate to grant us a divorce, especially if Shan really did kill everyone in Mountain Home, so maybe you can stop trying to get Juna to kill you and we could just try being a family for a while. I doubt my mom will want to give up Radella never to see her again after taking care of her for this long, so why don't we plan on staying in Auberline? No more masks, no more Jarrah, just the three of us. Or more. We were trying to have another baby before Ranalae got fed up with me. I always wanted to have three or four kids, and you said you did, too. We can do that now and we won't have to worry about them growing up in the order.”
She was surprised by her own words. She didn't love him, and only occasionally liked him, but she did care about him. He was the man who happily stopped what he was doing to dance with the tiny girl who looked so much like him, who read Radella book after book until she fell asleep in his arms, who caught her as she was born and smiled incessantly as he took care of both baby and mother during their recovery. Radamar's own parents were as cold and distant as the stars above the sandstorm, but he was instinctively paternal and frequently showed Benny that he wasn't truly the terror he became when hidden behind the Jarrah mask.
A liquid warmth seeped through Benny's tunic. Without looking, she touched Radamar's cheek to wipe away his tears. More replaced them and no amount of wiping would allow her to keep up, so she let them soak her shoulder. Her hand settled above his knee and she whispered. “I've seen the real you. I think without the mask we can have a good life together.”
“I can't,” he whimpered into her shoulder.
“Can't what? Have a good life with me? Am I that repulsive to you, or do you have somewhere better to be?”
“You're not repulsive.” Radamar ran his thumb along the side seam of her fingerless glove as he held her hand. “I can't . . . I can't have children. Not anymore. Radella will always be my only child.”
“What are you talking about?” Confusion rose as an angry hummingbird in Benny's chest.
He squeezed her hand as a sob shook his shoulders. “I fought with Ranalae when she sent you away. I was defiant, refused to complete the horrid tasks she assigned to me. She always demanded cruelty from me, and my parents encouraged her ideals. She trained me from childhood to be her unquestioning zealot, but Radella made me see things differently. I didn't want her to be like me, to grow up believing the people of the worlds both above and below were hers to enslave and murder. Ranalae punishes anyone who wrongs her, and I could no longer follow her when everything she did was wrong. I was sent below to kill Daelis and Katrin and bring back a broken Shannon so he could be turned into a Spellkeeper. I failed, they lived, and when I returned to Mountain Home, I refused to allow our daughter to receive a proper Jarrah education. I said this right to her. Only time I ever truly stood up to her, and she made me pay for it.
“She threw me into a wall and held me there with a shadow entanglement. She told me I'd already fulfilled my purpose, but because my father was her mother's little brother and we were such close kin, she was giving me a choice. Either she would take Radella to Jadeshire for her to educate and I would be rewarded for my complicity, or I could keep my daughter and educate her as I wished, but I'd have to give up something of my own. My only real choice was the second. I once told you I'd do anything for our daughter, and I did.
“Ranalae laughed at me as she gathered the others to hold me down. 'I think this is a good choice for you,' she said. I already knew what she was about to do because I had helped her do it to someone else as part of my initiation, but I wasn't going to fight her if it meant she let me keep Radella. She kissed my cheek and whispered, 'Geldings are so much better behaved, so much quieter and calmer. Your bloodline wasn't ideal, anyway. Your father's line is magnificent, but your mother is a bit of a mongrel and it shows in you. No matter. You'll be obedient now. And if you aren't, I'll kill you and take your daughter.'
“I was still healing when the dragon forge fell, but I had to take Radella and hide when the orcs stormed Mountain Home. I guess my choice didn't matter in the end because Radella would have been safe in Jadeshire once Ranalae was gone. I know for certain that it was the right thing to do, and for a while I ignored the consequences because my only goal was to reunite you with our daughter, but now I'm second-guessing myself and I'm devastated because here you are offering me a future I can't have and a redemption I didn't earn. Juna is right in his desire to kill me. I'm a monster with maybe one positive quality. I might be a decent father, but that doesn't absolve me of everything else, and it doesn't keep me from pining for a life I'll never have. Radella doesn't need a father who is a monster, and you don't need a husband who no longer has anything to offer you.”
Lady of Light! That was not at all what I expected. She knew Ranalae was malicious, but she didn't expect the Nightshadow matriarch to do such a thing to her favored cousin. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise after learning that Ranalae had sentenced her own son, her only child, to death in the underground for the sole crime of not being what she wanted. Radamar's suppo
sed crime against her was far more severe.
Radamar shifted away from Benny. He wrapped his arms around his shins and buried his face in his knees.
Benny wouldn't allow Radamar to carry the weight of his revelation on his own. At least some of it was her own fault, and as long as they were still married their lives and fates were intertwined. She knelt in front of him, then coaxed him to look up at her so she could kiss the tears from his lips. She pressed her forehead against his as she pulled him into an embrace. “She needs to know she has a father who is willing to sacrifice everything for her, who is redeeming himself because of her. Stop wishing to die and stay with me, Radamar. For our daughter. You have so much left to teach her. She needs you now and she'll continue to need you for the rest of her life.”
“I'm useless to you.” Radamar's voice, choked with tears before, was now barely audible over the screaming wind.
Tears gathered in Benny's eyes as she squeezed him tighter. “You're not. We'll figure things out after we get to Auberline. I'm in awe of you right now, of everything you've done for her. Please . . . please promise me you won't try to incite Juna's rage again. You have so much left to give our little family and I don't want to lose you.”
“Please don't tell Juna or your father what Ranalae did to me. It's hard enough that I've told you.” Radamar slumped into her arms. He reached up to touch her cheek, then gave her a weary smile. “I wish I'd noticed before how beautiful you are.”
Benny stifled a laugh. “I'm covered in dust, I squish in all the wrong places, and my hair hasn't seen a brush in years. Your flattery is perplexing.” She stroked his brow and leaned to the side until they were lying on the floor facing each other. The blowing sand beyond the shuttered window was now gray instead of black. “I'm not going to tell anyone because no one else ever needs to know. It's none of their business. The sun is rising and we should sleep.”
Without another word, Radamar closed his bloodshot eyes and nestled into her arms.
THREE EXPLOSIONS SHOOK the outpost, each one louder and closer than the last.
Benny untangled herself from Radamar's embrace and sat upright.
Mordegan jumped to his feet, but quickly lowered himself into a crouch. He reached for his sword and said, “Well, that shit don't sound good.”
Benny picked up her own pilfered sword and looked toward the window. Eddies rattled the shutters, but the night beyond the swirls was clear. The storm was either over or they were caught in a lull.
A fourth boom released a cloud of dust and debris from the decrepit ceiling. A continuous low rumble followed and the dust jumped and danced across the stone floor.
Mordegan arranged his push daggers on his belt, then swept his hand toward an overhang. “You three get under that arch. Architecture's sound there. It's not going anywhere. I'm gonna take a peek.”
Juna scowled as he arranged his goggles and scarves. He crept around a rotting beam, then sat next to Benny beneath the arch. He jammed the point of his sword into a crack in the floor before leaning forward to growl at disoriented Radamar. “If whatever is out there needs a sacrifice, I'm giving them you.”
Radamar rose to a kneel and propped his polearm against his knee. The weapon was nearly too tall to fit beneath the arch. “Not today. I think I'm done with this nonsense for now, Juna. I want to see my daughter again.”
Juna breathed heavily and stared straight forward. “You'll have to work for that.”
“I know.” The tip of the polearm tapped the arch. “I wronged you, and I wronged every Uldru. I'm sorry. I don't know how to atone for that yet, but I'm going to try.”
“Yes, you are. Or I kill you.”
“Enough of this. There are more important things right now than this endless squabble.” Benny squinted at the window. Nothing but a starry sky and plumes of gently swirling sand. “What's out there, Dad?”
Mordegan shook his head as he crossed the room to peek out another window. “Sarding damned cocksplitting thunderwankers.”
“Excuse me?” Radamar grunted while Benny tried not to laugh.
Mordegan crossed the room again. “Satlan elves and their battle sheep, all geared up for war. They're all bloodied up. Kids, I think we found ourselves in the middle of a fight that's got nothing to do with Nightshadow and Juna. Might be an improvement.”
“Elves?” Benny searched for any context to explain the situation. “The Satlans haven't entered a war in three hundred years. Who could they possibly be fighting?”
“Fae,” Radamar whispered into the dust.
“This far south?”
Mordegan's eyes narrowed as he surveyed a scene only he could see. “Shit. I think you're right. That's a gods-damned Faeline siege engine.”
“Dad? What is this? What is going on?” Benny's heart galloped and her nerves tingled. The walls quaked as the fight crept closer to the abandoned outpost.
Radamar sighed and knocked his polearm against the wall. “The southern Fae have organized. The High King ordered all Fae exterminated after their own false king slaughtered his son, Prince Kailandrian. Most of the fight has been in the Faelands, but the scattered Fae of the southern realms fell the hardest after the High King declared war. Elves have been killing them on sight, often turning on their own neighbors. The Fae rallied east of the Salt Range and they were battling in the Topaz Realm, but it seems they've now brought their fight westward.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Louder, louder, shake the shutters. Flashing lights and bellowing howls. Something was coming, something big.
Boom! Thump. Whoops and screams punctuated the steady rumble.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Mordegan dropped to his knees and shoved his loose effects into a rucksack. “We need to go. Now. Nightshadow, grab some goggles and cover your face. Won't end well if either side sees you're an elf. Benny, Juna . . . horses. Now.”
Benny stood and then pulled both Radamar and Juna to their feet. “Dad? What now?”
Hands clapped over ears as a thundering roar shattered the night.
“Someone's got themselves a coaxi.” Mordegan tossed an overstuffed rucksack to Radamar. “We're in its path. Gotta go now or we'll get stomped.”
Oh, no, no, no, no. A full-grown coaxi was one of the largest creatures in Bacra, a leather-skinned, four-eyed, acid-spitting hulking beast that looked like a mixture of lizard and dog and nested in the hollows beneath the Auran Desert. Coaxi only surfaced from their hibernation for a week or two during the spring rains, so what one was doing in the Sandstone Realm at the close of summer was a complete enigma.
“Coaxi? Are you certain?” Radamar asked. The wall to his left gave way with a crack. He shoved Juna out of the way, then kept moving toward the horses, which were sheltered in the other room of the outpost.
“Don't give a shit if I'm right right now. Move your ass, Nightshadow.”
The horses were gone. The outpost's double doors were open. They creaked on their hinges and banged against the exterior as the wind gusted.
“Sarding cowards.” Mordegan grabbed Benny's hand and yanked her forward. “Stay with me.”
Benny's knees threatened to give way as the floor quaked. How big was this thing? How close? “Dad?”
“Stay with me, Benny. Run when I run. The boys will have to figure it out on their own because all I care about right now is you. I'm not gonna lose you again.”
Two steps to the door, and the ground lurched. Benny spat out a mouthful of sand and tried to keep up with her father's long strides. The whipping sand bit into her skin and she wished she'd had a moment to put on her desert goggles and tuck a scarf around her face. There was no time for that, or time to think. All she could do was run and try not to let her feet sink so far into the sand that she tripped.
A sickening crack sounded as the first of the coaxi's feet crushed the far wall of the outpost. She didn't have to look back to see that the beast was at least eight times taller than the outpost roof. She could feel it with every step it landed on the drif
ts.
Mordegan pivoted to the left and ran toward a cluster of elves on galloping rams. One elf looked over with confusion and fear twisting his exposed mouth, but the others paid them no attention and kept running.
Sand and cacti exploded into fine shrapnel as a projectile landed not fifteen yards ahead of Benny and Mordegan. Benny didn't have time to see what the Fae were firing at the elves before Mordegan jerked her into another direction shift.
She could see the Fae now, and their massive horses and their great steel siege engine. Their scarves and tails whipped in the rising wind as they continued to bear down on the fleeing elves.
She could hardly draw a breath anymore, but she had to keep running. The pebbly skin of a coaxi leg was visible in her peripheral vision.
A roar from directly above left Benny's ears ringing and her shoulders quaking.
Mordegan spun to the side and shoved Benny to the ground. She screamed as the spines of a cactus pierced the back of her left upper arm and shoulder. Mordegan hovered over her protectively, then looked up for a moment at the round and calloused bottom of a coaxi foot before rolling them both to the right. Mordegan covered Benny's mouth and nose with the end of his own scarf, then embraced her.
Dust covered them both as the three-yard-wide foot landed next to them.
And then she was on her feet again. She jumped over a cactus and a large rock. Mordegan's grip on her arm tightened as they ran beneath the coaxi's looming hind foot. Another shove and another cover of the face as the second foot stomped close enough to force Benny to her knees.
Tears welled in her eyes as a barrel cactus pierced her knees and palm.
“Sarding hell!” Mordegan yelped. He yanked his wrist free from the same cactus and looked up at the coaxi's backside. “Well, that part's over.”
“Where's Radamar?” Tears mingled with dust as Benny wriggled herself free from the cactus. Blood drops wicked across the knees of her pants and the warm wetness of her shoulder told her the punctures there were just as bloody and deep.
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