War of the Wilted

by Amber Mitchell

  If the false allies get there before I do to warn Rayce, and block off their retreat, this risky battle will turn into a blood bath. The city will be so red with rebellion blood it might never wash off the cobblestones. If Rayce manages to survive that, the guilt will crush him. All of those names and faces, all the people he led will haunt him and everything he’s worked for, all of the hardship and pain of having to go against his own flesh and blood to carve out a new future will be for nothing.

  As I sprint off the next building, the impact of my roll onto the neighboring tile shaking my entire body, I can almost hear their screams. No, wait…those are actual screams.

  My gaze snaps down long enough to find the source of the shouting. A man in bulky silver armor stands at a cross section of the main cobblestone road, pointing his sword toward the east and then the west. A few remaining Sun soldiers turn one way, rushing for the Blue temple and the secret gate that rests there, and another few follow their long line of comrades west, heading for the main road that will lead them over a bridge and into the upper parts of Imperial City where Rayce is right now.

  Sweat slicks my forehead, sticking the stray bits of my hair into my face, trying to obscure more of my view, and I rub my palms against my pants right before I run for a gap again, this one a good ten feet wide. I dive a little short of my goal, scrambling to catch myself.

  The rooftop edge digs into my stomach as hard as the fear flooding my mind, and I splay out my hands onto the hot brown tiles, kicking my feet out to boost myself up. No ledge or wall comes into contact with my boot. Gritting my teeth, I push up with every ounce of muscle I have in my shaking arms, lifting my weight onto the rooftop. The strain of my muscles mixing with the heat of the sun and the hot tiles bleeding through the fabric of my uniform are almost enough to let me accept defeat, but I keep pushing, feeling the edge of the tiles scratch up my stomach until I can get a leg high enough to pull myself all the way up.

  I lie there for a moment, my cheek baking on the blazing ceramic roof while I try to catch my breath and give my arms a few seconds of rest. My heart urges me up onto my feet, but my muscles scream in protest, so I wait.

  Everything we’ve worked for will be gone. Rayce could be gone.

  His beautiful dark eyes flash before my vision in the dancing sunlight. The way his large hands can take hold of my waist and his lips can kiss away the worst of my pain. The feeling of his body on mine flickers and fades.

  I have to get up.

  Clenching my jaw, I peel myself up from the roof and keep running, chasing after the stragglers from the second Sun soldiers army racing to meet the first.

  The stitch of blue river comes into my view quicker than I expect, bringing with it the ringing sound of metal clashing, of people screaming as they hack at each other in a desperate struggle, though I can’t see any fighting from where I stand. At the start of the bridge, the whole of the fake Varshan army has gathered. There must be over two hundred Sun soldiers, awaiting orders to rush over the river and attempt to rob me of everything. Their momentary pause gives me hope.

  Reinforcements haven’t entered the fray yet. As long as I get there soon, we might be able to round up the rebellion troops fast enough to make a final stand at the secret gate where the other half of this second army headed, and get out of the city before the emperor succeeds in trapping us in.

  If Rayce will even believe me when I get there.

  The way we’ve left things, I’m not entirely certain he will. He said he wanted to rebuild our trust, that me getting the information that has now damned us all to meet Yun far sooner than we’d bargained for was a step in the right direction, and he did come and visit me briefly last night, but was it enough?

  Every ounce of my body swims with panic, but I force it down with a deep breath, knowing it won’t help anything. Right now, the only thing I can do is find Rayce. I’ll worry about convincing him later. He can sound a retreat and we can salvage what’s left of this disaster. And then kill the Gardener for throwing us headfirst into this trap.

  Aiming my grappler for the ornate navy awning on the opposite side of the river, I press the trigger and wait for the hook to embed in the wood, splintering the carved dragon’s middle depicted on the sign. Before I can question whether this is a wise idea, I dive off the roof, holding my end of the grappler, and click the trigger up. The wire retracts as I swing, allowing me to sweep through the air above the soldiers’ heads and up toward the nearest roof on the wealthy side of the district.

  The edge of the arched roof comes fast. I let go of the grappler and plant my hands wide to pull myself up. Thanks to the momentum of the grappler, this one is far easier to climb. Shouts rise up at my back, followed by the whirling sound of a few arrows. One nearly clips my hand, but I manage to roll onto the roof and down the slant before it embeds where my hand just was.

  I’ll only have a few minutes now.

  Staying low, I crawl toward the sound of fighting and peer over the roof.

  About a block down, bodies flood the streets, green stunner bolts lighting up the walls and cobblestones where blood doesn’t already pool. Things have escalated quickly, but war waits for no one to be prepared. It spreads like fire, wild and destructive, only allowing things to grow from the ashes.

  Thunderous stomping rings out behind me, and I turn to see the secondary army beginning to cross the bridge in clustered groups of four. I don’t have time for stealth anymore.

  The well-kept blue tiles slip under my feet as I rush forward, aiming for the next building. I head toward the edge of the roof with no hesitation even though this jump is much farther than the last few. Here in the upper district, things are much more spread out.

  I land in another roll to break my fall, the way I learned in the Garden, and get right back to my feet, rushing for the end of the block, nearly ten houses ahead of me. Up on the next roof, four large stone dragons guard the rooftop, looking out over the alley below. An idea sparks in my mind.

  Aiming my last stunner for its thin neck, I pull the trigger at the first one while I run and steady myself against the kickback. The hook at the end shoots out, hitting the dragon’s neck and cracking it. The entire large head crumbles off, the sound of it crashing below filling my ears. It won’t do much to stop the second army below me, but it’ll slow them down.

  While my grappler winds back up, I grab my stunner and shoot a few bolts into the next dragon, managing to break it off before I have to jump onto the next roof.

  Rayce most likely planted himself right in the middle of the fray, which means he’ll be as close to the palace as possible, trying to draw his uncle out of the gilded gates. If one bests the other, they can finally put an end to this game of chess they’ve been playing for the last three years.

  My feet pump faster, the second army just below me spurring me closer. I glance down at the alleyway and see them about a minute behind, having to crawl over the two roadblocks I put in the way. I have to go faster. If the rebellion ends up trapped between both armies, there’s no hope for Oren’s dream for the future. His teachings end with Rayce, and everything he stood for will be lost. I won’t allow it.

  The last house before the market has a large lipped roof that wraps around the entire tall perimeter. I run across it and look out onto the large market square in front of the palace gates. Brightly colored tents ring the outer part in neat little lines, set up right against the palace gates. The tents, laden with fresh fruits, vegetables, slabs of salted meat, grains of rice, and little trinkets, are all abandoned right now, their owners and the people shopping them having rushed to safety from the battle that has broken out. What should be the shouts of hagglers have turned into the screams of war, the twisting wave of silver armor battling below so much like the foamy white tops of waves crashing to the ocean shore. Though the rebellion snuck through the gates in plain robes, they’re easy to pick out with their stunners blazing green and their bodies glowing as they interact with the Zarenite powder. They
seemed to have drawn out most of the troops from the castle, but everyone below is unaware of the army coming in just behind me to trap them in the city.

  This is a struggle I should have grown used to by now, the slicing of shiny blades into pale flesh, the red patches and green flashes that dominate over the roaring pound of feet and the screaming, groaning mass of people dying, but it still knocks the wind from my lungs.

  Behind me, I can hear the war cries of the second army, getting ready to feed into the battle. My heart slams in my chest. If they cut off our escape, the rebellion will be sandwiched between both sections of soldiers, caught in the middle of a riptide bent on pulling them under.

  Picking through the crowd of soldiers and rebels, my gaze finally settles on Rayce near the opened palace gate. A ring of silver-clad enemies surrounds him and seven other rebels, hoping to end the rebellion with a swing that will take off his head. But Rayce is unlike anything they’ve faced before. Trained by the uncle he now aims to defeat, he lashes out with the quick efficiency of a snake, striking where he intuitively knows the armor is weakest. A soldier rushes for him, but Rayce parries the blow in a swift motion that sends his opponent stumbling back.

  An entirely fresh wave of panic rolls through me, seeing him surrounded, and robs me of any sense of self-preservation. There is no way he’s in this alone. Safer by each other.

  Removing the last grappler, I aim it down low at the dark wood of the palace gate and pull the trigger, sending the cable flying. The second the hook secures in a shower of splinters, I tie the barrel to a statue on the end of the arched roof and grab the last two leather straps I cut from the soldier’s armor on top of the wall. I wrap them around the wire and use it to slide quickly overhead the battle raging below, trying to ignore that the dragon fountain’s water in the middle of the square is now more red than clear.

  Air zips past me, ruffling my clothing and hair, trying to kiss the sweat off my brow. Another soldier charges Rayce, but he swings his sword in the opposite way, cutting off an arrow from burying in his back. The man rears up, ready to strike Rayce’s unprotected middle. Without further thought, I let go, hurtling down in a ball toward the soldier about to strike Rayce.

  Pain shudders through my body as my left shoulder collides with the metal of his armor. We both tumble to the cobblestones, his sword flying from his hand a few feet from Rayce. My chin tests how hard the ground really is, clattering my teeth against each other as I hit the floor. The iron taste of blood coats my tongue, but the man struggling underneath me jolts me back into action. I jam my elbow into his side as he tries to rise with me on his back, spinning off and grabbing my stunner. Heat rushes through my body as my left arm tingles and I shoot a bolt directly into his side, ensuring he won’t be getting up again anytime soon.

  He falls at the same time a pair of arms wraps around my middle and tries to yank me up. I twist around, ready to use my stunner as a blunt object on the soldier’s nose when I’m met with familiar eyes, stopping my world for the briefest second.

  “Rose, what are you doing here?” Rayce asks, his voice more surprised than angry. “Did something go wrong with your mission?”

  His face is caked in a mixture of dirt, blood, and sweat, his hair sticks out wildly at all angles, and there’s a savagery locked in his eyes that melts away the minute I look up into them. He smiles and my body relaxes against his grasp, but he immediately forces us both into a crouch as an arrow whips across where we were standing a moment before.

  All semblance of calm shoots from my limbs. “We succeeded, but that’s the problem! It was a trap. Those soldiers out there are not from Varsha. They were more Sun soldiers. We saw them switch their armor.”

  My message doesn’t resonate with him for a few painful seconds. His face goes through an array of emotions, his mouth switching from determined to a confused line.

  “That can’t be right,” he says.

  Before he can elaborate, he shoots up, throwing out his blade to parry another soldier. I rip my own sword from my hip, helping him by jabbing it in the soldier’s gut. Rayce kicks the wounded man down, his sword following in a silver arc.

  “Arlo said Varsha had invaded Delmar,” he says.

  The desperate edge in my voice sends my own heart pounding. “Whatever report you got was wrong! I saw them, Rayce. They shed their Varshan armor and had your uncle’s colors underneath. They’re headed to the gate you came through to cut off retreat and lock your forces in. Think about it, we saw Varshan armor at the Blue Gate in crates. Why else would the emperor have kept it unless he was going to use it? And he did. In a trap.”

  Rayce slashes his blade at two Sun soldiers trying to take him away from me, and for a heart-wrenching second, I think he might not have heard me until he turns around, revealing tense, worried eyes. He rushes over to the edge of the fountain, making himself a target for a moment as he hops onto the ledge, looking past the masses to the alleyway I point him toward where the second army is filing out a few at a time. His face pales and his sword goes slack in his hands.

  “You’re sure of this, of what you saw?” he asks. “This isn’t just a few stragglers?”

  “We all saw it, and I ran as fast as I could to warn you.”

  He rips his stunner from his holster and shoots at another three soldiers going after a single rebel and hops down. Uncertainty tightens his eyes as he looks down at my face, and an entire world plays behind his eyes like a symphony as he struggles to decide what to trust.

  Trust in me, Rayce. I am enough. Together, we can be enough.

  “If we don’t retreat right away, we’ll get trapped. I’m on your side, Rayce. Please.”

  Everything we’ve been through, all the times I’ve defied his orders, has been to prevent this moment from happening, to prevent the rebellion from walking into a trap of the Gardener’s making, and I still failed. So spectacularly that he has to question whether he can trust my words.

  “And I will always be on your side,” he says.

  The urge to reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him swells, but the battle raging around us helps me temper those fickle thoughts. We’re going to survive. We’re going to get out of here together and I will never let him feel like he’s alone again. The smile on my face mirrors from his lips, and he reaches out to caress my cheek, his knuckles bleeding.

  “We have to sound the retreat,” he yells to the nearest rebel. She swings around to look at him, not much older looking than Clover. I hope the others got off the wall safely. “We have to—”

  His voice cuts off as his eyes narrow. Before I can turn to follow him, another soldier charges behind him. I aim my stunner for the soldier’s shoulder and pull the trigger. A green blast emanates from the tip of my barrel, rocketing toward the man, but he swivels to the right, the bolt hitting his armor. He continues for Rayce, victory in his eyes.

  With my other hand, I rush forward, jamming my sword into his neck even as he slashes out. His blade digs deep into my lower arm, but mine digs much deeper into the exposed flesh of his neck in a spray of blood and a cry of anguish. A pulsing pain shoots out of my arm as I feel warm blood dripping down my sleeve.

  I spin around, finally following Rayce’s gaze to a convoy of soldiers pooling out of the gate like lake water lapping the shoreline. Sticking out from the middle of what has to be over fifty men is a helmet I’ve only seen once before, the day one of the greatest voices in history was silenced forever. The giant silver mandibles protruding around his face give him away easily—the emperor of Delmar, waltzing out of the palace gates.

  Rayce sets his jaw, readjusting his grip around his sword. “Or I could end this now and not have to worry about being trapped if all armies were mine.”

  I grab onto Rayce’s shoulder for support with my injured arm, wincing as pain ripples through me. “That’s what he wants you to do. He wants you to stay and fight him so his troops can block your exit.”

  Rayce looks behind him, his eyes combing over every inch of my
face. “Maybe, but right now, I don’t have a choice. There are too many of them and not nearly enough of us. If I don’t go for the emperor and force him to surrender, there’ll be nothing left to salvage.”

  My heart nearly stutters to a stop. “You said you wouldn’t kill your uncle.”

  “No.” His voice is raw, as bloody as the battle around us. “I said I didn’t want to, but this is the only choice left to us now. He forced my hand and I have to make the final move.”

  Rayce lets out a fast series of short whistles. Several rebels block our way from behind, tucking us into a temporary cushion of safety made from their own flesh. Rayce reaches out a bloody hand, brushing the corner of my eye, his gaze feather soft. His mouth tips into a frown, and I realize what he’s trying to say without speaking. He isn’t saying he’s sorry. He’s saying goodbye.

  “I have to do this.”

  My hand trembles with the weight of what he’s telling me, with what he wants to do. I figured he’d sound the retreat, not push further into danger. I thought he’d want to fight another day, not risk everything for a win. I purse my lips, gripping my sword handle tighter.

  “Where you go, I go,” I say. “You’re safest by my side.”

  The repetition of the same thing he said to me before catches him off guard, especially since we both know that his choice won’t end well and I’m choosing to stay with him. He clenches his jaw tight, his eyes burning across my face like he’s trying to inscribe the way I look onto his soul, and it shakes me to my core. So many years of floating above everything else, wishing to live a life I could only view from my cage, and now I’m willing to throw away my freedom for the only person who’s ever truly understood me. He holds a tendril of my hair in his hands, bringing it up to his lips, and kisses it. His eyes look blurry as he presses them closed, savoring this moment, stopping my heart. When he opens them and lets go, I recognize the face of my shogun, of the man who will sacrifice everything to change the world.