Kesali smiled. “I am glad to hear that, Shay.”
Without another word, they turned and headed back to the Bulwark. When they arrived, no one commented on Shay’s sudden exit. Shadar only gave her a deep nod, respect shining in his eyes.
“It has to be tonight,” Marko was saying. “We don’t have a choice. We cannot postpone the assault any longer.”
“We should wait for Nadya,” Shay said, crossing her arms. “We do not have a way to deal with the Cressian nivasi until she comes. I barely survived a fight with her. Your army will not stand a chance.”
“We know.” Shadar sighed. “But we have very little choice. Our spies got word in from the northern roads. Those troops Prince Trillium called in to deal with the so-called plague? They will be here in two days’ time, maybe less. With the addition of a thousand or more Cressian soldiers, we stand very little chance of winning, nivasi or no.”
Kesali nodded, her expression solemn. “Nadya and Levka should beat the incoming troops by several hours, if the message was correct. We can only hope they make it before…”
A long silence reigned before Shay swore loudly. “Before we are buried up to our necks in rubble. Stars, it was never going to be easy, was it?”
Across from her, the Guardmaster mirrored her sardonic smile. “It never is.”
* * *
The resistance would strike at dusk.
Scouts throughout the city reported that Cressian soldiers changed shifts at dusk, and so the few that remained in the lowest two tiers would be in flux, and therefore vulnerable. Despite Prince Trillium withdrawing the bulk of his troops to the upper tiers of the city in order to avoid what he thought was its plague-riddled underbelly, several hundred soldiers remained in the lower tiers. It would be no easy fight to take back the gate.
Marko led one force of resistance fighters, Kesali another. Shay had never seen her fight, but she held a long battle staff with such confidence that she had no doubt the Stormspeaker could defend herself and knock a few Cressian heads at the same time. Shadar led a third force, where Shay was to be placed. Those among the resistance who were stationed throughout the city had their own orders, and they would join the fight once it commenced.
“You know why we fight,” Marko said, standing on top of one of the cavern’s makeshift buildings. The resistance, fighters and support alike, flooded the paths around him. “We fight for our home.” He pointed to Kesali, who stood in the front of the crowd. “Twenty years ago, my father dared to save this city. To protect us from the Great Storms, he brought in a Stormspeaker and her people. Nomori and Erevans have not always gotten along. At best, we have become cautious allies. But now, we must come together once more, to dare to save Storm’s Quarry from the grip of Wintercress. What say you?”
Shay thought she might go deaf from the thundering reply.
An hour later, the cavern lay nearly empty. A pair of scouts led the forty-odd fighters of the Guardmaster’s force through one of the mining tunnels. Shay found herself marching up front, next to Shadar.
“Nervous?” the Guardmaster asked without dropping his gaze from the tunnel ahead.
“Not a bit,” Shay lied. “You?”
He gave a small smile. “Not in the slightest.”
As they crested the lip of the tunnel and spilled out into the streets, Shay was struck by the sudden realization that she needed to ensure Shadar’s safety. Nadya deserved to see her father one last time, at least, before her plans for the Cressian nivasi had begun.
The Guardmaster’s force split off into groups of three and four fighters. Shay stubbornly clung to him as he led the way down one of the deserted streets of the southern corridor of the Nomori tier.
We need to hold on to the element of surprise for as long as possible, Marko had said before the resistance’s force had left the cavern. Wintercress has superior numbers, not to mention their weapon. We need to remain undiscovered until the last moment before our three forces rendezvous at the gate.
And so they did.
Shay’s blades of light danced in the shadows of narrow alleys and abandoned streets. Each flash took another Cressian soldier out of the fight. It became mechanical; every patrol they stumbled upon was dealt with swiftly and quietly. Like hunting rabbits in the South Marches.
Ten Cressian soldiers surprised the force, launching themselves off a low-slung roof and into the middle of the alley. One large man, wielding a saber that looked more like a broadsword, kicked the Guardmaster in the back while he took out two other fighters. Shadar hit the ground hard, and a shout tore from Shay’s throat as the Cressian brought his monstrous saber down.
Shay lunged forward. Her blade cut through the Cressian soldier’s flesh, severing his arm. His saber fell to the ground, useless. Before he could scream, Shadar’s rapier darted upward and neatly cut his throat.
“Thanks,” he said to Shay, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.
She nodded. “Right place, right time.”
Without another word, they went back to back as their blades made short work of the remaining Cressian patrol.
Street by street, they retook the Nomori tier. When a warehouse or safe house had been reclaimed, a few of the resistance fighters—mostly those too injured to go on—stayed behind to guard the precious acquisitions.
The Nomori square and the outer gate of Storm’s Quarry were in sight, but Shay couldn’t help the twinge of worry that squirmed down her neck. Despite their stealth, lives had been lost. Too many to keep track of. Shay could only hope that the other two forces had fared better, or they would be overwhelmed trying to take the gate.
She ran a fiery blade through the neck of a Cressian soldier to ease her tension.
Out of nowhere, a horn split the air. Her blades faltered, fingers growing cold. She met the gaze of Shadar down the street, whose eyes held grim resignation. Wintercress was now warned of the attack.
“Forward!” the Guardmaster shouted, holding his rapier aloft. “To the gates! To your Duke! Forward!”
The resistance swarmed the streets, sprinting for the gate. Shay led the charge. Fire bloomed in her hands, chipping away at the few Cressian soldiers who had formed a half-hearted defense before the gate.
On the other side of the Nomori square, another yell carried through the air, and Kesali’s force spilled out onto the open ground. Marko’s followed not a minute afterward, and while their numbers had been reduced, hope swelled in Shay’s chest.
We might actually do this.
More Cressian soldiers arrived at the square, but the resistance had its own reinforcements. Erevans and Nomori poured out of the surrounding buildings. Old and young, brandishing kitchen knives, hammers, and other assorted tools, crashed into the line of Cressian soldiers with the fury of a Great Storm. Immediately the Cressians were pushed back. Their weapons flashed wildly as they struggled to hold any sort of ground.
“For Storm’s Quarry!” The cry resounded from the battlements across the square and beyond.
Shay let out a whoop. Her blood pounded in her ears, hot and fast, giving her an energy the belied the fatigue of her limbs. She held up a flame-drenched hand. “Rout the Cressians!”
For an instant, they were winning.
Then the ground split open to swallow the cheering resistance fighters.
Shay leapt back. She slammed against one of the jutting stones that remained of the city’s gate. Her back throbbed at the impact, but her reflexes had saved her life. She knew the screams of those who fell down into the ravine as it closed once again would haunt her nightmares for years to come.
If she lived that long, that was.
In the middle of the fallen Cressian soldiers, a short blond woman walked toward her with purpose. The Cressian nivasi had arrived.
Anger exploded in her chest. These were her people, and she had promised to do her best to protect them. They had taken her in, temper and all, and Shay was not about to let the resistance be obliterated by this nivasi.
>
Not while she had breath.
“Leave them be,” Shay shouted. “Fight someone who can hit back.” Fire sprang into her hand and soared across the square, aimed at the Cressian nivasi’s chest.
Moments before the fireball struck, a stone rose up out of nowhere, blocking it. The blonde stepped forward. Her expression was as blank as ever as she considered Shay. “Then I will kill you first.”
Shay’s blades of fiery light flared. “You couldn’t do it last time.”
“Last time, I was not told to.” The Cressian nivasi glanced back to the gates that led to the higher tiers. “I have now been told to destroy you and the rest of the resistance.”
Shay did not bother replying.
A pillar of earth shot out of the ground, catching her flames before they made contact. Shay didn’t wait for retaliation. She sprinted toward the Cressian nivasi, blades aloft.
Musket fire cracked through the air. Pain exploded in Shay’s shoulder, and she staggered to a halt. Her armor had caught the worst of it, but blood still oozed out of the bullet wound. Shay cursed and cauterized it with a quick burst of fire. Her vision went white with pain for a moment and then returned.
The nivasi no longer stood alone.
Cressian troops rallied around her. With each tremor of the earth, their soldiers ate up the morale that seeped from the resistance fighters. Fatigue and fear battled on the faces of those who had been whooping in victory just moments before. And then, from between the rank and file of common fighters, a tall figure in brilliant white-gold armor emerged. The saber in his hand dripped with blood.
Trillium, Crown Prince of Wintercress, raised his blade, pulling down the mask that covered his face. “Men of Wintercress! We will drive these scum back to the plague-infested water from which they came. For the glory of the High King!”
Shay didn’t hesitate. Her blades pulsed with fire that shot across the battlefield, straight at the smug face of Trillium.
Instantly, rocks gathered up from the ground and formed a protective shield. Once more, her flames fizzled out against stone. Shay caught another curse in her throat when the stones that guarded the Prince broke apart and shot straight toward her.
Nothing stood between her and oncoming death. Shay’s fire couldn’t protect her. She had less than a moment to contemplate the end, and only one thought rose above her fear: Nadya.
Looks like you’re not the only one who broke our promise.
A bloodcurdling yell broke through the clamor of the battlefield as a shadow launched itself off the battlements and into the fray. Something hit the nivasi square in the chest, and the Cressian weapon went down.
The rocks collided with Shay, but the supernatural force that had been propelling them forward was gone. She struck the ground. Her armor protected her from being gashed by the sharp-edged stones, but it did little against the bruises that were slowly rising up and down her arms. Shay barely paid attention to her injuries. She struggled to her feet.
Across the square, the Cressian nivasi had been slammed into the side of a two-story building. Where she had been standing, the Iron Phoenix now stood. Her gray cloak rippled around her like water, and her hands were curled into fists. Underneath the hood, familiar eyes shone strong in the burning battlefield. Nadya had returned.
Chapter Eighteen
Tonight the Kyanite Sea stood eerily still. Its waves moved with subdued grace, perhaps in lamentation for the war that haunted its core. A slight breeze stirred Nadya’s braid as she leapt off her horse and pulled the hood of the Iron Phoenix over her head. The bridge over the Kyanite stretched out in front of her.
Was it her imagination, or could she already hear screams from the city?
“Were they mad enough to begin the assault before we arrived?” Levka slowed his horse but did not dismount.
“Doesn’t matter.” Nadya checked to ensure that her hood was secured, and then she took off sprinting down the bridge, Levka cantering beside her.
The sounds of battle grew louder as they approached: the clanging of iron upon steel, the crack of musket fire, and the screams of the injured and the dying. Without giving it a single thought, Nadya started scaling the crumbled wall, jumping from one sharp-edged stone to another. She had gotten halfway up when she heard Levka’s shout.
“Wait, damn you!”
She turned back to see Levka struggling to ascend the ruins of the former great wall. His foot slipped, and he started to fall backward. Nadya reached out with breathless speed and caught his hand. She swung him back to the pile of stone.
“There must be an easier way in,” he muttered while reaching inside his coat pocket. He brought out the glass vial. “Take it.” He tried to shove the vial into her hand, but Nadya caught his wrist once more.
She froze. More time, she screamed in her mind. I need more time. She had imagined returning to the cavern of the resistance. Speaking to her father, to Kesali and Marko. Spending one last night with Shay in which she said everything that she would never have the chance to again. If even a fraction of Levka’s predictions about the effects of the serum came true, then she would truly be too dangerous to be around, and suddenly, Nadya couldn’t breathe. It was now. Not sometime in the nebulous future, but right this instant that she had to give up everything to save her city.
She couldn’t do it. Not yet.
“I need to say good-bye.”
Levka swore in a language she didn’t recognize. “Nadezhda, your foolishness could cost us the city. I know I agreed back in Wintercress, but that was before the final assault had started.” He gestured up to the top of the marble ruins. “My people. Your people, they are dying right now. You need to do this.”
“I need to try on my own first,” she said quickly, ignoring his angry grunt. “Find me in there.” With those words, she leapt upward and landed on the top of the slanted, crumbling battlement. The marble beneath her feet cracked. She straightened, but the scene below nearly knocked her down once more.
Storm’s Quarry had become a war zone.
The higher tiers of the city still glistened in the dying sunlight, perfect and serene. That spell broke, however, as a flash of fire drew Nadya’s eye down to the scene below. The Nomori tier had become a battleground.
Smoke curled up from smoldering piles of rubble that littered the streets that she had once played in as a child. The buildings that bordered the square had been demolished. Skirmishes turned around corner, every outcropping of stone into a desirable territory for which the motley forces of the resistance battled against the pristine white uniforms of Wintercress. The ground had been ripped up, a gash that cut deep across the square, and Nadya’s stomach turned at the thought of facing the Cressian nivasi once more.
In the midst of it all, a dark-clad figure wielding brilliant blades of light stood alone before a regiment of Cressian soldiers. Fire flared once more from her hands. It shot straight and true, streaking toward a tall, ornately armored figure that could only be Prince Trillium.
Nadya held her breath as she watched the ground itself rise up to defend the Crown Prince of Wintercress. Bedside him, a nondescript woman in the white of a Cressian uniform stood, commanding the very ground that the battle raged upon.
The Cressian nivasi raised her hands, and the stone that had protected Prince Trillium shattered. Large chunks of earth and cobblestone levitated in the air like primitive spears, aimed at the resistance fighters. Aimed at Shay.
A shout tore from Nadya’s throat as she launched herself off the battlement. Cold air whipped around her, tugging at her hood, but it remained firmly in place. She reached out with white-knuckled fists, and slammed into the Cressian nivasi.
Instantly, the chunks of earth lost their momentum and crashed into the ground.
Nadya didn’t stop to see if the nivasi was truly unconscious. She turned and sprinted toward Shay, who staggered to her feet.
“Nadya?” Shay whispered. “You’re here?”
Nadya’s throat swelled, t
hick with emotion. “I am, Shay, I am.” She gently touched Shay’s face. The filth of battle covered her features, but Nadya thought she had never look more beautiful. A cold realization swept over her. This would be the last time she touched Shay like this. “I am so sorry,” she choked out.
“You found a way to win, Nadya.” Shay’s smile was tired, but genuine.
Nadya shook her head. “If I go through with it, it will be the end of us. We won’t—we won’t be able to be together.” Tears sprang into her eyes as the truth tumbled out of her lips. “I—I have to become a monster to save this city.”
Shay responded, “I love you.”
How could I ever have been so fortunate as to find you again. Nadya gazed up into Shay’s dusky eyes. Instead of trying to voice all the thoughts that whirled around in her mind, she leaned up and kissed Shay, savoring the taste and sensations that she had grown to know so well over the past year.
The ground began to tremble once more. Their kiss ended abruptly, and Shay staggered against her as a shout ripped through the battlefield.
“To me, Storm’s Quarry!” Marko stood atop the crumbling battlements, rapier aloft. His simple leather jerkin and thin blade provided a sharp contrast to Trillium’s finery. Around him, resistance fighters joined in the cry. Brandishing their motley assortment of weapons, Erevans and Nomori alike roared in unison at the soldiers who had taken their home.
“For Storm’s Quarry!” Nadya looked to Shay. This was good-bye, she realized, and her chest went cold. “You have your fight,” she said quietly, “and I have mine. Stars go with you.”
She barely heard Shay’s whisper over the sounds of battle as she dashed forward. “And with you.”
She had gotten her good-bye. Nadya swallowed against a dry throat and glanced around for Levka, but he was nowhere to be seen on the battlefield. She couldn’t help the relief that flared in her chest at getting to put off consuming the serum.
Perhaps, just maybe, she might not need it after all.
A large chunk of rock smashed into her side, and Nadya hit the far wall of the Nomori tier with a sickening thud. She heard a few snaps, but she could still stagger to her feet.
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