by Hannah West
Above them, in the treetops, the creature Ambrosine had helped create prowled.
I shouted a warning from where I lay. The commander looked up and shielded his face as Mathis lunged. But Tilmorn intervened in a blur of strength and speed, catching the brunt of the attack while the commander and the wounded man escaped.
Mathis’s teeth went to work. Tilmorn tried to heal himself even as the flesh was ripped from his bones and limbs were torn asunder.
I screamed and turned my ravaged face away. After all we had survived, Ambrosine would bring our downfall.
A strange peace fell over me, as soft as falling snow but as warm as sunshine. It was time to say farewell to this world. It was time to die.
Two twinkling golden specks bloomed in my vision like newborn stars. One was bright as a lantern and nearly within reach on my left side, right where the enemy shield had been a moment ago. The other speck waited beyond the border of the forest, flickering like a distant candle flame. I watched them blink, wondering if they would lead me to the land of light if I followed them.
Ambrosine towered over me, blocking out the distant light. She spoke, but her voice sounded far away. The quiet was thick in my ears, the light of the nearest golden speck growing brighter.
Curious, I reached out a trembling hand to touch it.
My fingertip bumped something solid. It was still the metal shield, lodged halfway in the snow. But it was no longer steel and crest-shaped, a discarded piece of enemy armor. Instead, it was round and golden as the sun.
I stretched to claim it, seizing its rim and raking it over the snow toward me. “That’s not going to save you,” Ambrosine said through a laugh, her voice echoing from somewhere distant.
The strap settled over my hand, a perfect fit, supple and warm beneath my touch. Ambrosine lifted her armored foot to strike me hard in the face. I swung up the shield to block her, expecting it to dent or break or crumble to dust just like my sword.
But it held.
“Where did you get that?” Ambrosine demanded, panic rising, as though she could just now see the glow of magic beaming from the shield. I heard the overlap of Nexantius’s deep voice with hers. Perhaps, for the first time, the Fallen felt he had something to fear.
My gaze shot to the other golden glow, the distant one. Blood clogged my airways and my eyes were beginning to swell, but if I could just make it there, to that light, I knew what I would find.
Gritting my teeth, I drove the shield at Ambrosine, shoving her out of the way as I rose up.
I ran, leaping over fallen soldiers, kicking up bloody snow. I stumbled, but I saw that the light awaiting me in the distance had taken the shape of a sword, and I pressed on. The hilt was the same ordinary one I’d carried into battle and abandoned when Ambrosine shattered the blade. But the blade had regenerated, like a Healer’s gift regrowing a severed limb. The new one glowed as if fresh from the forge, the glaring gold of pure power.
I heard Ambrosine calling out behind me. I lunged for the sword, scooped up the hilt, and found it lightweight and easy to wield despite its massive size. Like two old friends meeting, the golden sword and shield belonged as a pair.
My strength and hope renewed, I whirled just in time to block Ambrosine’s incoming blow with the shield. I swiped the sword and she ducked. I swiped again and she evaded, but this time she stumbled and fell on her back in the snow. She had never been a fighter.
“Glisette, wait!” she cried, but her voice did not belong to her. It was Nexantius who cried out. They were one and the same.
The crisp sound of snow beneath my boots seemed deafening as I stepped up and stood over her. I raised the golden sword and, in spite of her protests, I jammed it deep into her chest.
A piercing, horrid scream tore over the battlefield.
Ambrosine’s body quaked. Her flesh and bone wrestled with itself until she choked and a black substance dribbled from her lips. She gagged and coughed out more of the dark bile, which collected in a pool and sank into the snow like ink.
Her silver armor turned to sparkling dust and blew away. The liquid silver drained from her eyes, leaving them blue green and fearful.
I yanked my sword from her chest. It left no visible wound.
The Mathis-creature came tearing out from the trees, slinging gore as it charged at me. I tossed the hilt to change my grip and threw the weapon like a spear. It sank deep into the gaping mouth in his belly and shot back out, the hilt landing squarely in my grip.
Another scream, another convulsion, and both of the creature’s mouths spat out black bile. Robivoros retreated, leaving Mathis gaunt, pale, and shuddering.
Kadri jogged toward us and shot an arrow straight through his throat.
Mathis collapsed, never to rise again.
Ambrosine palmed away the black bile from her lips and knelt. “Glisette,” she whispered. “What’s happened? I don’t remember anything. I only recall a dark haze—”
“Stop lying!” I roared.
“I’m not—”
“You have terrorized the people of Perispos. Your time is done.”
I raised my sword to strike her down, but I couldn’t bring myself to deal the final blow, to end her life.
I saw Devorian out of the corner of my eye. He stopped in his tracks. He could have said a spell, almost any spell, to finish her. Yet he couldn’t do it either.
Now I understood why Ambrosine had commanded Sev to murder me instead of doing it herself.
But Navara stepped out from the trees, her fur cloak and cropped black hair catching the wind. She unsheathed her sword and approached Ambrosine from behind.
I offered her a nod, giving her permission to do what I could not.
Navara swung her sword point-up and closed her eyes, as if praying for Ambrosine’s soul, or for preemptive forgiveness. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she reared back and pushed the sword between Ambrosine’s shoulder blades.
I forced myself not to look away as the blade ripped through her, the sharp point jutting out from the wall of her chest.
My strike had ended Nexantius. Navara’s would end my sister, forever.
As Ambrosine caved into the wound, breathing her last breath, I dropped to my knees in the snow and buried my face in my hands.
When I lifted my eyes, I found a smooth landscape of snow reflecting golden sunlight. There were no dead warriors or scattered weapons. No Ambrosine, no Navara.
Instead, a woman in brilliant gold armor stood before me. She had gray-streaked black hair, eyes like liquid gold, and softly glowing skin.
“Hesper?” I asked in disbelief.
“Atrelius,” she answered. “We came as soon as we could.”
“We?”
Another figure stepped into view. Warm tears filled my eyes and spilled over.
Her eyes and hair were the same shade of molten gold, and she wore a fluid dress that looked like it had been knit out of morning sunrays.
“Perennia,” I breathed.
“Perennia is at peace,” the newcomer answered.
“She’s…in the land of light?” I asked.
The golden woman in the gown nodded, her eyes soft. This was Eulippa. I’d called them both down when I had spilled my blood in the clay bowls at the abandoned edifice. “The journey beyond takes time if the bonds of earthly love are strong, and we had to wait for the two pure souls who had died at our altar to cross over. We do not share a body with another soul, or take what is not freely given.”
“Glisette!” Devorian cried from a world away. I felt him shake my shoulders.
I blinked and the vision of Perennia, or Eulippa, was gone, and so was Atrelius.
I collapsed in his arms, weeping. Weeping because Perennia was gone again, and because she was never really here. Weeping that the Holies could not have come sooner. Weeping for Tilmorn because I knew in my heart he had not been able to heal himself rapidly enough survive the attack, and for Mercer, who had only reunited with him months ago.
&n
bsp; For Ambrosine, for who she used to be and who she might have been.
FORTY-ONE
GLISETTE
GRIEF hung in the air, sharper than cold and thicker than snow.
Or maybe it only seemed that way to the four of us.
The mortal soldiers celebrated Ambrosine’s defeat. The unused reinforcements were happy to help clear the road, drag the enemy dead to trenches, and care for our wounded soldiers so that those who fought could rest.
Mercer wept while Commander Larsio and Sev prepared Tilmorn’s remains for the pyre. They discouraged us from looking at him until the flames began to consume him. But after seeing Robivoros’s other victims, I had an all-too-clear image in my mind. Devorian, Kadri, and I laid our hands on Mercer and wept alongside him. I cried until I had no more tears.
We held a ceremony for Tilmorn, bidding him farewell. Mercer would return to collect his ashes, but none of us wanted Valory to suffer a moment longer than necessary, Mercer least of all.
I offered him the glowing sword of Atrelius. “Go get her,” I whispered.
He planted a kiss on my brow and materialized to the palace to find the portal box Ambrosine had stolen.
Devorian and I leaned on each other, pressing packs of snow to our wounds.
Word of our victory had spread to Halithenica like a grassfire.
A parade awaited Navara in the streets. Her people tossed garlands in her path and shoved one another aside so that they could touch her boots, or even just a hair of her horse’s tail. She was their divine leader. They would hear the story that she had slain Ambrosine herself, and it was the story they needed to hear.
Navara accepted the praise gracefully, punching her sword high. But I could see the tension between her shoulder blades, the desperation to reach her father.
Once inside the palace, she ran to the Edifice of the Fallen. Kadri, Devorian, and I followed, smashing mirrors to banish any lingering foul magic.
Everyone we encountered looked relieved beyond belief; any willing ally of Ambrosine’s would have fled to escape punishment.
I thought Navara might lead us to some dark underground passage, but instead she ran straight for Ambrosine’s bedchamber, where we encountered Mercer and Valory. Their fingers intertwined, turning white from the ferocity of their grips.
Ambrosine may have overpowered Valory, but even so, I didn’t believe there was a force in the world that could sunder that grasp.
Valory clutched her portal box in the other hand. Pallor haunted her ivory flesh, and I shivered looking into her eyes. I could see every dreadful hour of her captivity written across her face and knew she would have rather fought the battle a hundred times over than endured the slow, slithering horror of that pit.
She and Kadri embraced in a way that Valory and I never would, but neither of us minded. We communicated in our own language.
“Glisette,” she whispered, those sad eyes tracing the swollen, horrid lump of my face. That she would pity me after what she had endured spoke to how awful I must have looked.
“Commission a portrait while you can,” I joked, but no one laughed. I was too ghastly a sight, apparently.
Valory didn’t let me duck under the emotion of the moment as she usually did. She cupped my elbow as though I were a fragile thing she feared to touch. “Thank you for saving me. Mercer said you manifested the sword.”
“More or less,” I croaked. Even though Eulippa had been just a glittering, golden effigy of my sister, an otherworldly imitation of her physical form, I still wished she could have stayed longer. “But I can’t help blaming myself for Ambrosine.”
She nodded. “We made a mistake.”
Mercer handed me what was left of the sword. The golden blade had faded to ether, leaving only the hilt.
Together, we followed voices through a door hidden behind a tapestry in Ambrosine’s chamber, down winding stone stairs that led to an Edifice of the Fallen.
“Is it really you?” I heard King Myron ask. He sounded like a broken man, but I heard hope in his voice.
“Yes, Father, it’s me,” Navara said.
When we arrived at the bottom of the stairwell, we found King Myron fettered by chains that gave him only enough slack to roam the room. He was even more gaunt and hollow than when Ambrosine had shown him to me. A tray of food on the floor sat untouched. He had been prepared to fade away.
When he saw me, he cried out and tried to push Navara behind him to keep her safe. “It’s all right, Father,” Navara soothed, cradling him. “That’s not her. She’s gone forever.”
I didn’t know what awaited me back home after the heroes’ reception that Navara was planning. Would people still be rioting in the streets of Pontaval? Would the fledgling Realm Alliance recover from such a grave error?
All I knew was that leaving would be more difficult than I ever expected.
The reception gave Navara an excuse to hold us hostage, but I didn’t mind. Kadri and I shared a chamber and slept for nearly two days. I woke once and found Sev at my bedside, but he whispered me back to sleep, leaving me with the scent of spruce and soap. Later, a physician came to set my nose. It hurt so badly that I wanted to break his in retribution. At another point, Devorian strolled in to tell us that Valory had brought Fabian and Larabelle through her portal and asked if we wanted to bid them hello or if we planned to rot here. We both yelled, “Rot!” and pulled the covers over our heads.
The deep sleep failed to hedge out the horrible dreams. I eventually decided that being awake, in pain, and hideous was preferable to sleeping.
This time, Kadri was already up and about, eating biscuits and drinking cold tea. Navara had left us gowns to wear to the reception, which was now somehow only a few hours away.
The soft, layered dress of sky-blue silk was kind to my wounds, and even though mottled bruises ringed my eyes and swollen cuts marred my nose, lips, and cheeks, I found the courage to descend to the throne room.
Other than Navara and King Myron, who looked thin but rejuvenated, Sev was the first person I noticed. He had traded his usual leather jerkin for a dark-purple one with leather buckles, but a belt of weapons still hung around his hips.
The reception was a bit of an embarrassing show, with seats of honor for the elicromancers, plus Sev and Commander Larsio, as well as honorary seats for Tilmorn and Perennia. Thankfully, most of the attention fell on Navara and Myron, who announced that every priest and altar attendant found to have been involved with the Uprising would be imprisoned, and that they would handpick their replacements.
Sev’s family had donned their best clothes to accept Navara’s invitation—except Stasi, whose first best dress I had accidentally ruined. I would need to repay her for that, and more.
Sev sat across from me, his deep eyes set on mine, more comforting than a warm summer dusk.
“I want to thank all of you for holding strong in my absence, for protecting my daughter and my kingdom,” Myron said. “We have made mistakes here, every one of us, including me. My wife did not claim control over me without my consent. She could not have crawled inside my mind without exploiting my undeniable weaknesses.”
Navara looked like she wanted to interrupt, but he held up a gentle hand to shush her.
“That said, every decree I signed since the day before Father Peramati’s death will be undone. And we will not, regardless of the temptation some may feel, shrink away from elicromancers in fear. These heroes have proved what my daughter and I always knew to be true: the hearts of elicromancers are no different from the hearts of mortals. While they are capable of great destruction, they also have the power to do great good.”
He lifted his glass, his weakened hand trembling. “To every hero here today, living or dead. And to my brave daughter.”
“Hear, hear!” the guests called. They were much livelier now than when Ambrosine was their host.
I smiled at Navara. Our friendship had strengthened the Realm Alliance’s rapport with Perispos. I looked forward to se
eing her grow as a leader.
“Commander Larsio and I have one more announcement,” the king said. “As of tomorrow, Severo Segona will no longer be the royal huntsman. He will begin training to take over the post of king’s commander, and someday, queen’s commander.”
We toasted Sev. I raised my glass the highest.
“This way,” I said, leading Sev by the hand through the woods. The glorious sunset splashed scarlet and gold across the summer sky.
At dawn I would return home. But tonight belonged to us.
“I have no idea what to expect,” he admitted.
“Good.”
“Since you made me dress like this, I at least know it will be cold,” he said, indicating his fur cloak and gloves.
I led him up a hill and around a rock formation, listening for the sound of water. At last I found the cave of dazzling ice, which I’d built beside a gushing waterfall in the forest.
The sunset sparkled across the impeccably smooth walls of the cave. I had taken my time crafting it, imagining the fleeting, wonderful moments Sev and I could spend together in this temporary place of beauty. It represented us, in a way.
“You made this?” he asked in awe.
“You saw me destroy so much,” I said. “I wanted to show you what I could build.” He looked at me with wonder in his eyes. “Go inside!” I urged.
I had shaped a raised platform where I had piled dozens of warm furs. I even made a table for a silver tea service, which I’d materialized here a few pieces at a time.
Sev shook his head in disbelief. “This is almost the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He caught my hand and pulled me toward him.
“Is that so, Commander?” I asked, splaying my hands on his chest. Delicately, he held my face. I tried to resist the urge to shy away from him, aware of how dreadful I looked.
But Sev didn’t let me shy away. The heat of his desiring gaze burned over my skin despite the cold that made white wisps of our breath. He nudged my chin up with his knuckle, stepped closer, and brushed my mouth with his.