War of the Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  “No!” my father yelled, catching her wrist, jerking her back. “We need him alive!”

  “His men killed my brother! They killed the Nightmother! He did all of this!” Syan yelled. Miles jerked away, trying to scramble up the ramp, but Zell kept him pinned. “He has to pay!”

  “I know,” Lyriana said. She extended one hand to gently touch Syan’s cheek, and Syan first bristled, then softened, at the touch. “He will. But first I have to take my Kingdom back.”

  “I can get you home,” Miles pleaded, and in that second, whatever new dignity he’d accrued, whatever commanding aura, was gone. This was the Miles I’d always known, scared and desperate, saying anything to save himself. “I can make the army stand down and the bloodmages surrender. But you need me alive to do that. You understand that, don’t you?” Then he had the audacity to look at me, right at me. “Tell them, Tilla!”

  The others looked to me. I shrugged. And I stepped forward and punched him in the face.

  IT’S STILL A LITTLE HARD for me to wrap my mind around how fast the next part happened.

  One moment, we were back in the fallen Godsblade, staring at the pane in terror as Miles’s soldiers charged our way. And the next, he was our prisoner, and we were soaring through the sky in his hijacked ship.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly one moment. Even after capturing Miles, we still had to clear the Skywhale and make sure there weren’t any of his men hidden away. It was mostly empty. There was a young soldier who lunged out from a closet (and caught a blade in the throat for his trouble), an old steward who practically fainted when we found him, and a stodgy Western navigator up in the captain’s quarters who took one look at us, with the bound Miles in tow, and began yammering about how he knew how to get us home.

  And there were the Hands of Servo, the mages imprisoned within the wings who performed the magical Arts that kept the ship afloat. Miles had plucked them out of the prison camps and kept them locked up in the Skywhale for the past three months, threatening to kill their families if they dared defy him. These poor mages looked beyond broken: gaunt and thin in frayed rags, with haunted eyes and trembling hands. Lyriana freed them from their cages in the Skywhale’s wings, blasting open the doors with bursts of force, and they collapsed to their knees in front of her, clutching at her legs, kissing her hands as tears streaked down their cheeks. “The True Queen,” they sobbed. “The True Queen has returned!”

  It was a lot.

  With the Hands freed and Miles shoved into a cell, the Skywhale was ours. The Hands were more than happy to help us, of course, in part to repay Lyriana but also because what was the alternative, stay here in the desert and die in a storm? So they took their places back in the wings and the rest of us gathered together in the bridge, sitting in black leather chairs. My father took the helm, which was a series of elaborate dials and tubes. True to his word way back when, he did know how to fly it, barking orders into the tubes: “Hand one, lift off. Hand two, lift off. Hand three…”

  The Skywhale rumbled beneath us, wobbling from side to side. I clutched my armrest. Next to me, Zell smiled, looking awfully calm for a guy about to fly in a giant metal ship. I guess after everything we’d been through in the past few weeks, what else could you do, right?

  “All Hands, full blast!” my father shouted, and then with a rolling roar from outside and the jangling rattle of vibrating metal, the Skywhale took off. I felt my stomach drop as we lifted off, the way it always did in an aravin, and through the window outside I saw the ground vanish, the horizon recede, replaced only by the clear blue of sky.

  We were up high soon, like, really high, the fallen Godsblade looking as tiny as a child’s toy, the sprawl of desert a sandpit. My stomach still felt uneasy, but I couldn’t help but smile as well. We were flying, actually for-real flying. The Skywhale…and the sky itself…was ours.

  I wish Galen could’ve seen us. I hoped he was okay.

  “This is amazing,” Lyriana said, and I realized she was by my side. “Beyond amazing.” The others came to join her: Zell and Ellarion and Syan, and we all stood together, gazing out at the world below.

  “Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined this.” Ellarion’s eyes glistened with tears of real joy.

  Zell’s face was harder to read: awed, reverent, a little uneasy. “We sail the heavens as Gods,” he said, voice barely audible.

  Behind us, the navigator was plotting a course on a long map draped across a table, while the steward prepared us chalices of wine. Both of them had pretty much immediately flipped to our side, which said volumes about their loyalty to Miles. And speaking of the devil…

  With our course firmly plotted back toward Lightspire, Zell went down into the ship’s lower level and came back with Miles. His hands were bound together with an iron chain, his hair tousled, his cloak sweat-soaked and clinging tight to his frame. A huge purple bruise blossomed on his cheek where I’d slugged him, just below the long scar he’d gotten fighting out West. He’d grown a beard since we’d last talked, thick and blond, and it almost covered up his round cheeks and soft features. I’d kind of hoped he’d still be frantic and begging, like he’d been out on the ramp, but something in his expression had changed. That desperate look was gone, replaced by a pinched steeliness, an air of angry determination.

  I liked that a lot less.

  Zell shoved him down in a chair as the rest of us formed a tight circle. “Here’s how this is going to go,” Ellarion said, rising to his feet. “We’re going to ask you some questions. You’re going to give us answers. If you don’t, we’re all going to work out our issues with you. And I think I speak for the group when I say we’ve all got a lot of pent-up issues.”

  Miles rolled his eyes. “You can drop the tough-guy act. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Not like it matters at this point.”

  Ellarion looked like he kind of wanted to keep the act going a little longer, but Lyriana cut in. “How did you find us out here?”

  “We caught a group of your Unbroken friends fleeing into the Heartlands. One of them, Kelvin Del Te Rayne, gave you up. Took quite a bit of persuasion, too. Poor guy. Not much left of him.” I wanted to punch Miles again, so bad. “He said you lot had taken off for the Red Wastes, to recruit some army of Waster mages. I would’ve written it off as a ridiculous lie—but I’d seen what that girl could do.” His eyes flitted to Syan.

  “And you dropped everything to come down here after us?” I demanded.

  “Well, I had to. I mean, if there was even a chance of more of…her…” Miles shrugged. “I left Jacobi in charge of the city. He can handle it for a few days.”

  A few days? I guess that’s how long it took to cross the distance in the Skywhale. The thought was staggering.

  “You left Jacobi in charge?” my father repeated with disgust, and Miles flinched at his voice. “With two-thirds of the Southlands army approaching, you’re not even there to defend the city yourself?”

  “He doesn’t know about the Southlanders,” Zell said.

  “Oh, I know, Zitochi,” Miles said, dripping venom. “And I know their little crusade is doomed. The City Walls have been reinforced and fortified. There’s five hundred new bloodmages just waiting to defend them. The Southlanders ride to their death.”

  Five hundred new bloodmages. I glanced at Lyriana uneasily, the visions of the Nightmother flashing in my head. Miles had no idea what he was doing. No idea the danger he was putting us all in.

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” Ellarion said, staying on topic. “You’re our prisoner. And if you want to live to see the end of the week, you’ll order all your bloodmages to stand down.”

  “I can negotiate a surrender, yes.” He shifted uneasily in his seat. “You’ll have to get me to the capital safely, of course. Arrange a meeting with Jacobi somewhere neutral. I can take it from there.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Lyriana replied, her tone making it clear he’d do no such thing. She stared at him closely,
head cocked to the side, taking him in. “It’s so strange.”

  He eyed her warily. “What is?”

  “I’ve thought about this moment for so long. Since that tower in the Nest, really, when you betrayed us. When Jax died.” Lyriana’s voice choked up on that one, just a tiny bit. “I’ve dreamed of seeing you like this, bound and defeated, utterly at my mercy. I’ve played this out so many times in my head: how you’d grovel and beg, how you’d apologize, how you’d finally pay for everyone you’ve taken from me.”

  “Your parents were casualties of war,” Miles said, harder than I would’ve thought he was capable of. “And I never meant for Jax to get hurt. Never.”

  “Keep his name out of your mouth, you son of a bitch,” I growled, and then I was lunging forward, only Zell’s grip keeping me from punching him all over again.

  Luckily, Lyriana had me covered, slaying instead with words. “It doesn’t even matter,” she said. “This isn’t satisfying. And now I get that it never could be, could it? Because you’d never get it. You’d never understand what you took from us. You’d never understand how everything that’s happened is your fault. You’d never understand how awful you truly are. You’re incapable of it, of seeing anything beyond yourself and your fears and your desires. You’re just too small and broken.”

  Miles’s nostrils flared as he twitched in his chair, wrists straining against the bonds. “I freed the Kingdom from your family’s tyranny,” he hissed. “I invented bloodmages! I built this ship! I’ve transformed the world! My name will live on forever! What’s small about that, huh? What’s small about that?”

  “Everything,” Lyriana said. “But if there’s one thing that brings me comfort, it’s this. You’ve gotten everything you could have ever wanted. You’ve managed to kill and con and ruin your way into becoming the most powerful man in the Kingdom. But when I look into your eyes, all I see is loneliness and pain. You’re on top of the world and you still see yourself as the victim. You might just be the most miserable person I’ve ever met.” She turned away, back to the window. “So that’s why it doesn’t matter if I bring you to justice or not. You’ve already built your own personal hell.”

  “You don’t know me!” Miles yelled, all composure gone. “You don’t know me at all! I’m happy! I’m plenty ha—” and he never got to finish that sentence because Zell shoved a gag in his mouth. He bit at it, thrashing, spitting wordlessly, and even though he was our prisoner, I jerked away. He had such anger in him, always frothing below the surface. How had he become like this? Had he always had this inside?

  “I think we’re done here,” Zell said. “Should I take him back to the cells?”

  We nodded, pretty much as one. Zell dragged Miles down, even as he continued to kick and howl, and when Zell came back, he downed his whole chalice in one gulp.

  “So,” I said. “Miles wants to arrange a surrender.”

  “It’s a trap,” my father replied, not looking away from the helm. “I don’t know how, but I’m sure of that. Wherever he arranges the meet, he’ll have an ambush waiting.”

  “I know,” Lyriana said. “That’s why we’re not going to Lightspire. We’ll find the Southland army and join up with them.”

  We all turned to stare at her. “What?”

  “I swore an alliance with Rulys Cal. His men represent the best chance we have at taking the city. With them, the Skywhale, and Miles as prisoner, we should be able to pull it off, no matter how many bloodmages he has.”

  I nodded. Made sense. Though a part of me was still hoping, for Lyriana’s sake, that we could win this thing without the Southlander’s help, that she wouldn’t be forced to marry some guy she barely even knew. That seemed like the least of her concerns.

  “Miles isn’t your only prisoner,” my father said quietly. I blinked at him, and then I remembered. Right. Him. “I’m the King of Noveris, remember? The bloodmages might be Miles’s creatures, but the rest of the army should still be loyal to me. Put me in the right place and I’ll negotiate the surrender.”

  “You’re the usurper, not the King,” Ellarion growled, “and why should we trust you any more than him?” There was a weird hollowness to the statement, though, like he was just saying it out of formality. After all, we clearly already did trust him, at least a little. He was the one standing on the deck, unbound in any way, a sword at his side. He was the one piloting the ship that was keeping us all alive. Somewhere along the way, he’d stopped feeling like a temporary ally, and more like a real one. But that time was rapidly coming to an end.

  Lyriana was obviously having the same thoughts. “Lord Kent, if we do take back the city, if I do reclaim my Kingdom, what will you do?”

  “The same thing I always said I’d do,” my father replied, still refusing to turn around. “I’m not enough of a fool that I don’t know when I’ve been beaten. You’ll take Miles’s place on the throne, and I’ve seen enough to know that you’ll be a thousand times the ruler he is. Probably a thousand times the ruler your father was as well.” His voice was flat, but I swear I heard just the tiniest moment of hesitation. “All I ever wanted was to see Miles pay for his betrayal. After that…I’m ready to face the Queen’s justice.”

  “You acknowledge me as Queen,” Lyriana said softly.

  He turned around, looking at her, and in his eye I saw no hate, no anger, just acceptance. “I do.”

  A long silence hung over all of us. Zell squeezed my shoulder, and I poured myself another chalice, because there was one more ugly turn this conversation had to take. “There’s something else we should talk about,” I said. “The Nightmother’s words. Her visions. The whole thing about the end of the world.”

  “If we believe her—and I do—then our problems are just beginning,” Ellarion said. “Even if we take the city back, those bloodmages will still be out there, working their Arts. Using the energy of the Lightspire Heartstone. Bringing about the end of the world.”

  The weight of it hit us all at once, so heavy it felt like it would drag the Skywhale out of the air. We’d been so focused on defeating Miles and taking back the Kingdom, but all this time there was something happening that was so much bigger, so much more awful, something we’d been a part of even as we’d tried to do the right thing. It put our whole mission into its terrible context. What did it matter who sat on the throne if it was all going to burn anyway?

  Ellarion let out a long exhale and then a bitter laugh. “It’s always something else, isn’t it?” he said. “We’re about to win this war and still lose everything.”

  “No,” Lyriana said. “There must be something we can do. A way to control the bloodmages.”

  “Not just them, remember?” Zell said. “It’s all mages. All magic. You included.” His voice was flat, without judgment, but Lyriana still looked stung. “Its mere existence brings the world to ruin.”

  “Then we control all mages,” Lyriana tried. “There has to be a way…”

  “They’re spread out all over the land,” my father said. “Dozens in every major city. You’d never be able to imprison them all.”

  “That’s not what I was suggesting!” Lyriana glared at him. “Laws to prohibit the use of magic, messengers to educate the population on the risks…”

  But as she said the words, it was clear even she wasn’t buying it. The temptation would always be there, and so long as people had the power, they’d use it.

  I hadn’t figured out how I was going to tell everyone about the whole “oh by the way I may have absorbed the Nightmother’s dark power” thing, and I kind of didn’t want to; it scared me, honestly, knowing that it was inside me, knowing what I was capable of. But not telling them felt like it would be way worse, and if there was anything I learned backed in Lightspire, it’s that keeping secrets like that just comes back to bite you in the end.

  So I took a deep breath. “There is…another way,” I said, and everyone turned to look at me. I held out my hand and opened it wide, and the Nightmother’s yellow cryst
al appeared there, hovering just above my palm.

  The reaction was instantaneous. Everyone jerked back like I’d burst into flames, Ellarion’s hands rising up above him, Lyriana almost falling out of her chair. “What…How…?” she stammered.

  “During the fight, the Nightmother was dying. I took the crystal and…I don’t know.” How could I begin formulating the words for what had happened when I could barely understand it myself? “It’s like she’s in me now. Her thoughts, her memories, her powers. She’s inside of my head, inside of me, but she’s also not, because it’s like there’s this wall, and—”

  “The bloodmages,” Zell said quietly. “The way they all just burst apart. That was you.”

  I nodded, and I know it was ridiculous to feel guilty, but I still somehow did. “Yeah. I pulled energy from the Heartstone, and I sent it right back at them. I just…somehow knew how.” I swallowed deep, because the next part was even worse. “And I think…I think if you got me to the Heartstone in Lightspire, I could do what she told us to. I could unleash her power to stop all the mages.”

  “You mean kill them?” Lyriana said, and that seemed to shock her even more than the light crystal floating in my hand. “The bloodmages who pose a threat?”

  “I don’t think it’s that specific,” I said, and I don’t know how I knew that, but I definitely did. “At that scale, it’ll just be indiscriminate. Without actually seeing them, I’ll have no way of knowing who’s a bloodmage and who isn’t. I’ll just send out the pulse and every mage out there will die.”

  “You’re talking about innocent people,” Lyriana gasped.

  “Those people will die anyway,” Syan said, her voice soft, her gaze down. “Zastroya doesn’t care if you’re innocent or guilty. It swallows all.”

  “You can’t be suggesting—”

  “She’s right,” Ellarion said. “I hate to think about it. But if it’s the only way to stop the end of the world…if we have to kill a thousand to save a million…”