by Jayne Castel
Elias’s breathing hitched. The young woman he’d been sent to kill twice—and who had spared his life twice now—was crossing his path once more. And this time he’d be directly in her line of fire.
A small party rode out to meet the Anthor emissary: King Nathan and two of his men.
Stopping a few yards apart, they faced each other. Elias could just make out the rumble of their voices but not the words. They were too far away from him to see the expressions on their faces.
The parley was brief, as he’d expected. His father had made his position clear. He wasn’t interested in peace. Elias let out a slow, measured breath, disappointment knifing through his gut. Despite everything, he’d hoped his father would see sense. Short-sighted idiot.
The Anthor emissary reined his horse around and cantered back to the gates.
One of the men next to Elias snorted. “That was short.”
“Ready yourselves,” Elias murmured back. “It’s about to start.”
“They won’t attack this time of day,” another soldier answered. “It’s nearly dusk.”
Elias glanced over at the man. He was a squat, bulky fellow with a shaved head. The man’s gaze was fierce as he glared out at the Rithmar lines.
“Nathan’s not going to waste any time,” Elias pointed out. “He’ll strike hard and fast.”
The soldier met his gaze. “Aye, whatever you say, captain.”
There was no missing the challenge in the man’s voice. By now most of the troops knew about Elias’s fall from grace—about his failure to kill Ninia of Thûn. Many of the men were now wary around him, while others appeared embarrassed and avoided his eye. Some, like baldy here, found his presence offensive.
Elias grinned at the soldier, showing him his teeth. “Just wait and see me proved right.”
Boom.
Thunder exploded overhead, and the air trembled. The rain started to patter down in heavy drops.
The horn of Rithmar sounded a moment later—a clear, silvery sound that lifted up high over the walls. The slow, steady beat of battle drums followed. Elias’s skin prickled with anticipation. He’d been standing up here all afternoon, his gaze trained east. But, finally, the waiting was over.
Elias spared a look at the man who’d challenged him earlier, meeting his eye. “Vadaras, Onoras, Leadalas,” he said softly.
The soldier’s heavy-featured face twisted. “Aye,” he grunted. “For the motherland.”
A roar went up amongst the attacking force, shattering the tension.
An answering shout echoed back from atop the walls, pulsing in time with the battle drums. Elias’s gaze swept over the line of enchanters advancing toward them. Upon the wall, those in charge started bellowing orders. Men edged the cauldrons of boiling oil into position.
A tongue of flame shot up from the Rithmar ranks, scoring along the wall. Anthor soldiers reared back, although one or two weren’t fast enough. Beating at the flames that devoured them, they fell screaming off the wall.
“Archers ready!” a captain called out. “Loose!”
Arrows hissed through the air, flying in a graceful arc from behind those on the front of the wall and spraying the battlefield, clanging as they hit upraised shields. However, the enchanters held a silvery sphere of light before them. The arrows bounced off it without causing any damage.
Siege towers rumbled toward the walls now, and the Rithmar ranks parted to let them pass.
“Catapults ready!” the captain bellowed.
Elias moved into position, hauling a heavy rock onto the catapult.
“Fire!”
Great chunks of stone hurtled through the air. One found its mark, crashing into a siege tower and bringing it down.
A roar of victory went up on the walls.
Elias didn’t join them. He was scanning the battlefield, noting that Rithmar foot soldiers followed close behind the siege towers. They were now raising ladders against the wall.
“Loose the oil!” the captain’s voice held an edge of panic. He’d seen them too.
Boiling oil gushed over the wall. Rithmar soldiers fell, their yells and screams ripping through the roar of battle. Meanwhile, the storm unleashed its fury overhead. Rain now lashed across the city, soaking defenders and besiegers alike.
None paid it any mind.
Long dark arrows slammed against the wall, unleashed by the enchanters of the Dark below. Elias ducked as a volley whistled past his head. However, one of the arrows slammed into the throat of the bald soldier next to him. With a strangled cry, the man fell back, grasping at his neck.
A deep roar thundered up from before the gates. Elias looked up to see a twister rise into the air, ink-black and terrifying. It hit the wall, tearing along it. Elias threw himself at the catapult, clinging to it as the twister ripped past, taking half a dozen soldiers with it.
And when the twister had passed, Elias lifted his head to see the outlines of dark shapes approaching through the rain.
More siege towers rumbled in.
A heartbeat later the first of them collided with the wall. Elias felt the impact shudder under his feet. Men clad in silver and green spilled from it, blades flashing.
Elias drew his own sword and stepped forward to meet them.
Above, lightning forked across a purple sky. An instant later an explosion rocked the walls of Veldoras. The impact threw Elias off his feet, slamming him onto his back. Some of the Rithmar soldiers who’d just leaped onto the wall lost their footing. They stumbled and lurched, one or two of them falling to their deaths.
The walls shuddered once more, and pure white light exploded into the sky. Elias twisted away, shielding his eyes. Screams rang out across the wall, and beyond.
Ears ringing, Elias clawed his way up the parapet and peered over it.
Ninia—it had to be her. She’d harnessed the power of that lightning bolt and wreaked havoc.
Smoke stung his eyes, but as it cleared, he saw what was happening below. The Rithmar cavalry surged into the city. The gates had been breached.
34
Fire and Ash
IT TOOK RYANA a while to get up to the front.
The streets leading to the Great Square were packed with rows of Anthor soldiers. A few times she was told to get back and join her squad, but she pressed on with the excuse that she had a message for the king.
Speaking made her nervous; lowering her voice and affecting an Anthor accent wasn’t easy. If their attention hadn’t been elsewhere, she wasn’t sure how many men of Anthor she’d have fooled. She made sure to press on fast, lest any of them questioned her.
At the entrance to the Great Square, she found the way blocked by Reoul of Anthor’s guard. The rain swept in. It drenched the soldiers’ magnificent red cloaks and ran off their shiny black armor and helms, yet they didn’t appear to notice. The men’s gazes were riveted ahead.
Ryana sidled up, as close as she dared, and craned her head, trying to get a glimpse beyond.
Shouting from above drew her eye. A pitch battle was going on atop the walls. Men clashed with knives and swords. And as she watched, an Anthor soldier toppled off the edge and fell to the square below.
Ryana’s heart lurched into her throat. Elias would be in the midst of that chaos.
At that moment, a soldier in front of her shifted to one side. Suddenly, Ryana had a clear view of the square beyond.
Those massive iron gates were now a twisted, smoking wreck.
Ryana’s breathing caught. She’d never seen iron bent like that. She’d heard the explosion. Even from three blocks back, she’d seen the bright white light that had illuminated the stormy sky.
Ninia. The girl had harnessed the lightning that had forked down just moments earlier.
The Rithmar cavalry thundered in through the broken gates—toward the host of enchanters awaiting them in the center of the Great Square. The soldiers drove their destriers, huge warhorses bred for battle, forward.
Dread slithered down Ryana’s spine.
She didn’t like how still the defending enchanters stood—how they let the horses come to them.
Her instincts flared. The Star of Darkness upon her right palm pulsed in warning. It’s a trap.
Gael stepped out to meet the riders, and Ryana stopped breathing.
There you are, you bastard.
He was thinner than Ryana remembered and had grown his dark hair longer, tying it back at his nape. But he was still roguishly handsome, with high cheekbones and a smoldering gaze. His sodden charcoal robe clung to him as he whipped the Dark up and hurled it at the approaching cavalry.
A great black wave slammed into them.
Horses squealed and men shouted—and then the Anthor soldier in front of Ryana moved, blocking her view once more.
Ryana drew back, heart hammering. She didn’t need a clear view to know that the enchanters following Gael had just engaged. The air around her shifted, as the fading daylight and the growing dusk responded. Fire and ash rained over the square, blocking out the sky.
Around her, Anthor soldiers shuffled forward, readying themselves to attack.
Ryana flexed the fingers of her right hand. She also needed to prepare herself.
The roar of battle was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The Great Square was a vast space, and yet it seemed confined, as enchantment ricocheted off the surrounding stone. Shouts, screams, and the clash of metal hammered against Ryana’s ears. Overhead, the thunderstorm still raged. If anything, it grew more intense now, as if responding to the power of the Light and Dark.
“Vadaras, Onoras, Leadalas!”
A few yards in front of Ryana a man stood up on his stirrups and raised a magnificent sword into the air. Its long steel blade shimmered in the rain. Clad in obsidian armor, golden epaulets gleaming at his shoulders, Reoul of Anthor was an imposing sight.
A roar rippled out around him as his men responded.
“For Anthor!”
“For glory!”
And then they charged forward.
Ryana gasped and tried to shift out of the way.
It was too late. The tide carried her into the Great Square, thrusting her into the fighting.
The press of bodies around her made Ryana panic. She couldn’t see anything, for smoke now drifted across the square. The charred odor of burning flesh reached her, and a plume of fire shot into the air in front of her. Then, somewhere in the press, a man started screaming.
Bile stung the back of Ryana’s throat. She’d never actually fought in a battle before. She’d known it would be brutal, but there were some things in life you could never prepare yourself for. Her heart started to hammer against her breast bone as fear seized her.
Jostled by Anthor soldiers, she clumsily drew her sword. She had to look like she was here to fight.
The Great Square heaved with bodies now. Soldiers, horses, and enchanters surged into the wide space. A soldier slammed into Ryana. With a snarl, he shoved her out of the way. Ryana staggered and then tripped, hitting the cobbles. Booted feet slammed into her ribs, and panic spiked through her. If she didn’t get up, she risked being trampled.
Clawing her way to her feet, Ryana gathered the Dark and shunted the men nearest away from her.
Fire raged around her, while a huge twister of shadow clove a path through the fray, sucking its victims up into a vortex. The smoke was so thick, the crowd so dense, that it was nearly impossible to discern friend from foe.
Ryana glanced around her, frantic. Asher and Ninia would be in here somewhere, yet she couldn’t see them. Instead, through the smoke, she spied King Nathan’s banner. It was around twenty yards away and listing under the onslaught.
Ryana continued to elbow her way through the wall of muscled bodies. She couldn’t think about her friends, or her king. Frustration pulsed through her, as did a growing anxiety. It was like fighting a spring tide. The more men she elbowed aside, the more seemed to replace them.
She had to get to Gael—had to kill him.
Only, it was pandemonium inside the Great Square. She couldn’t see more than two feet in any direction.
The light was fading, and although the rain wasn’t driving in as before, dark clouds still roiled overhead. Smoking torches burned around the perimeter of the square and atop the walls, casting an eerie light over the fighting.
Panic welled once more within Ryana, making it hard to breathe. She was running out of time. But the press of bodies around her seemed even thicker than before.
Cold sweat ran down between her shoulder blades. Acrid smoke billowed around her. She struggled forward, using the Dark to cleave her way through the press.
And around ten feet away, she caught a flash of pale hair.
Asher.
If her friend was nearby, then so was Ninia.
Another soldier barreled into Ryana then, but instead of knocking her to the ground, he propelled her forward. She slammed into a wall of obsidian and leather before shoving the Dark ahead of her like a battering ram.
Grunts of pain followed, and then the barrier gave way.
Ryana stumbled out of the line of soldiers and into the midst of where enchanters dueled. Breathing hard, she looked around, searching for Gael.
The smoke cleared, and she caught sight of a large woman, swathed in blue, fighting alongside the Rithmar enchanters. A whip of fire curled from the woman’s fingers, slicing through an Anthor soldier’s breast plate.
Mysandra.
How had she managed to fight her way into the heart of the battle?
The smoke swirled back in, concealing Mysandra once more.
Heart pounding, Ryana ripped off her helm. She couldn’t see properly wearing it.
Moving forward, she readied herself to attack. She stepped over prone figures and tried not to look at their faces. The cobblestones underfoot were slippery with blood; the metallic stench filled her nostrils.
And then, through a haze of oily smoke, she spied Gael once more.
Elias groaned before shoving the dead weight of a Rithmar axe-man off him.
Head throbbing, he grabbed the hilt of the blade embedded in the man’s chest and yanked it out. Around him the battle for the walls was still raging.
If Elias wanted to live, he needed to get down from here. He shook his head, in an attempt to clear the ringing in his ears, and made for the stairs.
It wasn’t easy to reach them.
Rithmar soldiers barreled at him from every angle. Some he shoved out of the way, others he punched and mauled, while some—the persistent ones—he killed. By the time he reached the stone steps that led down to the Great Square, Elias’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps.
The fight atop the walls had been so intense that Elias hadn’t had a moment to even glance down at the square. However, he’d heard the battle: the roar of enchantment, and the yells and the screams. He’d also felt the heat of the tongues of flame that licked skyward and coughed on the oily smoke that drifted up from the fighting.
Elias started down the stairs before abruptly halting.
He’d fought in many battles over the years, but never in one like this. Never one this savage.
There were too many soldiers and enchanters packed into the square. More Rithmar troops surged in through the gates, while men of Anthor still flooded in from the two streets leading off the Great Square. The soldiers hacked at each other as the crowd surged. Men fell and were trampled underfoot.
From above he could see the truth of things: Anthor was winning. Those enchanters in the center of the square held nothing back. Light and Dark ripped through the throng. Fire devoured while shadow turned into a rampaging beast that tore off limbs and decapitated indiscriminately.
Elias’s gaze scanned the melee, looking for Ryana, but the crowd was so dense—obscured in parts by smoke—that he couldn’t find her.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Elias checked to make sure he still was alone on the stairs. There was a brawl going on above him. The last of the men of Anthor defending the wa
ll were trying to keep the Rithmar soldiers from reaching the stairs. They’d hold them at bay for a few moments yet.
Elias shifted his attention back to the square. He wanted to move, to join the fray. However, he had to know where Ryana was first. Once he entered the crowd it would be much harder to locate her.
But as he searched, instead of Ryana, Elias saw his father.
He’d fought alongside Reoul on many campaigns and had seen him kill numerous times. Yet he’d never seen his father fight with such savagery. He wielded two blades, slashing and stabbing, his face a rictus of concentration.
And when Elias’s attention shifted to his father’s opponent, he realized why.
He faced Nathan of Rithmar.
Elias’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his fighting knife. He’d abandoned his sword not long after the attack had started. It wasn’t a good blade anyway, and he preferred to use a knife at close quarters. Despite everything that had happened—even after his father had disowned him and put him on the front line to die—his first instinct was to rush to his aid.
Elias heaved in a shuddering breath, fighting the instinct. Ryana … I have to find her.
Reoul could deal with this battle on his own.
Shadows, Nathan could fight. One glance at the way the king of Rithmar wielded his two-handed broadsword, and Elias knew his father had met his match. Nathan was nearly twenty years his junior too. Strong and fit, Nathan’s thick mink cloak swung behind him as he twisted, hacked, and parried.
And as Elias watched, Nathan ran Reoul through with his blade.
His father threw his head back and bellowed, but the sound was drowned out by the thunder of battle.
Elias did lurch forward then, his boots skidding on the stone steps. Under him, the crowd heaved as an explosion rocked the Great Square.
Both kings disappeared under a sea of black armor and silver chainmail.