by K. A. Linde
The shadows vanished. “What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!” She crossed her arms. “I thought I said not to do anything stupid.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re communicating with the House of Shadows. What if someone saw you?”
“They didn’t.”
She wanted to shake him. “Think for a moment what would happen if someone did.”
“I’ve thought about it,” he said icily. “Now, go back to the camp before someone notices.”
She huffed. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“You’re not going anywhere with me.”
“You cannot talk to them, Fordham. You’re their natural leader. We need you.”
“I can’t,” he said, whirling on her. “I have to do something. I cannot sit around and wait all night to slaughter my own people. Not without at least trying to save them. They will listen to me.”
“And what if they don’t?” she demanded.
“Then, fine. They will have sealed their fate. But not before I do everything in my power to end this.”
Kerrigan sighed. She understood. Better than he knew. She was still betrothed to March to save her people. She hadn’t found a way out of it that didn’t involve him going to war with her people. She hadn’t even been in Bryonica in twelve years, and still, she would do anything to protect them. She hardly expected it to be different for Fordham.
“Let me go with you.”
“And have you get in trouble again?”
“Then, don’t let us be seen,” she said.
“I can’t travel that far with both of us. And I’m not taking you.”
“We have each other’s backs. No matter what else has changed, Fordham, that remains the same.” She crossed her arms and waited for him to refute that.
To her surprise, he didn’t. He sighed. “We’ll have to get closer to meet the rendezvous.”
Kerrigan smothered her shock. He probably knew by now that she wasn’t easy to get rid of when she set her mind to something.
They trekked through the woods, heading closer and closer to Lethbridge while avoiding scouts and patrols nearby. Once the city came into view and Kerrigan could see the incredible height of the stone fortress wall, Fordham called them to a stop.
“Okay, hold on to me,” he said.
Kerrigan stepped forward into his arms. Her body fit against his like it was always meant to be there. She wanted to rest her head on his chest, but already, her body was reacting to his nearness. She needed to not think about the last time they’d been this close. Or how his body felt pressed against hers. Or anything else that involved a hot spring. Her cheeks colored, and she dipped her chin.
He cleared his throat, wrapping his arms tight around her. “Here we go,” he said, his breath hot against her neck.
She shivered involuntarily, and then they were gone. The shadows enveloped them. Kerrigan gasped. Then as quickly as they’d moved, they stumbled to a stop on the other side of the fortress.
Two small figures appeared out of the darkness. “About time,” Benton said with a smile.
“Oh my gods,” Kerrigan said. She rushed out of Fordham’s arms and toward the twins. She couldn’t believe they were here. And also, the thought shuddered through her all at once. They were here. Which meant they could get hurt in the cross fire. “What are you doing here?”
“We were brought along to help with preparations,” Benton said.
Bayton tugged her in tight. “The last time I saw you, you were saving my life.”
“I cannot believe she threatened to kill you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t take you with me.”
“We’re out now, my lady,” Benton said. “And we suspect it’s because of you.”
Fordham ended the reunion. “We need to move. We’re exposed.”
The twins bobbed a hasty curtsy. “Yes, Your Highness,” Bayton said. “Right this way.”
Kerrigan and Fordham followed the twins through the darkened corridors of Lethbridge. Kerrigan knew little about the Sayair city, except that it was one of the largest outside of their capital. The fact that the House of Shadows had conquered it in a matter of days was terrifying.
Benton and Bayton stopped before a large wooden door and knocked twice. The door swung inward, and Prescott appeared before them. He caught Kerrigan’s gaze, and his smile widened.
“You didn’t tell us you were bringing the brains of the operation,” Prescott said, hauling Kerrigan in for a hug.
She laughed, and Fordham scowled. “Let’s get inside,” he grumbled.
Prescott kept his arm wrapped around Kerrigan’s shoulders as he drew them into the room. No one would know the city was at war here. Everything was resplendent with throw pillows and thick carpets. Candles lit the space with wax dripping down over large candelabras. Arbor lay out across a divan like a welcoming goddess and not a usurper.
“You didn’t say you were bringing the girl,” Arbor said, letting the lush red of her skirts fall to the floor.
“Change of plans,” Kerrigan said. “I was instructed not to let him do anything stupid. So, here I am, doing stupid things with him.”
Fordham’s scowl deepened. “This isn’t stupid. It’s necessary.”
“Yeah, Kerrigan,” Prescott said with a wink. “Necessary.”
“Pres, leave her alone,” Arbor said.
He made a face at his sister and headed over to a table, where he poured red wine from a decanter. “A toast to our victory?” he asked, offering drinks all around.
Fordham and Kerrigan both declined. She liked Arbor and Prescott, but they were on opposite sides of this fight.
“Fine. Sister,” he drawled, passing one to Arbor.
“Why must you instigate?”
“It’s my best feature,” he joked and then leaned back against the table.
“You said you were willing to listen,” Fordham accused his cousins.
“And we are,” Arbor said. “If you are as well.”
“You have to stop this before it gets worse.”
Arbor rose to her feet, and Kerrigan saw for the first time what she had missed all those nights in the House of Shadows. Arbor wasn’t some forgotten puppy, falling after her cousin who had all the power. She aspired to power.
“Before what gets worse? Because as far as I can see, things can only get better. The wall is down, Fordham. It is what we always wanted. Now, we can leave the mountain and find a place of our own.”
“By conquering nearby cities? By killing everyone inside?”
“We didn’t kill everyone,” she said with a feline smile. “And here I thought you were coming to join us. How easy it would be in this battle to take down your wretched father and claim your rightful place on the throne.”
“I’m not interested in patricide,” he said evenly.
“And it would never happen that way,” Kerrigan interjected. “The Society is here. You can never hold out against us.”
Arbor assessed Kerrigan and then dismissed her. “What are forty dragons against ten thousand trained fighters? This isn’t our first war. We know what we’re up against.”
“I don’t think that you do,” Fordham said. “If you surrender now, then I can negotiate favorable terms.”
“Surrender?” Prescott asked. “After we won Lethbridge in a fair fight? That’s laughable.”
“You will all be slaughtered,” Fordham snapped. “I am trying to do the right thing. If you will not listen, then I will find someone who will.”
“And who would that be?” Arbor asked. “Your father? He’s wanted this fight longer than any of us have been alive. Do you think Wynter will hear you? Because I was there the day the wall fell. She had her acolytes around her as it came down. They think she’s a prophet sent from the gods themselves to bring us salvation.”
“Wynter didn’t bring down the wall,” Fordham said.
Arbor laughed and shook her head. “It hardly matters.
What matters is that they believe her, and she believes her own rambling nonsense. She won’t back down from this fight when she thinks it is divine.”
“So, you would rather die?” Kerrigan asked.
Arbor narrowed her eyes. “There are ten thousand of us and forty of you. Forty,” she repeated, as if speaking to a small child.
Kerrigan fumed at those words. They had no idea what the Society was capable of. What a unit of dragons would do, what they could all do. They had trained until they were nearly broken to get to this point. The House of Shadows might have military prowess, but they had no aerial assault. Nothing. It was going to be a bloodbath.
Before she could respond, Arbor turned to Fordham. “I love you, cousin. It should have always been you on the throne. Come take your rightful place and show them what we are capable of. That forty dragons are nothing compared to the might of our warriors.”
Fordham stood his ground. “I thought that you two would be reasonable about this. That you would want to take the route least likely to cause harm. I guess I was wrong about that.”
“I guess you were,” Prescott said, coming to his sister’s side.
“No matter how it happened, the wall is down. We deserve our chance at freedom. Has a year with them changed your allegiance so completely?” Arbor demanded.
Kerrigan was boiling over. She understood now why Trulian had dismissed the idea of negotiating with the enemy. It was futile. They would never make them understand. Fordham grasped Kerrigan’s elbow, and she glanced up at him in surprise. Her fury was getting the better of her. He must have felt the shift. That she might do something stupid.
She backed down, letting it wash away from her. There was no point. Tomorrow, they would meet them on the battlefield, and Arbor would find out how wrong she was.
“Then, I believe we are at an impasse,” Fordham said.
“I believe we are,” Arbor said.
Fordham gave his cousin a quick bow. “Happy hunting.”
“You too, cousin.”
Without a word, Fordham wrapped them both in darkness. Kerrigan squeezed her eyes shut as they traveled, and then they were both back in the woods. Fordham put his hands to his knees, panting. He shouldn’t have been using that power the night before battle.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Will you be able to use this tomorrow?”
He coughed, wiped sweat from his brow, and then slowly straightened. “I’ve stretched the ability in the last year. I should have at least one jump tomorrow if I need it.”
“Good,” she whispered.
They trekked back through the woods, avoiding the patrols from both sides of the fight, and made it to the tree line. The camp was almost completely silent this late at night.
She glanced at Fordham. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
He gritted his teeth. “I did everything I could, short of speaking to my father and sister, which would have only resulted in my capture. But I still had to go. I had to try.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“If they will not surrender, then I will be ready. For tomorrow, we go to war.”
57
The River
At dawn, the contingent of Society members formed up in front of Master Trulian. Many of them were still awestruck at the very sight of him. Kerrigan stood in her riding leathers, her sword strapped to her side. Fordham, Audria, and Roake surrounded her with Alura at the head. She was technically still their leader since she had been responsible for them during training. She didn’t seem much pleased by that assessment as she would much rather be on the front lines, then babysitting the new recruits. Not that Kerrigan could blame her. She was a better warrior by far, considering she’d grown up in a war tribe.
Trulian ambled down the line of soldiers, nodding at people and speaking to the other commanders. Then, he stepped back and addressed the whole lot.
“Many of you have never seen real battle before. Many of you are thinking that this will be like the drills you ran. Many of you are walking in, sure that this will be an easy defeat,” Trulian bellowed. “As someone who has fought this battle before, let me tell you, war is not fun or easy. It is hard, grueling work. They have superior numbers and a thousand years of rage.”
The Society members shifted from side to side at his words. It certainly wasn’t the speech Kerrigan had expected from him.
“I say all of this not to scare you or for you to lose your nerve. Quite the opposite. We are the Society. We are dragon bonded. We were chosen for our abilities. Then, we were honed into a razor’s edge. We are the one thing standing between them and the next city they wish to conquer. It could be yours.” He pointed to someone to the right and then the left. “Or yours. It could be any of our homes, our tribes. The people of Lethbridge did nothing to deserve this unprovoked attack, and the consequences of that are clear. We, the Society, will respond in kind.
“You have your assignments. Follow your commanders. Don’t break ranks. Reinforcements will be here as early as tomorrow and troops within the week. Don’t do anything reckless. You are our greatest assets.” Trulian rose his arm into the air. “For the Society!”
Everyone raised their fist. Kerrigan joined them, feeling her blood pump as the adrenaline of the upcoming fight took over. And they shouted as one, “For the Society.”
Alura whipped around as soon as the speech was over. “You lot are with me. We’re to block off their escape routes. In the Great War, they would attack and then retreat back to the mountain when things got bad. We want to make sure that they can’t get back or forward.”
Fordham frowned. “They’re not going to retreat. This isn’t the Great War.”
Alura stomped forward, getting right in his face. “What did you say, soldier? We have one job, and we are going to do it. If you have a problem, take that up with Master Trulian. Otherwise, you do whatever I tell you without any more back talk.”
For a moment, Kerrigan thought he might not back down. He, of course, knew House of Shadows tactics better than anyone. But finally, he nodded and stepped into line.
“Good. Now, call your dragons, and let’s fly,” she snapped as Gemina appeared on the horizon.
Kerrigan gulped. This was the first time she and Tieran would use the bond since getting it into place. They’d tried it out some on the way here, but it was different. This was real battle. She gently tugged on the bond. To her relief, she felt it go all the way across the meadow to the space the dragons had carved for themselves. And Tieran answered in turn. She felt it straight to her tied-off crux bond on her wrist.
She wanted to cry. It was such an emotional moment that she could share with no one else. She hadn’t even told Fordham that she’d figured out a way for it to work. There had been no time with everything going on. But he must have realized something was different because he tilted his head at Tieran heading their direction, even before Netta got the call.
“I fixed it,” she whispered to him.
He looked like he wanted to ask so many questions, but now was hardly the time. Not unless she wanted Alura to know, and gods, did she not want Alura to know this little fact.
She was so grateful for Cleora. She never would have had time to drop into the spirit plane to call him when she was actually here. It had to be instantaneous, and it was.
Alura sprinted toward her dragon, letting Gemina grasp her in her claws and then send her sailing backward over Gemina’s head. It was what they had practiced over and over again. There was no time for landing and mounting. The battle was ahead.
The rest of their team took off at a sprint. Kerrigan felt the bond strengthen as Tieran grabbed her and threw her backward. She landed into a crouch on his back, steady as an acrobat. A slow smile came to her face. She didn’t care what her part in this was; she was just glad that the last year hadn’t been a waste.
Then, they were soaring west, away from Lethbridge. The city itself was two tier—one level surrounded by the enormous stone wall that protected
the House of Shadows and an exposed lower level. Most of the lower level had been decimated by the invading forces, but what still stood housed excess soldiers. On the northern side of the city was a small river that nearly drained during the cold months and filled to flooding as the snow melt ran off of the Vert Mountains. Right now, it ran at a trickle, as the snow wouldn’t melt this far north for at least another month or two. But it was still wide enough to accommodate a few ships.
As they moved easily into formation with Alura at the lead, Fordham off her right wing, and Kerrigan off of his wing with Audria and Roake on the left, Kerrigan could see precisely what Alura had in mind.
Kerrigan was so caught up in where they were going that she didn’t notice what was going on below until an arrow whizzed past her. She gasped and veered slightly out of formation.
“Shield up,” Alura commanded.
Kerrigan fumbled for a second, disoriented. Then, she felt the gentle pull of Tieran’s reassurance.
Breathe. It’s one arrow. We can take them out.
She nodded, sending a tug back, and then dipped into her well of magic. It was still low compared to normal but enough to hold up a magic shield as they flew near their troops. Another arrow bounced harmlessly off of her shield, but she shuddered at the feel of it. The tips had been dipped in something that made her skin crawl. She could practically taste it.
Audria cursed violently, and Kerrigan glanced over to see her shield had dropped. “What the hell was that?”
“Oleander-tipped arrows,” Fordham told them. “I forgot we still had those. They’ve been banned within our halls since I’ve been fighting. If the arrow doesn’t kill you, the poison will burn out your magic.”
Kerrigan’s eyes widened. “Holy gods! What else do they have that you forgot about?”
He glanced back at her, his face hard. “Let’s not find out.”
A scream ruptured the clash of battle. Kerrigan whipped her head to the side and watched a dragon fall out of the sky. It was horrifying. She’d never seen anything like that. She tried to clear her eyes to make the picture make sense, but it simply didn’t.