by K. A. Linde
Trulian dismissed them, and Kerrigan hastened out of the tent before March could say anything else.
She grasped Fordham’s arm to slow him down. “How are you feeling?”
He glanced at her. “Fine. I’ll do what must be done.”
“Fordham, yesterday…”
He jerked her into a faster clip. “I have to appear completely unaffected, Kerrigan,” he said low into her ear. “They see me as the traitor in their midst. Trulian is only moving us to the front lines to keep an eye on me. So, no, I cannot discuss my feelings. My feelings don’t matter. All that matters is that they do not remember that I am the crowned prince of the enemy. That they do not turn on me.”
Then, he released her and stomped away. Her heart broke for him, but this was war. There would be time to fix this once they won.
Clouds rolled in, dark and ominous, as the army prepared for battle. It felt wrong to leave Alura behind, but they had no choice. So, Kerrigan called Tieran and climbed onto his back.
Are you ready for this?
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She sent a pulse of adrenaline down the bond. It mingled with her feelings of unease and excitement. She was on the front lines. She was in the thick of it. She had to succeed.
Tieran sent back his own mixed feelings. The exhilaration of war and terror that she might get hurt and fear for the future. It was all the same feeling, and she felt comforted to know that he was in the same mindspace as her. That they could share this.
Kerrigan pulled into formation with her group. Fordham leading as the four of them drew into Trulian’s regiment. She couldn’t even believe that she was part of this.
She recognized Society members who were brilliant soldiers. Master Cannon, who she had fought during her training, looked eager to get started. Master Kress was in full armor, throwing a ball of flame aimlessly around, as if none of this concerned him at all. Others she only recognized by reputation. She was not even a full member, and she flew here with them. Whether or not it was because Fordham was seen as the enemy, they were making a name for themselves today.
And as the ground troops marched, angling for Lethbridge’s gate, the Society dragons fanned out to take the city. Kerrigan could just make out March at the head of his soldiers in a plumed helmet. She couldn’t hear the words of encouragement as his horse galloped before the lot of them, but she knew he could be inspirational. So long as he valued a person as more than an object of his ascension.
House of Shadows soldiers swelled before the doors that led into the city. Powerful Fae waiting with swords raised to take on their enemy. No sign of the king. He would be behind the gates. Their real prize.
Trulian held his own sword high and then bellowed, pointing the sword toward the city beyond. The dragons flew as one while the soldiers below moved into battle. The clash of swords against shields was deafening. The roar that came from the magical artifacts was almost worse. But it was the dragons that did the most damage.
Kerrigan dived into her magic as she faced the onslaught and then threw everything she had at the soldiers. Dragons picked Fae off the ground and dropped them from on high. Some barreled straight through the lot of them. Fire bloomed over and over on the field. Within the hour, it was a bloodbath. Disorienting and terrifying and thrilling.
She remembered the feel of riding on Tavry with Helly into battle. But nothing compared to this. She understood the year of training better than ever. The shielding and fighting and flying and formations were second nature once she was in the thick of it. If it hadn’t been, she would have been lost. The world was chaos, and all she had to follow were the commands ingrained in her head. Fordham was her lead; she was his wing.
A powerful boom tore through the normal buzz of war. They circled around and found March’s soldiers had a battering ram thunking against the doors of Lethbridge. It hit again and again against the seemingly impenetrable doors. Then, the wood cracked, the doors caved inward, and the war shifted.
They were in.
Soldiers pushed through the giant doors, trampling over the enemy and flooding the upper tier of the city. They’d taken out most of the archers, which left the dragons free rein to fly inside. Trulian veered inward, his eyes forward, and they followed in his wake.
Kerrigan could feel the tide of the battle turn. Before the reinforcements had shown up, they hadn’t been able to get past the battlement. It was too early to say, but it already felt like it was only a matter of time. And with the boats burned yesterday, there was no escape for those inside.
Trulian vaulted from his dragon, landing heavily in the central square with his blade extended. “Samael!” he taunted. “Come fight me, you coward!”
The rest of the riders dropped into the square with him and immediately engaged the soldiers. Trulian hacked aside soldiers as if they were made of paper instead of flesh and blood. His magic flowed like a living, breathing thing. Kerrigan had never seen anything like it. Over a thousand years of carefully honed magic. A man so powerful that he’d fought against the abyss all these long years after his beloved’s death.
“Samael!” he roared again. “Your soldiers die for you.” He hacked down another Fae. “They die, and you hide! Your father would be ashamed of you. At least Braidien fought his own battles.”
And then, from the far opening to the market, King Samael Ollivier stepped from the shadows and materialized out of thin air. The same trick both of his children had inherited but that he alone had truly mastered.
“You dare decry my father’s name,” the king jeered. He removed a blade as black as night from a sheath at his waist.
Trulian knocked aside the Fae before him and stepped into the center of the madness that had cleared for them. “Oh, I dare!”
“Who are you but some lowly Society bastard?”
“I might be lowly,” Trulian said, leveling his sword at Samael, “but I am your doom.”
Samael jumped from his spot at the entrance to stand before Trulian in the space of a heartbeat, using those clever shadows to his advantage. But Trulian hardly blinked. He raised his sword and met the king against his blade. Their magic sang a symphony as they came apart and collided back together. Both were utter masters. Circling, rebounding, throwing strikes Kerrigan couldn’t even see in the blur. It was as if the edges of reality had shifted. And all the while, the conflict raged around them, soldiers unaware that their fate was being determined in this one fight. A battle that should have ended a thousand years ago, coming to fruition at the heart of a dying city.
Kerrigan took down another Fae, who seemed surprised that someone so small could pack that much of a punch. She was constantly underestimated for her size. But as she turned to face her next opponent, no one was there. The space was open wide as Trulian and Samael fought.
She didn’t know who moved first or which opening happened. All she saw was Trulian’s blade pierce Samael’s defenses as he stabbed him through the stomach. The king stumbled, shock registering on his face. Fordham jerked toward the fight, as if for a split second, he thought he could stop it. But there was no stopping it. He knew that as much as anyone. Maybe more.
“Your time is over,” Trulian told him, twisting the blade.
Samael fell onto the stone. A gurgle escaped his mouth. Blood ran freely from the wound. “You… will… pay for this,” he managed to get out as blood came out of his mouth.
“No. This is what I have waited all this time for. I should have never let my love keep you safe,” he growled.
Samael glared at him, and then with his dying breath, he shot a bolt of shadows straight at Trulian. It was just as Wynter had done to Alura, but infinitely worse. A thousand years of carefully controlled magic from the king. Trulian had no chance of dodging the magic. There was no escape. The bolt slammed straight through his chest. Trulian went stock-still before toppling over at the feet of his greatest enemy.
“No!” Kerrigan screamed.
She dashed through the open space and skidded to her
knees before Trulian. She turned him over onto his back. But then Zina was there, appearing at her side out of the crowd. Her eyes were haunted as she reached for her father’s pulse.
“He’s dead,” she muttered.
Tears clouded Kerrigan’s eyes. “No, no, no, I’m so sorry.”
“This is how he would have wanted to go. He was ready to see Mother.”
Something hard came into Zina’s face as she saw her father lying dead on the stones. And then with a fury Kerrigan had never seen from her, she screamed at the top of her lungs, and every single person on the square froze to stone. She held them in her grasp. Not differentiating between friend or foe. They were all just there. The people who had led her father back into a battle that would take his life.
Kerrigan couldn’t even blink. She watched as Zina’s great power rippled from her in such a force. Then, Kerrigan felt around the shape of the magic to her spirit beyond it, and she dropped out of the physical.
Zina was hunched over, sobbing onto her father’s figure. The feelings she couldn’t process in reality couldn’t be contained here. She’d frozen the outside world, only to try to come to grips with what was in front of her.
Kerrigan came to her feet and put her hand on Zina’s back. She gasped and jumped away from Kerrigan.
“You don’t understand,” Zina cried.
“No, I can’t. I lost a parent before I could feel the sting of their absence. But I know what it is to be abandoned by someone you love. I know how it can fester and burrow deep until you feel like you can never touch that place within you. And I know it’s harder to move on, harder to see them as people who made choices, than it is to just be angry.”
Zina wiped her tears. “He lied to me about my mother. He lied, and now, he’s gone. I’ll never get those years back.”
“You’re right. What he did was wrong. There’s no excuse, but there’s a reason. He wanted to protect you. He might not have been the best father. In the end, he made the choice he thought would hurt you the least. He did that because he loved you.”
“I know,” Zina finally said, looking so small in that moment. “He wanted this fight. He wanted it.”
“Mei took this final battle from him. Maybe you should honor him by ending it.”
Zina nodded, tears forming rivulets down her cheeks, and then held her hand out. “Let’s end it then.”
They came back into reality together. Zina released her magic in a rush, and everyone collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. She held her head high above the lot of them and magically projected her voice.
“Your king is dead. Lay down your weapons and surrender, or you will find no mercy,” Zina said, her voice reaching far beyond the walls of the square to the soldiers out into the field.
The Fae before them shook with terror at her ferocious power and laid down their arms. They fell to their knees in surrender. Dishonorable for their people, but better than every single person dying.
She heard the clatter of weapons all through the city. And at the top of the tower, a white flag was hoisted over Lethbridge.
61
The Defeat
ARBOR
“They’re rounding us up,” Prescott said frantically. “We need to get out of here.”
Arbor pressed her fingers into her temples. “How are we supposed to do that?”
She wanted to shriek at him. They were finished. Everything she had worked for was gone. Fordham and Kerrigan had killed Wynter. She was buried under the rubble, and what was Arbor supposed to do with that? Queen Viviana had surrendered in a hurry after Samael had been killed, and there was no one else to take his place. He’d finally kicked the bucket, and she didn’t even have a person to put in his position. All her work for nothing. It wasn’t as if anyone would accept her as queen. Not with her bloodline. Not without Fordham or Wynter for her to puppet. Gods, she was really and truly screwed.
“I don’t know. You’re the genius,” he barked. Uncharacteristically Pres.
It set her teeth on edge. “We need to figure it out, or they’re going to kill us.”
“They don’t seem to be killing people.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped, grabbing a bag and stuffing enough valuables in it for them to get by. They’d barred the door long ago, but surely, this old city had a secret passageway. “Start looking for a way out.”
She pushed against the walls, and Pres went to the closet. They touched everything they could find. But if there was a way out, she didn’t know it. And she certainly didn’t find it before the door burst open and a man walked inside. He looked as self-important as all the rest.
“Come on out,” he said, sword aloft. “Every one of you needs to be accounted for.”
She opened her bag and showed him a diamond the size of his palm. “I’ll give you this if you leave this room and act like you never saw us.”
The man ignored the diamond and grabbed her arm. “Don’t care for your bribes. Just move along.”
“Pres,” she gasped.
“Unhand my sister.”
“You come along too,” he said, throwing Arbor bodily into the empty hallway.
Her shoulder collided with the opposite wall, and something crunched. She gasped in pain, her eyes watering.
She had never been a part of the military, much to her cousin’s chagrin. She knew battle magic but hadn’t used it in so long that it didn’t even come to her naturally. Prescott had more than her, and he tussled with the man before also being casually thrown out of the room.
Pres pulled his magic to him, ready to throw something at their attacker.
The man thrust his sword against Prescott’s throat. “Try me.”
“Roake!” a voice boomed down the corridor.
“Down here,” Roake called back.
And then their cousin stepped into the hallway. Fordham eyed them as if he had no idea who they were. Not a single clue. Gods, he had always been a good actor.
“Audria needs help with some nobles on the hallway over. She asked for you. I can take this lot.”
Roake scoffed, “Good luck. This one”—he pointed his sword at Arbor—“tried to bribe me. The other is a sore excuse for a magic user.”
“Then, I’ll have no trouble.”
“You know them?” Roake asked, eyeing Fordham.
Fordham’s jaw tightened. “I know everyone,” he ground out. “And they’re all prisoners of war until the council can come to some treaty agreement with the queen.”
Roake shrugged, sheathing his sword. “Fine. I’ll go see what Audria needs.”
Fordham clapped him on the back as he departed. He waited until Roake was out of earshot and then sighed.
“You should have listened to me,” he told them.
Prescott sneered, “We had superior numbers!”
“It didn’t matter,” Fordham cut him off.
Arbor held her head high. “Are you going to take us to the dungeons?”
“Of course not,” Fordham said. He shook his head. “Look, I have one more jump in me. I can get you outside of the city. But then you need to disappear. I cannot be responsible for you after this. Go underground.”
“You’re really going to help us?” Arbor asked.
“Unless you want to become a prisoner of war for who knows how long. I can get you out. Others got out on their own.”
Arbor and Pres cut each other a glance before nodding. “Do it.”
Fordham pulled his shadows tight to himself, and then they surrounded them both. Arbor tightened her grip on her cousin, clinging to him and her brother as they disappeared. She hadn’t thought that Fordham’s magic worked this well. He’d never been able to jump this far before, let alone with two people.
But then they were on the other side of the river in the safety of the trees. Arbor looked at Lethbridge from the outside for the first time and gasped. The city was nothing like it had been when they first came to conquer it. The walls were caved in. The place was a disaster. The dock
s burned. It would hardly be livable from here.
“Go. Be safe by disappearing,” Fordham said, and then he jumped back across the river.
“Well, sister,” Prescott said, leaning against a tree, “this wasn’t in the plans.”
“It was not.”
“What are we going to do now? Go underground?”
She snorted. “Hardly. Someone in the Society sold us those magical artifacts. Someone in their ranks is sympathetic to our cause. We just need to show them how valuable we are alive.”
Prescott grinned. “I love the way you think.” He held his hand out, and she put hers in his. “Shall we?”
She nodded, and they slunk out of the view of the city.
Today was a defeat but not the end of their schemes.
62
The Treaty
“I never found her,” Fordham said in frustration. He and Kerrigan stood before the commander’s tent and waited for the reading of the treaty that had been signed with Queen Viviana.
“Wynter?”
He tersely nodded. “I pulled apart the entire rubble. Dug everything out myself, and she wasn’t there.”
“How is that possible?”
He ground his teeth and shook his head. “I don’t know. I should have found a body if she was dead.”
“Do you think that she used her magic to escape? Jumped somewhere?”
“I thought she was sufficiently incapacitated.” He sighed. “But she must have.”
“Gods…”
“It’s not the last we’ve seen of her.”
Kerrigan gulped. That was not a good sign. Not at all. Wynter was powerful. And the last thing they needed was a loose cannon with that amount of power as an enemy.
The crowd grew silent as Presiding Officer Malwin Zoh stepped forward to read the treaty. It had taken a full day of negotiations and the approval of the council for Queen Viviana to sign her seal on the document. And it was a litany of demands.