The Enemy's Triumph

by Kristen Banet

  Mat stared at his wife, sleeping peacefully now. She had gone unconscious while they tended her injuries. After a few hours, on a makeshift bed being dragged by her mare, she started tossing and turning, growling in her sleep.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that from her?” Kian asked, staring at her as they rode their own horses. Now she was quiet, back to sleep without any sign of moving, wrapped tightly in several of their travel blankets.

  “No,” he answered softly. “She sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and leaves. Before Luykas lived with us, she apparently would meet him out in the woods, or he would go find her. Now, he leaves with her. It’s not often. Maybe once every few weeks, but…”

  “She’s been having nightmares?” Nevyn asked, turning his horse to walk beside them. “For how long?”

  “Since we’ve arrived in Anden…and I don’t know if they’re nightmares. She won’t talk about them to anyone, not even Luykas. He told me she once called them troubling dreams.” Mat sighed. “I had hoped they would end after Al Moro Nat and everything that happened with her and her brother and everything else, but they came back. Mornings without her came back. Not often, but enough to notice. They’ve become part of our life.”

  “And yet…” Kian frowned down at her. “She hasn’t spoken to Senri about them. Nevyn?”

  “Varon and I haven’t heard anything about it,” the warrior growled softly. “And we should have. Troubling dreams could mean serious problems for someone like Mave. They could be haunting bits of her past that are keeping her off balance—”

  “I know,” Mat snarled.

  They continued their journey in silence. Mat didn’t need a lesson in how bad restless sleep could be for warriors. Being haunted by their lives could do damage to the mind and soul of a warrior, which could lead to dangerous things happening.

  How she fought us to get to Lothen, that was bad. She’s normally more controlled and levelheaded. What had gotten in her? I know he did terrible things to her, but she would have gotten herself killed.

  Mat sighed. As the sun went down, Nevyn took them off the path they were on and down into another small valley with a stream. They weren’t being followed, probably because they had wounded the Prince. The Empire would always put the wellbeing of their leaders before the battle. It was something the Andinna needed to continue to use to their advantage.

  “We’ll make camp here,” Nevyn said, looking into the sky. “If they aren’t on us yet, they won’t be fast enough to attack before we pack up and leave. I still want three on guard at a time. Mat, I’ll help you with her.”

  “Is she going to live?” one of the males finally dared to ask.

  “Yes. She’ll be weak for a few days, but she’ll be back at fighting strength probably before we make it back to the village,” Kian answered. He helped the others set up camp while Nevyn helped Mat.

  Mat didn’t speak as Nevyn watched him while they carried her close to a fire and laid her down.

  “She was stupid,” he said, staring down at her. “Your wife was stupid.”

  “Fuck you—”

  “Watch your mouth, Nevyn,” Kian snarled from across the growing campfire.

  “She was. She used blood magic to go well beyond what she should have, with no care what she was doing to herself. It was keeping her alive until you tended it, but it also nearly killed her. She could have done irreparable damage by drawing so much power from her blood to keep fighting. She should have retreated and got help. I plan on telling her all of that the moment she’s awake.” Nevyn’s tone was hard. “Alchan put me in charge, but let’s be honest. Do you think he’ll appreciate his Champion and the female of this mission doing something so…” Nevyn growled, looking away. “I don’t want her to die, just like everyone else. If that means knocking her around to make sure she doesn’t do something so fucking stupid again, I will.”

  “I like you better when Varon is around,” Mat snapped. Varon would have knocked his husband on the back of his thick skull.

  “Varon would have berated her just as quickly,” Nevyn snapped back. “Because we’re the best of the best. We’re the ones Alchan relies on to live and succeed, even as those around us fall. She can’t show him that she’s not capable of that.”

  Mat huffed and laid beside his wife as Nevyn stormed off.

  Was he right? Probably, but Mat would never stop defending her. If she led him to his grave, he would go because that’s what he signed up for. He’d never wanted another female the way he wanted her, and that would go with him to his death.

  His eyes were nearly closed when she started tossing and turning. He sat up to see her eyes wide open, and she was panting so loud, Nevyn and Kian rushed over. She scrambled out of the blankets before Mat could do anything to calm her and half crawled away, breathing too hard.

  “Mave,” he said gently. “Calm down. You’re safe. You were in a healing sleep. You need to calm down.”

  “Whoa,” Kian said, grabbing her as she tried to stand. None of them had a chance to talk about the very new black lines on her skin. That was going to have to wait. Mat was positive he was seeing things, but even Kian had wide eyes as he registered them, looking over her.

  “I need to walk,” she said, trying to pull away.

  “Mave, you can’t,” Kian said, holding her in place. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?” she snapped, baring her long Andinna fangs at him.

  “Look at yourself,” Mat said softly, finally finding his feet. Nevyn was strangely quiet, staring at Mave as if she had grown a second head.

  They watched as his wife looked over her body, and her eyes found her arms. From her shoulders to her elbows, she had tatua. She hadn’t had them when Mat wrapped her in the blankets. None of them had performed the ritual.

  Their origin was unexplainable.

  She turned and vomited, and Mat gasped to see her entire upper back was also riddled in the harsh black lines of tatua, all connecting to her chest, making her entire upper body nearly finished.

  “Nevyn?” he said softly, turning to the warrior who shared a bed with a priest. Mat was a Blackblood, but he had never heard of someone giving themselves tatua, the only explanation he could think of.

  Nevyn’s gaze was shocked, but with a thoughtful darkness.

  “I don’t know,” the wise warrior answered. “I just don’t know.”

  Mat’s stomach sank as he looked back at his wife to see real fear in her eyes.

  “What did you dream about?” he dared to ask for the first time since she started having these troubling dreams.

  She only shook her head, a flat refusal to speak on the matter.

  “Mave—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” There was no steel in the words but a desperation that made him stop. “They’re mine to deal with. As for this…” She lifted her left arm, looking over the new delicate and sharp lines. “I don’t know. I just don’t…understand.”

  “Neither do we,” Kian said softly. “Okay. Why don’t you sit down and eat or drink something?”

  She nodded slowly and walked back to Mat. His heart soared that she came to him and wrapped her arms around him before they laid back down on the shared cots and blankets.

  “Is it so troubling?” he asked softly. “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “It’s…it’s not troubling,” she answered. “It’s strange. I don’t understand it, but I know it’s for me to deal with, so I’ve been dealing with it. It doesn’t stop me from doing everything else I want to do, so I manage.”

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Would you like to talk about anything else?”

  They were silent for a long time, but finally, she was the one who broke the silence. He was relieved she did because he didn’t want her thinking she couldn’t talk to him.

  “How do you feel when you think of those Elvasi on their gryphons? Flying in skies that should belong to only us?”

  “I hate it,” he answered
honestly. “But…”

  “But?” she jerked back from him, and he knew he needed to explain his mixed feelings quickly.

  “Gryphons also own the skies. As do the birds, as do the wyverns, as do the bugs,” he said carefully. “Andinna, we just share it with them. We aren’t its sole rulers. We are just part of the system of life and death. Does flying speak to our souls, so we treasure our relationship with the great expanse? Yes, but it’s not ours to claim and rule.” He watched her thoughtful mind work through that, her eyes looking at something he couldn’t see.

  “Ah,” she whispered. “So, if we weren’t fighting against them, you would be okay with sharing the skies with the Elvasi on their gryphons.”

  “If they respected the system, yes. If they adapted, and it became something important to them that needed to be cherished and protected, yes.”

  He had no idea what was going through her mind, and when she didn’t continue the conversation, he knew she was dealing with another thing by herself. Mave did this often, and he had long accepted that sometimes, she needed to close herself up and consider her problems on her own, coming to her own conclusions. It was just the way her mind worked. Whatever mental hurdles she needed to overcome, she had to do it on her own.

  But he didn’t understand what she could be thinking about when it came to the Elvasi and their gryphons.

  “I’m going to lay down,” he whispered. She nodded, leaned over to kiss him, then left him on the cots alone, walking away from the fire and the camp. Mat didn’t like the way she walked, obviously in pain, but he knew better than to try to stop her.

  Three days into their trip home, Mave was looking better. She was still injured and weak from her use of the blood magic, but Mat no longer worried she was going to fall off her mare as he had from the first day after she woke up.

  He watched her constantly but tried not to be overbearing, knowing she wanted to save face. The other males on the mission were just happy she was alive. They had lost good males on this mission, which happened, but at least they were bringing home the Champion.

  “What’s our official report to Alchan going to be?” Kian asked softly. “Have you worked that out yet?”

  Mat turned to see he was talking to Nevyn, who sighed.

  “My best bet was Lothen came out with a large unit because he was hoping to capture some of us. Luckily, those of us who lived got away. I would call the mission a success because of how many of their gryphon riders we defeated compared to our own losses.” Nevyn leaned over. “And I need to tell him about…”

  “Ah…Please don’t. Let me try to handle it or Senri.”

  “He has to know, and he’s the king.”

  Mat looked away, glad they didn’t notice him. They were going to tell Alchan about Mave. At least Kian was trying to stop that, but Nevyn, for all of his jovial nature, was a warrior who didn’t let personal feelings get involved. He did what was best for the unit, as he did in his relationship. It was impossible to convince Nevyn of anything if it meant possibly hurting his relationship with Varon. It was similarly impossible with the health of the Company.

  “She’s fine. It’s like nothing happened—”

  “She woke up with tatua no one gave her,” Nevyn growled. “That’s so out of the ordinary, I want Varon’s input. Can you say I’m wrong for that? Mave won’t even—”

  “I can hear you,” the female in question snapped from further ahead.

  Mat sighed as he glared back at the males.

  Everyone was quiet after that, riding down the mountain trail like nothing was wrong. After a while, Mat pulled on his reins and moved, so he was beside Kian, opposite Nevyn.

  “Mave doesn’t like her personal business being everyone’s business,” he said quietly. “She likes to work things out on her own, and she’s good at it. When she’s ready to talk to someone, she will, but until then, if you want to tell Alchan, you can. Just don’t expect to cause more than a fight between the two of them if he decides to try to sideline her.”

  Nevyn narrowed his eyes, then nodded.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to Varon about her tatua, and that’s all. Don’t think I’m comfortable keeping this from our king, but I’ll give her time to get her head on straight. Maybe I’m just overthinking because she went after Lothen the way she did when she was about to drop out of the sky.”

  “He used to beat and rape her. The moment those two saw each other, we should have all known it was going to be hard to get Mave out of the fight,” Mat reminded the other warrior. “And that incident has nothing to do with…the other thing.”

  “Or it has everything to do with it,” Nevyn said softly, looking ahead. Mat followed his gaze and saw it landed on Mave’s back.

  “Why don’t we change the topic?” Kian said brightly, looking between them. “I see both sides of this, but let’s try smaller measures before we jump into putting the two most dominant Andinna against each other.”

  “Fine.” Nevyn didn’t sound sure, but Mat would take what he could get.

  “We should talk about the gryphon following us,” Mave called back. “That’s a problem.”

  Mat leaned over, groaning. They had noticed it the morning after Mave woke up. It hovered away from the unit, just following them. It had no rider, and its equipment was tattered and dirty. It was one the scouting team must have accidentally freed.

  “It is,” Kian agreed, pushing his horse to ride with hers. “Some hunting dogs are known to get loose of the pack and track their own game. Since it doesn’t know how to go home, it probably thinks following us like it was trained to do, we might be an easy meal.”

  “So, we take an evening to kill it,” Nevyn said, shrugging. “Not a problem.”

  “No…I don’t want to kill it,” Mave said softly. “I have an idea.”

  “Are you going to tell anyone your plan?” Kian asked, smiling in an annoyed male fashion. Mat felt it to his bones. Mave could be enigmatic when she was feeling like it. Now more so than usual.

  “Will it bother you all day if I don’t?” she asked back, turning. Mat caught the profile of a grin.

  “Yes,” Kian growled.

  “Then you can wait until we camp tonight. If it’s still following us, I’ll deal with it.”

  Kian turned to glare back at Mat, the obvious question and demand in his expression. Is she always like this? Come fucking deal with it.

  Mat shrugged nonchalantly. Kian wanted a daughter—now he had one. He was going to need to learn to deal with this side of Mave on his own.

  They rode for the rest of the day and hit their planned camping location. They had camped in the same valley near the beginning of their journey. They would be at the village in only two more days.

  “We’re dealing with the gryphon tonight!” Nevyn called out. “We can’t let it closer to the village than this.”

  “Yes, sir!” some of the males called back. Others nodded before continuing to set up camp.

  “Mave, what’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to capture it,” she declared, rubbing her hands together. Mat grabbed them to look over what she was bothered by and saw the new blister on her palm. It would resolve by morning if she got a good night’s sleep, so he released her and let her continue. He was desperately trying not to fret or freak out at her words. He didn’t need to be another male doing that to her.

  “We’re going to do what?” Nevyn growled. “Are you mad?”

  “Apparently, but we have a use for it,” she said patiently. “I’ve been thinking about it. I have this…Elvasi back at the village. He’s been guarding Dave.”

  “Trevan,” Mat said softly, hoping she really hadn’t forgotten the poor man’s name.

  “I think they’re hampered by their inability to fly, especially with this harsh terrain. There are a few positives. Luykas was telling Mat and me before we left, he’s hoping Trevan can teach some of the new warriors how to fight against Elvasi fighting styles. He’ll be able to fly himself and Dave bet
ween meetings. The gryphon will help keep them safe from attacks by our own people.”

  Mat was quickly realizing where she was going. His intelligent, thoughtful wife had just needed some time to consider this. Maybe if they didn’t have one trailing them, she would have asked for one to be seized later on. By the look on her face, she had spent the last three days thinking about this.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Nevyn conceded. “Do you think he’ll be able to ride it?”

  “I think he’ll respect the honor of it,” she said softly, looking into the trees. “Not that I know him very well. I plan on correcting that, as well. I brought him to these mountains and gave him a simple task, but I don’t know what I want from him, and he deserves something. This may be a gesture of goodwill.” She sighed. “He deserves it for everything he’s done for me.”

  Mat slowly leaned on a tree, listening to her.

  “Love?” he asked softly, tilting his head, intrigued. How was it that she continued to surprise him? How did she do this to him every season?

  “The world is shades of grey. I learned that a long time ago. None of the Elvasi we fought deserved to be in the skies, but Trevan might. I think we capture that gryphon and give him the chance. Once, they were our trading partners, friendly rivals. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Nevyn said carefully, nodding. “Okay. We’ll capture it. If it gets to be too much of a problem, though…”

  “Yeah, I’m not asking anyone to die for this.” Mave chuckled. “I just don’t think we should waste a life that could be useful to us.”

  “Agreed,” Kian said with a similar nod as Nevyn’s. “We’re catching a gryphon.”

  Mat smirked as Mave came over to him.

  “Is this what you asked about that night?” he murmured as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Yes. Do you mind?”

  “Love, I’ve been trying not to ask you about Trevan this entire trip. We brought him, Dave, and that mutt to Anden, and he’s been waiting so fucking patiently for someone to give him a purpose. If this will help him feel like Anden truly welcomes him as he deserves…” Mat traced his fingers over her cheekbone then down her neck. “After everything he did for you and me and Rain…” He felt guilty. He should have had dinner with Trevan himself, just to sit down with the Elvasi who went out of his way.