“Anna?” Estalia breathed out, shock rippling through her.
“That is my name, isn’t it? Or at least part of it, My Lady,” Anna said, smiling in return as she closed the door behind her.
Anna was different than she’d been the last time Estalia had seen her, yet at the same time the sight of her sent a thrill of both worry and excitement through Estalia. The angel was sheathed in simple steel armor, but Estalia knew better than to underestimate that armor. It eschewed all adornments yet was better than anything her artificers had produced in the millennia of her rule. Anna’s skin was darker, her feathers and hair the color of silvered steel… yet she was still the beautiful woman that Estalia had known for so long. Yet at the same time a sense of worry and guilt ran through Estalia.
“This is… unexpected,” Estalia said, hesitating for a mere moment, then sheathed her rapier slowly. “I thought… I didn’t expect you to come here so soon, my dear, let alone like this. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you didn’t,” Anna said, gracefully crossing the room and leaning down to pick up the necklace. The angel untangled the chain carefully, then reached out to put it around Estalia’s neck, her voice soft as a morning breeze. “You were just warning me that you might have no other choice but to ask for my help, my dear.”
Estalia half-closed her eyes as Anna effortlessly clasped the necklace despite her gauntlets, mixed feelings still rushing through her. Her guilt eased a little, but her confusion had grown instead, and she asked, “Then why…?”
“The time has come,” Anna said simply, smiling gently at Estalia as she leaned forward to give her a gentle, chaste kiss. Estalia returned it, but Anna pulled away and continued, a note of conviction to her voice that was entrancing. “I’ve rested long enough, that’s the simple version. If you need me, and our daughter does… well, I think that it’s time to stop hiding.”
“Are you certain?” Estalia asked, her voice trembling as she ran her hand down the front of Anna’s armor, hope, wonder, and excitement running through her, even as caution tamped down her hopes. “This… this nearly destroyed you, once. It’s why I never called on you, Anna, even when things were at their worst.”
“Time may not heal all wounds, but it can certainly ease them,” Anna replied, taking a deep breath, then smiled as she nodded slowly. “That said… yes, I’m certain. I feel like myself again, My Goddess.”
“Your goddess? When you are more powerful than I am?” Estalia gently teased, slowly smiling as she murmured, “I wonder what the Holy Council would think of you if they heard that. The great Anathiel, calling a weaker demon queen her goddess.”
Anna laughed and grabbed Estalia under her arms, picking her up and spinning the demoness in the air, prompting a squeal of laughter from Estalia, one which was far more real than any laughter Estalia remembered in the last few weeks.
“Ah, but their opinions don’t matter, remember? At this point none of them were on the council when I was in the heavens,” Anna replied, pulling Estalia in close to kiss her firmly, her eyes glittering brightly in the dim lighting of the room as she smiled. “Besides, with what their negligence has done to Kitania, why should I care? It’s beyond time that someone cleaned house in the heavens.”
“Fair, I suppose. I’ll be much happier with you at my side, my dear,” Estalia said, hugging Anna tightly as relief rushed through her. Despite everything she’d done to prepare over the last few weeks, nothing had made her entirely happy. There were just too many unknowns to be confident of success.
However, with Anna by her side that changed. Estalia would be willing to challenge the gates of the heavens with her beloved by her side, and that was important. Even better was that Anna wasn’t wanting to hide, though it brought something else to mind.
Running a finger down the side of Anna’s face, her right arm wrapped around the angel’s back, Estalia asked softly, “Hmm… if you’re done hiding, does that mean you’re going back to Anathiel, then?”
“Mm, I don’t know. We’ll see how I feel about it, but it would come in handy when we face any archangels,” Anna said, her eyes glittering even more as she straightened, pulling Estalia up with her. “Assuming they remember me, of course.”
“And if they believe you’re who you claim to be,” Estalia murmured softly, breathing in the scent of her beloved as she smiled. “It has been a long time.”
“If they don’t believe me, I’ll just have to beat them into submission, I suppose,” Anna replied, her tone playful. “Now… how about you take me on a tour of the palace? It’s been centuries since I last visited, and you’ve performed some renovations.”
“Certainly!” Estalia said, smiling widely as she nodded, then teased, “Besides, it’ll give me a chance to introduce you and explain why you didn’t set off all the wards when you entered the palace. While I wouldn’t mind the guards getting additional training, I wouldn’t want you to disable all of them. We might need them, after all.”
“A fair point,” Anna agreed, smiling a little wider as she set Estalia down carefully. “As it is, they need to rely less on the wards and more on their eyes. I got inside far too easily, and my appearance isn’t that subtle.”
Estalia nodded, amused at the implications of that. The captain of the guard would not be pleased to hear about his people being lax.
On the other hand, Estalia honestly couldn’t be bothered to care at the moment. She was too happy about finally having her beloved back.
Chapter 15
Kitania thought Ness was a beautiful continent for the most part, though it wasn’t truly that different than most of the others. The lowlands were predominantly deciduous trees, while she could see more pine trees on the upper reaches of some of the mountains they passed.
Ness was predominantly populated by humans from what Kitania had seen, which meant that most of their journey had been spent passing fields of various farmers, small towns that were almost as crude as some in the hells, and the occasional bits of wilderness. They were going through one of the latter, which Kitania found entertaining, in a morbid sort of way.
The forest they were passing through was darker than most of the forests Kitania had seen in the mortal world, and she could sense the hush pervading the forest. From what the people in the town they’d stayed in the previous night had said, the Southern Forest was the domain of numerous potent manticores and drakes, which the neighboring nations had set aside as a wilderness which they could send their knights into for training. Kitania simply found the name a terrible misnomer, since they were so far to the north.
“How close are we to the Scarlet Peaks?” Maura suddenly asked, her voice breaking the silence and almost making Kitania flinch. Mostly due to the content of the question than by speaking, though.
“Hm? Oh, not that close. See those mountains to our east?” Rose replied after a moment, nodding to their east, and toward the peaks barely visible through the trees. “Those are the outskirts of them. The war… well, the demons landed well to the east of Port Hope and moved north, avoiding most of the major strongholds on their way, until the Alliance of Light met them in battle.”
“They used to be called the Moonlit Mountains, from the way the snows gleamed at night under the radiance of the heavenly gate,” Vinara said, her voice musing, and Kitania could hear the note of sadness in her voice, an emotion that she shared. The two of them had lost a great many friends in the battle, and both of them had been injured before it ended. “The battle there was… bad. If it weren’t for how violent Rosken was, and how it ended, I think the Scarlet Peaks would be far more infamous. I doubt anyone truly knows how many people were lost over the course of it.”
“I’ve only heard legends, but it was enough to shake the heavens, from what I did hear,” Isalla commented, looking around them as she did so, the angel looking a bit restless. “Lynn? Didn’t you say they spent several years building the Adamant Pinnacle after that?”
“Yes, that’s right. How close the army ca
me to breaching a gate into the heavens shocked the three orders, since nothing of the sort had happened since Anathiel led the second crusade against the hells, and they chose to expend an enormous amount of resources to ensure that the gate was defended more thoroughly than it was before,” Rose confirmed, wincing slightly as she shook her head. “I also heard that was why all the continents with gates near them had fortresses built or expanded after that as well.”
“Interesting… I never thought of it that way, but the heavens never have really been under siege, have they?” Yain asked, tilting her head as she thought. “I know tales of the war, of course, but they primarily focus on what involved the Forest of Sighs.”
“Unsurprising, as far as I’m concerned,” Kitania said, shrugging slightly as she sighed, considering before she spoke again, a hint of sorrow rippling through her. “There’re thousands of years of records about the war, and at a certain point… no matter how long-lived even angels or demons are, you can’t begin to absorb the true weight of history which exists. It simply makes sense to focus on the parts that are most applicable to your life and experiences.”
“Unfortunately, that same focus can be counterproductive as well,” Isalla added seriously, looking at Kitania guiltily. “I certainly didn’t know enough about demons until after I was betrayed, and it meant that I made all sorts of assumptions that I shouldn’t have. I think the sheer amount of history behind the war breeds more misunderstandings, and that leads to people almost delighting in killing one another.”
“Not necessarily delighting, but it can happen,” Rose agreed, shifting in her saddle a little, and her horse whickered as she did so. “I certainly don’t care for how things were portrayed to me growing up.”
“Ah, Yain? Do you see that?” Maura interrupted before anyone else could speak, her voice soft and slightly tense. Kitania couldn’t help the tension which suddenly began coiling inside her, not when the elf sounded like she was on edge.
“What… oh, yeah,” Yain said, her voice turning grim as she looked at the road ahead of them, almost murmuring. “Let’s see… four sniper blinds?”
“That’s what I see,” Maura agreed, and Kitania bit back the urge to swear as she glanced casually at the road ahead of them.
The trees extended branches over the road like huge green eaves, granting plenty of dappled sunlight and shadows around them, and most of the trunks were mottled with moss, as were the rocks that rested on the sides of the road. It was a tangled forest to say the least, and the environment was different enough from Kitania’s home that it took her a moment to pick out anything unusual. The birds were quieter, though, and after a few moments she thought she caught a hint of movement from behind some rocks. They hadn’t stopped moving despite the warning, though, as they’d discussed the possibility of an ambush a few days earlier. They also didn’t want to give away the fact they’d noticed the attackers, since reversing an ambush could be devastating. Besides, they’d been traveling in full armor since bandit attacks were known to happen throughout this region.
“Our planned response, then?” Kitania asked softly, her tension growing a little more. It wasn’t worry for herself, of course.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” Maura said, glancing back as she asked, “You alright, Emma? You aren’t saying much.”
“I’m perfectly well, Ms. Maura. I simply don’t have much to contribute,” the angel replied politely.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kitania murmured, trying to keep from watching the spots she could see too closely. She didn’t want the ambushers to realize that they’d been spotted. It was foolish of them to try ambushing elven soldiers in a forest, in Kitania’s opinion, but after an instant she shook her head internally. The soldiers escorting her and Niadra had been ambushed by angels, so it wasn’t as simple as that.
“Perhaps, My Lady, but the simple truth is that I rarely have much to add that wouldn’t be out of place,” Eziel replied calmly, shaking her head slowly. “In fact, I often believe that any interjection would do more harm than good, so I choose to remain silent.”
“I… think I understand,” Kitania said, glancing at Isalla and Rose speculatively, but didn’t say anything more. She’d noticed that Isalla held at least a mild grudge where Eziel was concerned, but her friend hadn’t acted on the anger, so Kitania had left them alone. She wasn’t sure how to fix it, anyway.
“Perhaps you do, My Lady. I can only do what I am able to,” Eziel replied simply, her smile warm and brief. Unfortunately, Kitania didn’t have time to continue the vein of conversation, as they were closing on the ambush site.
A few flickers of movement caught Kitania’s eye, enough to have warned her of the ambush even without the earlier warning. The ambushers obviously weren’t quite ready to strike yet, but she saw Vinara’s fingers twitch, which was the signal.
Kitania’s voice rose at the same time as Vinara’s, each of them chanting the words of their spells as they drew the runes in mid-air. Vinara’s runes were fiery red, while Kitania’s were violet, and Kitania heard cries of shock from around them along with cursing, but the rustling of branches as they tried to move was just a little too slow.
Kitania’s spell finished, and a glowing barrier of purple light snapped into existence just as the first arrows began flying, then bounced off the shield uselessly as a motley assortment of humans and a lone dwarf swarmed out of the forest. They’d obviously rushed their attempt to attack, as they were coming in dribs and drabs, but behind them Kitania heard a sonorous voice begin chanting in turn, and the demoness winced at his poor timing, as it was just as Vinara finished her spell.
A deafening crack exploded through the forest as a lightning bolt blasted from Vinara’s hands and into the forest toward that voice, which cut off with a shriek of warbling pain, the man on the other end obviously not appreciating the blast, and neither did the three bandits who’d been struck by the bolt as well, as they were now writhing on the ground.
As the horses began panicking, Kitania quickly dismounted, as had everyone but Vinara. The succubus would be responsible for keeping the horses from running too far, and a bow twanged behind her, sending an arrow into the shoulder of one of the bandits while Kitania drew her sword. Eziel, Maura, and Yain would be using their bows, while Isalla, Rose, and Kitania took the bandits head-on.
Rose cut down the lead bandit mercilessly, her voice cold as she spoke loudly. “Bandits? Well, I suppose refuse can be found anywhere. Time to clean it up.”
The following bandits hesitated slightly, likely due to the chilling effect of Rose’s words, but it was only a moment before Isalla and Kitania reached Rose’s side, and more bandits were pouring out of the trees as arrows plinked off her barrier. Kitania didn’t have time to think about that, instead focusing exclusively on dealing with the ones who were already close.
Isalla took Rose’s right, while Kitania rushed forward, kicking back a bandit with a grunt as she blocked the woman’s spear, then slammed her sword through the woman’s gut when her guard went down. The woman fell with a cry of pain, and Kitania flipped the spear into the air with her foot, caught it, then threw it into the next bandit.
Beside her several more bandits went down, and still more screamed as they were struck by arrows. The bandits quickly began to waver, and Kitania couldn’t help a sinister smile as a young man backpedaled in front of her, trying not to come into reach. Bandits weren’t trained soldiers, and it often didn’t take much effort to break their morale.
A man stumbled out of the bushes, his skin scorched with a spiderweb of black marks like lightning, and he roared. “Get them, already! Like they’ll let us go, so at them, lads!”
Then the man began snapping out the words of a spell, even as the bandits started surging forward again. Kitania blocked a man’s sword and riposted, cutting deep into his shoulder as he gasped and fell back. For her part, Kitania wasn’t worried as she watched the enemy mage, since she knew Vinara—
Vinara cut off Kitania’s
thoughts with a single calm word, and a beam of fire the width of Kitania’s hand ripped through the air at the man, striking him in the throat. Kitania winced and looked away as she heard sizzling, then the man fell to his knees. Several of the bandits screamed in horror, and those in front of Kitania hesitated, slowing their approach.
Rose and Kitania barely hesitated, stepping into the attackers instead as they ruthlessly cut into the men and women. Kitania regretted it, wincing as blood sprayed onto her as the hesitant young man fell, but she knew better than to stop. If the bandits had been able to, she and the others would die or be captured and abused, and she’d never allow that to happen.
The bandits broke and ran at last, many of them screaming as they scattered into the forest. A couple of final arrows bounced off Kitania’s shield, but then they stopped too. Most of the bandits were running, but behind her the bows of the others still were rapidly firing, cutting down many of the fleeing bandits. In front of Rose and Isalla a pair of bandits threw down their weapons and fell to their knees suddenly.
“Mercy! Please, have mercy on us!” the young man said, blinking rapidly as a cut above his eyes bled. “We surrender!”
“Oh? And how many travelers have you shown mercy?” Rose asked, a predatory edge to her voice as she extended her sword so the blade was at his throat. “Do you cut them down mercilessly?”
“No! I mean, we let people go plenty of times, and… and…” the man stuttered, swallowing hard, then the woman interrupted, sounding a tiny bit calmer than he did, though her dark eyes were moving back and forth nervously.
“We normally raid merchants, and if they don’t put up a fight we let them go with at least some of their things,” the woman said softly, her hands clearly visible as she watched Isalla warily. “People like you, the boss rarely gave a chance to surrender, though. He said your type was too dangerous. I guess he was right about that much.”
Hell's Ascendant (Mantles of Power Book 3) Page 11
