by Amber Argyle
“Mama!” Larkin cried. They pushed past the men and ran to each other. They embraced, tears welling in Larkin’s eyes, their words a flurry around them.
“How are you?” Larkin asked. “How are Sela and the baby?”
“Fine,” Mama said. “Brenna is with Wyn.” Denan’s twelve-year-old brother. “Sela is … different, but she’s fine.”
“Nesha believes me now,” Larkin said. “She freed me from the druids.”
“Is she with you?” Mama asked, pulling back to look behind Larkin.
Lips pursed, Larkin shook her head. She hesitated to ask her next questions, but she must know. “Did Harben make it with Iniya, Raeneth, and the baby?”
Mama winced but nodded. “A patrol brought them in a week ago.”
Larkin wanted to know more, but she wouldn’t push her mother—not about this. It was enough to know they were safe.
Movement smooth as water, Sela slipped her hand in Larkin’s and asked in a clear voice, “What happened to your hair?”
Larkin gaped at her sister. She was talking … but it wasn’t just that. “What happened to your lisp?”
Sela shrugged. “I don’t have it anymore.”
Larkin shot a concerned glance at her mother, who frowned, clearly unhappy. Is this what she’d meant by “different”?
“She can read,” Mama said helplessly. “One day, she just picked up a book as big as her head and started reading it.”
Was Sela’s childhood the price for becoming the Arbor?
Sela tugged on Larkin’s hand until she took a knee before her sister. She stroked her fingers along Larkin’s auburn hair.
“I dyed it to look like Nesha’s,” Larkin said softly.
Sela’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I made a flock for you.”
Now it was Larkin’s turn to be confused. Before she could ask, the king reached them.
“What is it?” King Netrish panted, his ruddy cheeks nearly scarlet. “What’s wrong? And why are there Idelmarchians in my city?”
Mytin embraced Larkin. Ancestors, Denan was built so like his father. She almost broke down then and there. But there would be time for that later. She pushed back as Tam explained how Denan was trapped and about to be ambushed in the rear.
Denan’s father paled. “Light save us. You’re saying we could lose our entire army?”
Tam nodded. “You have to send reinforcements.”
“And leave the entire city unprotected?” the king cried.
“We won’t recover from this,” Tam said. “Not the loss of three thousand men.”
“Women’s magic has returned to us,” Netrish said. “The curse is breaking. We are safe in the Alamant. The druids can do nothing against us.”
“You begged Denan to go after your son,” Larkin said, voice trembling with restrained emotion. “Now you’re just going to abandon them both?”
Netrish’s head dropped, tears shining in his eyes. “Then, we had hope of bringing them all back. But now …”
Tam shook his head. “The Black Druids have the magic. And with the barriers around the Alamant down, our people will be unprotected.”
They would all be dead within a week.
Tears spilled down Netrish’s cheeks. “We can’t help them.”
Larkin heaved in a breath. Her husband, his men—they would all be slaughtered come nightfall. A cry sounded overhead. A bird of prey crossed the sky. Two small copperbills swooped down, taking turns attacking the much larger bird. She remembered reading something in Eiryss’s journals—she’d dismissed it until now. Something about the ancient women warriors being called copperbills.
“A flock,” Sela had said.
Eyes wide, Larkin met her little sister’s gaze.
Sela stood with her arms crossed, as if she’d been waiting for Larkin to acknowledge her. “Aaryn has been training them.”
Her baby sister had made her an army? “How many?”
“Five hundred,” Mama answered proudly.
Larkin flared her sigils, feeling the reassuring weight of her magical blade in her hand. She leveled a look at the king. “We don’t need your army. We have our own.”
Sela motioned for Larkin to follow her. “Come. I’ll show you where they are.”
Netrish blocked their path. “I cannot allow this.”
Larkin leveled him with a look. “You think we will allow our husbands, the fathers of our children, to be slaughtered when we have the means to stop it?”
“Sire,” Mytin said. “In ancient times, the women commanded their own army. You don’t have the jurisdiction to stop them.”
“We cannot risk our most precious commodity!” Netrish said.
“Netrish,” Mytin began.
The king silenced the man with a gesture and rounded on Larkin. “I will not have you meddling in the affairs of my kingdom!”
Mama pushed between them, flaring her own weapons. “You will not speak to my daughter that way.”
Larkin gaped at the sword in Mama’s hand. A slow smile spread across her face. The two of them would never be weaker again.
Shaking herself, she stood shoulder to shoulder with her mother. “It is not just our husbands. Our fathers and brothers fight beside the druids. They don’t understand they will be betrayed.”
“I will imprison every last one of you in the cells on the islands if I have to,” Netrish said.
The same underground cells they’d imprisoned Larkin in after she’d tried to escape the Alamant the first time.
Larkin advanced on the piper king, who grudgingly gave ground before her. “Women’s magic is back. We’re armed. We’re pissed. And we’re done being told what to do.”
Sela held up her hands to both groups. “Stop this.”
The king flinched. “Sela—”
Sela stared at him. “Do you think you can stop me?”
This was not Larkin’s four-year-old sister.
The king pulled out his pipes. “If we have to.”
Sela pointed her finger at him. “Both sacred trees have been working for centuries to set the right people and powers into place. Now is the time to see who will win. And if you think I’m going to leave off one of the most powerful wielders of magic, you are sore mistaken.”
Larkin’s mouth fell open. Sela should be weaving crowns made of flowers, not bossing around kings, but she stepped past the king without looking back. Larkin, Mama, Mytin, West, Tam, and Hanover hurried to follow.
“Stop them,” the king ordered.
Larkin turned. The forest take her, she didn’t want to fight, but she would if she had to. The sentinels who’d accompanied Larkin glanced between them and the king. They were clearly torn.
“Don’t,” Tam warned.
“Sire—” Wott began.
The king rounded on him. “You will do as you’re ordered.”
Wott stared at the king before shaking his head. “I don’t think I will.” He nodded to Larkin. “Go, Princess. I will see supplies gathered for your journey.”
“Sedition,” the king hissed.
Wott bowed. “Sire, my men will accompany you to your home, where you will remain until this is over.”
“Come with me.” Sela led them across bridges.
“What happened to Sela?” Larkin whispered to her mother.
Mama’s eyes were sad. “She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s … old. Inside.”
Ancestors, the price Larkin’s family had already paid for this curse. “Sela,” Larkin asked. “How do you know things?”
Sela eyed her. “The tree gives me visions, same as you.”
Larkin struggled to keep her frustration in check. “How could you know that anyway?”
Having reached the last bridge, they wound down the spiraling stairs to the dock.
“Most people receive thorns,” Sela said. “Saplings grow beneath their skin—new and untrained. But Arbors and monarchs receive a graft from the White Tree itself. Mostly, the Arbor receives visions. The monarch has
the power.”
“But I’m not a monarch or Arbor,” Larkin said.
“No,” Sela agreed. “When I see visions of your role, I see a woman diving into a lake. I don’t know what that means, but I know it has something to do with your ahlea sigil.”
Larkin had had the same vision. She covered her left arm. “I haven’t used it yet.”
“You will. When the time is right.”
“Why have I only received two visions?” Larkin asked, hurt that the tree hadn’t given her the answers she’d desperately needed.
“The tree doesn’t know the future, Larkin. Only the past. She endowed us with power to forge our own path—our own destiny.”
Embrace your destiny. Talox had told her that once. Larkin studied her little sister. “What have you seen?”
“The lives of my ancestors given to the White Tree.”
There was something about the way she said it. “What does that mean?”
“The tree absorbs our dead,” Mytin said.
Larkin shuddered. “But Eiryss died in the Idelmarch.”
“Did she?” Sela whispered.
Larkin eyed her sister. “What do you mean by that?”
“We must hurry,” Sela said.
“Sela—” Larkin began.
“No, Larkin,” Sela said firmly. “Some things are better left unknown.”
Larkin nodded at the gravity in her little sister’s eyes. Sela led the way to a small boat, which they took to an island. Women, hundreds of them, wore armor that was too big for them. Pipers strode among them, correcting form and demonstrating maneuvers. Mytin jumped out of the boat first and hurried up the incline. Larkin helped Sela out.
“Thank you.” Sela sighed and held out her arms. “These small legs are tiring. Will you carry me?”
Ancestors, this wasn’t Larkin’s little sister. Biting her lip, Larkin lifted her onto her back. Halfway up the rise, she looked back to see Tam motion West and Hanover to wait on the dock. Tam scanned the trees.
“Are you coming?” she asked him.
He waved her on. “We’ll make sure no trouble reaches you.”
She gave him a grateful nod and reached the top. Women sparred in practice rings with practice weapons. Sela slid down Larkin’s back.
“Larkin?” Motion to her right. Denan’s mother, Aaryn, strode through women who parted for her, Mytin a step behind. Her long, silky black hair was braided tightly back. She’d put on muscle since Larkin had last seen her, and a wicked bruise marred her right arm. But it was the sigils on her arm that gave Larkin pause.
Aaryn stopped before Larkin. “My army has been waiting for you.”
Her army. A woman who loved weaving and cooking, who had two sons. But then Larkin remembered Wyn bragging that his mother had been trained by her father to fight the pipers. Ironic that she now used that knowledge to protect them.
“Denan—what kind of trouble is he in?” Aaryn asked.
“The kind where he needs an army on his flank,” Sela said.
How did her sister know what a flank was? She was four years old! “It’s not just Denan,” Larkin said. “The druids have formed an alliance with the wraiths.”
Aaryn nodded. “Sela said something like this would happen.” She whistled, long and sharp. “Copperbills!” The women instantly stopped training.
“Copperbills?” Larkin murmured.
“It was what the women warriors were called long ago,” Sela said. “I thought it needed to be redeemed.”
Redeemed from what?
“Tam!” A voice cried. Alorica shoved through the crowd, her dark skin shining with sweat.
Tam left the dock, sprinting up the hill as Alorica sprinted down. They collided, wrapped up in each other, kissing and murmuring endearments. They were opposites of each other—Tam spry, with bright blue eyes and curling hair, and Alorica curvy, with black curls and dark features—but so in love. Larkin’s upper lip curled in distaste and more than a little jealousy.
“Why do men and women do that?” Sela asked, her head cocked to one side.
Larkin chose not to answer.
“Alorica,” Aaryn barked.
Alorica extracted herself from Tam’s arms, though she didn’t let go of his hand.
Kicking aside armor from a table, Aaryn climbed and stared at the gathering women. “The day we’ve trained for is here. Our husbands fight against our fathers, who have made an unholy alliance with the wraiths. And we will save them both.”
Murmurs and shouts of alarm coursed through them.
“Idelmarchians would never ally themselves with the wraiths!” one woman cried.
“The Black Druids slaughtered the Master Druid and his council,” Tam said. “He bears markings—sigils from the Black Tree. I’ve seen their shadow swords myself.”
“Our husbands are trapped.” Larkin’s voice wavered. “When night falls, they will be slaughtered. And you know as well as I the wraiths will then turn on the victors. We will lose all of them.”
“What are we to do?” one woman cried.
“What we have been preparing these last weeks for,” Aaryn said.
“You want us to fight our fathers and brothers to save our husbands?” Alorica asked. She always was a troublemaker. Not to mention that her husband was already back safe.
Larkin shook her head. “I want you to fight mulgars.”
“I only started learning a few weeks ago,” a girl cried.
“Ah, come now,” Tam said. “They’re just mulgars. No smarter than a bird flying into a barrier!” Tam swung his sword in a fancy show. “Come on, ladies, who wants to save your men’s arses?”
Alorica grabbed said arse. “I will!”
Aaryn jabbed her magical sword skyward. “For our fathers, our brothers, and our husbands! For our freedom and our lives!”
Soon after, five hundred women loaded into boats. Larkin was just about to step into one when a hand grabbed her arm. “Larkin.”
She turned to find Caelia behind her, tears running down her cheeks and an infant in her arms. Larkin’s chest ached. “You know?”
Caelia nodded. “Your father told me.”
Did Caelia blame Larkin for not rescuing Bane, for turning her back on him? As if sensing her pain, Sela took Larkin’s hand in her own.
“He was like a brother to me,” Sela said to Caelia.
Caelia tucked her baby under her chin. “Did he say anything? At the end?”
He told me not to look. Larkin couldn’t tell Caelia that. “He was brave. He fought for my life even when he knew his was over.”
Eyes closed, Caelia embraced Larkin. “Thank you for saving my husband.”
Larkin had forgotten about that. Caelia released her. Mama stepped up next. “I have to get back to Brenna. She’ll be hungry. They’re bringing the children here. Those of us who can’t fight will look after them.”
Larkin was glad her mother couldn’t come, glad she and the little ones remained behind the relative safety of the Alamant’s walls. She hugged her mother hard.
Mama stepped back, wiping her eyes. She held out her hand to Sela. “Come along. You can help with the little ones.”
Sela took her hand and walked away without so much as a hug for Larkin.
“Sela?” Larkin called.
She turned back.
“Where is Eiryss’s body? And why can I see visions of her? She was a Valynthian.”
Sela’s eyes went unfocused, as if she were seeing something far away. “The amulet you wear. It was hers.” Her gaze sharpened on Larkin. “Did you find the other one?”
Larkin sagged in relief. She’d been right about the importance of the ahlea amulet, even if she hadn’t found it. “No.”
Sela frowned. “We must have it to defeat the wraiths, Larkin.”
“Why?”
Her eyes went unfocused again. “I can’t see what hasn’t come to pass yet. Only how the amulet was made.”
“You’ve seen that?” The shadows and death. Dray formi
ng the amulet in his hand with the last of his magic. The birth of the wraiths.
Sela’s gaze clouded over. “I’ve seen many things. I have lived so many lives.” She contemplated the bustle at the docks. “You need to hurry if you want to save Denan.”
Unable to resist, Larkin hugged Sela.
“It’s all right,” Sela said. “I’m never alone. I’m not helpless anymore.”
“But you’re a child.”
Sela patted Larkin’s back. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”
Larkin pulled back and said fiercely, “You’re my little sister.”
Sela gripped Larkin’s cheeks in her little hands. Her eyes were heavy with sorrow so deep Larkin couldn’t fathom it. “We’re all going to die. It’s how we live that counts.”
What did that mean? Larkin exchanged a helpless glance with Mama.
“Larkin!” Tam called. “Come on, we’re nearly loaded.”
Larkin split her gaze between her mother and her sister. “Look out for each other.”
“Come back to us, Larkin,” Mama said. “Please, come back.”
Knowing she couldn’t make a promise she might not be able to keep, Larkin left without a word. She stepped into a boat and sat down with Aaryn and Alorica on one side and Tam on the other—West and Hanover were staying behind. They rowed for the city gates, where a few dozen boats waited for them, pipers inside.
Larkin swore. “We can’t fight our way through all of them.”
Tam pointed out a man standing in the center boat. “We won’t have to.”
“I brought supplies,” Wott called. “And a hundred men—it’s all I dare spare.”
Tam grinned. “Pipers can’t let their wives have all the fun.”
Would it be enough? It would have to be. The city couldn’t function with less. Wott motioned, and the gates opened. The boats flowed out.
They took to the river as dark came on. Wott lashed their boats together and mixed the women in with more seasoned fighters—five or so women under the direction of one of the pipers. He and Aaryn stood in the center boat, having agreed to a joint command, with him taking the lead until she found her footing.
