Lady Smoke

by Laura Sebastian

  Søren has the grace to look ashamed. “It’s important to understand it,” he says, his voice clear. “To see it.”

  “That won’t accomplish anything,” Blaise says, but there’s an edge of fear in his voice. His hand shakes in mine; the air around him simmers. I squeeze his hand and the air stills, but his eyes remain wide and afraid.

  He doesn’t want me to see it, I realize. He doesn’t want me to see how he will die if the same fate ever befalls him. I don’t think he wants to see it either—it’s easy to be noble about dying when it’s abstract, but I’m sure it’s much harder when the process unfolds before your eyes.

  “She’s stronger than you think she is,” Søren says. There is no bite to his voice, but Blaise hears one. He turns to Søren with hateful eyes.

  “I know how strong she is,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “I knew it when you believed her to be a weak flower in need of protecting.”

  Søren doesn’t say anything to that, though a muscle in his jaw twitches. His hand wanders to the sword at his hip. I know he’s taken on Artemisia’s usual duty, that he has instructions on what to do if Blaise becomes a danger to us. The thought sickens me. Søren must realize that Blaise is only angry, not dangerous, because his hand stills.

  “Right now I believe her to be someone who can make her own decisions,” he says, his voice level.

  I swallow, though I force my eyes back to the battlefield, back to the ten Astreans being unchained. They’re delirious, stumbling every few steps they take, wobbling on their feet. One man’s knees buckle and he falls to the ground only to be forcefully yanked back up by a guard.

  “They’re drugged,” Søren explains quietly. “It keeps them manageable, makes them more inclined to follow directions.”

  The Kalovaxian commanders press gems into their hands, which they accept eagerly, the way a parched man would accept water.

  “To push them over the edge,” I remember Erik saying when he told me about berserkers. But he didn’t tell me how it affects them. As soon as they touch the gems, it’s like something deep in them sparks to life. Something feral and inhuman. The air around them sharpens.

  Gems in hand, the berserkers take a few hesitant steps toward my army. Their movements are still slow and drugged, but there is an energy to their movements now that is unnatural. They jerk like puppets on strings being urged forward by some force I can’t see.

  My army hesitates. It doesn’t matter that we knew this would likely come, that everyone had been instructed on what to do when it did. It doesn’t matter that a few dozen warriors have arrows nocked and ready for just this moment. They hesitate in the face of it, and I can’t even blame them for that. The figures approaching are not berserkers, after all. That is a Kalovaxian word for a Kalovaxian idea. They are not weapons; they are people. Sick people who need help we can’t give them. We can only offer the mercy of an arrow to the heart.

  “Shoot,” Blaise murmurs under his breath, his gaze intent. “Shoot now.”

  Søren, however, remains silent, his eyes heavy on the scene.

  Finally, one arrow fires, striking a berserker man square in the chest. He looks down at it, the drugs in his system making his reaction slow. He falls to the ground as if he’s sinking through water instead of air.

  That shot breaks the spell and other arrows follow, some missing, others finding their target. Berserkers drop, one after another, gems tumbling from their slackened grips and rolling away harmlessly. I count them as they die, my heart lurching with each one. They all die mercifully, until only one is left, a young girl who can’t be more than eight. Her steps drag like she’s forgotten how to walk, and though I’m too far away to say for sure, I think she’s crying.

  The arrows stop but she doesn’t. She takes another step, then another, crossing the field between armies, a figure so tiny that she nearly disappears altogether.

  Even Blaise is silent now, though I know all of us are waiting for it, waiting for the arrow to fly and find its target, waiting for someone to end this, to put her out of her misery.

  No one does. No one can.

  The girl reaches our front lines before stopping short. Standing in front of thousands of armed warriors, she looks even smaller. Too small, surely, to hurt anyone. My armies retreat as quickly as they can, but for many it isn’t quick enough.

  Something sparks. She sparks. One moment she is there, a crying, frightened girl, and the next she is a ball of flame, engulfing everything around her for yards. They scream as they burn, but she screams the loudest.

  I stumble back a step and it takes everything I have not to look away, not to turn from the gruesome sight until it’s over, but I somehow don’t. I keep watching, even when it feels like it will kill me.

  The fire dies as quickly as it started, and all that is left is a fifty-foot circle of charred grass and close to thirty burned corpses, including one that is far too small.

  I’m going to be sick. I lift my hand to my mouth and breathe through my nose until my churning stomach stills.

  “It could have been worse,” Søren says quietly. “It could have been much worse.”

  I know he’s right, but I still have to fight the urge to slap him.

  Erik told me about berserkers, he told me what happened, what they became, but no words could have prepared me for the reality of it, for the feral humanity of the people, how they cried as they walked to their deaths.

  My army is as shocked as I am, and they are slow to respond. The Kalovaxians are not. They use our hesitation to push forward, gaining the few yards that we fought so hard for before my army gets a hold of themselves.

  But when they do push back, they are angrier than ever.

  THE BATTLE RAGES ON FOR hours, but there are no more berserkers and for that I am grateful. I know it will be a long while before I close my eyes to sleep without seeing that crying girl in my nightmares. I’m not the only one shaken—Blaise hasn’t said a word since it happened, though against all odds we actually appear to be winning now. It’s a slow progress, fighting for every inch we gain, but it’s progress.

  By the time the sun is directly overhead, we reach the slave quarters and a few dozen warriors slip in to free the slaves there. There are still Kalovaxians remaining—maybe a couple hundred fighting with everything they have—but I can’t imagine they won’t surrender any minute, especially once the slaves who want to fight join the fray. Stubborn as Kalovaxian warriors are, they know a lost cause when they see one.

  “Should we start making our way down?” I ask, but Søren holds up a hand, his brow furrowing deeply.

  “Something isn’t right,” he says, staring at the battle still raging as if it’s a puzzle he can’t solve. “They should have surrendered by now. It doesn’t make sense.” He pauses and the color leaves his face. “Unless they know help is coming.”

  I shake my head. “That’s impossible, Søren,” I say. “The closest soldiers are days away. They couldn’t possibly arrive quickly enough.”

  His frown deepens as his eyes scan the horizon, but it’s Blaise who finally lifts a finger to point east.

  “There,” he says, voice a hoarse whisper.

  My eyes follow to where he points and my stomach plummets. There, snaking through the mountain ranges, is another army all dressed in Kalovaxian red.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I say, more to myself than to them.

  Søren’s jaw clenches.

  “King Etristo got word to my father,” he says. “It’s the only explanation I can think of. He put the pieces together and figured out where we were going and sent word ahead. We took our time getting here—a single, fast ship could have made it to the capital in half the time.”

  My gut sinks lower as I stare at the incoming troops. A seemingly endless red ribbon of soldiers weaving its way through the mountains.

  �
��How many, do you think?” I ask Søren.

  He looks at me, his gaze unflinching. “Too many.”

  I nod. I expected as much, but hearing it makes me feel sick all over again.

  “We have to retreat,” I say. “We freed the slaves, that’s enough. It’s still a victory and there’s no other option. If we stay, we’ll be slaughtered.”

  Søren nods, but Blaise is faster, hurrying around to the opposite side of the cliff, overlooking the sea. He shades his eyes against the sun.

  “Wait a minute,” he says. “There are ships coming from this direction, too.”

  My stomach sinks lower. “Kalovaxian ships?” I ask, struggling to stay calm. If they’re surrounding us on all sides, we are done for. We haven’t just lost a battle, we will have lost everything.

  “No,” Blaise says after a moment that seems to last forever. His voice lifts. “No, those are Gorakian flags.”

  Erik. I send thanks to all of my gods and I make a mental note to ask Erik about his gods so I can thank them as well.

  “And…,” Blaise says, peering in another direction. “And there are more. A few of the ships have Vecturian flags and, Theo, I…I think I see Dragonsbane as well.”

  My knees give out beneath me and I would fall to the ground entirely if Søren didn’t steady me with his hand on my shoulder. It takes me a moment to realize I’m laughing. Delirious, hysterical laughter, but laughter all the same.

  “Will it be enough?” I ask Søren.

  “Two camps will give us another four thousand or thereabouts, plus the warriors we still have, plus the slaves we just freed, plus a couple hundred Vecturians, plus Dragonsbane’s crew,” he says, tallying up the numbers in his head. After a moment, he nods. “It just might be.”

  “We can still run,” Blaise says. “All of us can, then regroup and attack another mine.”

  I shake my head. “That’s what the Kaiser will expect us to do,” I say. “He’ll expect us to run from him—he’s used to people running from him. He’ll make sure we don’t get another chance to embarrass him like this. It’s now or never.”

  Blaise nods, eyes somber. “I’ll get word to our army, update them on what’s happening, tell them to get the freed slaves armed or to safety as soon as we can.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but I know it’s the best choice. I can’t very well go myself, and if Søren shows up looking like a Kalovaxian, he’ll likely wind up dead before my army realizes he’s not an enemy.

  “Come back quickly,” I say instead.

  Blaise stares long and hard at the battle below.

  “No,” he says, the word quiet and clear, though he won’t look at me. It feels like it echoes in the distance between us, but I think that’s only in my head.

  No. No. No. It occurs to me suddenly that Blaise has never said that to me. He’s disagreed with me often enough and argued his point until I came around to his way of thinking, but he’s never outright refused me.

  “Blaise,” I say, taking a step toward him. “After what we just saw—”

  “After what we just saw, I know more than ever where I need to be.” He says it quietly, but there’s steel in his voice. “I’ll stay close to Artemisia. If it looks like I’m losing control, I trust her to make the judgment call—kill me or let me kill as many of them as I can.”

  I take a step closer to him, placing a hand on either side of his face and forcing him to look at me. “Blaise, you can’t. You won’t. I’ll order you—I’m ordering you to stay here. As your Queen, I’m ordering you.”

  I don’t sound like anyone’s queen, I realize that as I say the words, but in this moment I’m not. I’m just a frightened girl begging a boy she loves not to leave her. I hate it, but I can’t stop.

  Blaise swallows, his eyes heavy on mine. “No.” It seems to kill him to say the word.

  Tears sting at my eyes and I blink them away furiously. He won’t see me cry over him.

  “I’ll never forgive you if you do this,” I say, biting the words out.

  He glances away from me.

  “I know,” he says softly, looking at Søren over my shoulder. “You know what to do if it looks like we’re going to lose—even if there’s the slightest chance.”

  Søren’s voice is strained. “I’ll get her back to the ship,” he promises.

  Blaise nods before gently extracting himself from my grip. He looks at me for a moment that seems to go on forever. “I love you, Theo,” he says.

  “If you did, you wouldn’t do this,” I say, sharpening each word to a dagger’s point.

  He recoils like my words physically hurt him, then turns away from me.

  As he makes his way down the mountain, he doesn’t look back once, even though I’m sure he can hear me crying his name until he reaches the bottom.

  * * *

  —

  Erik and Dragonsbane arrive mere moments before the Kalovaxian reinforcements do, and when the troops clash it is a cacophony straight out of a nightmare. Metal clangs against metal, screams pierce the air, battle cries mix and mingle until I’m not sure whose are whose. All of it bounces and echoes off the mountains so that it surrounds me. The scene before my eyes is a blur of bodies and blood that seems to go on forever, but I only watch one figure in particular.

  It should be hard to find Blaise at this distance, with nothing to differentiate him the way Artemisia’s hair distinguishes her, but it isn’t. Even in the madness, I find him easily, sword in hand and a wildness to his every move that is terrifying.

  Søren doesn’t say anything when I can’t stop crying. He seems a bit frightened of me, keeping a careful distance and pretending he doesn’t notice. I realize distantly that he hasn’t been around many crying women. When my sobs finally do quiet, he allows himself to speak.

  “Blaise is reckless, but he isn’t stupid,” he says. Though the words are clipped, he seems to be trying to sound compassionate. “He will be all right.”

  “He’s not in control of what happens,” I say, wiping my eyes. I remember the earthquake in Sta’Crivero, how close he came to losing all control before I pulled him back from that edge. Who will pull him back if it happens now? Artemisia will put a sword in his back if she thinks he’s more of a danger to our army than the Kalovaxians. She will even think it’s a mercy.

  Søren shrugs. “He seems to have more control than any berserker I’ve seen. A few slips don’t mean that using his power will kill him.”

  I know he’s right, but it doesn’t bring me much comfort.

  Blaise left me, after everything. After everyone I’ve loved and lost, I can’t lose him, too.

  “Theo,” Søren says.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, wiping my eyes again.

  “It isn’t that,” he says, his words tentative. “I think…I think my father is here.”

  That shocks me out of my thoughts. “What?” I ask, blinking away unshed tears. “The Kaiser never goes to battle.”

  “He isn’t fighting,” he says, squinting into the distance. “He’s watching, like we are. And I think Crescentia is with him.”

  Cress. My heart lurches in my chest and I hurry to Søren’s side, peering in the same direction he is.

  “There,” he says, pointing. “That mountain range, the cliff. Do you see?”

  I do. They are difficult to miss in their ornate chairs that must have taken a good portion of the Kalovaxian army to bring all this way. There is even a red silk canopy above their heads, to shield them from the sun. As if it’s some kind of festivity they’re witnessing instead of a battle. I can’t see their faces, but that’s just as well.

  “Why would he come all this way?” I ask him.

  Søren thinks about it for a moment. “Because you embarrassed him by escaping,” he says. “Because he wants to see you destroyed.”

  My
stomach sours. “Well, he won’t,” I say. “It’s a shame you aren’t a more skilled archer, Søren. We could end this here and now.”

  Søren shakes his head. “Even if I could make the shot, my father isn’t stupid. I’m sure he’s as armored as he can be. We can’t let them see us, though,” he says, taking a step back into the shade of the mountain and pulling me with him. “He’ll send men here to take us.”

  I nod, heart thundering in my chest.

  “Søren, can you promise me something?”

  He looks at me, perplexed, but nods. “What is it?”

  I swallow. “If they do come for us, if it looks like they’re going to take us—I want you to kill me.”

  His eyes widen. “Theo, no,” he says.

  “I won’t be his prisoner again, Søren. You can do it or I’ll throw myself over these cliffs, though I’d imagine that would be far more painful than if you did it, so I’m asking you.”

  Søren holds my gaze for a long moment before nodding once. “If it comes to it,” he says, though I’m not sure I believe him.

  * * *

  —

  Søren and I huddle together, pressed against the mountain for hours, until the battlefield falls silent.

  “Is it over?” I ask.

  Søren looks confused. “I can’t imagine so,” he says. “Wait a moment.”

  He slides onto his stomach and crawls to the edge of the cliff, peering over to the battlefield below before glancing back at me.

  “They’re flying a flag, the fighting’s stopped,” he says, his eyebrows tightly knit.

  “Surrender?” I ask, surprised. Even in my sweetest dreams, I’d never imagined a surrender this easy.

  Søren shakes his head. “It’s a yellow one, for a parlay. The Kaiser wants to speak to the head of our army. He wants to speak with you.”

  SØREN WILL COME WITH ME to meet with the Kaiser, though neither of us says as much out loud. It is simply understood. Søren says the meeting will take place in closed quarters—the mine commandant’s barracks, more than likely—with a single guard from each of our armies posted outside. While we are meeting, there will be no blood shed by either party.