by Elena Lawson
Tugging on my boots and a long jacket, I slipped outside into the cold light of day—my eyes rebelling against the sudden onslaught of gray tinged light.
I squinted at the mass of bodies diligently marching their way out from the town, heading north. As my eyes adjusted, I realized none noticed me. And really, I didn’t think they noticed much of anything at all. Moving closer, I found grim faces shadowed under the heavy steel of their helms. Heads bent. Pale skinned.
They marched as if to certain death. My stomach dropped at the sight. A tendril of ice chasing a shiver up my spine. They looked like dead men—empty corpses propelled forward by nothing more than their sense of duty and the smallest sliver of hope that perhaps their lives wouldn’t be wasted.
I could see it—but more than that I could sense it. My Grace of emotion opened up of its own accord, swallowing up their despair and their fear and their dread and their regrets. Their emotions roiled within me, making me gag against the vulgar, unfiltered truth of it.
Not even one of them thought we could win this… And thinking like that…
We’ve already lost.
I threw up the mental wall around my mind like Alaric taught me, blocking out all the pain and misery. Sealing up the cracks. A glint of shining steel caught my eye, and I turned to find Silas standing off to the side of the road where the legion of his army marched—seeing them off, ensuring they maintained formation.
Unclenching my fists, I ran over to him, my boots slipping on the half-frozen earth. “Silas,” I breathed, and he turned to zero in on me, wide-eyed.
“Liana? What in the gods—”
I shook my head. “Stop them,” I said, gesturing wildly to the hundreds of male and female warriors still steadily moving as one unit.
“What for?”
“Just do it, Silas.”
He pursed his lips and a glint of condescending annoyance crossed his bright eyes, but after a moment he gave in. Shrugged and heaved a rasping sigh.
Placing his fingers between his lips, he blew the loudest, longest whistle I’d ever had the misfortune to hear. “Halt!” he bellowed and as one the unit braked, turning to face their captain before pressing their feet firmly to the earth, squared towards us.
They looked at us but did not see us. Their eyes glazed. My heart broke for them. Once they noticed who I was, they knelt. Falling in groups to one knee, like a wave of dominos blown over by a rogue wind.
But this was not how my court would fall. I wouldn’t let it.
“Well,” Silas said after a moment, his one brow raised in challenge, “They’ve stopped.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Stand,” I shouted, my voice cracking.
My nails dug into my palms and an anxious sweat slicked the back of my neck, staining my ears red.
Breathe, Liana…
I steeled myself, allowing the anger and the frustration that had been begging to be set loose within me rile into something like courage. “I know you’re afraid,” I called out into the growing light of day and saw some of them come back to life at my words.
“I know you think we can’t win.”
The whispers began, and Silas opened his mouth to bark a command for them to come back to order, but I silenced him with a steady hand.
“You think you’re walking to your deaths! That the Mad King will cut you down and take your lands—take my crown.”
I had their attention now. Their faces a mirror of the disgust I carried like a layer of ichor on my flesh. My hands shook at my sides. The unadulterated fury rushing through my veins like a pack of wolves charging in for the kill.
I leaned in, attempting to meet as many of their stares as I could. “You. Are. Wrong.”
Now or never…
In my peripherals, I noticed Alaric stop in his tracks at the sight of me addressing the Horde. See Kade and Finn emerge from the tent, bleary-eyed, trying to find where the sound of my voice emanated from. And Tiernan, stepping out of the town tavern with a group of other males, looking as though he’d drowned his own sorrow in the depths of a bottle or two.
My warriors. They needed to hear this as much as these soldiers did. And as much as I needed to say it and feel it and believe it.
We would all need to if we had any chance in this war.
“We can win.” I stated as though it were obvious, though by the pinched noses and furrowed brows before me, it was obviously far from it.
“We are stronger,” I yelled, my lungs heaving and pulse soaring, “We are smarter.” Heat grew to a blazing fire in my core, coiling for the strike. Waiting for my command. “We are faster.”
The shaking in my hands stopped, “And we are more powerful!”
I drew in a steadying breath, lifting my hands, palms to the sky. Open. Accepting. Hoping for acceptance and understanding in return.
“They told you I was Graced with the power to heal the sick and mend the wounded. A Grace stronger than any had ever seen.”
I turned to my males, finding them stone-faced, their hands curling around their weapons in anticipation of having to use them.
Please don’t see me as a monster… I sent out the silent plea. See me as what I am…
A weapon to wield against our enemy.
“That was a lie,” I growled, “I can heal… but I can also do this—”
I raised my hands higher, projecting a column of flames from my palms, chased from my core by anger and hatred. I screamed my fury until the release was over and it left me breathing hard and fast.
“And this,” I hissed through clenched teeth, forming twin blades of the strongest ice in my grip. I spun, slicing at a wooden training post stuck in the ground behind us. Reduced it to splinters.
Before the splintered wood could fall to the ground, I flicked my fingers. My Grace of air whirled through me like a vortex, spinning out through my fingertips to send the chunks and bits of wood spiraling in to the air above us. There I held then in a spinning torrent of wind.as though the ability had been there all along. It hadn’t ever left me. It was innate. A reflex.
“And this.”
Propelling the wind from me, I tossed the pieces through the air, sending them flying to land crashing into the woods behind the village. The moment I let go of the Grace, my head spun, and my breathing became more shallow.
Spots of blue and black danced in the corners of my eyes. But I bared my teeth, planted my feet to the ground and stood tall. They couldn’t see me weak. They had to think me strong, Unbreakable. Fearsome and more powerful than any queen they’d followed before.
As my eyes struggled to focus and my healing Grace tried and failed to repair whatever damage I’d just done, I saw them. The fear of the unknown was plain on their faces.
Alaric’s hand closed around my upper arm, pulling me back from them. Fear led people to do foolish things. But they were smarter.
They were denizens of Night. My people. I had more faith in them than that.
A clang! rang out from the group. The jarring sound of flesh and bone on metal. I found her face in the throng of warriors. With her closed fist and eyes gleaming with wild devotion she pounded on her breastplate. A sign of respect.
And then another joined her.
Another.
Until the cacophonous rattling of metal and impassioned roars filled the village. My head. The world. I clutched Alaric for support, my chest so full it was near bursting.
With wonder in his gaze and mouth parted in awe, Silas didn’t take his eyes off me as he raised his sword high in the air, “Move out!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alaric
She’d slept most of the day after we’d sequestered her away from the prying eyes and jabbering maws of Silas and the other Fae in the village. She’d fallen onto the bed and drifted back into sleep within seconds. Her breathing shallow and skin paled.
Finn said we should send for a healer, and I wanted to agree, but I knew she wouldn’t want that. And there wasn’t a healer
in these parts of her court—and Loris wouldn’t be arriving until the following morning to set up the infirmary.
She shouldn’t have used so much power for something as rudimentary as a display for the Horde.
When Liana finally awoke it was night, and the camp was bustling with life again. The next group of soldiers had arrived, and the smell of meat roasting on an open fire had my stomach in knots with hunger. All of us had been too afraid to leave her side—afraid she’d slip into the kind of sleep you didn’t wake up from…
She sat up with a hand to her head, averting her gaze from us—a blush crawling up her neck to bloom in her cheeks. Arrow cawed loudly from his new post atop the coatrack in the cabin's corner.
“Yes, I see you. Hello, Arrow,” she whispered in a raspy voice, and the falcon came to land softly on the fur next to her. She patted his back, ruffled the tiny feathers on his breast.
I cleared my throat, turning to pour a glass of water.
A tickle in my mind alerted me to her gentle probe of my emotional state. I smirked. But her Grace seemed to recoil all at once and I felt the strain. Like a rubber band pulled too tightly—stretched too thin.
“Quite a show you put on,” I said, kneeling next to her.
Arrow snapped at me, screeching before he took flight, landing back on his post.
She peeked up at me through her lashes, and then lifted her head fully, seeming to calm at what she saw. “Are you—” she started, swallowing, “Do you think it was a mistake?”
I shook my head, “No, I don’t think it was a mistake. Word is already spreading, and the Horde is rallying for battle. They have a renewed sense of hope and a thirst for the blood of their enemies.”
“But?”
“But you shouldn’t have exhausted yourself like that. Using all your Graces at once. You could die of you push yourself beyond your limits, Liana. Please don’t scare us like that again.”
She scowled, crossing her arms over her chest, “I’ll need to push myself harder than that if we’re going to win,” she said with a note of defiance, “When I’m on the front line, I’ll have—”
My stomach leapt into my throat, “The front lines?”
“Liana, are you mad?” Tiernan said, his green eyes widening.
“You will not be going anywhere near the front lines.”
Her jaw tightened, and she glared at me. At all of us. Moving to stand on wobbly feet with her hands on her hips. “If you think for one second that I will stay here twiddling my thumbs while the denizens of my court fight for our freedom, you lot are the mad ones!”
“Liana,” Finn started, holding his hands out toward her in a calming gesture, but the wild-eyed Liana before us was beyond being calmed. I could sense her building rage and frustration crashing into me like an assault on my mind.
“Listen,” Finn said, “I know it’s hard to accept, but you have to understand—if you were to…” he cringed, his adams apple bobbing as he swallowed, “If you were to fall in the battle. He’ll win.”
I could see the gears turning in her mind, but her fury didn’t dissipate, it only grew with her frustration. “But I can make a difference,” she yelled, “What good am I here? Morgana bestowed her Graces on me so I could fight. Not so I could sit here on my ass.”
She swiped the glass of water from my hand and took a long swallow, wiping the droplets off her face with the back of her hand, “Well?” she said, “Is that what you all would have me do?”
I shook my head, “No, of course not.”
She looked at me with something like disappointment and it pooled in my stomach like poison, reaching up to wrap a shadowy hand around my heart.
“We’ve talked about it,” Tiernan said, casting a cursory glance at me, Finn, and Kade. “Healer Loris will arrive in the morning to set up an infirmary. Another healer has heard our call for aid, too and will arrive shortly after. But two healers to tend to possibly hundreds of wounded…”
Her face pinched, her eyes turning from orange to something more like red, “So that’s it then,” she said, exasperated, throwing her hands up in defeat, “You’d have me stay here, healing the wounded instead of—”
“Instead of killing Fae?” Kade barked, finally speaking up. “Yes. We would have you here using your healing Grace to save the lives of your people instead of taking the lives of your enemies.”
She staggered back as though the Draconian’s words were a physical blow.
Raking a clawed hand over my skull, I cut my gaze back to Liana, imploring her to listen. “It’s not that we think you can’t handle it—you’ve killed before…” she winced at the memory of Thana, her emotions turning rancid with guilt and nausea. “But you are the strongest healer in all the Night Court. Think of how many lives you could save.”
The muscles in her jaw tightened and twitched. She dropped her gaze, falling back onto the makeshift bed with a heavy sigh.
“The battle will not be won in one day,” Finn offered.
“No, it won’t,” affirmed Kade.
I pulled her hand into mine, and she let me, but didn’t squeeze back, sending a sliver of ice shooting into my heart. “There may come a time when you’ll have to fight, Liana,” I told her, “But the most bloodshed will happen on the first day of battle. Just for that one day—please agree to stay here. If anything happened to you out there, you’d be handing your kingdom over to him.”
She nodded solemnly, rising to pull on her boots and grab her jacket. One part of my mind prayed she would listen to reason. But the other part wondered if we were making a mistake by convincing her to stay. Were we being selfish?
No… every reason we had was sound and true, but that didn’t mean it was the right path.
Liana finished buttoning her long jacket and turned just before she walked out of the tent, “I’m going to get some air,” she announced to no one in particular, her head bent, and then strode from the tent into the growing dark of night outside.
“I’ll go with her,” Finn said after a moment.
“I’ll go, too,” said his twin.
I nodded to them, “Make sure she’s alright.”
Kade came to rest a hand on my shoulder, “It was the right choice,” he said, giving me a pointed look.
“Was it?”
His jaw tightened. His only reply was a squeeze to my shoulder before he followed his brother from the tent.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kade
She stood there looking lost, her hands tucked under her arms to keep them warm, her breath clouding in the chill night air. She spun to the sound of our steps as we approached her. Said nothing, just stared.
“Come with us,” I said to her, holding out my arm.
After a moment she threaded her arm through mine, shivering against the warmth of my skin. The three of us set off into the heart of the village. Even though it was late, there were soldiers milling about, huddling over fires, or drowning their worries in steins of ale. The village was nothing like I remembered it.
It was on these once barren streets that Finn and I grew into adolescence. I scowled at the memories catapulting to the forefront of my mind. The Fae here never really accepted us, and all but shunned us after the Alchemists slaughtered our parents at Mt. Ignis. No one knew what to say, or how to react.
We stayed for a year after they passed, until the change made us immortal, and we drafted ourselves into the Horde army—looking for any sort of escape from the dead-end place we’d once called home. It took only three years for us to become some of the best warriors the Horde had. And only a year after that Queen Enya took notice. Inviting us to drink of the waters of the Sidhe.
The nobles were outraged that we—two orphaned Draconian war dogs were given the right that was reserved only for nobles. But we’d earned it. And if we hadn’t been deserving, those who’d died long before wouldn’t have Graced us.
“Where are we going?” Liana asked, her voice monotone.
I tsked her, wrapping her
icy hand in my warm one.
“You’ll see,” Finn answered, “It isn’t much further.
Once we’d passed the main part of the town and turned west into the sparsely wooded forest, the cabin came into view. Squatting amid the trees. The roof caving in. The front porch overgrown with weeds and vines.
As though sensing exactly what the place was, Liana jerked her chin up to meet my steady gaze. “Is this?” she asked, looking to the cabin and back to me. To Finn.
“It was our home. Before.”
It stood empty all the many years since we left it. We’d never even attempted to sell it. And if we had, no one would have made an offer. If the location didn’t deter them, the whispers surrounding it would’ve.
The Fae who lived there before us fell in the battle of Mt. Noctis. And then our parents fell in the slaughter at Ignis. The townsfolk in these parts were prone to a superstitious nature. But Finn and I knew better. It was just a house. And the last place where a small piece of our parents was preserved.
The wood creaked and groaned as we ascended the three steps up to the front door. Finn shouldered it open, and we stepped into the dark.
I ignited my Grace, letting short flames twirl around my upheld hand, lighting the single room the cabin held.
Liana pulled her arm out from mine and took a good look around. Her gaze roving over the three beds, one large and two smaller. The hearth still covered in ash and black stains. And the small table where we shared our meals, four stools still set around it.
It had been years, and yet every time I came here, it was like coming home. I could still feel the warmth of the hearth on my younger self’s face as I stared into the glowing coals, waiting for mom’s veal stew to be ready so I could devour bowl after bowl until my stomach was near bursting with fullness and dad had to carry me to bed because I’d fallen asleep at the table again.
