As we hit the far bank and began to scramble up the muddy incline, above us, the battle cries, the clash of metal on metal, and the roar of beasts tearing out of their faux skin assaulted the air.
Above us, the war had begun.
22
Sebastian
Wila was safe, her mates would keep her safe. My focus had to be on the wave of Draconi and Shedim moving toward us in a tsunami of bodies. Around me, Liana’s Shedim held fast on my command, waiting on the rise while Elora’s troops attacked.
There was a dip in the land, a nice little area to trap the opposition. We just needed to hold. One. Moment. Longer.
“Attack!” My voice was startling to my ears because it was Wila’s voice, her command, and the Shedim on our side released their lead-tipped arrows. They arched high up into the air, hovering like a lethal cloud before plummeting to the ground like jagged rain.
Arrows, ha. Basics worked a treat. There were no guns here, just claw and dagger, fang and sword, and yes, we had arrows.
“We should charge now,” Liana said at my side.
Shit, I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Not yet.”
“We can finish them off while they’re wounded.”
“We’re not finishing anyone off. We’re incapacitating them. We’re buying the others time to get to the key, or have you conveniently forgotten that?”
God, how I wanted to rip out her throat. If not for Wila’s insistence the bitch be allowed to keep breathing …
Her gaze was probing on the side of my face, but I wouldn’t be meeting her eyes, because if I looked at her, if she looked into my eyes, she’d see the simmering hatred and she’d know. She’d know I wasn’t her daughter. She’d know that I wanted her violently dead.
Wila’s wishes held me back, forever held me back, her leniency, her compassion when vengeance was all that the darkness required, the one thing that might soothe it for good. But no, she had to be all moral about it all. She had to hold me back.
Fuck, there it was again, the razor edge of control, because yes, I could turn on Liana here, just snap her neck in the commotion and be done with it.
I could.
I raised a fist in the air. “Maim not kill. Charge.”
The army behind me roared as we thundered down the hill into the valley below.
23
Azren led the way through the night streets, alleys, and narrow walkways between homes made of corrugated metal and glassless windows covered with woven dried reeds. This was the side of Draconi territory that Arcana didn’t see, the side the Draconi ignored. Here hid the Others, the indentured, the enslaved. Eyes watched us as we weaved through the tightly built homes. It was as if by building their houses close together they were demonstrating solidarity, or maybe it was a case of safety in numbers, in a flock, or whatever the fuck they called a group of Others.
No one questioned our presence. Doors shut around us, and lights went out. Oh, yes, they knew something was afoot. The sounds of battle drifted in the air and across the Westside like a pungent smell, but this wasn’t their fight, not unless someone dragged them into it.
“This way.” Azren led us down a dirt track, away from the tiny residential block and toward a rushing river. “We cut across and into the mountains. The pass is to our left and beyond that is the Keep. We’ll be able to see it from the peak. We’ll be able to spot the various entrances. Valance can fly us in one by one.”
Sentries would be distracted by the commotion at the border. So, hopefully, we’d be able to slip in without being detected. Hopefully. It was the only plan, there was no plan B because the Keep was a mountain and access was via various cave-like entrances built into the mountain face.
My boots splashed through the water, and my jeans got soaked as the level climbed up to my knees, but then we were on the other side, running up into the gentle mountains dotted with twisted trees and foliage that would shield us from aerial view.
Valance strode beside me, his long legs eating up the distance, so I had to run to keep up. Noir and Quinn brought up the rear, and Azren was a dark figure up ahead, forging the path. Gilbert had drifted farther ahead, scouting for danger, for Draconi sentries that might be patrolling this pass.
Silence wrapped itself around us like a shield. My thoughts were a tumble of questions, and the need to reach out to Seb to find out what was happening was a physical ache, but it was too risky. What if I distracted him? What if I caused him to stumble or fall? He’d cut off suddenly, but he was still alive, still fighting, his presence a constant assurance through the door he’d slammed shut between us. It was a conservation of energy on his part, a decision to allow him to focus. Opening the door was a no-no.
We were on a steep incline now, up and up.
“Almost there,” Valance confirmed.
Yes, the air was thinner up here, harder to breathe. Lungs burning, thighs quaking, I pressed on. A sudden infusion of energy shot through my veins, allowing me to pick up the pace. My mates were looking out for me. And then we were on flat, high ground with the sky and the stars a skip and a jump above us, and the moon, almost full in its pride, surrounded by a fan club of twinkles.
In the distance, to the east, fire lit up the night and smoke billowed up into the sky. An elastic band tightened around my heart. Tay and Seb and Leopold were down there. The fire was because of them. We had to move fast.
Valance came to a standstill, staring out at the drop between us and the Keep. A breeze lifted his hair and blew it back off his forehead. Noir and Quinn joined us a moment later.
“The coast is clear,” Gilbert said. “There are no sentries at the cave entrance across the pass.”
Valance nodded. “Thank you, Ivan.”
“Gilbert. Please continue to call me Gilbert. Ivan was a king, but that king is dead.”
Valance inclined his head. “Okay, Gilbert. Can you keep watch across the pass and let us know if anything changes?”
Gilbert winked out.
Valance turned to the group. “Who wants to go first?”
I stepped forward. “I’ll go first.”
Valance grinned and stepped away from the edge of the cliff. He’d done this before—morphed into a dragon and carried me to safety, but I’d been too out of it to fully appreciate his majestic form, but right now, as his body expanded and altered, fluid and beautiful, the air on top of that mountain was suddenly laced with an aphrodisiac that had my head spinning. His silver scales gleamed electric blue where he caught the moonlight, and then he bowed his long neck and fell to his haunches.
Fancy riding me?
I snorted and then clambered aboard with a little assist from Azren’s hand on my ass. He gave my butt a gentle slap and then stepped back. Valance’s wings beat the air and then we were rising and swooping across the deadly drop below us, rocks and trees and pointy things awaiting if I were to slip and fall. My fingers grasped at scales, thighs pressed tight against him, and then it was over, we were landing and Gilbert was helping me down. Valance turned and ran toward the cave exit, sliding back into the night, riding the air to the other side to pick up his next passenger.
“Do you think we can pull this off?”
“I think together we can achieve anything,” Gilbert said.
That was enough for me.
I walked toward the mouth of the cave to see Valance already in the air, Azren on his back. Noir and Quinn were tiny figures looking up into the sky as Valance rose and then swooped. And then they were hopping about, their tinny wails ripped away by a gust of wind.
“Wila!” Gilbert rushed past me, pointing into the night sky, to the east where a huge, dark shape was cutting through the night sky toward Valance.
“Valance!” My scream was ripped away by the elements.
He’d see them, but by the time he did it would be too late. I had to do something. Anything.
A bolt of blue Arcane power shot into the sky, whizzing past Valance’s nose. Noir was signaling. Valance turned his h
ead, clocked the incoming, and then veered right, away from the threat, but with Azren atop his back his evasive options were limited.
Shit, shit. Shit.
The first dragon slammed into Valance a moment later; they tangled in the air, rolling, wings beating against each other, and then they began to fall.
“Valance!” My scream was carried away once more, but the dragon inside me was awake, shoving me out of the driver’s seat and bursting from my skin in a flurry of wings and scales. There was no adjustment period, no time to experience the pain of the transformation, because we were hurtling out of the cave, suspended above the world for one glorious moment before taking a nose dive, wings tucked in, to accelerate. We hit our scalemate’s attacker, knocking him loose, and grabbed at Valance with our talons, wings unfurling to act as a parachute and then beating frantically to allow precious moments of recovery. And then Valance was rising beside us; Azren was pale-faced and clinging to his back like a limpet. We were rising but the sentinel wasn’t done. His obsidian form checked itself a moment before hitting the earth, and then he was shooting up to meet us. My tail whipped round to smash into his head, sending him reeling.
“Go!” I screamed into Valance’s head. “Get Azren to safety.”
His hesitation was a tug on the vibrant ribbon suspended between us, and then he was flying toward the cave, and it was just me and the sentry.
He was no fool. He knew once Valance dropped off his cargo, it would be one against two. He turned tail to run, but there was no way I’d allow him to go gather reinforcements.
My jaws snapped, catching his tail and yanking him back, as my powerful wings kept me in the air, beating, ever beating.
His roar was part rage, part frustration as a shadow fell over us, as Valance returned, and blue fire engulfed our foe. It wouldn’t kill him but it was disorienting.
“We have to kill him, Wila.”
“I know.”
We attacked, tearing and shredding until blood rained from the sky, until the sentry fell to the earth and shattered against the lethal rocks below. Rocks that now sat on my chest, rising and grinding to sand in my throat. I’d killed one of my own—an innocent following orders. How many more lay dead on the frontlines? No. It had to end now.
“Let’s finish this. Now.” I led the way back to the other side to pick up the final members of our party.
24
Taylem
The world is on fire, smoke in my lungs, blood on my hands, and the troll, the troll is eager to take control. But Wila is counting on me to keep the troll bloods in check. To avoid unnecessary bloodshed. To be nothing more than a violent distraction.
A punch here, a grab and swing there, blades across my arm, talons clawing at my face. There is pain and my grip is slipping as the troll surges up and bleeds its will into my mind.
Not today. Must not kill.
Must not kill.
Kill ...
Fire in the sky, shadows on the ground.
Dragons in the air.
A woman in a crimson cloak wielding a battle-axe, eviscerating Liana’s Shedim.
This one must die.
This one is their queen.
Cut the head off the snake. End it now.
I duck my head and charge through the fray toward her.
25
We huddled in a storage room as Valance studied the map he’d made with Daria. Noir had created a handy ball of light which illuminated the tiny space we’d crammed ourselves into, and Quinn kept watch on the door.
We’d checked out the hidden passages, the areas of the Keep that were usually left unused, places that Elora might hide a machine of destruction, but so far we’d come up empty, incapacitated three guards and been forced to kill another. The death toll was mounting, both in the Keep and outside.
Valance screwed up the map, his face a mask of tension. “I don’t know where else she’d have it.”
“There is only one other place,” Gilbert said. “When I was king, we kept it sealed to keep the twisted creatures who’d made it their home at bay, when, in actual fact, it had been us who’d taken this mountain from them.”
“The unseeing,” Azren said. “You’re talking about the pit, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Elora always wanted to convert it into a prison, to bury the unseeing deep in the earth and take over what was left of their home.”
“You think the machine is in the pit?” Noir asked to clarify.
“What better place to hide it?” Gilbert asked.
Beside me, Azren had gone very still, and then his sweet aroma was saturated with the pungent scent of fear. She’d held him in the pit for weeks, tortured him there. How could we ask him to go back?
“Azren, maybe you should—"
“No. I’m coming with you.”
“Do you know the way?” Noir asked Valance.
“I’ve never been down there,” Valance admitted.
“I was taken in while unconscious,” Azren admitted.
“I can show you,” Gilbert said. “But it’s on the other side of the Keep. We’d have to go around the central warehouses, and there are several sentry points between us and it.”
“And what if we didn’t have to go around?” Quinn said. “What if we simply cut straight through the warehouses?”
"There is no way to go straight through,” Gilbert said. “The warehouses are connected by doors and corridors that are accessible only via the main perimeter of the Keep.”
“Like this one?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, this is a tiny storage unit.”
“And what’s on the other side of this wall?” Quinn tapped the stone farthest away from the door, and Gilbert’s expression cleared.
“You want to blur straight through,” Noir said. “Can you do that?”
“Pfft.” Quinn made a dismissive gesture with his hand, and then he winced. “I’m going to need one small thing first, though?”
I pulled down the collar of my shirt. “Take what you need.”
Quinn’s gaze fell to my jugular, but Azren pulled me back. “No. Use me.”
Quinn sighed. “I’m gonna need more than a pint, mate. If we’re going to do this, you’re all gonna have to chip in.”
I stepped around Azren. “Let’s get started then.”
My neck throbbed where Quinn had fed and my limbs were still tingling with the effects of the aphrodisiac in his saliva. Damn, that had felt ... wow.
His gaze was fixed on me now as he sucked on Noir, and the noises coming from my mate’s mouth had heat climbing up my neck. Valance, Azren, and I avoided eye contact while Gilbert remained stoic and unmoved, waiting patiently for Quinn to complete his feast.
Quinn raised his head and licked his crimson lips. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Gilbert, you’re going to have to lead the way. But who wants to take a trip first.”
Once again, it was me that stepped up. I’d had the longest to recover from the feeding, and if it was anything like it had been the first time, these guys would need their heads clear before having their atoms dragged through matter.
“Wait,” Noir said. “Take me first. Once I’ve seen where we’re going, I can fragment back here and grab someone.”
“Good call,” Quinn said. He clasped Noir tight as Gilbert stepped through the wall, and then with a wicked grin, made a run at the stone.
Noir’s squeak was cut off as they blurred through, and then it was just me, Azren, and Valance.
“Wila, you know what we have to do once we get there, don’t you?” Azren asked.
I closed my eyes. “Yeah. I know.”
Because there had been no time to find another way. Nowhere to look for answers on a child from another world. She was a different breed, from an unknown race. A child that held the fate of our world in her hands, a child who was a pawn through no fault of her own. But a child that would have to die nonetheless to save thousands of lives.
“I feel sick.” I hugged my waist.
&nbs
p; “I’ll do it,” Valance said. “This doesn’t have to be on you.”
“It doesn’t matter who strikes the mortal blow. The result will be the same. We’ll have failed to save an innocent’s life.”
“If there was some other way,” Azren said.
“I know. I know it. But Gilbert found nothing, and Barnaby, the only other person who may have been able to help us, is gone. And Elora, even if she does know, won’t tell us.”
There was no other way. One life to save the many. A child, a fucking child. “Dammit, where are they?”
Noir appeared a moment later, and I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his shirt. His heart was beating way too fast, and he made no move to fragment.
I looked up into his face. “Noir? What’s wrong?”
“Wila, I—”
Quinn burst in through the wall, stumbling and righting himself just in time to avoid hitting the ground. “If we’re going to do this, we need to go now.”
“What is it?” Valance demanded. “What did you see?”
“We saw the machine,” Quinn said. “Let’s just say getting to the key isn’t going to be as easy as we’d thought.”
Noir’s arms tightened around me, and the world fragmented.
We materialized on a balcony above a chamber filled with huge rubber pipes and thick electrical wires, and at the center of it all, asleep in a glass box filled with shimmering water, was a silver-haired child. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years of age. Her skin was bronze, and her limbs were slender and fragile. The glass was alive with the crackle and fizz of energy, it surrounded it, skipping across the surface in purple and red hues.
“That’s the same glass they had me trapped in,” Quinn said. “Fucking impermeable to Arcana. And that”—Quinn pointed at a huge metal box covered in blinking lights—“is the generator.” Silver rods protruded up and out of it and lanced into the ceiling, and several more stuck out the side and disappeared into the wall behind it.
City of War (Chronicles of Arcana Book 4) Page 18
