Blades Of Destiny (Crown Service Book 4)

by Terah Edun

“You left us behind,” Reben snapped.

  Sara stared at them all in astonishment as Ezekiel and Karn walked out from behind her to join the pissed-off group, and someone pushed Matteas Hillan up from wherever he’d been cowering off to the side.

  “It’s not like I had a choice!” she said.

  More stares, and none of them accommodating.

  “Fine, so I did,” Sara said.

  “And?” Reben asked.

  Sara opened and closed her mouth, frustrated—she didn’t like being backed into a proverbial corner. Not one bit.

  But still, she said as ungraciously as possible, “This time, the lot of you can come.”

  Finally, satisfied smiles bloomed on a few faces. She could tell that was all they’d wanted, and even though she was irritated, secretly, in a place she wouldn’t ever show them, she was pleased. Very pleased. It wasn’t like her options for backup had been plentiful, but they’d do nicely.

  Reben was also the first to break rank and give Sara a hug.

  As if Reben’s movement was the key for them all to let the past go, smiles lit up faces all around, and the others broke rank to surround her with claps on the shoulder and ‘welcome backs’.

  Sara accepted their good-natured ribbing about how she disappeared more often than a thief in the night, but when they heard she was preparing to move out again, they got serious.

  Before long, and to no one’s surprise, Karn—who was turning into her right-hand man, whether she wanted him to or not—had sent some of the others off to get provisions. Isabelle to find twelve horses that could handle a hard ride, and Ezekiel to go back to Barthis and humbly ask for his orders in writing.

  They were all off to their respective tasks before Sara could mention that the captain had already planned to meet them in the field with whatever they needed.

  Shrugging, Sara settled back into her waiting stance, though she had to admit that it irked her a bit that no one had even bothered asking her. But it wasn’t like she could take her anger out on them, and as far as logic went, they were right.

  They didn’t want to get far out and stumble upon another outpost of the Imperial Armed Forces, only to be refused rest or respite without the empress’s seal. Even Sara knew that, though she didn’t know how Karn had guessed at it.

  Or why he just assumed she didn’t have those orders in hand already.

  When she turned to look at him and asked him just that, he replied, “Well, do you? Because you’re a hell of a leader, Sara Fairchild, but a butt-horrible organizer.”

  Instead of letting his comments go by, Sara felt her hackles go up. She had been harassed, subjugated, and depleted of energy, all in a single day. Having one more person go at her was not how she wanted this day to end.

  But he either didn’t pick up on her disgruntled signals or didn’t care. Deciding that this, at least, she could take care of immediately, she walked away from the two or three that lingered beside them and jerked Karn away from the group with her.

  “So that’s how it is, is it?”

  He didn’t back down, just let an emotionless wall fall over his features. “Yep, I suppose so.”

  Sara stood back with a grunt. She was still glaring. He was still unmoved.

  Finally, she snapped, “I don’t need to be told what to do.”

  He shrugged. “Somebody has got to make sure there’s some order around here. Especially when you just go off and disappear like that.”

  Sara rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like I planned it and had a choice, Karn. I was knocked unconscious and taken against my will.”

  “And we were left behind to pick up the pieces,” he said, picking his teeth with a blade of grass. “I’m just saying—we got through it all right. Through the next battle and all.”

  Sara threw up her hands. “And that’s another thing—there’s a chain of command? A captain who rules. Especially in camp. My disappearance doesn’t change that.”

  “That man cares about us just as much as he does fleas on his back,” Karn said.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up a bit at that. It was one thing for her to question Barthis’s rather callous disregard for the individuals of his regiments…but Karn? This was the same man who had practically torn her head off when she threatened to go after the Sun Mage the first go-around.

  Sara thought, Things must have seriously gone wrong for even him to be speaking up like this.

  Of course, she didn’t say that aloud, considering she’d just made lieutenant commander. Sara didn’t care squat about the title, but that command was allowing her to requisition the materials she needed and to get the heck out of here and after some enemy combatants in a hurry—so she had no desire to put it in jeopardy.

  Karn, however, wasn’t done. “We lost a lot of good people, Sara Fairchild. A lot of fleas for all the care that captain has shown since their deaths were announced.”

  And for the first time, Sara looked into Karn’s eyes and didn’t see reckless anger or disregard. She saw anger. Festering, burning anger. So hot that she couldn’t stare straight at him for long. Instead, she dropped her head into her hands, rubbed her forehead, and tried to ward off a headache that was threatening her very sanity.

  She didn’t look up as she said, “What do you want from me?”

  “I want ya to care!” he shouted, finally frazzled.

  She lifted her head. “There’s an entire chain of command to care, Karn. I’m just one woman.”

  “You’re our woman, and we’re your group. With you thick and thin. Frankly, we’re also the only ones who care about getting our collective asses out of here in one piece, and I expect you to act like it.”

  Before she could pick her jaw up off the floor and question him anymore, though, he turned and walked away.

  She shouted at his retreating back, “You do know I officially outrank you all now, right?”

  He laughed without turning around.

  Shoulders slumped, Sara said, “I can’t even get respect around here when I’m due it.”

  She startled a bit then when Marx came up and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “That’s the sign of a good leader. Soldiers who will follow you, even disobey you, just to save your ass.”

  “No, that’s the sign of a disobedient soldier,” Sara said as she shrugged him off—getting touched casually was something she was still getting used to.

  Laughter erupted all around her as those that remained eyed her with various expressions of amusement on their faces.

  “What?”

  “Look who’s talking,” Marx said with a chuckle.

  Sara opened her mouth and closed it. She really didn’t have a defense when it was put like that, and especially when they all knew her experiences when it came to being an obedient soldier.

  Sighing roughly as she edged out a crick in her neck, Sara changed the subject. “So what did happen? After I left, I mean. Karn seems pretty upset.”

  He gave her a jaded smile. “The usual. Death. Mayhem. Kades kicking our asses.”

  She grunted. “We’ve kicked theirs a time or two, as well, I recall.”

  “That’s true,” he said as he looked back toward the small groups of soldiers huddled around a few fires and others lounging against rocks as they waited for more orders.

  “But this one was different?” she said.

  He turned back to her with a far-off look in his eyes. “Yeah. It’s…harder when you see dozens, hundreds even, of your fellows cut down in front of you, to the side, without even an enemy to confront afterwards.”

  Sara didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

  He continued, “Bodies fell everywhere, and you know what?”

  “What?” she asked. She was trying to hide in her sympathy; he probably wouldn’t like it and would consider it pity.

  “It was almost easier, you know?” he said as he turned back around to look at men and women who were gazing back at him. Their faces were turned Sara and Marx’s way, and t
heir eyes seemed to focus on the two of them. But the minds behind those gazes were doing nothing but reliving the horrors of what they had survived.

  Marx said in a low voice, “It was easier because even though we fought harder under those domes, at least we faced those Kades and beasts head-on. Being cut down…down like wheat by scythe…that ain’t no way to die. No way to see your friends die. That’s all they saw this time. That’s all we saw.”

  It was true, and the story reminded Sara of all the other times the Kades had sent attacks from afar, never setting foot on the field of battle and yet killing off so many, so young, so easily.

  “I understand,” Sara said.

  As Marx nodded, she knew he got that she did.

  As she walked off, Sara looked back and said, “We’ll get them, Marx. This is the last time they’ll send their magic to hit us while they stay safe and sound…wherever they lie.”

  As he walked off, Sara took a slow, calming breath and tried to steady her nerves as she fought to not think about how many more they had lost. The attack that had ended with a jagged scar across the landscape and a new canyon formed…that had been something else. But this was different. The Kades had known they’d been crippled, known they’d been beaten, and they still had come back to smash their faces in the dirt…successfully. With no provocation that she could see, either.

  It chilled Sara to the bone, because as she looked off at the horizon, she realized the rules of war were just arbitrary nuances.

  As she stood alone, someone said, “Everyone’s gone. There’s no one coming over that distant plain to aid us.”

  As the wind whipped her hair and a harsh gust dragged moisture from her eyes, she didn’t look back—she didn’t want this new person, whoever it was, to see or even contemplate that a War Mage was doing the one thing they were never supposed to do.

  Cry.

  But that person didn’t try to look at her face or even really seem to want an answer from her.

  “Our people are gone. Our forces are either dead or scattered. And the empress has abandoned us.”

  Sara let out a loud cough. That last one was new.

  Wiping her face with a quick brush of her cuff, she looked over at the person who had joined her and said, “What makes you think that? The crown is always on our side.”

  The noise that came from the woman’s mouth could politely be called a scoff. “We wouldn’t be out here amongst the weeds and the refuse otherwise.”

  “Maybe the empress is just waiting for us to prove ourselves. Prove our merit.”

  The woman spat to the side in disgust. “Maybe she’s waiting until we all die off and she can give capitulation orders to the thorns in all our sides.”

  Sara frowned. She couldn’t come out and tell this person it wasn’t true—she knew so because the empress’s representative was here in camp. The new camp. But she wasn’t entirely sure just how many people knew that, so she kept her mouth shut.

  And as the wind howled harder, and the disgruntled woman turned away and walked off into the shuffle of the remaining members of the Imperial Armed Forces, Sara vowed to give them, all of them, something worth fighting for—hope. Hope that they could succeed. Hope that all wasn’t lost. Even when the crown and empire seemed to have abandoned them to their fates.

  19

  As the woman walked away, Sara heard Ezekiel say behind her, “We’ve got what we need, Sara. Time for you to lead the way.” He sounded concerned.

  As she turned and looked at his face, though, his concern turned to wariness.

  “What is it?” asked Ezekiel. “You have a harsh look in your eye. Like someone’s about to get their ass handed to them—our leadership, perhaps?”

  His voice lifted in hope at the end, and she was sorry she was going to have to dash that hope. “No.”

  As she turned away and looked back down the road with a sigh, Sara said, “I wish I could say we were going to take the captain and all those commanders to task for what they did, their absolute failure of leadership—even the dead ones—but no, not today. There’s something else I have to do, though.”

  “Today? It has to be today? Because we’re losing daylight.”

  Sara grunted. “And we’ll continue to lose it. We’re more likely to avoid Kade detection under the cover of darkness.”

  “And what is it, exactly, that’s so urgent?”

  She started walking and waved for him to come along. “A promotion ceremony.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment. After he had gathered his thoughts, he said, “I didn’t know pomp and circumstance was so important to you.”

  Sara stopped and gave him a wounded look. She heard all the undertones in that short sentence as if he had shouted out his derision.

  “It’s not, and you know that. But orders are orders, and these orders were explicit—I attend before I leave camp.”

  He shifted uneasily for a moment before his shoulders slumped, and he gave in. “Then I suppose we should get to it.”

  She gave a fleeting smile.

  He edged out his crooked elbow and gave a short and ungainly bow. “Shall we, Lieutenant Commander?”

  Sara snorted out a laugh, her first in a while. Slapping his shoulder, Sara ignored his attempt at decorum and pulled him with a firm grip on his opposite shoulder.

  Once they were pressed together shoulder to hip, she said, “Let’s get this over with before I have to start punching someone else.”

  And off they went, for a ceremony Sara would rather piss on than attend, but orders were orders, and even when encampment leadership failed to honor the dead or keep the living safe, they made damned sure that the regulations of armed forces protocol were followed. She could grump at it, she could be infuriated by it, but it wasn’t going to change, and if she wanted to use her power for the better—well, first she’d have to be formally invested with it before the entirety of the forces, and not just through a missive send-off to the capital records in the far reaches of the city.

  The capital wasn’t here.

  The empress wasn’t here.

  But the soldiers were.

  She was.

  The enemy was.

  And that was what mattered.

  * * *

  As Sara walked up to the remaining soldiers, formally lined up rank by rank under the hot midday sun, she had to admit that for a ceremony thrown together in the middle of nowhere, with barely a few hours to spare, they looked damned good.

  She felt a swelling of pride in her sternum as she looked around from face to face, each standing at attention and staring straight ahead. They were trained to not acknowledge her unless she requested their attention, and Sara had the bitter thought that she should do the same.

  Not because protocol demanded it. But because the next time she saw this face or that face, they might be dead. Dead as their comrades before them. So getting to know faces, getting to know names, was almost a futile concept from the beginning. But she managed to tear herself away from those thoughts and focus on the short stage erected before everyone.

  Keeping her head held high, she kept going forward beyond the silent crowds until she joined the six other individuals standing at the head—including Captain Barthis.

  From her perch beside the others, a few feet above the heads of the soldiers at attention, she got a good look of the rows spread out before her and the aisle that bisected them all.

  Up that single, wide row came a parade of soldiers, bedecked in somber outfits befitting a wartime posting, but also clearly made of rich cloth and material. She saw sable and ermine gracing shoulders and cuffs. Thick cotton dyed in deep blues and tans that spoke of the crown. On each breast was a jeweled broach, one that signaled they weren’t members of the regiments spread before her. Not that anyone would mistake them as such, with the proud tilts of heads that met her gaze. No, as they paraded before her, Sara and the Imperial Armed Forces closest to the aisle finally got a look at the person they’d been whispering about for s
o long.

  The empress’s representative walked forward at the head of her group. Sara noted that Chatteris had managed to change outfits since they had last met, and this was an outfit that clearly stated her ties to the imperial crown. It wasn’t that it was ostentatious—in fact, it was the very opposite, bearing the same blue and tan colors as the rest of her group.

  But what it lacked in vibrancy, it made up for in the sheer number of spells worked into the cloth. It wasn’t a cloth of ermine or even gold. It was a cloth of magic.

  Sara felt her mouth open in a slight gasp before she remembered where she stood, and that any of the soldiers and mercenaries gathered before her would see surprise and astonishment written on her face if they just looked around.

  So she shut her mouth and clenched her jaw tight.

  But boy did she get a good look, and fortunately for her, her viewpoint was one of the best in their current open field.

  Sara stared as the magic cascaded up and down the gown of the empress’s relative with a casual elegance that spoke of the gifts of a very talented mage. Calling up her own War Mage gifts that were nearly restored to full power, she spied ribbons of spells that were for protection, shielding, healing, even defense. It was awe-inspiring what had been layered there.

  What was more, it was one of the most ostentatious and impractical acts of magic she had ever seen. The spells wrapping that dress might have protected this one woman so much that if Sara had to guess, she would say Chatteris was untouchable, but the powers in those spells could have easily also been redirected to shield their entire encampment. The sheer amount of magic woven in was just that astonishing.

  As she clenched her teeth and fought hard not to show any emotion on her face, especially anger, Sara had a difficult time not taking this personally. This was where the empress’s priorities were? Shielding one woman?

  It wouldn’t have mattered if those spells were woven into the fabric of the representative’s entire cohort, not to Sara. It was that while they struggled to field the men and women needed just to fight on a level playing field against the Kade, the court thought it appropriate—no, necessary—for one woman to be shield-warded by an entire group of mages. Mages who, no doubt, could not be spared to come to the field.