Origins

by A D Starrling

  ‘So they know we are coming?’ said Tanis with a scowl. ‘The kings in Uryl?’

  Mila nodded.

  Megash stared at Hosanna and the others before frowning at Mila. ‘There are only six of you here. Does this mean you did not manage to convince the other Immortals to join our ranks?’

  A grim smile flashed across Mila’s lips in the expectant silence. Megash’s eyes widened.

  ‘Bar Kronos, we will all stand with you,’ said Ysa in a hard voice.

  ‘We have been recruiting soldiers from the cities under our command and the garrisons we felt might be sympathetic to the rebellion,’ said Hosanna. ‘The others are bringing them here.’

  ‘You are going to need plenty of manpower if you want to defeat the army of the Empire,’ Phebe added dryly. ‘These are men who have been trained by us throughout their years of battle. The skills they have learned are the ones we acquired over hundreds of years of conflict.’

  As startled voices rose from the crowd, surprise mingling with elation, Aäron studied Mila intently. ‘King Bastian?’

  Mila shook her head slowly.

  ‘My father did not say he would take the side of Crovir,’ murmured Hosanna. ‘But he did say he would not go against him.’

  Mila gazed at Aäron, sorrow piercing her once more. ‘My mother returned to Uryl, to protect Eleaza and Kaleb as best she can. She will die before she lets my father lay another finger on them.’

  ‘The other queens have taken our children to a safe place in the South Desert, out of the reach of Crovir,’ said Ysa bitterly.

  ‘What now?’ muttered Tanis.

  ‘The plan has changed,’ said Hosanna. ‘Even as we speak, the army of the Empire is on the move. We need to attack now.’

  The governors and commanders glanced at each other warily.

  ‘But the rest of our troops are yet to arrive,’ said Megash. ‘There are more men and women joining us from the cities to the west and—’

  ‘We cannot wait,’ said Mila. ‘Send messengers to meet them. Tell them we are moving south, as of today. If our suspicions are correct, then Tobias, Baruch, and the others may very well cross paths with the army from Uryl on their way here.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  ‘To me!’ shouted Navia.

  Scores of men responded to her command, stumbling and backing away across the battleground until they reached her side, blood weeping from their injuries, some dragging fallen companions with them.

  Navia moved toward their enemy, soldiers of the Empire who once stood beside her and who now faced her on the field of war, faces filled with deadly intent under the late afternoon sun.

  They had come across the army yesterday at dawn, a few leagues from Qataara, on the eighth day after they made that fateful decision on the hill close to Romerus’s citadel. By then, they had some three thousand odd men at their side, soldiers from the various garrisons and cities she and her siblings and cousins had traveled to during the past Half Moon, men who had elected to join the side of the human alliance planning to storm Uryl and depose King Crovir.

  Her swords arced through the air as she danced between her opponents, blades finding flesh and bone easily while the soldiers froze, immobilized by the power of her mind, shields and weapons dropping from limp fingers. The men behind her rallied forth once more, cries leaving their throats as they charged toward the ones who were once their comrades in arms, their exhaustion overpowered by their will to survive.

  ‘Is she not glorious?’ said Jared.

  He deflected a blow to his head with his shield and stabbed two soldiers, his gaze darting to where Navia fought some distance away with an entourage of soldiers, sunlight glinting on her bloodstained weapons, her face a study of grim concentration.

  Baruch swooped beneath a circle of spears and twisted on his heels, his swords humming as he slashed at the men around him.

  ‘Really?! You think now is the right time to be indulging your life-long infatuation with my sister?’

  ‘You just do not appreciate her,’ Jared retorted sullenly, striking down two more men.

  Unease filtered through him as he studied the battlefield. Though they had gathered considerable troops in the past Half Moon, their numbers were overshadowed by the regiments of the Empire, currently some five-thousand strong and growing as more battalions arrived from the south. Although he suspected Kronos was somewhere among them, he had yet to see him.

  The whistle of arrows came from the sky once more. Jared narrowed his eyes.

  They never learn, do they?

  He pierced a captain in the gut with his sword and raised a hand toward the two hundred or so deadly projectiles sailing through the air toward him and the soldiers who fought at his side, men from the garrisons at Omran and Duruin faithful to their campaign.

  The arrows stopped some twenty feet above their heads before dropping harmlessly to the ground as they had on countless occasions before, the clatter lost in the cries and the clash of swords resonating across the plains.

  ‘Do not falter!’ he shouted to the soldiers beside him.

  They nodded, expressions hardening with resolve despite this being the thirty-fifth hour of the battle.

  Jared lifted his blade in the air before pointing it forward. At his signal, the soldiers protecting the archers at his back dropped behind their shields. Then his men rose and fired their bows toward their enemy.

  Rafael evaded two swords, blocked a third with his staff, and jabbed the spear-headed ends into the chests of the soldiers around him. He finished them off with blows to the head as they doubled over, aiming for the fragile bones over their temples.

  Another four soldiers surrounded him.

  He smiled grimly. ‘Well, that is not very fair now, is it?’

  He twisted a ring in the middle of his staff, releasing the twin blades from inside.

  ‘Looks like you are finally getting serious!’ yelled Tobias as he watched Rafael take down the enemy encircling him.

  ‘I normally heal these bastards. It is a bit hard to have to kill them now!’ he shouted back. ‘And should you not be worrying about yourself?’

  Air left Tobias’s lips in a gasp as he dove to the ground, avoiding the swords and spears heading toward his back and head. He rolled, leapt to his feet, twisted at the waist, and brought his right leg up and around, his heel smashing powerfully into the jaws of the soldiers behind him, sending them crashing to the dirt.

  Rafael scowled. ‘Now you are just showing off!’

  Tobias grinned, then looked over to Jared.

  ‘Brother, do you recall that time at the Nahal River?’ he called out, elbowing a soldier in the face before slashing another two across the neck.

  Jared blocked the spear aimed at his chest and looked around with a frown as he kneed his attacker in the gut. ‘What, you mean—?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tobias. ‘There is a dry stream bed running across the plains a few hundred feet south from where we are standing.’

  Jared scanned the battleground, pulse racing.

  ‘We will need to move our men back!’ he said with a nod. He turned and shouted over to his right. ‘Navia!’

  She spun on her heels in a low crouch, swords carving through three enemy soldiers before she gazed his way.

  ‘We have to get our soldiers away from here! Tell them to retreat!’

  He felt her power touch his consciousness, ghostly fingers seeking out his thoughts. A shiver danced down his spine at the intimate contact. Her eyes widened for a moment as she registered his plan. Then she dipped her chin briskly.

  In the moments that followed, Jared heard her voice in his head as she communicated the urgent command to their men the way she knew best.

  As the soldiers drew back, he charged forward, Tobias and Rafael at his side. Two hundred feet later, he stopped and crouched down on one knee. Then, with his brother and cousin protecting him from attack, he laid his hands on the ground and closed his eyes.

  Dirt danced aro
und his fingertips as he sent faint tendrils of elemental force through the earth, seeking out weak points and cracks in the rocks beneath the shallow channel where water once coursed.

  He took a shallow breath before unleashing his powers.

  The ground split ahead of Jared. Navia widened her stance to maintain her balance and watched with bated breath as the fissure snaked south before splitting to branch east and west, heart thundering with excitement at this indomitable show of force.

  Alarmed cries rose from the enemy as violent tremors shook the earth, cries that turned to panicked shouts when a rift appeared beneath their feet, where the streambed once lay. The break expanded, forming a crevasse some half a league in length and fifty feet wide. Hundreds of soldiers were swallowed by the chasm, their screams tearing the air as they fell to their deaths, their consciousness winking out from Navia’s mind.

  Stunned silence spread across the battleground when the reverberations died down moments later.

  Kronos scowled from his position on the hills to the northeast, rage burning through him as he watched the earth consume his troops, his stallion prancing agitatedly beneath him. He signaled to the troop commanders at his sides. Then, blade glinting in the sunlight, he rose in his saddle and stormed down the slope toward their enemy.

  Behind him came the rest of the Empire’s army, their angry roars splitting the very heavens.

  Baruch watched the sea of bodies darkening the hills and plains to their left. ‘Son of a—’

  ‘Fall into formation!’ Tobias shouted.

  The soldiers hesitated before responding to his command, years of training coming to the fore despite their evident fear. They moved across the battleground and positioned themselves behind their shields, locking the metal buckles together, spears protruding through the gaps at the top. Organized rows soon enclosed their troops on four sides.

  ‘Archers, in position now!’ yelled Jared.

  Behind the lines of soldiers with shields, hundreds of archers stretched the strings of their bows and aimed their arrows at the sky.

  Navia gritted her teeth when she felt the murderous intent of the thousands of men galloping across the flatlands, the hordes thinning as they spread out to encircle them. While the ground trembled and the battle cries of their enemies tore the air asunder, she reached deep inside her chest, to the source of her powers, and prepared to unleash the ungodly force dwelling inside her heart.

  Then she felt it. Faint voices that grew rapidly inside her mind, gathering in momentum until their roars eclipsed that of the enemy thundering toward them. Rising above it, full of such power and determination it sent a shiver down Navia’s spine, was a hauntingly familiar consciousness.

  ‘Mila,’ she breathed.

  She looked north, her siblings and cousins following suit as they too perceived the noise.

  Charging across the plains toward the army of the Empire, an awe-inspiring sight to behold, came thousands of soldiers, golden banners depicting a red eagle streaming above them.

  And there, leading the men and women, the heads of the human alliance and her Immortal kin at her side, black stallion moving powerfully beneath her while her armor-clad hawk circled in the sky, came the Red Queen.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Crovir swiped the tray off the table, sending the carafe and tumblers crashing to the floor. The liquid within stained the marble as red as the rage filling his heart.

  ‘You mean to say that even now, there are more humans joining the ranks of those traitors?’ he hissed.

  Kronos nodded from where he sat, a servant carefully wrapping a bandage around the wound in his arm while another cleaned the gash on his head.

  ‘I barely made it here from Duruin,’ he said with a grunt.

  Crovir gritted his teeth. Over fifty days had passed since Kronos and the Empire’s army first clashed with the human alliance now advancing steadily toward Uryl. Fifty days during which their enemy vanquished every city and outpost from Qataara to Omran, forcing the Empire’s soldiers to gradually retreat south.

  But it is not just the human alliance that is our foe in this war, he thought bitterly. That all our children bar Kronos have elected to stand against us is truly unforgivable. She has thoroughly corrupted them.

  A crimson mist filled his vision at the thought of his lastborn child. Mila, the one he always suspected could one day topple him. The only living witness to the terrible act he committed nearly two months past.

  He scowled. She will not defeat me that easily.

  He turned to Kronos. ‘Send for them.’

  Kronos stared, his eyes slowly widening. ‘You mean—?’

  ‘Yes.’ A thrill of satisfaction coursed through Crovir. ‘They will not see this coming.’

  Bastian stood outside Crovir’s chambers, hands fisted at his sides as he listened to his brother plot with his nephew. The agony and doubt that had filled his every waking moment since the last time he saw his own children and his half-sister on the hill outside Romerus’s citadel finally crystallized into an inescapable truth.

  He had to stop this war.

  He twisted on his heels and headed deep into the palace, his resolve growing with every step.

  Mila tipped the jug over her head and closed her eyes as the cascading liquid cooled her skin and washed away some of the grime and blood from the past day. She was splashing more water on her neck and arms when someone entered the tent.

  Aäron stopped near the opening and studied her with a grin. Abu spread his wings where he perched on a chest and flew onto his shoulder as he walked toward her, the hawk letting out a contented squeak when Aäron tickled his chest.

  ‘You are looking mighty fine, Red Queen,’ he drawled. ‘That hair color suits you.’

  Mila touched her recently-dyed locks self-consciously. They were a vibrant red. It was Hosanna who had suggested the change.

  ‘Though you are scary enough as it is on the battlefield, I suspect this will make you stand out even more and truly strike fear in the hearts of our enemy.’

  Having indulged her cousin on a whim on the eve of their latest battle, Mila now harbored mixed feelings about the change. But she could not deny that it had caused the Empire’s soldiers to falter on many an occasion in the past days.

  Any regret she entertained was replaced by concern as she examined the fresh wounds marking Aäron’s skin. Despite his easy smile, he had suffered many injuries today.

  It had been sixty-six days since they encountered the Empire’s army outside Qataara, where they came to the aid of her brothers and cousins and the soldiers who had decided to stand at their side. Of all the outposts and cities they conquered as they progressed south, Girisu had proven the hardest to crush. Bribed by King Crovir’s promises of untold riches, the men at the garrison and the amassed army outside it remained fiercely loyal to Crovir and Kronos to the bitter end. It was only that evening that the human-Immortal alliance finally took the fort, after their fiercest engagement yet.

  With the Empire’s army falling back toward Uryl, they had a night’s reprieve in which to rest and heal, something they had rarely enjoyed over the past two months.

  When he was not busy fighting or getting brief periods of sleep, Rafael spent his time taking care of their soldiers’ wounds, Phebe working tirelessly at his side. The additional energy the Immortal couple spent looking after the injured men and women in their ranks had started to take its toll and the circles under their eyes darkened with each passing day. Only Mila, Tobias, and Baruch showed no sign of fatigue among the Immortals, their endurance bolstered by hundreds of years of leading the most aggressive conflicts the Empire had seen, although none of them had ever been in a war that had lasted this long.

  Despite the fact that Rafael had tended to him on several occasions already, Aäron showed more wounds day by day, sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion rendering him more vulnerable on the battlefield. This only served to remind her of the stark difference between them. That he was a
human with but one life, whereas she was an Immortal with all seventeen of her lives still intact, the only one among her kin who could make that claim.

  This realization made her feel powerless in a way she had never before experienced and the fear that he would perish in this war grew steadily inside her, a darkness that threatened to swallow her very soul.

  He closed the gap between them, an anxious look washing across his face at what he read on hers.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he said, tilting her chin gently with a finger.

  Mila hesitated before taking his hand and lifting it to her cheek.

  ‘I am scared,’ she admitted in a low voice.

  Her fingers fluttered over a cut on his temple and another on his arm, anguish spearing through her at the thought that he had suffered pain.

  Aäron cocked an eyebrow. ‘What, these?’ He indicated his wounds. ‘They are nothing.’

  Mila shook her head and bit her lip. ‘No. I am scared of losing you. This war could drag on for another month still and you could—’

  Aäron covered her mouth with his hand, a frown creasing his brow.

  ‘Stop right there,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘I always knew such a day might come. I realized it when I became a soldier in Parsah, and even more so after I joined your army. Every single man and woman outside this tent is also conscious of this fact. If we fall, we will not rise again. We will succumb to eternal rest, unlike you Immortals.’ His lips curved in a faint smile. ‘But for us, it is a sacrifice worth making.’

  Mila closed her eyes briefly before staring into the bright blue gaze above her once more.

  ‘What of me?’ she whispered. ‘The thought of spending hundreds of years without you is intolerable. I might as well—’

  He kissed her then, his mouth landing on hers with a fierceness that matched his expression, fingers closing around her head and locking her in place while he ravaged her lips.