“So, what do you want us to do?” He splashed water over his face. It glowed golden in the dawn light.
“I think we need to sneak into the Hall of Doves and convince Amandera to help us save the world.”
“And you think we can?” There was a knock at the door. “One minute!”
“I think we can, but we have to hurry. Who knows what else Catane will do in his madness?” I quickly ran fingers through my tangled hair.
“Listen, I’ll help you sneak into the Hall of Doves, but there are things we must do first.” His expression was determined.
“What could be more important than saving the world?” My eyebrows knit together in worry.
“Saving the people we love so that the world is worth saving. You made me the general here. I need to look over how my troops are arrayed. And you promised to let me broker peace between groups.”
I nodded.
“We could die on this trip to get Amandera, right?”
“Yes.”
The knock sounded again.
“One more minute!” Rusk called and then turned back to me. “We need to get this taken care of before we go haring off on what could be a suicide mission. We have responsibilities.”
I nodded.
“Give me just one day,” he said.
“Of course, Rusk.” Inside, my belly was like a bowl of snakes writhing, trying to find a way out. Every second spent not fixing the cataclysm brought us a second closer to utter destruction, but he made a good point about saving the ones we love. It wasn’t something I would have thought of on my own. It was a good thing we were a team. “Do you regret putting our fetter back on?”
He leaned towards me with a boyish grin and kissed me. “Of course not.”
I would have said something sweet, but he turned and opened the door.
“Were you going to sleep all day?” Astrex had her hands on her hips.
“How is my sister?” Rusk asked.
“Physically, she’s fine. Mentally, she’s overwrought. You didn’t tell me she lost her ancestor. We’ve seen girls like that before. In Axum. We have ways to help, but she needs rest in a tranquil place. Leave her with us. You have other things that need attending to.”
“The army,” Rusk said.
“And the great rocs that arrived outside our walls during the night and seem intent on distracting all our saurs. Your doing, I assume?”
Rusk smiled. “I think you’re starting to get to know me, Astrex.”
“Don’t try that charming smile on me. I didn’t put up with Axrun or …” she cleared her throat, “Kjexx for all those years without growing immune to charm. And that’s not all. There’s a troop of men on elephants headed this way. I assume that they’re your doing, too.”
“Tazmins,” I said.
“When they arrive, please greet them and ask that they convene with us for a mid-morning meal. Then gather the tribal leaders. We have plans to make,” Rusk said.
“I’m not your child to be ordered around.” Astrex frowned.
“No, but you’re a loyal and capable leader, and that is what we need right now,” Rusk said, his dimples showing as he smile grew broader.
Astrex melted. “Only because it’s you asking.”
She left and Rusk smiled at me. “Let’s go see the rocs and the Eaglekin.”
I was glad that Rusk was in charge of the armies. While I worried and fretted about the cataclysm, he led us through the Black Talon camp, talking to a tribal leader here, or a soldier there. Everyone he spoke to stood a little straighter and looked a little more confident. It was like a fresh breeze blowing through the camp.
When we reached the edge of the gardens, I saw the Eaglekin first, standing in a line, as if marking the edge of their territory. Their eyes and sharp talons flashed, and their heads cocked and dove like they were speaking with their minds – which they probably were.
Rusk walked into the center of them, standing in an easy pose with his own head cocked to the side. I left them to it, retreating into Ra’shara to make my next move.
“Kjexx?”
“Any progress?” He looked pale and shaken.
“We need to take care of some things with the Black Talon first.”
“Yes, of course. Can you do it quickly?”
I pursed my lips. Was there more than what he’d already told me?
“We’re trying. After that, we’ll see if we can get Amandera’s help.”
His nod was jerky.
“What is it? You don’t look like yourself.”
“This place is dying all around me. I feel like I’m living in the belly of a corpse.”
I shivered. “We’re working as quickly as we can.”
He nodded, but his eyes were haunted.
“Are there things you can see here that I can’t?” I asked.
“So many,” he whispered.
“Things that you can tell me about?”
“No. Just hurry, okay?” He flashed me a shadow of his old grin and then I was back in the real world.
“I think we’re ready to meet with the Tazmins and clan leaders,” Rusk said, taking my hand and leading me to the path. Behind us, heavy footsteps fell. I glanced back to see Graxx and the great roc following us. I smiled for Rusk’s sake, but inside worry gnawed me. Every moment we spent on the mundane was time lost working on things of epic importance.
Astrex and the clan leaders were greeting the Tazmins in the courtyard of the Silken Gardens when we arrived. She sent us a worried look and Lesser Tazmin Cadram stepped forward.
“High Tazminera, please,” he said. “We don’t mean to be rude, but our armies follow and behind them are the columns of Catane’s black horde.”
“His armies are following yours?”
Was it even possible that he could be orchestrating a war while he was murdering every weaver in the country trying to repair the cataclysm? Of course, it was. I was juggling almost as many balls at once, and this was Catane. He’d been the ruler of Veen for ten years.
“Get maps.” Rusk made eye contact with Astrex and she nodded, rushing away.
He walked over to one of the long outdoor tables in the courtyard, clearing the remains of the soldiers’ breakfast in quick movements. The Tazmins and Clan Leaders gathered around without needing an invitation and Astrex hurried up with the maps. Her gaze was level and determined. I sometimes forgot exactly how fierce she was.
A cracking sound in the distance drew my eye, but all other eyes were glued to Rusk as he began to trace the map with his finger.
“Here, along this rise. We’d have the upper hand, with the cliffs to our left flank. Put a strong anchor point where the line meets the cliff so that we don’t need to fear a flanking maneuver. If we can keep them pinned here, our Eaglekin can hop the creek and take their left flank while they’re crossing…”
My eyes searched the sky, finding the spot where the new crack was slowly, but inexorably, stretching across the sky. What if Amandera and I were not enough? What option would that leave us? Behind me in one of the rooms, a baby cried. I didn’t dare fail a second time.
I took out the scintellex and turned it over and over in my hand, not quite listening as Rusk expertly laid out the plan for the coming battle. If only I could read the letters along its exterior. They were as foreign to me as ever. As I spun one ring, a voice echoed in my head. It sounded like my own.
Your life for theirs.
I shook my head. I was worried and anxious all the time these days. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Didn’t you start to hear voices when you were low on sleep? My mind drifted in a haze, my thoughts looping after each other.
I surfaced from it to a table of chaos. Rusk was trying to talk over the mess, but one of the Tazmins was leaning completely in front of him to argue with Astrex on the other side. The entire table was arguing, voices raised and behind us, I heard the beak-snap of Graxx. Enough. If I was going to give my life for them, then they’d have to give a little, too. I pushe
d past Rusk, pulling a knife from where it was stuck into the table and then stepping up the seat of an abandoned chair and onto the wooden map table.
“Tylira?” Rusk asked, but no one else even seemed to notice.
“Enough,” I said levelly, looking around the table. My voice was too quiet to be heard over the chaos, but I took the knife and cut a slit across my hand, holding it out. I heard a gasp. The sounds of the crowd fell to a surprised hush. “Enough.”
I met Astrex’s eye and motioned for the cup at her elbow. She reached up to hand it to me, confusion on her face. Dashing the water out of it, I let a single drop of my blood fall into the cup.
“We’re here not just to defend ourselves from those who would take us prisoner. We’re here to establish something new. When this battle is over, it will leave a new kingdom with a new sovereign and a new way of doing things. It starts now.
“We come to this table separate. We will leave as equals and one in mind. Make a blood oath with me. We need to know that if we fight and die that those who are left will protect our people and grant them a home in peace. Here’s the oath: My life for yours. I will defend and protect your people as if they were my own.”
I stepped down from the table, placing the cup at its center and for a long moment there was silence, but then Rusk stepped forward, slicing his palm and saying the oath. He looked at me while he said it.
“My life for yours. I will defend and protect your people as if they were my own.”
I thought the Lesser Tazmin Cadram would be next, but Astrex beat him to it. After all, her people loved rituals as much as ours did – particularly ones that left you feeling uncomfortable. Graxx was next, biting a chunk from his skin before letting it bleed. I couldn’t hear his oath, but his actions spoke as plainly as words.
Whatever else happened, at least if we won. We’d have peace between us. All of us.
CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE
IT WAS NIGHTFALL BEFORE RUSK finished with them. My ceremony had begun the alliance, but it was really Rusk’s persistent attention to the details of the armies and his sober insistence that every group play its part that bound them together. Inspiring loyalty was not my gifting and even if it had been, I was distracted by the murmuring going on in my head.
Ever since I thought I could hear my own voice speaking to me, I’d heard the murmur of a voice penetrating my thoughts. It wasn’t clear enough to make out distinct words, but the rhythm of it was familiar, like a song you could almost remember. The longer it went on, the more agitated I became. If I could just get to Amandera and fix the cataclysm then weird things like this would stop happening. We all needed the relief that would come with a healed world.
I was starting to drift off. I was so tired. I might just fall asleep beside Rusk as he finished nailing down the details of the civilian defense with Astrex...
I woke to strong arms carrying me and a warm voice tickling my ear. “I’ve got you Wild Girl.”
“Mmmhmmm,” I mumbled. He smelled so good, like trees and earth in summer. I could just lose myself in…
The jostling of his feet on the stairs woke me. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
He had me, alright. Body, heart, soul: it was all his.
He swung the door open with a foot and leaned to the side to shut it before laying me out on the bed, half roughly, half with care as if his strength was giving out.
I giggled with my eyes closed. If only I had the strength to open them. I heard his matching chuckle and felt him pull off my boots. They thumped twice as they hit the floor, and then his went with them. The tether slid cold against my skin as he settled in the bed beside me and and I kicked my leather pants off. They were too tight to sleep in.
“Too hot.” My voice was muffled by the soft blankets.
“Just the sight of you heats my blood.”
I cracked an eye open to see him in the moonlight sitting beside me and looking at me through eyes black with desire. His lips parted, and my breath hitched in my throat as the sight. Had I been tired? I felt wide awake now.
His lips met mine – hot and sweet and I let him lead the kiss while I followed along sleepily. His hands reached for my waist, tugging me close and resting hot against my bare skin. Why was it so hard to breath around him? I pushed closer, letting my bare legs tangle around his and enjoying the luxury of skin against skin as his kiss deepened.
“You showed your worth today, General,” I said when he paused. He needed to know how valuable he was – how respected. “You lead armies well.”
“If you thought I led them well, you should see where I could lead you.” His voice was husky and I pulled myself up so that I was leaning over him, my hands on his shoulders.
“You’re so perfect,” I said, so tired that my true thoughts were slipping past my barriers. “I wish I could set you free to live a long and happy life. You deserve it.”
He reached up, pulled my head down and kissed me roughly. “I’m going to have it. With you.”
I could still taste his kiss on my lips and feel his touch on my waist. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, letting my lips speak with kisses instead of words as I traced his jawline, his neck, the crook of his shoulder.
“I love you,” I whispered, kissing the muscles of his arms – so strong that looking at them left little butterflies in my belly – and then his broad chest. “I’ll love you for as long as I live.”
I bit him gently, just to remind him who was talking. His groan was followed quickly by a husky laugh and then he flipped me on my back, leaning down gracefully to nuzzle the side of my cheek and kiss me as thoroughly as I’d kissed him.
“Tomorrow, I’ll give you what you want,” he said. “And we’ll go off to save the world together, but tonight you’re all mine.”
I closed my eyes, drifting between love and sleep and all that time the dull voice in the back of my head kept on talking to me with words I couldn’t quite hear. I was just nodding off, wrapped sweetly in Rusk’s warm arms when I suddenly heard the words clearly.
Can you hear me? You need to listen, this is important. Ra’shara is dying. Without it, all is lost.
The voice faded away with my thoughts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
WE LEFT SO EARLY IN the morning that it was still dark. In the cool of the morning air the Silken Gardens slept like a great beast, the quiet steps of the watchmen like the gentle inhale and exhale of a breathing tiger.
We walked out past the perimeter and stood in the pre-morning mist, not able to see more than a few feet in any direction. Rusk tilted his head to the side and then the sound of wings rushing through the air came so quickly that I leapt in surprise.
The roc’s sudden landing just feet away was not enough to distract me from Rusk’s smirk. He thought it was funny, did he? Well not all of us could talk to birds like we did to other people. In fairness, he couldn’t talk to ancestors, and he probably found my constant fading in and out of conscious awareness a little bit disconcerting as well.
The roc cast me a spine-chilling glance with his sharp eyes just before we settled on his back.
“I’m never going to get used to this,” I grumbled. “We should have taken Graxx.”
Rusk laughed, helping me position my hands better on the roc’s feathers. “That was never an option – not if you want to do this in secret. The Eaglekin are hard to disguise and Catane would expect them. A roc, on the other hand… well, I don’t know if he even knows about them. He’s not exactly a lover of the land and its creatures.”
That made me chuckle and it was enough to distract me right before the stomach-lurching launch of the roc into the air. He flapped hard, jostling us wildly as he gained height. I peered down below us, fighting the sick sensation in my belly to look out over the Silken Gardens.
Splotches of mist disguised the landscape and our army’s situation, but in between I could see the defenses, secure and ready, the army camps laid out in orderly lines. From this vantage point, it looked v
ery much like the maps that Rusk had used yesterday. We were headed north, and as we flew the armies of the Tazmins came into view, their banners and pennants flying the colors of each house.
“They’re beautiful,” I said, watching the colors merge and flow in and out of the clinging mist.
“They need to finish the defenses.” Rusk’s voice sounded more workmanlike than mine had. “If they don’t get the line anchors in place by nightfall we will have a problem holding the line where it meets the Penspray.”
I tried to look for what he was talking about, but all I could see was a sea of tents and campfires with elephants picketed in orderly rows.
“I wish I could leave you back there to lead them.”
“The oath will bind them – that was very clever of you, by the way – and they have their orders.”
“We’ll get back in time for you to lead them.” Hopefully. I still had no idea how I was going to do this. The murmuring in my head grew louder, although the words still slipped away like they were being blown by the wind. Could it be An’alepp trying to touch the world and speak to me? It almost sounded like her sometimes, although mostly it sounded like me.
The roc was fast enough to shorten our journey from days to just a few hours. If we’d planned it right, and I hoped we had, then we should arrive at Amandera’s window just before dawn.
“How far can he fly with three people on his back?”
“Not very. We’ll have to be quick and find a place to hide and do our work within the territory Catane has already claimed.”
I shivered.
“Don’t worry. He can’t be everywhere.”
We were passing over his armies now, and those words were harder to believe with the dark tents and campfires of Veen beneath us. Catane’s army was close to ours. I needed to do my part quickly – not just because the world was rotting like overripe fruit, but because Rusk needed to get back to our armies before the battle began.
“What will we do when we get there?” Rusk asked. We hadn’t really talked about that part.
“We need her. We have no other options. Either she comes with us willingly or by force.”
Thunder Rattles High (Unweaving Chronicles Book 3) Page 11
