Riven (Exile Book 2)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Her Maidens claimed the guards’ swords for themselves, tying their clubs to sashes at their waists, pocketing knives in favor of the larger weapons. Shannen knew that they knew how to use them; they’d learned any weapons the experienced soldiers among Shannen’s army would teach them.

  Camille met Shannen’s eyes, and Shannen nodded.

  Forward.

  Just inside the palace, the Maidens downed two more guards they caught by surprise as they rounded a corner. At the end of the corridor was the throne room. If Daarik was not there, they would have to scour the rest of the palace, including the dungeons and cellars below.

  Please be there, Shannen thought. Her Maidens looked back at her and Shannen nodded. Camille, Janara, and Gildis pulled the Sarlene weapons they’d brought with them from the holsters Renn’s craftsmen had made for them before they’d left. Shannen nocked another arrow, and Reena and Sula held their new swords at the ready.

  “Now,” Shannen murmured.

  “Oh, come now, you stubborn boy,” Jarvik muttered as Daarik grunted. He was shackled, arms and legs, chained to the stone wall of the throne room as Jarvik sat on the throne. Since arriving, Jarvik had been focused solely on breaking Daarik’s mind, on gaining a foothold of control. Daarik could feel himself weakening at the constant onslaught, between the stabbing ache of his head, the searing pain in his injured arm, which the guards had wrenched up roughly when they’d secured him, and the burning, stinging pain across the flesh of his back. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, no matter how badly he wanted to. He had refused to say a word the entire time, and it had earned him a punch in the face from one of Jarvik’s lackeys.

  Of course, the lackey had only done it once Daarik was chained up. Even with one arm hanging at his side, Daarik would have killed him for even trying it otherwise.

  “You are an idiot,” Daarik finally growled in Maarlai. “Such a pathetic little male, sitting there on a throne that will never be yours.”

  Jarvik gave a small wave, and the guard punched Daarik again. Daarik felt blood flowing down his chin, and he laughed.

  “Did you all know my grandmother turned him down?” Daarik asked, trying to ignore the dizziness washing over him, the darkness creeping into the edges of his vision. “He followed her around like a dog, trying to win her over. Do you remember what she told you, Jarvik? Because I remember what she told me.”

  “Lies!” Jarvik shouted.

  “She said she’d rather bed and wed a horse, because at least the horse was useful,” Daarik said, and it earned him another bone-rattling punch to the face, then another to the stomach. He groaned.

  “Undoubtedly, the horse would be smarter, too,” Daarik added after he caught his breath. The Maarlai guard was drawing his fist back to punch Daarik again, and the doors to the throne room flew open.

  He was sure he was seeing things, even though he knew his wife would try something like this.

  “No,” he said, his voice hoarse from thirst and pain. As he helplessly watched, his wife and her Maidens flooded into the room. Three guards fell immediately, and the one who had been punching him went for his wife.

  “Shannen, look out,” he roared, and Shannen turned just in time. She gripped her dagger and watched the Maarlai coming at her.

  Goddess, he was about four times her size. There was no way—

  At that moment, Janara, deep in battle with another of the guards, tossed something to Shannen. In the next instant, there was a hole through the stomach of the Maarlai guard who had been going after her, and his wife stood there with that Sarlene weapon in her hand.

  “Close range. I knew you could do it,” he heard Janara say, out of breath from her own battle. “Want to take care of this bastard for me?”

  Shannen pointed the weapon at the Maarlai and tensed her finger.

  Four Maarlai down, and they had only been in the room for about twenty seconds. Daarik couldn’t help being impressed, despite how afraid he was for his wife.

  And yet… they might just make it out of there alive.

  And that was when he felt the blade at his back, right at the level of some very vital organs. He stilled.

  “That is quite enough, ladies,” Jarvik said, knife digging, just a little, into Daarik’s flesh. The Maidens stilled.

  Of course, there was nothing left to fight. Every Maarlai guard in the throne room was lying on the floor, either dead or in agony.

  “Stay right there, or I will kill him now,” Jarvik said. Daarik’s eyes were on Shannen. She was looking at Jarvik as if he was absolute garbage, lower than feces, which he was. It was not a look he would have liked to have been on the receiving end of.

  “Very impressive attempt, your Highness,” Jarvik sneered. “But like anything attempted by one of your kind, ultimately doomed to failure.”

  “They will never accept you as king,” Shannen said. “You have to know that.”

  “I will make them accept me. And I have a decent role model for that. Did you not just do that with your imbecile humans?”

  Shannen smiled, and it chilled Daarik to the bone. She seemed too at ease, too calm. “The difference being that the crown was actually mine all along. You see, if there is one thing I really dislike, you sniveling little male, it is those who try to take things that do not belong to them. And he,” she said, pointing at Daarik, “belongs to me.”

  Jarvik laughed and pressed the knife a little more firmly. Daarik felt blood flow down his back. He refused to react. Whatever his wife was doing, he wouldn’t distract her from it. “Come and get him then, filthy human whore.”

  “Why do people always say that like it is a bad thing? Honestly, there are much worse things than orgasms,” Shannen said, rolling her eyes. “Now,” she said, and Daarik was sure she was talking to Jarvik, but in the next instant, a dagger flew straight at Jarvik, who had been distracted by Shannen’s chattering into coming out from behind Daarik. The dagger, thrown by Camille, lodged itself into Jarvik's chest and he fell backward. Daarik felt the pressure on his back disappear, and he looked at the floor where Jarvik had fallen.

  “Find the keys, please,” Shannen said, rushing to him.

  “Wife,” Daarik croaked.

  “Husband.” Her eyes were on his, her hands running gently over his body. “You are here. You are alive.”

  “I’m not that easy to kill, maybe,” he said, giving her a weak smile. Janara came up with the keys, which were in the pocket of Jarvik’s cloak, and she began unlocking Daarik’s shackles as Shannen held onto him, supporting his weight the best she could. He couldn't hide his groan of agony when his arm fell to his side after being freed, and Shannen caught the flash of pain on his face.

  “It’s broken, I think,” she said as she looked at it.

  “Most likely,” he answered, gritting this teeth.

  “Where are the rest of them?” Shannen asked Daarik.

  “There were about ten more, but they’re off shift now, so they’re probably in the barracks. Jarvik was telling them to change shifts after dinner, whenever that is.”

  Shannen nodded. “We need to go,” she said to Janara.

  Shannen supported one side of his body as Janara supported the other. They made their way slowly out of the throne room and down the corridor out of the palace.

  He leaned his head toward Shannen and inhaled her scent. Herbal, floral, spicy, and fruity. She smelled good enough to eat, and he breathed her in deeply.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “Of course you do. And I love you more. Save your strength,” she said, pressing a quick kiss to his chest as she and Janara kept him moving.

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  “Your grandmother is one hell of a pilot,” Shannen said.

  “Faerlah?” he asked in disbelief, and Janara laughed.

  “It is going to be a long trek to the ship,” Shannen said.

  “We can move him via horse, if we can get him onto one, maybe,” Jana
ra said.

  “I can get myself onto it,” he argued.

  “Sure you can,” Shannen said, and he got the distinct impression that she was humoring him.

  They approached the door of the palace, a rectangle of light beyond it. They were doing it. They would get out of this mess yet.

  They were just about to step into the daylight when Daarik heard the familiar, hateful buzzing from above. As one, they looked up to see an entire fleet of Sarlene ships coming toward them.

  Shannen said something very unladylike, and she and Janara started moving faster, pulling him along with them as he stumbled, trying to help them. Whatever Jarvik had given him to keep him asleep during the ride to Darathar, it had affected his mobility. It felt like he was moving his body through mud.

  “Leave me,” he shouted at Shannen, trying to be heard above the rising roar of the Sarlene ships.

  “I swear, sometimes I think you do not know me at all,” Shannen said. “If I am going to die, it will be at your side.”

  “Janara, make her leave,” he shouted.

  His cousin looked at him. “I think this may be our last stand, cousin. Tell your wife you love her, while you still have a chance.”

  In the next moment, the Sarlene began firing, and the stables went up in flames.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Shannen held Daarik tighter, watching as the stables erupted. It was exactly like what had happened at Tanris, and she cursed the irony of having survived that only to die the same way in Darathar.

  But at least here, she was with Daarik. Little comfort that was, when she had come here with the express intention of saving him.

  She pulled Daarik over to the wall of the palace, leaning him against it, and then she raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him fiercely, putting every bit of her love and need for him into what might very well be their last kiss. His good arm went around her and he held her tightly, kissing her back hard, his tusks scraping painfully along her lower lip. She gently bit his lip, kissed him again, and drew back.

  Shannen met her husband’s eyes for just a moment, and then she gave him a small, sad smile.

  “You know I cannot give up without a fight,” she said apologetically.

  He grinned. “I know. Give them hell, woman.”

  Shannen laughed, and then she and her Maidens ran, spreading out. She ducked below a wagon and pointed the Sarlene weapon up at the sky. Her aim was not great, but even she could hit something that big. She pulled the trigger and when the ship above her careened crazily, she laughed. The sky was nothing but flashes of bright light as she and the Maidens fired from the ground and the Maarlai ships fired from above. The hatches of several of them opened, and Sarlene troops flooded out. They were surrounded, and still, Shannen and her Maidens kept shooting, kept fighting. Most of the Sarlene on the ground were coming for her, and she could barely fire fast enough to keep them at bay. She noticed that they were mostly ignoring her Maidens, though a few went toward Daarik. To her relief, she saw Janara start shooting, covering her cousin, protecting him from the Sarlene.

  Shannen kept firing, kept shooting, trying to keep them at bay. She noticed that her weapon was becoming almost sluggish, as if she had used it up. It was firing more slowly, and very soon she knew they would be on her.

  “The entire gods-damned fleet is here,” Camille screamed over the noise as she fired at those Sarlene surrounding Shannen.

  “It has been an honor to fight with you,” Shannen said. “Gods, I hate these ugly bastards.”

  Camille let out an almost maniacal-sounding laugh and kept shooting, as did the other Maidens who had the Sarlene weapons. The rest did it the normal way, stabbing, slashing, bashing. There was no way they could beat them all back, but they would all go out fighting. As Shannen glanced at Daarik again, she saw him holding a sword in his good hand, slashing out at the Sarlene nearby, Janara covering his back as he slowly marched forward.

  It was enough to make Shannen wish she could have one more tumble with him before they were blown to bits. There is nothing quite as attractive as a male who refuses to stop, she thought as she fired again.

  Her weapon refused to fire the next time she pulled the trigger, and she tried again, panicking as the Sarlene closed in. She threw the useless weapon at one of them, and then she heard more buzzing, the sound of a Sarlene ship firing. To her confusion, Shannen saw one of the Sarlene ships that had landed explode, taking several nearby Sarlene fighters with it. She looked up, and the ship in the air turned shakily, coming around for another shot. It fired, and two more Sarlene ships exploded.

  “Faerlah!” Shannen shouted, raising her fist in a cheer as the craft went around again. She pulled the dagger from the sheath on her thigh and stabbed the distracted Sarlene nearest to her, then another, as Faerlah brought the ship around again and destroyed three more Sarlene ships.

  The Sarlene warriors on the ground renewed their attempts to get to her, and others were getting into their ships, Shannen guessed to go after the enemy in the sky. As they all fought for their lives below, Faerlah did everything she could to fend off the ships that were targeting her. Shannen watched in terror in between stabbing out at her enemies, sure that they would shoot Daarik’s grandmother you to the sky.

  When she saw two more ships coming from the west, she nearly cried.

  And then the ships, looking wobbly, but flying nonetheless, opened fire on some of the other Sarlene ships. The sky was nothing but bright flashes of light as the Sarlene-controlled ships battled the ships commandeered by the Maarlai and humans. One of the ships that had come from the west, from Ashwall, Shannen guessed, was just spinning crazily in mid-air, firing on anything that got nearby.

  It was a surprisingly effective attack.

  Before Shannen knew it, there were no enemy Sarlene ships in the sky, and the Ashwall allies and Faerlah all landed, charging out of their ships and joining the ground battle.

  They were winning.

  Shannen could barely allow herself to think it, and she turned to Daarik to say it to him. He was fighting off two Sarlene, his attention on not letting them get close to him as he fought them back. At that moment, she watched in horror as Jarvik pulled himself to his feet behind her husband, raising a dagger, ready to plug it into the back of his neck.

  “No!” she screamed. Before she even knew what she was doing, she had her bow out and an arrow nocked.

  “Please,” she murmured, and she let her arrow fly.

  It sunk itself into Jarvik’s eye, and he fell back, a stunned look on his face. Daarik finished off his last Sarlene at the same moment and turned around, then looked back at her. Their eyes met, and he grinned.

  “Saved me again, my Queen,” he said.

  “Always,” Shannen said shakily. The fight drew to a close, and she went to her husband. Their allies rounded up the rest of Jarvik’s allies and locked them in the dungeons, then dragged the Sarlene bodies to a large pit outside the city and set them aflame.

  Shannen crouched beside Daarik, setting his broken arm as they watched the fire outside the city burn.

  “We actually did it,” he said quietly. Shannen transferred her gaze from his arm to his eyes. He was smiling, and she could not help but smile back. “The humans and the Maarlai united, and we faced something that should have destroyed the world. And we won, together.”

  “Will wonders never cease?” Shannen asked with a laugh.

  “You were right all along,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “Everything. About the need to treat our peoples as equals. About your right to rule. About me, too. I need you by my side, and I swear to any god who’ll listen that I’ll be the husband and king you deserve, Shannen.”

  Shannen smiled again and finished wrapping his arm. “Well. Better late than never, husband of mine.” With that, she stood up, throwing him a wink over her shoulder, before going to join her Maidens.

  They had a city to rebuild. A society to make new. A world
to heal.

  And Shannen was ready.

  Epilogue

  By the time the summer solstice rolled around, Darathar had not only recovered from the damage sustained during the Sarlene attack, but had begun expanding as well. As Shannen stood on the dais in the village square, she could see traditional stone homes, like those in Tanris, rising amid the Maarlai’s traditional huts. At the other end of the square, the market, which would be bustling any other day, sat empty, its stalls shuttered.

  She stood on the dais, dressed in a long blue gown, a blue veil over her face. Beside her, Daarik stood in a new set of black leather armor.

  Some things never change.

  Between them, Faerlah waited for the assembled crowd of humans and Maarlai to settle down. Once her stern look had quieted them, she cleared her throat and began speaking in Common.

  “We are here today, finally, to celebrate the formal coronation of King Daarik and Queen Shannen of this newborn Earthen Federation,” she said, and the crowd cheered loudly, fists raised into the air, Maarlai and humans hugging in joy. One they’d settled down, Faerlah continued. “This Federation was born of the joining, the alliance of our two very different people, thanks to the partnership and trust displayed by our wise, brave Queen and King. This day heralds a new era for Earth, for both the humans and Maarlai alike. Let us move forward joyously, bravely, and with honor,” she finished, and the crowd’s cheers lasted much longer. Faerlah smiled and nodded to Renn, who brought forward a plush black cushion with both Shannen and Daarik’s crowns upon it. The Kinarian had made good on his promises, not only sweeping in to save their tails at the Battle of Darathar, but also in wringing a confession out of Edwell. When Shannen had asked him how he’d done it, he had merely replied that it was best if she did not know.

  Renn held the cushion out to Faerlah, and she picked up the Maarlai crown, the same one that Daarik’s father had worn for public events. Daarik had refused to wear it, until now. She held the crown up, and Daarik lowered his head. When his grandmother set the crown on top of his head, Daarik smiled, and it made Shannen’s heart do a funny little flip. Faerlah learned forward and kissed Daarik’s cheek, and then she took the human crown from the cushion.