by K. A. Linde
She dodged the first thrust. Matched her on the second. Their blades twanged together so hard that her shoulders shook with exertion, and she had to grit her teeth to push back against the woman. She remembered all the techniques she had learned in Kinkadia in the ring. Then she stomped her foot, shaking the ground under Wara’s feet.
Wara slipped just enough that Cyrene whirled away. She sliced the blade toward her, missing Wara by a hairbreadth. Still, Wara rushed at her. Cyrene slowed her steps with a blast of air. Her breath coming out in sharp puffs as she drew water to her and pulled the Braj into a water cyclone.
An arrow grazed her ear, and she lost her concentration. Cyrene’s hand moved to her ear, which was now bleeding. Wara fell to her feet like a cat with nine lives, her blade still in hand.
“You will pay for that,” Cyrene spat.
Wara’s horrifying human mask was slipping off of her face, revealing the true face beneath. But Cyrene knew that she would not be the face Wara carved off her body and walked around with.
“We’ll see about that,” Wara said.
Cyrene wanted to throw fire, but she worried that it would send the entire brush up in flames. And she couldn’t risk her own army.
Wara came at her again. And again. She pushed Cyrene back. Forcing her to lose steps. And then Cyrene pushed back, drawing her into her magic and pushing her to her knees.
“Your time is over,” Cyrene said as she swung her blade.
It nicked across Wara’s neck, but the Braj bent backward at an unnatural angle to prevent the death stroke. Then she laughed. Laughed and laughed like a maniac.
“You’ll have to try harder, Domina,” she said with a laugh.
She reared back and cawed like a bird.
The noise went up all around them. An eerie, disturbing noise that sent the hair up on the back of her neck.
Wara jumped to her feet and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Retreat.
She was retreating.
“Pursue them!” Cyrene cried.
And then she took off after Wara.
She couldn’t let her get away.
She threw her energy out toward Wara, hoping to slow her down or stop her. She ran and ran and ran, never giving up or stopping. She could hear more people behind her as backup. But she didn’t turn to find out who it was. She would like to have Ahlvie shifting into his Indres form. He could easily outpace them, but he didn’t shift. And she was left to go after Wara.
After what felt like a wild goose chase, Cyrene broke through the trees and into a clearing. She’d fallen behind Wara and her inhuman speed. But Cyrene watched as Wara disappeared into a portal along with the rest of Malysa’s Guild members, and then it closed behind them.
Cyrene put her hands on her knees, gasping to catch her breath. She had missed them. They’d gotten away. And into a portal no less.
Malysa had planned this.
She had known they were coming through Aonia.
That meant one of two things. Malysa had been able to detect the portal use…or they had a spy in their midst.
46
The Ash
“It could be anyone,” Ahlvie said.
“Thanks. I realized that.”
“But it’s probably Ceis’f.”
“I didn’t feel her darkness on him, Ahlvie.”
“And that’s the only way someone could work for her?”
Cyrene shook her head. “Avoca trusts him, and he swore fealty to me.”
“Which he only did because he wanted to earn your trust.”
“She killed his people,” Cyrene reminded him. “He’s hated humans and Indres for twenty years for what they did to them. If Malysa did it, then he would never be on her side.”
“Yeah. But how does he still have his head?” he asked just as they reached the bulk of the army once more.
Dean coughed. “You know…he has a point.”
“You too?” she asked in surprise.
“Someone had to tell her.”
“There are spies in every army. That doesn’t mean it’s Ceis’f.”
“He’s just the most likely,” Dean said.
Ahlvie shrugged. “We’re in agreement.”
“Fine. You ask Avoca to question him,” she told Ahlvie.
He balked. “You’re not going to do it?”
“I trust him. If you don’t, then talk to your wife about it.”
Then she pushed forward to Gwynora, who was currently being tended by one of the Tyghan water healers.
“How are you doing?” Gwynora asked.
“Fine. It was just a graze. How is the rest of the army? Do we have numbers on how many died?”
Gwynora shook her head. “We’re still collecting bodies, but they did a number on us. I hope you got their leader.”
Cyrene sighed. “She disappeared through a portal.”
Gwynora cursed. “Great.”
“I think we leave a group here to dig graves and head on to Fen. We can still make it while we have sunlight, and it’ll be better than staying out here in the woods.”
Gwynora thanked the healer and stepped aside. “I’ll get right on it.”
Cyrene turned to go through the rest of the camp and offer words of advice and comfort. It took hours before anyone was ready to march on. The ambush had done its job. It had spooked her army. Not a debilitating defeat. They’d barely lost a hundred, which was still horrendous, but compared to what they were marching toward, it was hardly a defeat. Yet she could see the fear in everyone’s faces.
As she walked through the camp, she used magic to suss out if anyone else had Malysa’s taint on them. The darkness that she had wiped out of Ahlvie. A spy that could give away their position.
She didn’t know how it could be anyone but one of her top officials. They hadn’t informed the armies where they were marching for this reason. No one had even known they were going through a portal until they had done it. Many had been reluctant, to say the least.
There were ten people in her war council. Which meant one of them must have told someone else who they did not know was a spy for the enemy. She had her bets on the Eleysian politicians, who clearly seemed to hate her. But, when she had run her magic over them, it was clear that the hate was purely personal. Strangely, a relief.
“It must have been the portal,” Cyrene told Avoca, Ahlvie, and Orden, who had gathered around her as they set the pace to march toward Fen. Still, as the sun set, she worried about who might have told Malysa.
“We’ve used the portal many times, and she never knew where you were,” Orden said.
“It was open for hours. She had to have looked at just the right moment before. This was an invitation.”
“But they were camped out,” Ahlvie said. “Maybe she just knew that you had been to Aonia.”
“How would she know that though if not for the portal?” Avoca asked.
Cyrene stilled on her mount. Her mouth forming an O.
“What?” Avoca asked. “What did you just remember?”
“The Mirror of Truth,” she whispered. “She cracked it.”
“Impossible,” Avoca gasped.
“Dean and I thought so, too. She also put some kind of curse on it to pull me in, but since Dean had looked within it, he was immune and was able to drag me away.”
“Creator!” Ahlvie breathed.
“Imagine if he hadn’t been there,” Orden muttered.
Cyrene smiled. She was glad that he had been there. “I wonder if it let her know we were there. She’s strong enough to self-portal other people and teach Kael how to do it as well. Perhaps she just waited until we tripped it again to put her army down and wait.”
“Terrifying,” Ahlvie muttered. “She’s so maddeningly terrifying.”
“Kael can self-portal?” Orden asked. “You didn’t mention that.”
“We met him in Tiek.”
Avoca raised an eyebrow. “What in the world were you doing there?”
“Tryin
g to convince the king to give us his army.”
“I’m guessing, it didn’t work.”
Cyrene shook her head. “I was close until Kael came and ruined everything and stole my bloody sword. But don’t worry. I’ll make him regret that.”
They lapsed into silence at that declaration. They had just left a hundred souls behind with many more to come. She knew it would have been nice to expect more people to come to their rescue. But this was it. It was them against the might of the goddess of destruction. And she hoped it was enough.
By the time they neared Fen, the last dying rays of sunlight spread across the horizon. She was tired. And they still had to find a place to camp, pitch tents, and eat something before she could fall asleep. She would have loved to sleep with Avniella that night, but she couldn’t imagine taking up in Fen while her army was in the fields.
“I still can’t believe they said no to you,” Ahlvie grumbled. “I should have been here to convince them.”
Cyrene just yawned. “I don’t know that it would have helped. They were pretty set.”
“That’s one of the reasons I left this place. But, man, it’ll be good to see Mom.”
The words died on his lips as their party crested the last wooded hill that led to Fen.
The protective bubble was gone.
The homes were blackened.
The village ash.
Cyrene hopped down from her horse and left it there as she walked forward in horror.
Malysa had done this.
She had cursed this village.
Cyrene’s shining magical utopia. What she wanted to make the world over again in the image of. Where magic ran free and expected.
It hadn’t been perfect in every aspect. There were problems everywhere. But everyone had been so self-sustaining and actually…happy. Kaliana had stayed behind to raise her baby here. She had wanted to leave her royal life behind because this place had turned her world upside down.
The people here were good. They were kind. And generous. They had saved her life. Saved her very soul in fact.
And, now…it was gone.
Ahlvie raced past her toward what had once been his mother’s house. Avoca followed after him. But Cyrene couldn’t look. She had a feeling that she knew what she would find.
Dean approached, gently touching her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t do anything but feel eternal pity for what had happened here. And righteous anger that she would right all these wrongs. She couldn’t fix what had happened here, but she could make sure it didn’t happen anywhere else ever again.
Reeve, Aubron, and Cal appeared out of the army.
Aubron broke down into tears. He raced after Ahlvie and Avoca in hopes to find his mother still there. Reeve followed after him, tears in his eyes.
But it was Cal who stepped to Cyrene’s side. No tears on her young face. Nothing but steely determination.
Cyrene put her hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Should we look for your mother and grandmother?”
Cal shook her head once, hard. “We both know what happened to them. No one can survive this.”
Cyrene frowned. She was right. But it sounded so wrong, coming out of Cal’s typically joyous mouth. Full of bounce and pep and all things young and innocent. Cyrene was glad that Cal was with her and hadn’t been here for this, but she was sad to see part of that youth be chipped away.
“You tried to tell them,” Cal said. She squeezed her eyes shut and balled her hands into fists. “Now, I’m an orphan.”
“You will always have a home with me,” Cyrene told her.
Cal looked up at her and nodded once.
Avoca strode out of the gloom of Fen. Black ash littered her light-blonde hair. “Cal, Aubron and Reeve want to talk to you.”
Cal nodded and then disappeared into the village.
Dean tilted his head toward her. “I’m going to go with her. Doesn’t seem right for her to go alone.”
“Thank you,” Cyrene whispered.
He smiled grimly and then followed Cal.
Avoca waited until they were both gone before speaking, “It’s gone. Everything. I didn’t even see bodies, Cyrene. She burned them into ash.” She brushed a flake out of her hair with a grimace. “We have nothing to bury here.”
Cyrene bent down and picked up a clump of ash. She rubbed it between her fingers until they were black. Then she ran her finger down the center of her forehead to the tip of her nose.
“Nothing to bury. Instead, we will bathe in the ash. Be baptized in it.” She drew the ash down Avoca’s forehead. “Rise from the ashes and burn this bitch to the ground with the flame of our vengeance.”
47
The Night Before
Ash covered the foreheads of nearly all of Cyrene’s troops by the time they left Fen the next morning. Word had gotten around about what she had said. Gwynora had even said that some were calling themselves Ash Doma.
Whatever had shaken them after the ambush had vanished. The devastation of Fen had done the opposite. Her resolve hadn’t faltered. And their resurrection had only brought them closer together.
They marched straight for Byern with long hours of endless walking and nights with little sleep. No one complained. Not while they had a mission. Not while they got one step closer to Byern every day and thus one step closer to Malysa.
She knew it wasn’t going to be easy. This was war after all. But she felt no dread, as she had imagined she would. She was ready. Ready for this to finally be ended.
It took a week longer than the last time she had made this trek, but with a full army, it was hardly surprising. Everything took longer. Even at their bruising pace, they were slower.
But finally, they came out of the mountains and saw the capital city on the horizon. And the sea of soldiers waiting for them.
“Holy Creator,” Ahlvie said at her side.
“Did they enlist everyone in Byern?” Dean asked.
“Yes,” Cyrene said simply.
She had anticipated this.
“Look at the face of your enemy. It might look like your brother or sister. It might look like your mother or father. But rest assured, it is still your enemy. And we are not fighting for the city or country. We are fighting for the world as we know it.”
Aubron finished pitching his tent with Reeve along the high ground in the Taken Mountains. Byern spread out before them. Tomorrow would be the first battle.
“I’m glad that you’re good at this,” Reeve joked as he appeared before him.
“That’s what I’m here for, city boy.”
Reeve laughed. It was forced but still a laugh. More than Aubron had been able to accomplish since leaving his home behind. He ducked into the tent, and his boyfriend followed behind him.
“Aubs, we should talk,” Reeve said.
Aubron closed his eyes and sighed.
Reeve put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. “Your village was burned. And you haven’t said a word about it since we left.”
“What’s there to say?” He lifted his chin and stared into those big blue eyes. Creator, he loved him.
“Anything. Yell, scream, cry.”
“I’m saving it for the battlefield. I’m saving it for her.”
“I don’t want you to go onto that battlefield with a death wish.”
His eyes snapped up to Reeve’s. “Is that what you think of me? That I am a coward?”
“Hardly. You’re one of the bravest people I know.”
“I want Malysa dead. I want her to pay for her crimes. But I’m not stupid enough to think that I can end her. I will go into that battle with honor to avenge my family and the rest of Fen. Will you go with me?”
“Of course.”
Then Reeve stepped closer, until their heaving chests touched. He placed his hand on Aubron’s cheek and brought his lips to his.
Jenstad whirled in place, bringing his Hohl steel against Quidera’s. Alchia, Cambria, and Isabylle lo
oked on, critiquing him brutally, as they tended to do.
“Stop announcing your next move, Jenstad,” Alchia bit out.
“Your left side is wide open. She’s going to gut you,” Cambria barked.
“Listen to them,” Isabylle said. “I’ve never seen you so sloppy.”
“Thanks, cousin,” Jenstad ground out as he came at Quidera again.
He turned, bringing his blade up to meet Quidera again. But then water was blasted in his face. He went flying back a half-dozen feet and landed on his rump. He spit out the water, something he never would have considered doing before coming to these wetlands.
“One more round,” he begged.
Quidera sheathed her sword. “That’s enough. You’re doing just fine.”
Alchia laughed. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“He’s doing fine,” Quidera repeated. “You all need sleep. Tomorrow is a big day for everyone. Isa, run back to Ritanya and help her with the healing supplies.”
Isabylle sighed dramatically. “Fine.”
“We should keep working,” Jenstad said, following after Quidera.
“No. You need to rest and draw up your reserves as we have been training to do. There will be many battles. Save your energy, Jen.”
Jenstad watched Quidera disappear to talk with the rest of the army and huffed. He turned to Alchia and Cambria.
“What do you think? One more round?”
Alchia patted his arm. “You couldn’t take me.”
He scoffed and then looked to Cambria. “You?”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I have another idea.”
“You want to have this conversation again? Right now? On the cusp of battle?” Tristen asked her.
“When else will we have it?” Haeven asked her commander. “I know I am your second. I know that I follow your orders, but we are assassins, not soldiers.”
“Don’t you think I realize that?”
“No, I’m starting to think that you don’t.”
