by Morgan Rice
“We’re not enemies,” Vincente said. “We’re-”
Sebastian didn’t get to learn exactly what they were, because in that moment, bells sounded to signal that something was happening beyond the walls of the town.
“We need to go,” Emeline said. “It’s coming.”
“We’re safe here,” Asha insisted. “This is just some plan to take Princess Violet away from her people.”
Sebastian ignored that and ran to the walls of Stonehome. The shield the inhabitants had put in place was up, held by the efforts of those townsfolk who stood in the stone circle at its heart.
A battalion of the New Army stood before the town, cannons levelled, cavalry spread out like a net. Sebastian was more interested in the figures who stepped forward. He recognized the Master of Crows at once. The shaven headed man standing next to him was harder to identify, but he stood almost as if he were the Master of Crows’ equal.
“That’s Endi,” Emeline said, “Sophia’s cousin.”
“The one who betrayed us by dragging away half of the invasion fleet?” Sebastian said. He’d heard the stories, even if he’d never met the man.
“That’s the one,” Emeline said.
“What’s he doing with the Master of Crows?” Sebastian asked.
“Nothing good,” Emeline replied. “Sebastian, we need to get out of here.”
Beside them, the warriors of Stonehome and those of the refugees who could fight started to move into place. They did it with a surprising sense of confidence, but then, Sebastian thought, they were behind the shield. As long as it held, there was nothing to be afraid of. They were safe.
So why had Emeline seen destruction?
Sebastian stood there, trying to show confidence even while he felt it ebbing away. In Sophia’s absence, he was the ruler of this kingdom, and he had to provide strength for everyone else to draw from. If he showed fear, there would be panic.
Slowly, Endi started to walk around the perimeter of Stonehome, stopping every few paces to do something that seemed to involve ingredients carried by a pair of servants. He made marks with a golden rod, reading from a book as he went.
“Can someone hit him with a musket?” Sebastian asked.
“At that range?” Vincente asked. He started loading his own. “Unlikely, but we can try.”
Stonehome’s other warriors started preparing their weapons. It seemed to take an agonizing amount of time before they were ready.
“Fire!” Vincente yelled, and a volley of shots sailed out across the heath. None of them came close to hitting Endi. “He’s too far away. Maybe a cannon could do it.”
Sebastian could see that wouldn’t work. Endi was moving too quickly for a cannon to keep up as it aimed, and the idea of hitting one man with an artillery weapon was ludicrous anyway. They couldn’t even make a foray out there to stop this, because that would mean lowering the shield.
All they could do was wait.
Sebastian watched Endi as Sophia’s cousin made his way around Stonehome. He had almost completed a full circuit. Somehow, Sebastian had the feeling that they needed to stop him before he completed that circuit. Force wouldn’t work, but maybe reason might.
“Endi,” he called out. “Endi, this is Sebastian, Sophia’s husband.”
He saw Endi pause and look over.
“I know who you are,” Endi yelled back.
“It would be easier to talk to you if you were closer.”
“It would be easier to shoot me, too,” Endi pointed out. “And you’ve already shown that you’re willing to do that.”
“What are you doing, Endi?” Sebastian asked. “You are my wife’s cousin. My daughter is your blood. You shouldn’t be helping our enemies.”
Endi looked at him for a long time. “If family were the only thing that mattered, you would have died with yours, and mine wouldn’t have cast me out.”
“But you’re helping the Master of Crows!” Sebastian shouted. “You know how evil he is. He has attacked Ishjemme, and your family, and your friends!”
“At least he has a place for me!” Endi yelled, and brought the golden rod down in a last set of markings. He seemed to be muttering words to himself, and almost as quick as a snake he turned, stabbing first one servant and then the other, spilling their blood on the ground.
Lines of power flowed along the spaces that he’d walked, flaring a deep blood red. Energy seemed to twist in the air above it, and for a moment, Sebastian thought that he heard the screams of the dying there beyond the limits of the settlement. He heard those cries echoed behind him and turned to see people staggering from the stone circle at the heart of Stonehome, clutching at their heads in agony. One tumbled to his face, not rising.
Sebastian looked back in time to see the shield around the settlement flicker and die, shimmering in the air for a moment before it fell. Horns and trumpets sounded out across the heath, echoing as they announced orders. The rumble of moving horses and the stamp of feet joined them.
Sebastian saw the New Army start to advance, and now there was nothing they could do to stop them.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’re dying?” Sophia said, not able to believe her ears. The shock of it ran hot and cold through her, making her want to do something, anything, rather than believe it. Even when Sienne pressed up against her hand, the forest cat’s presence did nothing to bring back the reality of it all.
“You can’t be dying,” Kate said. “Not like this. Not after all we’ve been through. That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.”
Sophia could hear the sorrow there, and see the tears building in her sister’s eyes. That was almost as much of a shock as the rest of it, because Kate didn’t weep. She got angry so that she didn’t have to.
“Don’t cry, darlings,” their mother said, holding out her arms. Sophia left her seat to go to her, and found Kate doing the same. “This has been coming for a long time.”
“But we’ve only just found you,” Sophia insisted, as if that made a difference. She knew by now that the world didn’t work like that, but it should. It really should.
“You did find us though,” their father said from the side. “We have the chance to be a family again, even if it is for the briefest of times.”
Sophia saw him wince, his hand going to his chest. Until he did that, she didn’t understand quite how brief that time might be.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” Lucas asked. Sophia could see him trying to hide what he felt. She didn’t like that; she wanted her brother there, not a shell of him.
“There has to be something,” Kate agreed. “If I still had my powers, I could heal you. If I hadn’t lost them…”
“Then you would still be in thrall to one of the ancient things of our land,” her mother said. “This isn’t your fault, Kate.”
“No, it’s the Dowager’s,” Kate snapped. “Her and her followers. She’s dead, but they’re still living. I’ll find every last one of them.”
“Kate,” Sophia said gently. “This isn’t the time to get angry.”
“Why aren’t you angrier?” Kate countered. “What’s the point in having all this power if it can’t give us our parents? Why do we have to sacrifice so much all the time?”
Sophia could see that Kate wasn’t just thinking about their parents, but about all the other things that had happened in their lives, all the pain, all the suffering.
“We have to, because sometimes that is what destiny requires of us,” their mother said. “I know you’ve seen glimpses of what is to come, Sophia, and you Lucas. I’ve had a whole life to see it. A time of great power in the world is upon us. I have seen a war, and the way that war turns out will determine the fate of the world.”
“We beat the Dowager,” Sophia said.
“And now the New Army stands on your shores,” her mother said. “The Master of Crows stalks them, killing as he goes.” She turned to Kate. “I’m sorry, darling, but Will is dead.”
Sophia felt th
e wash of grief and pain flare outwards from her sister like some artillerist’s bomb. She went to hold Kate, and her sister pulled back, didn’t even let Sophia touch her.
“No, it can’t be true, it can’t be right,” she said. “Will… he can’t…”
“I saw it,” their mother said. “I dreamed of Ashton falling, and I saw the moment that he gave his life so that others could escape. He saved Sebastian’s life, sending him on with Violet. He blew up the cannon he was defending, and the Master of Crows barely survived.”
Sophia expected her sister to break down then. Even Kate could only be strong for so long. She even reached out tentatively, mind to mind, but found herself faced with a wall built from white hot anger, so cold that it burned her thoughts to touch it. Kate stood there for what seemed like an eternity before she spoke again.
“How do I kill him?”
Those words had the kind of tightness that came from rage behind them.
“That is a dark path, Kate,” their mother said.
“It’s what should have happened from the start of this,” Kate replied.
Sophia saw her parents look to one another.
“There are things that the three of you need to do to prepare for the battle to come,” their father said.
“I don’t care about them,” Kate replied. “All I care about is making sure that the thing responsible for Will’s death dies!”
“You would need your power to do that,” their mother said. “The pathways to it are still there, but damaged.”
Sophia reached out to put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. This time, Kate let her.
“We’ll find a way to kill him,” she said. “Even without your powers, you’re still my sister, you’re-”
“If I’d had my full power, Will wouldn’t be dead,” Kate said. Sophia saw her look over to their mother. “How do I get them back?”
“There is a place,” their mother said. She bowed her head. “And it fits in with the rest of what I have seen. If you truly want to do this…”
Sophia knew that there wasn’t even a choice now.
“We do,” she said. “We’ll help Kate get back her powers. We’ll defeat the Master of Crows.”
She saw her father shake her head. “This is one thing that you can’t do together. There is too much to do and too little time to do it. The world depends on the tasks you each have now.”
“What tasks?” Sophia asked.
She saw her mother grimace before continuing, briefly sitting back and closing her eyes. “The poison is getting stronger. I had… forgotten it hurt so much.”
“We have to do this,” their father said. He moved beside her, reaching out to take her hand. Almost as soon as they touched, a vision came into Sophia’s mind.
She saw Monthys, the ancestral estate sprawling in the countryside beneath the Mountain Lands. She saw it in a way she hadn’t seen it before though, shimmering layers of force wrapped around it in weavings that were as intricate as they were powerful. They seemed to form a network designed to protect what lay within, and to reach out to connect to the land. Yet there were missing pieces in that network. Dull points stood out, and without those points, Monthys was nothing more than a ruin. Symbols floated over five spots, and as Sophia looked at them, she understood what each meant.
Stone, Ice, Fire, Shadow, Spirit, her mother’s voice whispered to her. Some of the oldest of those with magic believed that these were the things the world is made of, and gave each a home in the world.
“Stonehome and Ishjemme?” Sophia guessed aloud.
And others, her father’s voice said, joining her mother’s. Each holds a heart, a source of power. Morgassa used to hold the place of fire, before its rulers decided that the heart was too valuable to leave in a desert. You will retrieve that, Sophia, and take it to rebuild.
The Ill Ysbryd is a strange place, her mother sent. Things are real and not real there. Lucas must go to retrieve that heart. He will only succeed with help, but must trust enough to go alone.
The place they call Si is more dangerous still, their father sent. I worry for your sister. She will find what she wants, but what then?
The vision broke, or at least, Sophia assumed that it did. It was hard to tell, because magic still seemed to be swirling around the room. She saw the outline of the world below them light up, the same way that the disc Lucas had brought had. They glowed with power, and five points of light seemed to burn themselves through the floor, standing out, even against the rest of it.
Sophia stood up, staring at them. She could make out one burning brightly from her kingdom. Another stood close to it, in the spot where she knew Ishjemme to be. A third was near the middle of the map, clearly centered on the spot where it stood. Two more stood out: one on an island surrounded by coral reefs, another a city in a patch of hills at the midst of a broad plain. Nothing seemed to be within a hundred miles except a river running through it.
“They’re so far,” Sophia said.
Lucas nodded. “It is why we cannot go together. I will go to the place of the spirit, and seek the heart. I will not fail.”
“And I’ll go here,” Kate said, kneeling to jab a finger at Si. “If this has what I need to kill the Master of Crows, I’ll get it, and I’ll bring this heart thing back too.”
“Which leaves me to persuade King Akar of Morgassa,” Sophia said. It didn’t seem as difficult a task somehow, at least until she thought about the way he’d tried to keep them all from this forgotten place. Even the caravan that he had sent to guide them would have led them somewhere else. Put like that, it might be more difficult than Sophia had thought.
“You’ll do it,” Lucas said. “We will succeed.”
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me,” Kate said, her eyes hard.
“Kate-” Sophia began, but her sister shook her head sharply.
“Don’t. I need this. I need to be angry, because if I stop being angry, there’s nothing left. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do everything that we need to do. Besides, it doesn’t sound as if there’s anything nice living in a ‘place of shadows’ does it?”
“I guess not,” Sophia said. She looked around to their parents, hoping for some other piece of advice, or maybe for some help in persuading Kate that there was a better way to do all this than through violence.
They sat there on the couch they shared, perfectly still, eyes closed as the magic worked around them. Sophia felt her breath catch, and she went to them, taking hold of her mother’s shoulder and shaking it.
“Mother, can you hear me? Mother, Father?”
They were both far too still. Even their chests had none of the rise and fall of breathing. Her mother’s skin felt cold to the touch now, the warmth drifting from it along with the magic. How much had they put into this last spell? More to the point, how much of the poison had been able to use it as a link to them? They had shown the three of them where to go, but in doing it… in doing it they’d left themselves open to everything they had shut out for so long.
Her parents were dead.
CHAPTER FIVE
The New Army came forward, and Sebastian knew that there was no way to hold it back without Stonehome’s shield. They hadn’t been able to do it in Ashton, or in any of the other towns of the kingdom, so why would they be able to do it here, in a settlement of a few thousand?
“Because we have to,” Asha said, drawing her blade and a pistol. “We have to hold, or Violet will never grow to be everything we have seen her become.”
Sebastian ignored the part where she seemed to have read his thoughts again. It was enough that she was prepared to help, and that she was there as the first wave of soldiers came in.
Muskets and pistols sounded for that first charge, and it slowed as men fell, scythed down by the hail of lead shot and arrows. It wasn’t enough though; it could never be enough when there was no time in which to reload. A few of the settlement’s warriors got off second shots, from spare weapons or just becaus
e they had somehow managed to reload, but the enemy kept coming even as their comrades fell, charging up to the wall that surrounded the village.
Sebastian readied his sword and stepped up to meet the enemy coming for his daughter, thrusting the blade into the throat of the first man to come close, then aiming a backhanded swipe at a second.
He cut men down, and they kept coming, even as he tried to think of ways to save the people who stood around him. He saw the warriors of Stonehome standing side by side with those of the refugees who knew how to fight. They struck out without any kind of overall plan except to keep holding. There was no time for any subtlety or strategy, only the need to stand there and fight.
He felt a hand on his arm and spun, sword raised, only to find Emeline standing there in the midst of the fight.
“We need to get to Violet!” she yelled over the clash of blades and the crackle of magic being used in combat. Around Sebastian, Stonehome’s warriors used powers that made them dozens of times more dangerous than any individual soldier: some of them moved faster than any normal person could have managed, some threw things with impossible strength, while one summoned flames on the clothes of his opponents.
Even with all those abilities from their magic though, even when they could coordinate as fast as a thought and sense every enemy coming at them, there was still only so much that they could do in the face of the sheer numbers coming at them. Sebastian saw a warrior fall, dragged down as the crush of people around him meant that he had nowhere left to dodge. He tried to rush forward to help, but Emeline’s hand was on his arm again.
“There’s nothing that you can do here, Sebastian,” she said. “The defenders don’t need you, but your daughter does.”
Sebastian swallowed. There was no choice to make, not with his daughter in danger. He had to get her to safety.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Cora will have headed for our house,” Emeline said. “Hurry, before the whole place is overrun.”
They ran for the small cottage, hurrying past the violence as they went. Sebastian saw a pair of soldiers attacking one of the refugees, and cut one down with his sword, but he didn’t stop. There was no time now to do anything but run. If they didn’t get to Violet soon, it would be too late.
