by K. A. Linde
But the gods had saved her. Saved her for this moment. Given her others’ children to love and look after. And she would not squander that for all the water in the world. For pure rain in the Tygh.
“Onward,” she cried, holding her Hohl steel out in front of her as they finally confronted the first line of those with blood magic.
She could sense the wrongness on them. The otherness that said they had contaminated their bodies. They’d wrecked their souls, sucking in the deaths of their fellow comrades. She knew that they had been forced into doing this for the dark goddess, but it was unforgivable. A sin against humanity. And they deserved their end for choosing the wrong side.
She raised her weapons and pushed her magic into the force of her downward stroke as she met the first magic user head-on. He was a strong, seasoned soldier. She cut him down in three parries. Then he was replaced with another and another. Until the blood-magic soldiers were retreating at the sheer severity of her blade, and suddenly, beasts were among them.
Enormous creatures unlike anything she had ever seen.
Indres, they had been called.
Wolflike beasts. Though she had never seen a wolf.
Was it normal for them to be so enormous? With razor-sharp fangs the length of her forearm and menacing red eyes?
Still…she was not afraid. She had been blessed by the gods to endure this. And she would endure.
She engaged the beast. Probed it for weaknesses that she did not find. But it still responded to her steel. To the slashes she had given it along its legs as she weakened it. And, as she cut open its jugular and watched it bleed out into the grass, another replaced it. And another.
Gods, how many were there?
“Dera!” Hulen cried from her left.
She allowed herself one glance and saw he was engaged with another pair of the Indres.
“The children,” he yelled.
And then she saw past him to what she had not seen at first. Jenstad, Alchia, and Cambria were alone. With a half-dozen Indres circling them like they were their next meal.
Quidera took one more look at her own Indres before she took off running toward the others. Jenstad was the only one of age. Alchia was barely sixteen. Cambria only a year older. Quidera would fall on her own sword before letting them take on these beasts alone.
“Alchia, your left,” she roared as she joined the fray.
Alchia brought her blade up at the last minute, sinking it six inches into the beast before it fell straight onto the blade. The girl was smart enough to hold on to an energy burst as she searched for another weapon.
Jenstad threw her his. He held two of the Indres in a water bubble unlike Quidera had ever seen. She’d never known enough water before coming here with Cyrene to actually be able to kill someone with water.
What had Cyrene called it? Drowning.
Her little water seeker was drowning the Indres in midair.
Quidera brought her sword up to parry one of the Indres trying to break through Cambria’s defenses. Her sword shuddered but held against their enormous fangs. This was the toughest substance on earth. Not even Indres teeth could cut through the metal of the gods.
She sliced forward, bringing the blade through his mouth and out the other side. The Indres dropped with a shudder. But there was another. And she didn’t have time to pull her sword out of the beast before it was upon her.
Then, like a miracle, an arrow flew right past her ear, zinging loudly and landing right between the beast’s eyes.
Quidera breathed a sigh of relief for whoever had had that miraculous shot and withdrew her weapon. More Indres were coming. More behind the one with an arrow lodged in its temple. And more behind that.
“Gods,” she breathed in horror.
She had known they were outnumbered. But this was…impossible. None of them could take down these beasts all day under the beating sun as the Tygh blew in fresh hell.
“No!” Alchia cried.
“Cam!” Jenstad roared.
Then, even before Quidera could turn to help them, Alchia and Jenstad had taken out two of the Indres. But she saw no trace of Cambria.
Jenstad flung the beast aside with the force of his air magic. And there she was. Crushed under the weight of the Indres that had taken her into his mouth. Her dark hair a fan around her beautiful face. Blood leaking out of her body. Her eyes vacant. Dead.
Quidera knew then. Like she had never known before.
They were outmatched.
If they were to have any chance of winning this, they needed more soldiers.
And some that were much more powerful than her.
63
The Archer
Cal
Cal withdrew another arrow from the quiver at her back. She slung the bolt into place with practiced ease, having killed deer all season since she was old enough to trek through the woods alone. Younger than her family would have preferred. But she had never followed their teachings anyway.
She drew the bowstring back to her ear, steadied her gaze on her target, breathed out, and let the arrow fly. It stuck between the eyes of one of those Indres beasts.
Ahlvie had trained her on their weaknesses long ago. Long before she’d seen one. Long before she’d even known that Ahlvie was one of them.
Back in Fen.
Her home.
That no longer existed.
That had been burned to ash along with her mother and father and grandmother and nearly every other person she had known in her life.
She grabbed another arrow with swiftness. There was no time to think about the past. Or to mourn even. She would mourn when they won. Because there was no option in her mind that they could lose. Not with Cyrene on their side.
She knew Reeve and Aubron teased her that she hero-worshipped Cyrene. But she was the first person to ever take Cal seriously. Ahlvie had coddled her as a child. But Cyrene had seen her. She had seen the warrior within and known that she was worthy, valuable. She hadn’t treated Cal like a child who needed to put on dresses and follow orders because that was how things had always been done.
Cal was done following those orders.
And the people who had given them were dead anyway.
She let another arrow fly and watched it pick off another Indres who had been going after the Commander. He was way too cute to die. Even if he was, like, old enough to be her dad or whatever, he was a real hunk.
“Nice shot, Caldreva Anamarya,” Aubron said, shooting his own arrow. Though nowhere as far as her arrows soared.
She was cheating…or maybe using her natural-born gifts to her advantage. She was using her magic to let the arrows have farther distance and accuracy. The Indres were the real threat. She needed to cut them down before they overrode the entire army.
“You too, Aubron Wellesley,” she shot back.
He laughed at the mention of his middle name. It was amazing that anyone could laugh under these circumstances. From here, she could see that they simply did not have enough troops. Even with Sarielle and Halcyon helping, the beasts and blood-magic soldiers were cutting their people down. And, like Cyrene had warned, the soldiers who had sliced through the front lines were now getting picked off on both sides.
She drew another arrow, not liking how few she had left in her quiver. She shot arrow after arrow after arrow. Taking out only prime targets. Not wasting a single shot.
“Cal!” Aubron cried. “Your right.”
Her attention wavered, and she whirled to her right. Just in time to raise her bow to break the fall of the sword. She heard the bow make a sickening crunch, and she winced. That had been her bow from home. One that she had made by hand two summers ago under her father’s instruction. Even though her mother hadn’t wanted her to have another bow after she outgrew the last.
Useless now.
She pushed the attacker back and discarded the bow. She withdrew a sword that Cyrene had personally handed to her out of the arsenal. It was well balanced for her height and st
rength.
She had never been more glad that she had spent every second she could training with Reeve to become nearly as good of a swordsman as she was an archer. The attackers were strong, but they’d clearly thought that the element of surprise would win them out. That a young girl would be the easiest target.
They were going to find out how wrong they were.
She swung her blade like a professional with the training of a High Order. Her steps were smooth and flowing. Her movements as enhanced by her well of magic as her shooting had been.
Cal matched her opponent, feeling the light weight of her blade and using that to her advantage. She severed the man’s arm before stabbing him in the stomach and kicking him out of her way.
She cut down another opponent. Engaged a woman who had not had enough practice with actual fighters. Then she took down another man. Three more women.
She knew that she was too young for this. That she shouldn’t be killing people at her age. That no one should have to do this in fact. But it was what she had and all she could do. The soldiers were still coming. And she had to hold the line.
These soldiers must have been snuck into the mountains under the cover of darkness so that they could disrupt the archers and cut off retreat for Cyrene’s army if it came down to that.
Now, it was them against her.
One girl to stop an army.
Adrenaline coursed through her. Her magic boosted her. Her sheer determination never wavered.
But she couldn’t hold out with this forever.
And the people on the field needed her bow and arrow.
Aubron stepped up to her side, and together, they did all that they could.
Even though they both knew…it wouldn’t be enough.
64
The Alpha
Ahlvie
Horrified, Ahlvie slowly turned in a circle on the battlefield.
They were losing.
That much was immediately obvious.
They could not sustain the combined force of the soldiers and blood magic and Indres and Braj. They hadn’t been trained well enough or prepared well enough to take on magical creatures like this. So few of the soldiers had enough magic to do anything against an Indres. He knew firsthand how easy it was to slide into their ranks and destroy them. He’d been forced to do it for Malysa.
He closed his eyes as the pain of that memory sliced through him.
Every action he’d taken as a slave to her was etched into his mind. He couldn’t just forget what he’d had to do. The things the beast had reveled in. The blood and torture and death. It had been him partly as much as the beast that Malysa had controlled.
It was why he hadn’t shifted since Cyrene healed him. Except for that one time to confirm that he could.
But fear bit at him.
Remembered trauma was etched into his skin like a tattoo of his horrors.
Still, he could see that they were failing.
That the water seekers could only hold out against the Indres for so long. That the Commander and his Guild were pitted against their own kind. The Honorary might be dead, but there were still hundreds more to dispatch. That Malysa had sent another army to stop their retreat. That, even now, Cal and Aubron were fighting to survive.
He could see it all.
And yet, he did nothing.
Nothing but raise his sword and take on more.
Nothing that really mattered in the grand scheme of things.
He could keep fighting like a human and lose.
Or he could embrace that part of him that he feared and detested…and maybe have a chance at survival.
He opened his eyes.
Stared down the nearest Indres.
They felt wrong. That was the first thing he had noticed when they appeared on the battlefield that morning. He was their alpha. He should be able to command them with ease, and yet he could no more than sense their presence.
Malysa had done something to them. Something to reprogram them so that he wouldn’t be in control. She’d had a backup plan for him. For everything. Of course. He should have known she wouldn’t make it easy on him.
But then he heard the words that Cyrene had said to him last night before they all tried to go to sleep.
“I know what I am asking you. I know how it haunts you. But the fact that you regret what happened and are tormented by it proves that she has no hold on you any longer. That you are as much human as you ever were.” Cyrene had touched his cheek. “We need you. It’s now or never, Ahlvie. I believe in you now, as you have always believed in me. Without question. You can do this.”
She was right.
He had always believed in her.
Had always seen something in her that, sometimes, she did not even see in herself. The strength and determination to succeed.
And he needed that right now.
To put the past behind him and do what needed to be done.
Ahlvie straightened his back, took in the scene of destruction before him, and then gave in. He shifted effortlessly. As easy as breathing after all the training he had done with Sonali in Kinkadia. Not healing like she’d promised. There had been no cure. Just torture. Torture only to be kidnapped and enslaved.
As he shucked off those horrors, his snarl could be heard for miles.
He reeled it all in, pictured the beautiful face of his wife—thankful that he’d had another day with her after everything—and then reached for all of his Indres. Because they were his and not Malysa’s. They had always been his. Since the moment he had defeated the previous alpha in the gardens of Aurum.
He felt them all. Every Indres on the battlefield.
They were wrong.
That was for sure.
Malysa had her hold on them.
The darkness that controlled each and every one.
But Ahlvie was their leader, and he was no longer of darkness. Malysa might have made these Indres. She might have had control of their leader for millennia. But Ahlvie was now of the light. He was full of Cyrene’s light. The Indres no longer belonged in the darkness either.
He pushed that light down the connection between him and all his Indres.
One by one, the changes that Malysa had made snapped.
The darkness obliterated.
The light shone through.
And all of the Indres shifted toward their alpha.
His to command.
“Turn on them,” he ordered.
And the Indres as one abandoned their fight and fell on Malysa’s army.
65
The Heirs
“Cyrene?” Kael whispered, his blue-gray eyes fluttering open.
“You’re alive,” she gasped.
“There’s…a sword in my chest.”
She laughed through tears as she wrenched Shadowbreaker out of the place where his chest met the meaty part of his left shoulder. She had wanted him subdued, so she could try to cleanse his blood magic and Malysa’s influence but not enough to actually kill him. She hadn’t anticipated the sheer amount of blood loss.
She had only a few minutes, but she worked on the muscle the best that she could. She had basically no healing abilities in her vast well. But they had been so connected for so long that what she was doing felt right. It wasn’t going to be perfect. They would need a much more skilled healer after this. But this would have to do for now.
“How does that feel?” she asked him, running a finger over the newly knit-together pink skin.
“Better.” He groaned. “What did you do to me?”
“I…cured you,” she said, sitting back on her heels.
“Cured me?”
“Yes, you no longer have blood magic.”
And she realized…neither did she. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t find it through the light. It was obliterated. The cleansing that had happened down the bond happened to them together.
“I don’t?” he asked, trying to sit up.
“Whoa there,” she said, pushing him
back down. “We need to test out that shoulder before you move again. You lost a lot of blood.”
“I feel…fine,” he admitted. “Better than fine actually. Clearheaded for the first time in a long time. My shoulder is a little tender…but whatever you did to it worked.”
“Good,” she said softly. “And…everything else?”
“No magic,” he breathed. He lay back down on the ground, staring up at the clear sky overhead. “It feels like a relief.”
Cyrene sighed. “Me too.”
“But you still have magic.”
“Yes, Doma magic. The blood magic steals from you. It fragments your soul until there’s nothing human left in you. But Viktor kept you tethered to it. The bond he and Serafina gave to us unexpectedly saved you. Now, neither of us has the blood magic.”
“And I’m just human again.”
She nodded.
“Well, that sucks.” He chuckled and then winced. “And our bond is gone, too. I can’t feel you at all.”
“I broke the curse when I ended the blood magic.”
“Being connected to you didn’t feel like a curse.”
“Sometimes, it did,” she admitted.
“Only because of her,” he said. He eased into a sitting position, favoring his shoulder. Then she met that blue-gray gaze, and he winked. “The rest wasn’t too bad.”
She shook her head. “Well, at least it’s good to know that not all of your behavior was Malysa.”
“Just the worst of me.”
“You’re still a flirtatious shit,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Yeah, that’s just me,” he said. He looked down for a moment. “How’s Elea?”
“Ah, you do remember that you’re married to my sister.”
His eyes moved back up to hers. “She made it to you. She’s safe?”
“Of course. I would never let harm come to her or Alessia.”
