He had only a moment left.
At his direction, his soldiers dropped Ariana. She fell to the ground, motionless. The woman in his arms twitched and wrapped her arms around him. After a moment, she tried to pull away.
“Leave me some blood, you greedy pig.” She slapped at his arms.
Ciro took his mouth from her throat and smiled down at the woman. Her face was much the same as it had been when he’d confronted her in the village, but the fear had been replaced by cunning and delight. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Finally. Thank you, my prince.”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her up the steep hillside. His men followed. Some would fall behind, he knew, and they would die. They could be easily replaced when the time was right.
For now, he had what he’d come here for. The warrior in white was dead, and Diella, the first of his Own, had the body and the life she’d craved.
A sharp pain surprised him, halting his progress. He looked down to see that a long, sharp dagger was embedded low in his back. Ciro turned, and saw that the enchanter had managed to free his hands. It was the wizard who had sent the dagger flying such a distance to bury itself in Ciro’s flesh.
Ciro very calmly removed the knife, studied the bloody blade, and then dropped it to the ground. Thanks to the power of the Isen Demon, the wound was already healing, already closing. It didn’t even hurt, beyond that initial sting. He cast a smile to the enchanter and continued on his way.
At the top of the hill he turned back to survey the scene of his well-planned ambush. The enchanter did not attempt to follow. He was draped over the dead woman’s body, and was no longer a threat. Not that he had ever been a real threat, not to Ciro himself. Pity there had been no time to imprison Chamblyn, or at the very least take his soul. Perhaps on another day. Some of Ariana’s soldiers fought against Ciro’s Own and Fynnian’s soldiers, and many of his legion fell. Ciro felt no pity for the fallen. After all, those who fell were slow and ineffective. If they were better soldiers, he would have had more time with the warrior in white and the enchanter.
Most of his Own retreated, now that the mission had been accomplished. There were still many of them, and though they left the battlefield headed in many directions, they would soon be one again.
One green-clad sentinel slipped past Ciro’s Own and charged up the hill, his eyes on Ciro himself. “I don’t care who you are,” the older man growled breathlessly. “You will pay for what you have done to our sister.”
Ciro stopped his progress and allowed the potbellied man, who should not have the physical ability to climb this hill so fast, to reach him. The sentinel swung out wildly with his bloody sword, but he could not move fast enough... not that his weapon would do Ciro any real harm.
Ciro knocked the sword aside and grabbed the man by the throat. He enjoyed the terror in the man’s old eyes, and squeezed so that the sentinel’s eyes almost bulged.
“If you survive the fall, tell the enchanter that there is always a place for him in my court.” With that he tossed the old man down the hill.
Ciro watched the sentinel take a rough ride over rocks and fallen bodies as he plummeted. He surveyed the destruction on the road and in the field and forest beyond. All had not gone as planned, but it had been a good night nonetheless.
The enchanter Chamblyn lifted his head from the body of the dead warrior. He glanced up the hill, and his gaze fell on Ciro and Diella.
“He will try to kill you now,” Diella said coldly.
“Let him try,” Ciro said as he moved Diella into the darkness. “Let him try.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sian did not doubt that Ariana was dead. After all, he had felt it when her heart had stopped, hadn’t he? Too far away, unable to assist her, his own heart had stopped when hers had, as if the link he had fashioned with a simple spell and a length of cord linked them not only in this life, but in the next as well. It was as if he literally could not or would not live without her.
His heart had resumed beating. Hers did not.
He threw his body over hers, too late protecting her from Ciro’s blade. He screamed at Ariana to come back, even though he knew she could not. In a hoarse voice he hardly recognized as his own, he ordered her to open her eyes. He’d given her the strength to fight, he’d given her all he had... and it had not been enough. The blood on her blasted white uniform and the paleness of her skin, the way her chest lay without movement, without breath, the vacant stare of her eyes, they all spoke of certain death. He howled at the injustice and the unbearable agony that cut through him as if it could rip him in two. He felt the slice of pain in his heart as if Ciro’s blade had found it as surely as it had found Ariana’s.
Ariana’s soldiers, her brothers, came. Sian didn’t hear the others, he barely saw them out of the corner of his eye. Like him, they were too late. Too late to save the woman who led them, too late to protect her from the evil that threatened to take them all.
The sentinels who followed Ariana all loved her, Sian realized that, but none of them had loved her as he had... as he still did. None of them had failed her quite as spectacularly as he.
Sian tore his gaze from Ariana’s face and looked up the hill to catch his half-brother’s eye. The dagger he’d sent flying after Ciro had found its mark, and it should’ve caused a scream of pain. Ciro should’ve dropped to the ground, wounded, but he had not. He’d plucked the dagger from his flesh as if it were a splinter. This from a man who was not yet as strong as he would be in days to come.
No, not a man. Ciro was a monster, even though outwardly he appeared to be more man than beast. What was inside the body made him less than a man and more than an animal. Ciro was unspeakably evil, and Sian would not rest until he was dead. He would fight for Ariana, for all that she should’ve been, for all that he should’ve been for her.
And then Ciro and Lilia were gone, disappearing into the darkness with what remained of his army. Sian’s eyes remained focused on the darkness, even as he held Ariana. He could not bear to look at her face again and see death there. Maybe her death had been foretold, but he had been the one to fail her. In so many ways, he had failed her...
***
Ariana opened her eyes to find a number of faces peering down at her. Almost all were female. Some were vaguely familiar, others were not. When she shied away from them, all but one backed off.
“Welcome, Ariana. We have been waiting for you.” The man who spoke looked a little like her father. Just a little.
“Who are you?”
“Duran Varden.”
“As if I would not know my own brother,” she snapped, sitting up to find herself on a cold stone slab in a very plain room. “What kind of a trick is this?”
“I am the first Duran Varden,” he explained.
Her uncle. Ariana’s heart sank. The dead rebel for whom her brother had been named.
Suddenly she remembered the sensation of Ciro’s knife cutting into her flesh, the odd slip as Diella left her body, the oddly weightless fall and then... “Is this the Land of the Dead?”
Death. She had known it was coming, but still she felt a deep sadness in facing the reality. Not for herself, but for those she’d left behind and all that she had left undone. She felt that sadness for Sian, who had not been able to admit his love for her until the end, and for her mother and father, who would be devastated when they learned how their eldest child had died.
She examined the plain room, which seemed to be constructed entirely of a pale blue-gray stone, and the people who waited patiently for her to join them. “I rather thought the Land of the Dead would be different.”
Duran smiled. Oh, he did have her father’s smile. “Beyond these walls there is a vast and peaceful paradise. It is waiting for you, should you decide to stay.”
Ariana stood, leaving the cold stone slab behind. She wore the white uniform Sian hated, and it was unstained. There was no blood at all, and not even the smallest tear in her unifor
m where Ciro’s knife had cut into her. Even the embellishments she had foolishly sewn into the vest were intact. “What do you mean, if I decide to stay? I’m dead. How can there be such a choice?”
“You haven’t been dead long,” Duran assured her.
Ariana laughed sharply, and tears stung her eyes. “How long must one be dead in order for that death to be final?”
“Time is tricky, as your cousin Lyr can tell you. It moves at a different pace here than it does in your living world. Why, you’ve missed no more than one heartbeat while we’ve been chatting.”
Chatting. With the dead. “What if I choose to return?”
Duran shrugged his shoulders. “Then you will live, for a time. We will be waiting for you to return to us when the time is right.”
She studied the people who had moved away from her when she’d shown her fear. One woman had features much like her mother’s. Another had Aunt Isadora’s nose. They were ancestors. Fyne witches, like her. These were the women who had guided her and added to her strength when she’d searched for it in order to fight Diella. Why had she not reached for them more often?
Ah, because Diella had stopped her from doing just that. She’d been a fool to think she could control the empress. The demon.
“What happens if I stay here?”
Duran’s smile faded. “I should not tell you.”
“How else am I to decide?”
“With your heart.”
She closed her eyes and saw Sian leaning over her body. He was crying, a little, but he tried to hide his tears from the soldiers who ran to join them—too late. Ciro and Lilia... but it wasn’t really Lilia, not anymore... made their escape, and all around them his remaining soldiers made haste to join them. This battle had not been about defeating her soldiers, it had never been about defeating her solders. That would come later, when Ciro and his army were both stronger. This battle had been about freeing Diella, about giving Diella the life she had craved for so long.
Beware Ciro’s Own.
“I’m not ready to leave him,” she said, her voice lowered. “We didn’t have a chance to...” she sighed. “We didn’t have a chance at all.”
“Is love a proper reason to give up paradise?” her Uncle Duran asked.
“The best reason, I would think.” She could not help but remember the prophesy. Had she done her part or was it still to come? “Will Ciro be defeated without me?”
Duran did not answer, but she saw the no in his eyes.
“What am I to do?” she asked sharply. How many more heartbeats had passed? How much longer did she have to make her decision? “I am no soldier. I proved that tonight.”
“You fought well,” Duran said halfheartedly. “But as you know, killing is not your gift. Healing is your gift. It is that healing which will be necessary for Ciro’s defeat, should you decide to return and take up the fight again.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Duran whispered. “It’s time to choose.”
The decision was easy. “I cannot choose paradise and leave all those I love to Ciro.”
Duran nodded. He did not seem surprised. Of course, he was a soldier, too, of a different sort. “Take care, Ariana. Next time you come to us, there will be no offered choice. Next time, you will stay.” He directed her to lie down again, her back cold against the stone slab. He told her to close her eyes, and she did. Lying there, she felt the power of her ancestors washing over her. They infused her with strength. They fed her soul. She would not forget to draw from them when she needed strength, not ever again.
And then they were gone. She opened her eyes quickly, and found herself in yet another place. She was lost in a vast, blue nothingness, or so it seemed. A face swam close to hers. A desperate, pale face. Why did this man look so familiar? Why did she feel as if she knew him? The creature which taunted her looked very much like a young Arik, which meant...
Sebestyen.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. His image swam before her. “Listen carefully. I don’t have much time. Ciro cannot be emperor.”
“I agree.”
“You must stop him. Given the chance, he will destroy everything. I swore I did not want this for them, but it’s only right,” he said desperately.
“You must explain,”Ariana said. “Quickly. I can’t stay here for much longer.” She felt that truth to her very soul. Here she was caught in between life and the Land of the Dead. Why?
Had Sebestyen somehow grabbed her and stopped her while she was on her way back to Sian? Time was precious. If she stayed too long, she might never escape.
“My sons,” Sebestyen said. “They live.”
Ariana experienced a deep chill. Perhaps Sebestyen did not see beyond this empty world in which he existed. “Your wife and son were murdered near the end of the revolution. There was no other son. Don’t you remember—”
“Stupid girl,” he said sharply. “Just like your mother, so naïve and trusting. Close your mouth and listen!”
She recoiled at the scolding from a long dead and admittedly evil emperor.
“Liane gave me two sons. Twins. They live. If you do not believe me, ask your mother, or that irritating and meddlesome sister of hers. They know. They have always known the truth.”
Ariana shook her head in confusion.
“I have watched them grow.” His tone softened. “My sons have become good, honorable men, and they will fight for Columbyana if that’s what is necessary. Either of them can be the emperor I never was. Either of them can rule with a dignity and decency I never possessed. I did not want this for them, but if fate has seen fit to lead them to you...” He grew dimmer. “Or you to them...”
Even though she knew she didn’t have much time, Ariana was afraid Sebestyen would disappear before she learned more about the sons he claimed survived. “Where are they?”
“One is close, one is far. They will come to you or else you will find them.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It’s all I have!” The air around her reverberated.
“Why are you still here?” Ariana asked as it seemed that Sebestyen was about to disappear. “Why haven’t you moved on?” To paradise or whatever hell awaited one such as this.
“I’m waiting,” he said sadly.
“For what?”
“Liane,” he whispered. “I am waiting for Liane. Maybe if I help you to defeat Ciro, I will be allowed to stay with her in this life. Do you think that is possible? Do you think by doing one last good deed I can...”
Ariana took a deep breath and her chest burned. Everything... everything burned! Sebestyen was gone. Duran and her ancestors were gone. She closed her eyes, thought of Sian, and reached for him.
And with a gasp of refreshing air, he was there.
***
While Sian stared at the dark place where he had last seen Ciro, a hand gently touched his arm. He flinched, not wanting anyone’s comfort at the moment. There was no comfort to be had, not anymore.
Then an exhalation of breath from the woman beneath him made him forget everything else. Even Ciro.
Ariana’s face was still pale as death, but her eyes fluttered and opened. It was her hand on his arm, her comfort he had tried to ignore.
One sentinel, who also saw the dead woman open her eyes, said a quick and gruffly spoken prayer.
Another declared it a miracle.
One declared this unnatural resurrection the work of the devil they had been battling on this night.
The wounded sentinel Ciro had sent tumbling down the hill rose to his feet and said that the prince had offered the enchanter Chamblyn a place in his court. There was a hint of suspicion in his gruff voice, as if he himself had never entirely trusted Sian or his magic.
Sian would not take his gaze from Ariana’s face, no matter what the men around him said, afraid that if he looked away, she would be dead again. She smiled at him. The effort was weak, but it was a smile.
Explanations flew fro
m those soldiers around him. It was quickly decided that Ariana had not been dead at all; they had merely mistaken her for dead. The knife that had bitten into her had missed her heart, by some miracle.
Ariana remained silent. She did not try to sit or speak, but as Sian watched, life seemed to pour back into her. Her cheeks regained their color. Her breathing became deeper and more normal. Her heartbeat, which was oddly in rhythm with his own, became stronger. Steadier.
When she spoke, she asked, “How many of us are dead?”
“Six,” Merin answered.
“Injured?”
“Fourteen have serious injuries. Most everyone has some small wound or two. Or ten.”
Almost half were dead or seriously injured. Considering how badly they’d been outnumbered, that was not terrible news. Ariana, however, seemed to feel for every scratch. Of course she did. That was her power, after all. She felt.
When she attempted to sit up, Sian did his best to stop her. Perhaps Ariana had survived, but her wound was deep and serious.
She did not allow him to hinder her easily, and he could not bring himself to fight her too strongly. “I must see to the wounded. That’s why I’m here, Sian. Not for killing. Not for leading. I am here to heal.”
He placed his arm around her waist and walked beside her, lending his strength. His head hurt. His throat was raw and sore. And yet his wounds were nothing compared to those he saw around him.
Ariana stopped beside the first wounded sentinel she found lying on the grass. With Sian’s help, she knelt beside him. The man was barely conscious, but he kept his eyes on Ariana.
“Do not bother with me, sister,” he rasped. “I am beyond saving.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” His sentinel’s vest was dark with blood. Wounds to the stomach were always the worst, it seemed, leading to prolonged suffering and certain death. Still, Ariana placed her hands on his stomach and closed her eyes. Sian felt the power draining from her, flowing through her hands into the wounded sentinel.
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