by Ryan Kirk
“Her decision could cost countless lives.” She denied the empire a strength they could use to overwhelm their enemies. In so doing, any life lost was partly her responsibility.
“Or perhaps she’s saving them. Maybe some powers aren’t meant for this world.”
“That’s not her choice to make!”
“And why not? She knows more about soulwalking than anyone on this continent, as far as I know. Why shouldn’t we trust her? We did in Landow, and she saved our lives.”
Brandt gripped the tea cup tightly in his hand, squeezing against it. Then, with a sigh, his anger broke and he felt his body relax. He wasn’t sure which argument, exactly, had won him over, but Ana was right. He put down the cup before he broke it. “Fine.”
The smile on Ana’s face immediately made his decision worth it.
They left that morning after breaking their fast. Brandt and Ana began the journey near the head of the column, but after they cleared the first pass they took a long rest and waited for Alena’s group to approach.
The small group trailed a few hundred paces behind the last war party. They remained close enough to enjoy the party’s protection, but far enough behind that they were mostly out of mind. When they appeared, Brandt felt his spirits lift. Despite their differences, he liked Jace and Alena. The group stopped short of Brandt and Ana, and Brandt saw the way they refused to meet his gaze.
Fortunately, Ana navigated the waters of relationships better than he did. “Brandt decided to apologize.”
Brandt stood up. “Alena, I’m still not sure that I agree with you. I fear your decision will cost lives. But I understand your reluctance, and I’m sorry.”
He found the apology easier to give than he’d expected.
Alena offered him a short bow. “You don’t know how much that means to me.” She ran forward and embraced him. Brandt, caught by surprise, returned it awkwardly.
It felt good, though.
Under Ana’s careful supervision, they continued the process of reconciliation throughout the day, as they hiked up and down mountain passes.
By the time the sun set on their first day, Brandt almost felt as though the rift had been healed. The scar of the argument remained, but the only cure for that was time.
Ana remained with the group, who now called themselves Alena’s war party, as Brandt returned up front as the day’s journey ended.
Ren, Weylen, and the emperor sat together with the other warleaders as the camp sprang to life around them. One warleader gave a report. Brandt caught the end of it.
“We know they have scouts out, tracking our progress from a distance, but we haven’t seen any indication of an opposing force.”
Hanns pulled at his beard as he thought. “Why wouldn’t they attack?”
The other warleaders looked as though that question would keep them awake all night. But to Brandt, the answer seemed plain as day. He spoke up, drawing attention for the first time. “It’s because of you,” he explained, pointing to Hanns. “Both Prince Regar and the enemy warleaders know the power you have at your command. An ambush might pick off a handful of our warriors, but they risk your retaliation. Unless Prince Regar accompanies an ambush, it’s suicide.”
“And he won’t accompany one because he needs to defend the gate,” Hanns completed the thought. “That makes sense.”
“Does he intend to allow us to approach Faldun uncontested?” The warleader who spoke sounded as if such a thought was the height of madness.
And until Hanns and Regar arrived in Falar, the warleader would have been right. The mountainous land almost demanded the wise commander lead one ambush after another. The war party on the move had every disadvantage.
But the tactics only worked when both sides brought approximately the same weapons. Hanns could bury an entire ambush in flame or stone with little more than a thought.
The Falari, for all their martial skill, weren’t ready for this new warfare. Regar was. He knew the better use of his troops was defending their most vital asset.
Weylen suggested they increase the number of scouts surrounding the war parties. Brandt suspected the measure was unnecessary, but the other warleaders agreed with it. It made them feel safer to do something, useless as it might be.
The days continued to pass without incident. Brandt found himself spending more time with Alena’s war party than up front. Though he unofficially served as Hanns’ Senki, there was little for him to do. The Falari scouts were better suited to their protection than him, and as Brandt had predicted, their march was uncontested.
It made their journey pleasant, but Brandt feared the conclusion even more. Their enemies would be packed into Faldun and the area surrounding it. After the trouble they’d had last time in the city, he already had nightmares about what awaited them.
At night, he could almost convince himself that life had returned to normal. Alena usually retired early to soulwalk, accompanied by Toren. Brandt knew she was seeking a way to unravel the connection Regar had formed with the gate, but she spoke little about it. Despite the apology and the intervening days, a tension still ran between them when Alena spoke of soulwalking. Though Brandt refused to ask, he still wanted her secret. Astute as she was, she no doubt guessed his thoughts.
His evenings were spent with Ana. The scars remained between them as well, but the healing had begun. They didn’t talk about the gate or the battle that awaited at the end of this journey. Instead they spoke of their future.
The idea of fatherhood excited and terrified him. He looked forward to meeting their child, but he kept his fears unspoken. He was a warrior, with blood on his hands. Did he even have the right to raise an innocent child?
He didn’t have answers, but Ana’s presence reassured him. Together, they would figure parenthood out. Together, they could raise a child better than either of them could alone.
All they had to do was win at Faldun.
Their party grew as they marched. Those who had come to join Weylen in his village caught up to them, swelling their ranks. Numbers were hard to guess, spread out in the mountains as they were, but Brandt suspected thousands of Falari now journeyed toward Faldun.
From early reports, nearly that many waited in Faldun to oppose them.
It didn’t take long for a grim attitude to settle over the warriors. Skirmishes between Falari war parties weren’t uncommon, but a conflict of this scale was unheard of, at least in recent memory.
And then their journey ended late one afternoon. They entered the valley where Faldun waited for them. The valley itself was empty, save for a number of scouts returning to the safety of Faldun’s walls.
Brandt watched the scene with the other warleaders. Beside him, Weylen studied the capital of his people. He nodded, as though convincing himself that an assault on the city was even possible.
Then he turned to the others.
“Prepare your people,” he said. “Soon, we will attack.”
50
Faldun was as impressive a sight as Alena had ever seen. Sheren, Brandt, and Ana had prepared her in some sense, telling her what they could of the city, but seeing it in person still almost knocked her over.
As night fell and torches were lit, Alena thought it looked like the entire mountain was on fire. The homes were stacked higher than she ever believed possible. She kept thinking they would collapse at any moment, but they continued to defy her expectations.
Faldun frightened her in more ways than one. The thought first in her mind was that attacking such a city was no different than falling on your own sword. The valley before it had been cleared for hundreds of paces, and the archers within the city had the advantage of much higher ground.
Arrows would blacken the sky as they approached, and if they made it into the city, the fighting would be even worse. Brandt and Ana had told of their escape, and Alena didn’t wish to live through a single moment of such an event. Sheren informed them the city had never fallen, and now that she’d seen it for herself, Alena
wasn’t sure it ever would.
But another fear, more subtle and yet deeper, concerned her even more. Faldun was impossible. Not even the best masons, gifted with the strongest affinities in the empire, could come close to making a marvel even a quarter as impressive. Those who came before had made this, and they had vanished.
Alena feared the battle of Faldun, but she feared what came after even more.
Toren, standing by her side, no doubt understood her thoughts. They had spent so much time soulwalking together Alena had tied a permanent bond between them. She could feel her awe at the sight before them echoed in his own emotions.
Their soulwalking attempts had been well spent. Together they had studied the gates, even going so far as to examine the connections between Hanns and Regar and the gates. Alena believed she could separate either of the rulers from their power, with one caveat. She needed to touch the gate. She’d tried separating Regar while at their campfires at night, but some force prevented her.
She considered practicing their soulwalking again tonight, but she found she wasn’t in the mood. She wasn’t close to any new breakthroughs. Her skills wouldn’t improve in any way between tonight and tomorrow. Better instead to rest.
When Toren grabbed her hand, Alena barely reacted. Though they rarely touched, it didn’t take a soulwalking connection to understand his feelings. She squeezed his hand. Then she pulled him toward her tent.
When she awoke the next morning, Toren had already left. She felt the warmth where he’d been, so it hadn’t been long.
Her emotions were too complex to sort through, so she pushed them away. More important tasks demanded her full attention.
Alena dressed and stepped out of the tent, surprised to see she was the last one awake. Jace sharpened his sword while Toren examined every stone in the pouch that rode at his hip. No words passed between the men, but Alena didn’t notice any tension, either. She focused on the bond between her and Jace, curious what she might find.
She felt his concern, as she often did. But the bond between them radiated a warmth that made her smile.
She joined them, reassured by the presence of both men.
For a moment, all felt right in the world.
That moment ended too soon. Suddenly, Alena felt as though she was going to throw up. Beside her, Toren turned pale, and Sheren collapsed from where she’d been standing off to the side. Alena’s mind, acting more on instinct than conscious choice, dropped into a soulwalk.
Alena appeared in a flat space, empty as far as the eye could see.
She spun around, swearing.
She knew this place.
The last time she had been here, Lolani troops had been lined up, prepared to walk through the gate and invade the empire.
Alena kept turning, and both Toren and Sheren appeared next to her.
She hadn’t thought this possible.
Then she was there, terrible in her beauty, a spear in her hand. Her arm snapped forward, a smooth motion Alena barely caught. Alena’s mind, still in shock, couldn’t defend. The spear stabbed into her stomach and pinned her to the ground below.
Her vision flashed red as the agony of the wound overwhelmed any conscious thought. Somewhere, far away, she heard Toren shout.
The queen’s cackle, though, rattled her bones. “This will be the least of your pain.”
Alena felt something about the environment shift, and a hand yanked her head up by her hair. Her eyes opened through no effort of her own and she saw Toren pinned to a wall by several spears, his face a mask of unrelenting agony.
The queen let Alena’s head drop, then she spun, rose her heel up high, and drove it down onto Alena’s chest. Her body slid down the spear until it smashed against the ground.
Alena gasped and coughed up blood.
This isn’t real.
Knowing that, though, and believing it, were two different things.
The queen walked over to Toren, hips swaying with each step, every movement exaggerated for effect. A knife appeared in her hand, one whose lines were as familiar to Alena as those on her palm.
The knife her father had made for her.
The queen stabbed it into Toren’s leg, then pulled it free and repeated it with the other leg.
An arrow struck the queen in the back, but the point of it bounced off her as though she was stone. Both the queen and Alena turned to see Sheren holding a bow.
The queen shook her head. “Witness now the weakness of your people.”
A dozen arrows fell from the sky. Sheren brought her arms up to protect herself, but the arrows stuck into her like a pincushion. She fell, joining the other soulwalkers in their distress.
The Falari’s attack might not have damaged the queen, but it distracted the woman’s attention long enough for Alena to find some focus. Fighting against the agony, she imagined herself whole and healthy, holding her father’s knife at the queen’s back.
The image wavered, both due to her struggles to focus and the resistance of the queen’s own will. But Alena opened up the connection to her gatestone, flooding her with a burst of power she desperately needed. She fought for a moment longer, then found herself standing behind the queen, knife in hand.
Before the queen could react, Alena thrust the knife between her ribs, right where the heart should be. If she could counter this ambush and kill the queen here, their troubles would be over.
The knife stabbed into the queen, but slowed to a crawl well before the tip reached the heart. The queen’s skin was as hard as steel.
Alena recognized the sensations for what they were. Her will and strength battled against those of the queen.
The queen screamed, spinning around with inhuman speed. Alena held onto the knife as the queen wrenched her body away, throwing Alena off balance.
The queen attacked again, but Alena’s wits had returned. She vanished and reappeared behind the queen, stabbing at the same place.
Unfortunately, Alena’s technique was easily duplicated by the queen, who vanished as Alena stabbed through empty air. For a handful of heartbeats both combatants disappeared and reappeared, attacks missing by the narrowest of margins. Sometimes they moved only a pace. Sometimes they vanished only to reappear hundreds of paces away. Distance didn’t matter, not here.
The queen ended the chase, deflecting Alena’s stab with a parry instead of a dodge. The two fought at the speed of imagination, but here the queen’s fighting skill and greater strength overpowered Alena.
Alena vanished before the queen’s sword cut her, then reappeared before Toren and Sheren. With a focused effort she freed them from their torment. They fell to their knees, not in pain but in shock, their minds fighting to remain balanced.
The queen approached the trio at a leisurely pace, her confidence absolute. Alena attempted a few attacks, manifesting spears and arrows and launching them at the queen. None came close to harming her.
Her friends were more a liability than a help. Their surprise was absolute, and by the time they found their balance this would be over. Until then, the queen could attack them at a whim.
The queen stopped short of the group. “No one has cut me in lifetimes,” she said. She almost sounded respectful.
Alena couldn’t have heard her right, but something in the queen’s attitude seemed different. The few times they’d fought, Alena had felt only malice and anger. This growing regard from her enemy unsettled her almost more than the initial attack.
A wave of power forced Alena to her knees.
But for all the power, there was no hate. Instead, the queen watched her closely, as though Alena was some creature caught in a trap, its behavior a fascinating study.
Alena felt her own strength coursing through her limbs, collecting at her navel next to her gatestone. She couldn’t challenge the queen, not in this place. But she wouldn’t die on her knees, either.
With a snarl she focused her energy. Gravity pulled at her, stronger than she’d ever felt. Toren and Sheren were pressed f
lat against the ground next to her, although Toren was slowly pushing himself to his knees.
Grunting, Alena stood, her balance precarious. She manifested a knife in each hand, daring the queen to attack with her gaze.
But the queen didn’t attack.
“Remarkable,” she said.
Perhaps it was her brother shouting to her, or perhaps the queen simply lost her focus briefly, but Alena felt her connection to Jace, just for a moment.
She didn’t waste it.
Letting gravity take her, she fell down, touching both Sheren and Toren. Then she followed Jace’s connection, fighting against the queen’s will with the last of her remaining strength.
When she opened her eyes again she was on her back, concerned faces all around her.
“How long?” she asked.
“Not very,” Jace replied. “A count of sixty, maybe ninety.”
It had felt like so much longer. If she ever was trapped in that place, eternity would last even longer.
She tried to sit up, but Jace held her down. “You should rest.”
She shook her head. Mentally, she’d taken a beating, but her body was fine. “You need to find Brandt,” she said.
Because in those final moments, when she had followed Jace’s thread back to the physical world, she had gained a sense of perspective.
And she understood why the queen had been able to attack them in such a fashion.
“You need to find Brandt,” she repeated. “And you need to tell him the Lolani queen is in Faldun.”
51
Anger broke them apart, but necessity reunited them sooner than anyone could have guessed. News of the Lolani queen ran through the Falari camps like wildfire, sapping determination wherever it was spoken.
Brandt’s own stomach felt hollow as he considered the implications. Regar hadn’t just been planning this, he’d been planning this alongside the queen. No other story explained her sudden appearance on the continent.
