The Offering

by Kimberly Derting

  “Silence” was all the explanation she offered.

  The sharp-toothed rocks ripped my pants, and my fingers and knees were raw by the time Eden finally allowed us to rest, leading us inside the mouth of a cave that was carved into the hillside.

  She prodded us farther in, until the cavern narrowed and we couldn’t go any deeper. As I glanced down at myself, I knew why she wanted us so far inside. Even in the intense blackness of the cave, my skin was notably visible.

  “Here,” she told us. “We’ll wait here.”

  I looked to Brooklynn, who gave me a slight shake of her head. “Wait for what?” I asked Eden.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But when the ground stops moving, we’ll know it’s over.”

  PART III

  max

  The bird-faced warriors appeared like the scourge of death.

  They didn’t send a scouting party, the way Max had. Instead they came all at once, a vicious flock, arriving on horses and in tanks and on foot. In the fire from their torches, and from the headlamps of their vehicles, he could see their iron masks, elongated and conical, curving and coming to a spiked point at the tip, like they wore deadly black beaks. Their hobnailed boots and the hooves of their horses ate up the earth beneath their feet as they marched en masse—a deadly wall. Their tanks and armored assault vehicles flanked Max and his men on both sides.

  Harbingers, Max thought, of things to come.

  He started to go down there, to warn the villagers who stood in the warriors’ path, so they would at least stand a chance, but Claude held him back.

  “There’s nothing you can do for them,” he whispered into Max’s ear as he dragged him back into the darkness of their hiding spot. He kept his hand clamped warningly over Max’s mouth. “Not if you expect to save Queen Charlaina.”

  The mention of Charlie caused Max to stop struggling. Claude was right, of course. He had to find Charlie before the Astonian troops did. But that didn’t stop the bile from rising in his throat as he watched the first homes being burned. Or as he listened to women and children and men screaming from within—and without—those walls as they tried to escape. To save themselves.

  Fire and gunshots filled the sky, and Max flinched again and again, but never once did he close his eyes. He needed to remember this. To memorize every last reason he despised Queen Elena, and the troops from Astonia, and the terror they rained down on Ludania’s citizens.

  He never wanted to forget what the Astonians were capable of.

  He witnessed the occasional body fleeing from the burning village, someone fortunate enough to make it out of the wreckage.

  Some made it all the way, unnoticed by the enemy forces. And others, not so fortunate, were caught before they could make their escape into the blackness.

  Those were the ones he could hear the most clearly, because they came the closest to where he and Claude were hidden. He listened to their pleas for mercy, their unremitting sobs and promises to retract their loyalty from Queen Charlaina. And ultimately their final cries as they realized they would die this night, no matter what they promised. No matter where their allegiance lay.

  Those were the ones that made Max sick. They were the ones who made him cover his mouth as he gagged and retched, until his nose burned with his own stomach acid and the smell of charred flesh.

  xi

  When morning came, my eyes were slow to open. They were sticky and raw, and I had to peel the lids apart. My neck ached from being crooked sideways against the rock wall where I’d fallen asleep. Everything about me, all the way to my bones, was cold and damp, and I was shivering long before I’d reached the point of awareness. The fog that had coated the land the night before had found its way inside our cavern, bringing with it a dank chill that saturated every nook and cleft and fissure.

  As my eyes adjusted to the daylight coming in through the mouth of the cave, I could now make out the slick layer of moss I’d been able to only feel the night before. It covered every part of the walls and floors and ceiling. Much like the moss stuck to the rocks, my clothing stuck to my skin, damp where I’d been leaning against the slippery surface, and damp where I hadn’t been.

  Brooklynn had fallen asleep leaning against my leg, and I shook her now to wake her. She was snoring once more, and the sound echoed inside the cavern we’d huddled in for the remainder of the night.

  I didn’t remember the roar from outside coming to an end; I’d simply grown too weary to outlast it and had closed my eyes.

  Now it was gone. The ground was still. The air was heavy and cold.

  Rubbing my arms, I searched for Eden, who seemed to never sleep.

  I found her outline against the mists, standing just beyond the entrance to the cave. She faced me, and when she saw me watching her, she nodded. Even from where I sat, her black eyes pierced the fog, telling me, without words, that something terrible had transpired.

  “What was it? Did you discover the source of the sound?” I asked, climbing to my feet just as Brook lifted her head.

  She knew; I could see it in her face as she frowned at me.

  “Tell me,” I insisted, crossing the cave floor.

  She breathed heavily before answering. “Elena’s army. They’ve crossed into Ludania. That was what we heard last night. Her forces.”

  Behind me I heard Brook scrambling to her feet. “What about us? Do you think they know we’re here? Did they find the VAN?”

  I saw Eden shake her head, and heard her response, which sounded muffled and faraway in my ears. “I don’t think so. Far as I can tell, they passed right by us.”

  But I didn’t care about any of that. All I could concentrate on was the meaning of what she’d said before that.

  Elena’s army . . .

  Here . . .

  In my country.

  I staggered backward, trying to find my breath and my balance. This was it, then. War, plain and simple. There was no other explanation.

  And now, any hope I’d had of bargaining with the Astonian queen for peace had been all for nothing. I had no reason to try to convince her not to attack us, because she’d already done it. My worst fears had come true.

  I dropped to my knees. What am I going to do now? What have I already done?

  I’d made a terrible mistake, coming here. Leaving the palace in the first place on a selfish mission over a vague missive from a cruel and vengeful queen. I’d taken Brook—the commander of my armed forces—away when my armies needed her most. I’d taken Eden from my sister when she was at risk.

  And I’d taken Ludania’s queen off her throne.

  How could I have been so selfish? How could I have risked my country’s welfare for the chance to rid myself of Sabara?

  It was too much—much too much to process.

  “Get up,” Brook’s voice boomed from behind me. “You don’t have the luxury of falling apart now. So get up!” She hauled me up with hands that were demanding and not at all gentle. She was acting like a general, barking orders at one of her subordinates.

  “Shut up,” I cried, the words falling pitifully from my lips. “Just shut up.”

  Brooklynn shook me, forcing me to look at her. “I mean it, Charlie. You don’t get to pretend to be someone else anymore. You can’t be Layla. You’re the queen, and these are your people under attack now. So what that your plan didn’t work. We’ll come up with another. But we can’t just stay here in this cave. This is your country. This is our country,” she added, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

  I nodded, slowly at first, and then along with her as she released her grip on my arms. She was right. This was no time to fall apart.

  I couldn’t stay here and let my people down. Not now, not when they needed me most. There had to be something I could do.

  “Okay.” I nodded again, my chin lifting. “Let’s do this.” I turned to see if Eden felt the same way, and saw that she was nodding too.

  Brooklynn grinned. “That’s better. So, what’s the plan? Wh
ere are we headed, Your Majesty?”

  max

  Max waited till dawn before sending Claude back to the ridge where he’d left the troops they’d been traveling with. He hoped that the bare-branched copse of Swamp Maples had provided enough shelter for them.

  Now that the violence was over, he was grateful he’d ordered the soldiers to remain out of sight and to not attack any rival forces, no matter how close the other battalion came to them. He understood the hearts of soldiers. That their instincts and training would make it difficult for them to sit back and watch while Elena’s army invaded their land. But he needed them alive, now more than ever. He needed to find Charlie.

  He stayed behind while Claude went to collect the others, wanting to assess the destruction left behind by the enemy army. He wasn’t sure what he expected to gain from the inspection of the decimated village—he could see from his vantage point on the hillside that the Astonian soldiers had left no witnesses to their rampage—but his curiosity called to him all the same.

  The black smoke that coiled and twisted through the air stood out against the pale morning fog, like an obscene reminder of the night’s events. His lungs felt leaden. The sickening crunch of newly charred wood and paper and textiles shadowed him with each and every step he took. The scent of destruction was cloying.

  But worse than the burned homes, and the shattered glass that spilled onto the streets, was the blood that splattered stone and dirt and everything. Everywhere.

  There were bodies, both those that were whole and those not whole. Burned and unburned.

  Max walked through the streets, avoiding as best he could the stares of so many vacant eyes. The corpses of children were piled against the still smoking rubble, their expressionless faces dirty from soot and ash.

  Spikes had been speared into the ground at irregular intervals, and there were several with heads mounted on them: an elderly man’s, his eyes and mouth open; a woman’s, her hair tangled with blood, her eyes mercifully closed; a boy’s, not yet to adolescence, with red hair and green eyes that were now hazed over with death.

  There were nooses, too, and several victims had been hanged. Max glanced over them quickly, trying not to notice the way their feet still swayed, ever so slightly, as the sea’s breath rocked them.

  But it was one woman in particular who caught his eye. Her hair was the same as the boy’s whose head had been impaled. His mother, if Max were to guess. But it wasn’t her hair that drew his attention; it was her neck. Something that glinted in the morning light.

  He moved closer, feeling sick as he noted the way her hands were crudely bound behind her back, and seeing the blackened ligature marks that feathered out from the cord beneath her chin.

  He tried not to look at her pale face as he reached for the chain that disappeared beneath the front of her bloodied blouse.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he ripped the necklace from her body and clutched it in his fist.

  He barely registered the sound of hoofbeats behind him as he tried to imagine how this woman had come into possession of the pendant, although he wasn’t sure the how was the problem.

  Fear lanced him, freezing the blood in his veins and making him incapable of moving for several long moments while he considered the implications of finding the necklace here, in this place. Now.

  When he turned around, he was facing the division of men and women he’d brought with him to find their queen.

  “We need to scour every inch of this village, check every body to make sure Queen Charlaina’s not among them. And when we’re certain she’s not, one of you has to go back to the palace with word of this attack. We need to be certain they know we’re at war with Astonia.” When Claude approached, his eyebrow raised, Max opened his hand and showed the guard Charlie’s necklace. “She’s been here,” he announced. “And we’re going to find her if it’s the last thing we do.”

  xii

  Brook frowned as she patted her waistband. She stopped in front of me then and bent down, dropping low and patting her ankle, too.

  “Damn,” she cursed. “I think I left my blade back in the cave.” She raised her hand to her forehead and glanced back up the hillside, her frown deepening. “You two go on ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I watched for a minute as she jogged back up the way we’d just come. Rocks skittered down behind her as her boots found their way more easily in the daylight. The fog was clearing now too, and what remained was only what clung to the ground, wisps that hadn’t been whisked away yet by the crisp gusts coming over the cliffs from the water below.

  I turned and followed Eden, focusing on making my way back down the rocky terrain.

  We couldn’t see the VAN yet, but it wouldn’t be long. It would have been better if we’d been able to go farther the night before. Unfortunately, we hadn’t had enough time to plan, and it had been too dark to see where we’d been going, both of which had limited our escape route.

  As the VAN came into view, I sighed out loud, and the tension in my chest loosened. “It’s still there,” I breathed.

  Eden turned to face me, a slow grin spreading over her face, and I could see she was relieved as well. “It’ll be good to get out of here.” And then her expression changed as her focus shifted. I couldn’t tell what it was she was looking at, but I knew it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Brooklynn either, because Brooklynn had gone in the other direction.

  Her attention was fixed on something in the hills, but not toward the cave where we’d spent the night.

  Instead she scowled at something just past my shoulder, and then the confusion on her face cleared and she pulled me as hard as she could. She shoved me behind her, and beneath her breath she ordered, “Run, Your Majesty. Run!”

  She hadn’t even finished her sentence when I saw her pull her gun from the holster and release the safety.

  Before she had the chance to fire her weapon, I was doing as she’d instructed, no longer taking caution about where I stepped, just knowing that if Eden had told me to run, I needed to run.

  There could be only one reason: Elena’s forces had found us after all.

  The sound of gunfire was earsplitting, and it rang into and around the rock walls of the rugged hills. It echoed inside my head and matched the pattern of my footfalls.

  She fired again and again and again and again, until I didn’t think she could fire any more, until I was certain she was out of ammunition.

  My side ached, and yet, still I ran.

  I could hear the sounds of a struggle behind me. And then I heard footsteps, heavy and crashing and rushing right toward me. I prayed they were Eden’s, but I never slowed. I didn’t dare look behind me.

  I was almost to the VAN now, and a part of me wondered what I planned to do once I reached it.

  I might be able to drive it, I told myself. I’d spent hours studying Eden while she’d piloted the beast of a machine, and surely I could manage to start the thing myself. Surely I could steer it long enough to get it moving in the right direction.

  After that, I didn’t know.

  I’d figure it out.

  But I couldn’t leave Eden and Brooklynn behind.

  Then I remembered . . . the weapons. There were weapons inside the VAN.

  If I could reach them, we still had a chance.

  That was when I felt my head jerk backward. I lost my footing entirely, which had nothing to do with me at all. It came from somewhere behind me, as my hair had been yanked—so hard that my scalp felt as if it were on fire.

  A strangled half gasp, half scream choked me, rising like vitriol in my throat. I fell, landing on my back, and before I could even blink, I was staring up into the face of a bird.

  The mask was melded from black iron, making my attacker look something akin to a steel raven. Metal rivets ran the length of his beaklike protrusion, and round goggles gave his eyes a hawkish appearance that made me feel as if he were peering into my soul.

  I imagined him bringing that razor-sharp bi
ll down into my face. Pecking at me. Eating me alive. Goring me, and shredding my skin . . . swallowing it up like worms.

  “Your Majesty, is it?” Like his beak, his grating voice hovered above my face like an ill-concealed taunt. I could see his mouth beneath the metal mask he wore.

  I couldn’t afford to wait to find out what he had planned for me, or what he’d done to Eden. Searching for an inner calm I wasn’t sure I possessed, I tried to recall Zafir’s lessons on defense. I searched for the one that would best help me escape my predicament.

  When the man revealed his teeth in a gruesome grin, I breathed deeply and formulated my plan of attack. I reached behind my head to where his gloved fingers were still tangled in my hair, and I grabbed hold of his little finger, making certain my grip was secure. When I was certain I had him, and that he had no idea what I was about to do, I flipped onto my stomach. I moved swiftly, the way Zafir had told me, and when I did, his finger rolled with me.

  I felt it—the crunching sensation the moment it separated from his hand.

  His surprised screech followed suit, a bellow that filled the skies. Involuntarily he released my hair, and before he could stop me, I was already jumping to my feet, ready for his next attack. And I knew he’d attack again. He wasn’t finished with me.

  It took only a moment for his shock to subside and for him to collect his wits. I could see the determined set of his shoulders and the way he clenched his jaw. He was coming for me.

  I was ready, though. I’d been preparing for this moment for months.

  Zafir had made certain I could handle myself.

  When he came at me once more, he was still clumsy and lurching with pain. He’d given no thought as to how he would assault me, only that he wanted revenge.

  I saw his fist, hefty and leathered and enormous, coming at me. But I knew what to do.

  I didn’t retreat but instead covered my head with both hands and dropped below the trajectory of his ham-fisted swipe. And then I launched myself right at him. I put all of my weight, everything I had, into my body, so that when I hit him, my head colliding with his gut, I heard him wheeze. His fist missed me completely, flying all the way over the back of my head, and yet I kept coming at him.