Chapter 68

Chapter

Sixty-Eight

T he walls of Lios are legendary.

I’ve seen them more or less every day of my life. Even when we’d travel, the Vestalins inevitably return to Castle Lios. It’s where we belong, in the beating heart of our country. We belong behind its tall white walls, nestled high on the cliffs above the sea. Winding roads lead up to it, surrounded by rolling farmlands and fields of all kinds of crops on one side, the blue, endless ocean on the other. The walls of Lios are tall and impenetrable, as old and venerable as Lios itself. Legend says that Ravendor Vestalin had the walls built when she took the throne. The walls were there when I was born, and I always assumed I’d die behind the walls, sheltered like a bird in its nest.

But a day later, at sunset, I see the massive hole punched through Lios’s endless walls, and it feels like a hole punched through my chest.

I stare at it, numb, half-expecting to see people spilling forth from the crevasse in the walls, like blood flowing from a wound. But it’s empty.

Everything is just…empty.

It’s been a miserable day and a half since we left the manor house. We spent half the day in bed, eating horse meat and gathering our strength. Then, when everything was cooked and we could delay no longer, we stepped back out into the endless rain and continued on our way to Lios.

It feels like the gods themselves are crying as the rain washes over me.

My city is gone.

I thought Lios would always be here. That even though the world has gone to pieces around us, surely Lios would remain. Lios would be safe, and we’d push in with all of the other refugees hungry for food. We’d collect my potion, enough to last us as we traveled to Darkfell, and I’d see my sister again. I’d say a mental goodbye to my people.

I’d be prepared to leave them behind.

I’m not prepared for this. Nothing could prepare me for this.

I’ve ignored all the signs up until now. That every village and city deserted and empty meant nothing. That the wreckage that dots the shoreline and covers the beaches is irrelevant to the war and the fleet of mighty ships commanded by King Lionel. That the rain won’t be affecting my home like it is the outlying towns and people. Lios would be fine. Lios would be there.

I cling to the wet horse, feeling drained and hopeless, and I stare at the enormous hole to the left of Lios’s thick gates. “What makes a hole like that?” I ask Nemeth, my voice unsteady.

“A ballista. One with enchantments upon it.”

Of course. Fellians do love their enchantments. “You could have just flown over the walls,” I point out, numb, as the horse plods ever forward, up the muddy road. “Why destroy the walls?”

“Because the way to win a battle is to give the enemy nowhere to hide.”

Ah. Of course. And thus they must destroy the walls so the humans can’t huddle behind them. I think of Lionel, how smug he was when he forced me into the tower. So impatient, as if I was the only thing holding him back from his Great War, a war that would let him fill Lios’s coffers with Fellian riches. It was a pissing stupid war. No one in Lios needs Fellian land. No one wants to live under a mountain.

Lionel just wanted to fight. He wanted a battle. Glory.

And now my home, my beautiful city, is empty. Everyone is gone. No one comes out to see a Fellian and a human on a horse limping up the mud-slicked roads.

I suspect Lios is as empty as everywhere else. Empty…and everyone is gone.

At least the other places were just deserted. It was easy to assume everyone had simply fled in search of food or safety. As we approach the broken wall of Lios, a different story unfolds. The signs of war are everywhere. The grasses have been trampled and are gone. With nothing to anchor to, the horse slips and slides up the muddy path towards the city. Alongside the road I see discarded bits of armor and used arrows. There’s a helm here, with a massive hole upon the back, and over here a broken shield. A pretty altar to the gods has been destroyed and knocked over, the bushes uprooted and cast aside. As we head up the cliffs to Lios itself, I can look down in the harbor and see the broken remnants of a ship bobbing in the bay, and another one farther down.

The road leading to my beautiful city is covered in the detritus of war, and I suspect it’s not a war we won. If we’d won, someone would be here, right? There would be flags of victory. There would be people. There would be something other than this painful emptiness.

“You don’t burn your dead, do you?” Nemeth says suddenly, breaking the silence.

“No. We bury them so they can return to the earth that we were made from. We wait for the Absent God to return and call our spirits forth. Why?”

He gazes at what is left of the walls. “We have not seen graves. Perhaps that is a good sign?”

“If there are dead, they would be buried at the far end of the city,” I say. “On the sacred grounds behind the temple.”

“We can head there first, if you like? To see if there’s a reason no one is here?”

I shake my head. “I want to go to the palace first.”

The only inhabitants of Castle Lios are rats.

They scurry across the detritus-covered floors, bold and unworried, as we step into the halls of the castle. The banners here that hung showing the proud bloodlines of the nobility have been torn from the walls, and the tapestries are cut to ribbons. Lionel’s golden throne is gone entirely, and my sister’s elegant wooden one has been chopped to pieces and left on the dais. The massive feasting tables in the dining hall are broken, the benches scattered, the fragile dishware a thousand pieces upon the ground. They crunch under my feet as I instinctively head towards the kitchens.

They, too, are empty, though there’s a foul smell here. It’s a smell of something dead, and I cover my nose with my wet sleeve even as Nemeth strides towards the root cellar. He opens the hatch and peers inside, then shakes his head. “Two bodies, and they’ve been there a long time. You don’t want to look.”

I swallow hard. “My sister always said the cook would defend her kitchen into death. I guess that’s true.” I think of my sister—and of Riza and Nurse—and I desperately hate that my knife is gone. I want to ask if they’re all right. I want to ask if they’re alive. I hate that I squandered the opportunity back when I had my knife, simply because I hated knowing the answers.

Not knowing is so much worse.

“I need to go upstairs,” I tell Nemeth, feeling faint. “I want to see my sister’s quarters. My quarters.”

“Are you all right?” He gestures to the door, to the horse we left outside. “Should I get our packs?—”

I shake my head, trembling. I’m not all right. Not by a long shot, but I still need to know. “I just need to see.” Because if I see Riza or Nurse’s dead body in my rooms, I might lose my fragile hold on sanity. It’s one thing to know that the goddess will be unhappy if we leave the tower. It’s another to see the realization of it and know we’re to blame to some extent.

Nemeth moves to my side, and I think at first that he’s going to stop me, or force me to sit down and rest. Instead, he snags me under the arms and flares his wings outward. He flies out of the great hall and down another corridor of the massive, empty palace. His flight isn’t even and I can tell he strains, but we’re in the air and soaring through the empty halls. I point out directions. To turn that way, to go up that flight of stairs. To head down another hall.

And then I see the double doors that used to be mine. One is smashed, as if kicked in, the gilt design on the wood smeared with mud and broken away. A terrified sound escapes my throat.

Nemeth sets me down on the floor. Even here, there are discarded pieces of armor and torn fabrics. Shattered furniture and pieces of wood are everywhere, as if someone hacked the beautiful palace apart. The carpet under my feet that runs down the long hall is dark with stains, and I remember its bright red color. It’s been destroyed, just like everything else. Even the ceiling—once dotted with beautiful stained glass—is now broken and rain drips down from above, as if the world around us is crying.

It feels appropriate.

I take a few steps towards my apartments, and then I’m running at a frantic speed, ignoring the squish of the wet carpets under my near-destroyed shoes. I want to go inside and see that this portion of my world hasn’t changed. I want to see my bed with its beautiful draperies and elegant pillows. I want to see the thick rugs and the cozy chairs I have near the fire. I want to see my trunks and dressers full of my gowns. Here, there should be something, shouldn’t there?

So I burst through the doors and skid to a halt, drinking in the sight of my once-bedroom.

It’s worse here than below. There’s a hole in the ceiling, the beams collapsed, and the rain floods in directly over my bed. The canopies are collapsed and ripped, and my mattress has been torn apart and shredded, the innards cast across the flooring and soaked. Every chest is opened, the contents destroyed. The chairs near the fire are gone; one is broken, and there’s a familiar-looking charred chair leg hanging out of the hearth that tells me the other was probably burned. All my beautiful things are destroyed, and there’s no trace of me here, nothing left that speaks of my old life.

Beyond numb, I race back out of the room and down the hall, towards Erynne’s rooms. I know she won’t be there. I know there won’t be anyone there, but I still have to see it for myself. I have to know.

The doors here have fallen from their hinges, blocking the way into the room. I rip one away, tossing it aside. The interior of Erynne’s room is just as wrecked as mine, the colorful glass in the big window broken and shattered, rain pouring inside. Ripped fabric is soaked and covered in mold, and the large imperial bed looks as if it was destroyed with an axe or three. I turn, looking for signs of my sister. Yes, she has betrayed me. Yes, she thinks of the kingdom before me.

But she’s still my family, and knowing that something has happened to her has made me frantic.

I find the wreckage of a child’s bed in one corner of the room, the pale blankets covered in mud and footprints. I pick up one corner, and as I do, I see rusty-colored splatters on it. Hastily, I drop it again and back away. The air in Erynne’s room doesn’t feel like enough. I can’t breathe. Frantic, I race to the window and stare out at the view. Erynne always had one of the best views in the castle, with the sea crashing onto the cliffs below. Now there’s nothing to see but more wreckage and the broken hull of a ship on the rocks.

There’s nothing left of my kingdom. Not even a single solitary soul. Nothing but broken bits and torn-apart remnants.

In this moment, I feel as destroyed as the ship that bobs in the harbor down below, the one with the hole in the hull so big that I can see it from up here.

“There’s a body in the hall,” Nemeth tells me, and I hear the rustle of his wings as he approaches. “It’s old, but it’s unpleasant. I covered it with one of the window hangings.”

“Woman or man?” I ask tightly. If someone’s murdered my sister and left her here to rot, so help me…

“A soldier,” Nemeth says, his voice soothing. He moves behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. “If you are asking if it is your sister, no. My brother is many things but he would not murder a woman in cold blood.”

“Not even if she was the enemy’s queen?”

“Not even then.” He rubs my arm. “Are you…all right?”

It seems a ridiculous question. Am I all right? Of course I’m not all right. I’m very, very far from all right. But I understand what he’s asking. He’s inquiring because this place has been our goal for so long, the answer to all of our problems, and it’s empty and abandoned, just like the rest of my land. “I don’t understand why no one is here,” I say softly. I want to yell and scream. I want to rage at him and every other Fellian that did this to my people, but the truth is that Lios started the war. We’re just as much to blame. If the kingdom was destroyed because we lost the war, that’s on Lionel.

So I can’t be angry with Nemeth. I cover his hand with mine, and then I’m clutching his fingers tightly, as if he’s a lifeline. “I don’t know what to do,” I admit. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m hungry. I’m out of medicine. None of those things will be changing anytime soon, because Lios is destroyed. There’s no one to help us. No one to feed us.

We’ve left the tower for nothing. We’ve cursed the world because we didn’t want to starve…but it turns out the world has been destroyed anyhow.

He enfolds me in his arms from behind, wrapping me in his solid, supportive presence. I want to scream and rage at him, too, but…I still love him. He’s on my side, and I need to remember that, no matter what I’m feeling right now. “We’ll travel to my people instead,” Nemeth says. “To Darkfell.”

Painful laughter bubbles up out of my chest. “The last place I want to go right now is Darkfell.”

“Do you have a better idea?” he asks quietly.

I don’t. I don’t know what to do at all. “Will they kill me when I arrive? I’m one of Ravendor’s descendants.”

“They will not,” says Nemeth firmly. “Because first and foremost, you are my mate. You carry my bite.” His hand slides to my stomach. “You carry my child. They will not touch you.”

I’m not so sure. But we don’t have many other choices. “How long will it take to reach Darkfell?”

He doesn’t answer. His grip tightens around me, and I suddenly realize the answer. Too long. Too long, and I don’t have any medicine left.

“We’ll stay here tonight,” he tells me. “Look for survivors and supplies. Find a decent room to sleep in. And we’ll take it from there.”

“You should go without me?—”

“Never,” he says, sharp. “I’m not leaving you.”

“But you can fly,” I point out. “I cannot. I only slow you down, and without my potion, I’m as good as dead anyhow.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Nemeth says again, and his voice is calm. Steady.

It would be better for him if he did, but I’m still foolishly glad. I turn in his arms and hug him, burying my face against his chest.

My kingdom is gone. My sister is gone. And here we’re deciding to head straight for those that destroyed them.

It feels like a never-ending nightmare.

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