Chapter 53
Chapter fifty-three
Tristan
The city burned.
Smoke smeared the sky over the harbor, rising in thick, oily columns. People ran in every direction, faces pale, eyes wide. A woman staggered past with a child on each hip. An old man stumbled and fell to his knees, hands outstretched toward him as he thundered by.
“Please! Sir! Please—”
Tristan’s fingers spasmed on the reins. Lord, forgive me.
He couldn’t slow. Couldn’t stop. He had one task: save Father Perero.
And survive.
Olivia’s face drifted through his mind. Beautiful. Sharp. Amber eyes that missed nothing. Lips made for laughing and that smile that had always made him weak at the knees.
“I will be right back.” That was what he had promised her.
And he could not break that promise.
Swallowing hard, he drove his heels into Valor’s flanks. The warhorse surged forward, black mane whipping, iron-shod hooves scattering sparks as they tore through the streets of Goldreach.
Watch over her, he desperately prayed. Watch over Goldreach. Watch over us all. Please.
Tristan leaned further over his horse’s neck. Faster. He had to fly faster. But each strike of hooves against cobblestones was pure agony, jarring up through his armor into the tender place behind his eyes.
Not now. He clenched his jaw against the first whisper of a headache and pushed on through the market district.
Valor veered past a cart abandoned in the middle of the street, nearly bowling it over. To his left, a narrow canal flashed into view between buildings, choked with smoke and the glow of distant fire. The harbor. It was the harbor that was ablaze.
Suddenly, a soldier in all black—a mercenary—burst from a side alley, blade raised. Tristan barely had time to shout before Valor’s shoulder slammed into the man, sending him spinning to the ground in a tangle of limbs and steel. The man’s cry cut off as he hit the stone.
He twisted in the saddle, every instinct screaming to wheel around and finish him, to make sure he stayed down.
No. The cathedral. He had to hurry.
The great white spire of the cathedral speared the sky ahead, rising over the rooftops, its bell tower caught in the glow of the burning harbor.
Tristan angled toward it, his heart pounding harder with every stride.
The closer he drew, the worse the headache throbbed; the more the world narrowed into a tunnel of sound, smoke, and prayer.
By the time he burst into the grand courtyard, the cathedral’s wide steps swam into view through the haze.
So did the fighting.
At the top of the steps, the great oak doors stood closed, guarded by a single figure in plain brown robes.
Father Perero.
The elderly Shepherd braced his back against the doors, white hair stained red at one temple, staff gripped in both hands. Three Arathian soldiers in all black ringed him, curved blades flashing in the afternoon light.
Tristan’s chest constricted. “Father!” he shouted, driving Valor onward toward the steps. Faster. He couldn’t fail now.
What was the Shepherd doing?
He should have been in the cathedral, hiding. Praying. Not on the front lines fighting like some Kunishi warlord.
Setting his jaw, Tristan reached behind him and wrapped a gauntlet-clad hand around the hilt of his sword. “Stop!” he roared at the Arathian men, wrenching the blade free. “Stop and fight me, you cowards!”
But the men did not stop. They did not so much as glance his way.
Only Father Perero did, his eyes wide. The Shepherd called out to him, something he could not hear. But he could read the word well enough on the older man’s lips:
Run.
That was when he saw her—the woman in red standing just to the side of the steps, staring straight at him. Beautiful. Tall, just like Olivia. Black hair. Tawny skin.
No armor. No helm.
But it was her eyes that made his stomach pitch. Her golden eyes, aglow with malice.
Witch.
Shock washed over him, causing him to flinch away. Valor immediately responded to the involuntary twitch on his reins, sliding to a halt, whinnying, snorting.
Lazily, the witch pushed back her cloak and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the dagger at her hip. Her voice lifted, lilting through the air toward him. “Enough playing, boys.”
A smile curved her lips as she continued to stare at him, her eyes locked on him and him alone. Challenging. Mocking. As if from far away, he heard her order the soldiers: “Kill the Shepherd.”
The three men moved as one, blades raised.
There was no time. He would not make it.
He could not kill them all.
“The witch, Tristan!” Father Perero shouted as he pushed himself away from the doors and cracked his staff over one Arathian’s skull, driving the man backward. “Kill her!”
Tristan’s stomach clenched at the thought. A woman.
He had never killed a woman before.
The witch flung back her head, her laughter echoing through the smoke-hazed air, sharp as glass. “Kill me? Do you truly think you can kill me?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know if he could.
Lord, please. Grant me strength.
Gritting his teeth, Tristan heeled Valor into a hard charge, reins clenched in his left hand, sword ready in his right. He veered straight for the woman. The witch. He had heard the stories. Every Elmorian had.
But not even those stories could have prepared him for the sight of an unarmored woman walking straight toward him as if he were nothing at all—not a knight in full plate barreling straight for her. Not a man armed with a hand-and-a-half sword honed to a deadly edge.
Nothing.
The witch flung wide her arms, as if welcoming him in when there was but a horse’s length left between her body and his. She breathed in deep. The very air around her seemed to tighten, to shift. A strange scent filled the air—acrid and wrong.
And then she exhaled.
Fire.
It burst from her mouth in a wide, focused stream, hotter than any forge—a column of flame roaring straight toward him. The world vanished behind a wall of orange and white. Heat washed over both him and Valor, slamming into his breastplate with such force it nearly tore him from the saddle.
Pain. It exploded through him, white-hot. Blinding. He was going to die here, roasted alive inside a metal suit.
For a full heartbeat, he was back in the darkness of his long sleep, unable to move, unable to speak, trapped in a body that refused to answer him even as voices prayed over him, begging him to wake—
Olivia. Her face flashed through his mind—the first thing he saw upon finally waking. Olivia. It was Olivia.
His warhorse screamed, rearing and bucking. The reins slipped through his fingers.
Valor bolted.
Off balance, Tristan desperately gripped his sword in both hands and swung wildly. The blade met something solid—resistance and then nothing at all.
Immediately, the flames ceased, as if someone had slammed a door shut, sealing them in. Cold air rushed back the moment the heat dissipated, sucking the breath from his lungs.
Valor screamed, half-mad with pain and terror, and bolted sideways.
The world lurched; sky and stone traded places.
He hit the cobblestones hard.
The impact rang through his armor. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He just lay there, every nerve humming, the taste of smoke and copper thick on his tongue.
Somewhere to his left, Valor’s hooves thundered away, uneven now. His poor horse vanished into the maze of streets with a strangled whinny—hurt but alive. Guilt twisted in his gut. He should have been at his stallion’s side, calming him, tending to him.
Not lying broken on the stones while the city burned.
Was it truly over? It had felt like a lifetime.
But it had been only seconds.
He rolled onto his side with a groan, fingers groping for his sword. Where had it gone? Through the slit in his helm, he caught a glimpse of crimson robes against the cobblestones. The witch. Her body lay still, crumpled.
But her head? Her head was…not where it should be.
His stomach clenched.
He tore at the straps of his helmet with fumbling hands, ripping it off and letting it fall with a hollow clang. Cool air slapped his sweat-damp face as he dragged in a breath. The smell of blood hit his nose.
He retched all over the ground until there was nothing left in his stomach but bile and the bitter tang of the witch’s flame.
He had killed before—men, soldiers.
But never a woman.
Dragging in a series of deep breaths through his mouth, he pressed his forehead against the cool stone, eyes squeezed shut, and tried to drag the pieces of himself back into place.
It was only when the ringing in his ears finally faded that he realized another sound had gone missing, too: the fighting.
Goldreach still roared distantly—shouts, crashes, the dull boom of something collapsing—but within the plaza itself…silence.
Spitting on the cobbles to rid his mouth of the taste of bile, Tristan forced his head up, blinking sweat and smoke from his eyes.
The three Arathians stood still on the stairs, exactly where they had been when the witch’s fire died. Frozen in place. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They might have been carved from stone, save for the fact that they were still breathing.
A chill crawled down Tristan’s spine, cold enough to cut through the heat clinging to his skin. His fingers finally found his sword; they tightened around the hilt until the leather wrapping creaked.
“What in the Lord’s name…” he whispered, his voice quivering.
“Tristan!”
Father Perero half-stumbled, half-ran down the steps, leaning hard on his staff. Up close, the old man’s face was streaked with sweat and blood, his white hair plastered to his brow. Relief blazed bright in his eyes.
“Oh, my boy,” the Shepherd breathed, dropping to one knee beside him. Cool, callused hands cupped his jaw, tipping his head this way and that, searching for wounds. “Bless you. Are you burned? Can you see? Speak to me.”
Tristan swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. “I…” His gaze snagged on the crimson heap on the stones. On the far-too-still shape beneath it. “I killed her, Father,” he managed, the words scraping from his throat. “I killed a woman.”
Father Perero followed his gaze. For a long moment, the older man said nothing. Finally, he whispered, “Yes.” The single word landed, heavy as stone. “Yes, you did.”
The Shepherd’s grip on his shoulder firmed. “But come and see how many more you have saved with your bravery.” He gestured with his staff toward the frozen Arathians, toward the cathedral doors beyond.
“Come,” Father Perero urged, bracing a hand under his arm. “Up. Slowly.”
Between the holy man’s grip and his own stubbornness, Tristan managed to lurch to his feet. The world tilted before righting itself again, his stomach rolling. His head throbbed with every pulse of his heart, but he stayed upright, weight mostly on his right leg.
Carefully, he eased his sword back into its scabbard.
His body hurt, but he was alive. Unburned.
…How?
Tristan swallowed hard. Questions for another time, perhaps.
“The men?” he asked the Shepherd, nodding toward the three Arathians on the stairs as Father Perero guided him upward. “What is… wrong with them?”
“They stopped the moment you struck her,” he softly replied, as if afraid of disturbing the enemy soldiers. “Like puppets on a string. I do not know if they are sleeping. Or…” His lips thinned. “Or something worse. Leave them. We have more urgent souls to see to.”
They climbed.
Each step sent a fresh ache through Tristan’s knees, spine, and skull. By the time they reached the top, sweat chilled under his armor.
Father Perero rapped twice on the great oak doors with the butt of his staff. “It is me,” he called, his voice carrying. “Open up.”
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then came the scrape and clatter of a heavy bar being lifted. Bolts drawn. The door cracked open a hand’s breadth, and a pair of wide brown eyes appeared in the gap, rimmed with red from crying.
“Father?” a girl’s voice whispered. “Is it safe?”
“As safe as we can make it,” the Shepherd replied, gentler now. “Luckily for us, the Lord sent us a champion at just the right moment. Now, we can evacuate to that ship I have waiting in the canal.”
Champion? He did not feel like a champion. It had been dumb luck. A blind swing. But Tristan set his jaw and held his tongue.
In his silence, Father Perero urged, “Open the doors, child. Quickly.”
The doors swung wider with a groan, and Tristan’s breath caught at what he saw.
The nave was full.
Men and women filled every pew, every aisle, every scrap of floor.
Mothers clutched infants; older children huddled against them.
The elderly leaned on canes or each other.
Dockworkers with salt in their hair stood shoulder to shoulder with merchants in fine wool, their faces drawn tight with worry.
Hundreds of eyes turned toward the doorway.
Toward him.
For a moment, Tristan could only stand there on the threshold, the smell of sweat and fear rolling over him. The clamor of distant battle faded under the weight of so many silent, pleading stares.
He had ridden here to save one man. The Lord, it seemed, had different numbers in mind.
The promise he’d made Olivia echoed in his skull. I will be right back.
The words tasted like ash.
Forgive me, Olivia. His heart cracked in his chest as Father Perero stepped forward, leading him into the cathedral. Amongst that group of frightened civilians. And he was the only knight.
One blade to guard hundreds of souls.
I’m afraid I’ll have to break that promise.