Calla
THE VALLEY WAS SLICK WITH RAIN, THE SLOG DOWN THE STORMcrest Ranges a miserable tramp through knee-high muck.
We camped in the rolling forests halfway to Highwick.
The army of Olmderian soldiers were exhausted trying to keep pace with the Ice Wolves and I was glad we’d allotted extra days in our journey west. I hadn’t prepared for the brutality of the terrain.
When I’d traversed it before, the ground had been dry, and most of my journey through the mountains had been traveling in Galen den’ Mora.
I was grateful for Verena’s suggestion to budget for a day of rest before the attack.
One more day.
One more day and we’d live or die, succeed or fail. It filled the air of the campsite, the many fires circled by stony-faced soldiers. I felt a deep responsibility for each and every one of those faces. It weighed on me more with each passing hour. As did a single question:
Was I leading them to their deaths?
I trekked to the edges of the campsite and into the forest. Each town we’d passed had been either abandoned or burned to the ground.
Western Damrienn was a graveyard, not a single inn open, not a single beating heart or human alive.
It reminded me with an unsettling familiarity of Olmdere under the reign of Sawyn.
How had it gotten so bad so quickly? This was the work of generations, not months. With Damrienn’s borders closed, we only heard glimpses of what life had become like within Nero’s rotten kingdom, but this . . . this desolation was beyond even my comprehension.
It gave me a newfound resolve, an unwavering acceptance, that the only thing to do was move ahead. There would be no world left if we didn’t. Someone had to be willing to stand up and fight.
I swept my hands through the dew-covered seedheads, plucking one from the stem and scattering it across the wet earth.
Not so many moons ago, I had knelt in a meadow just like this, thinking I had been cursed to a mate who would never love me back, thinking my life was over.
I wished I could go back in time and reach out to that fearful soul.
I wished I could tell them all of the love they would soon feel, all the beautiful things they could become.
One day they wouldn’t live in the boxes and titles of others.
One day they’d flow with the river and feel free.
A spitting crack sounded like a wet log bursting on a fire, and I whirled to the noise. I found her standing in the meadow, a few paces from me, staring down at the black battle leathers she wore along with a surprised look on her face.
The other side to my coin. My twin.
“Briar!” I shouted, racing forward and enveloping her in my arms. Her arms banded around me, and she dropped her head into my shoulder, our embraces like a well-practiced dance that would never be forgotten. The two of us just always perfectly fit. “You came back.”
She smelled the same, of the lavender and honey lotion she’d massage into her skin, but different, too, like shoe polish and steel and the coppery tang of blood. She smelled like a princess and a warrior, like the two parts of herself that I always knew existed had finally fused into one.
My throat constricted, tears pricking my eyes as I squeezed her tighter. “You came,” I said again, disbelief in my wobbling voice. I hadn’t realized just how much I missed her until she was back in my arms.
“I’m here,” she said, her arms holding me with greater force than she ever had before.
I wondered if she’d gained some muscle during her time away, her movements more determined and gruff than practiced and lyrical.
“If you’re going into battle, Calla, then so am I. I won’t ever let you fight alone.”
“Look at you.” I held her at arm’s length to survey her impressive fighting attire and glinting weapons. “You look like a warrior.”
“I’ve been practicing.” She wore a cheeky expression that reminded me so much of Maez.
“Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not.”
I let out a light chuckle, unsure when the last time I made such a noise was. “Fighting prowess or no, I’m glad you are here.”
“I may still be a novice at wielding a sword,” she amended, “but in my furs there’s no faster Wolf around, apart from you perhaps. But teeth or steel it does not matter, if Nero’s blood is being spilled, I want to be a part of it.” Her lips curved up at my surprise.
“Listen to you. You wear this newfound conviction well.” She was bolder and brasher than I’d ever known her to be, more confident in her stance, as if she’d stolen some of her mate’s bravado and turned it into something more.
She nodded down to her garb. “Courtesy of Maez.”
I released Briar and looked around the meadow. “Where is Maez?”
My twin’s eyes bracketed with sadness, and she shook her head. “She’s not coming.”
It felt like a punch to my windpipe. Maez wouldn’t come. I had all but given up hope of it, but upon seeing my twin, that hope bloomed again. Maez could have won us this battle without even trying. Even Nero couldn’t compete with a sorceress’s power.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m still glad you’re here. We were in need of a runner to convey my commands to the back line archers. And no one is swifter than a Gold Wolf,” I added with a wink. “But promise you’ll keep behind me, and I’ll promise to paint the castle red with Nero’s blood.”
“Agreed.” She looked through the trees to where we knew the castle of Highwick stood far in the distance.
“I wouldn’t miss this.” She flashed another tight smile, but this one was tinged with pain.
“Nero’s reign would have been my prison and ultimately a living grave just as it almost had been yours. I want to be a part of his end.”
“Come,” I said, leading her back toward the camp. “Eat, rest. We leave this evening for our final approach.”
Briar stalled me with her hand and pulled me back into another fierce hug. “I missed you.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I hugged her familiar form to me, her presence a comfort like no other.
“I missed you, too.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“I don’t know what tomorrow brings, Briar, but I hope by the time the sun rises, Nero and his pack will no longer threaten to make anyone’s life a prison again. Thank you for fighting by my side.”
She released me and sighed. “People don’t understand, not even our mates.
We battled our way into this world together, Calla,” she said, looking up at the glittering stars.
“I know now that there is a magic to every bond but no more so than the ones we choose. I feel the heat of it, roiling inside of me. You tore your way across the continent for me. I couldn’t sit this out.
” She slung her arm around my shoulder as I wrapped my arm around her waist, the two of us standing like we always did when the other needed comfort.
“I will see you secure our family’s throne.
Your throne. And perhaps I have just enough darkness in me now to bring vengeance upon those who’d threaten it, too. ”