Chapter 44 #2
Diem’s hand shifted and fired again. Again, the dark bolt whistled through the air. When it reached its target—a soldier in dark clothes at the center of their front line—the man’s hand jerked up, and a dome of shimmering pink appeared at the last second to knock it away.
Diem and I stiffened, coming to the same realization at once. That wasn’t Ophiucae’s shield—and that man was not a mortal.
“It’s not his aura we felt,” Diem said. “It’s theirs.”
Vance’s laughter grew louder.
“Don’t fire,” Teller yelled. He shoved his way through the lines as he sprinted toward us. “Diem, stop the attack!”
A shrill, ear-splitting whistle sliced through the air. Vance’s army jolted to attention. “Advance,” he bellowed.
“Your Majesty?” Alixe called out.
Diem’s eyes darted between her High General, her brother, and the militia marching toward us.
“We should hold,” I suggested. “Let our traps do the work for now.”
“Are they wearing . . . dresses?” Zalaric asked.
We followed his bemused stare to the middle ranks, where a number of Vance’s soldiers were marching forward in floor-length skirts and flowing robes.
“Diem,” Teller panted when he reached us. “Those people . . . they’re not mortals . . . they’re—”
“Descended,” Diem finished, looking grim. “I know. He must have promised to spare them if they joined him.”
“No, you don’t understand. Those aren’t just any Descended. They—”
His voice was drowned out by raucous laughter from Diem’s army as the first of Vance’s troops fell victim to the obstacles we’d hidden. On one side of the field, they dropped like stones into the hidden trenches. On the other, they tripped on roots and went sliding on ice.
Another day, against another army, I might have found it comical, too—but my Queen wasn’t laughing. Most unnervingly of all, Vance still was. Across the field, he roared with amusement at his own troops’ misfortune.
“Why aren’t they going around?” Alixe asked. “They can clearly see the trenches, but they’re walking right in.”
The sight was turning morbid. So many of Vance’s troops had fallen into the ditches and filled them up, the other soldiers were marching on them, as if their bodies were a bridge.
“It’s like they don’t even care about their own,” Diem murmured.
“Diem, listen,” Teller shouted. “I know those Descended. I met some of them in Sophos.”
“Sophos?” she repeated, frowning. “That doesn’t make any sense. Their people are scholars, not fighters.”
His face was bloodless, eyes round with dread. “Diem . . . I don’t think they’re here by choice.”
Diem’s head slowly turned to the glassy-eyed, stiff-moving Descended marching toward us. “Oh, gods,” she whispered.
“Ophiucae took over their minds with Umbros magic,” I muttered, understanding. “He’s making them fight so the mortals don’t have to.”
“We can’t hurt them,” Teller insisted. “They’re innocent. They don’t even know what they’re doing.”
“Well, we can’t ignore them,” Nidara argued. “Not if they’ve been ordered to kill us.”
Fury blazed in Diem’s glare. “I’ll fix it. Alixe, hold our people off as long as you can.” She prowled forward, and I stalked behind her.
“What are you planning?” I asked.
“If Ophiucae did it, then I can undo it.”
She continued past our lines into the expanse of open field. I snarled at her to stop, fearful she would come in range of their godstone weapons, but as we neared the marching Descended, I spotted a chilling revelation: they didn’t have any godstone weapons. Many had no weapons at all.
Vance’s whistle rang out. “Kill them,” he bellowed.
Every head in Vance’s army turned toward us. I barely got my shield up in time for the barrage of magic that sent me staggering back. Though Diem’s magic curved around me to bolster its strength, I lost sight of her as Vance’s troops closed in.
The number of them was overwhelming, but it was their empty eyes that turned my stomach to stone.
No glow of their magic, no sign of emotion or thought.
The pink hue of their irises had faded to a dull, murky fog.
Even when they stared right at me, they didn’t seem to be seeing me.
I had witnessed people whose minds were being compelled with Umbros magic . . . this was something else.
I caught a flash of white hair, and I forced my shield out toward it in a powerful burst. Descended bodies went flying, revealing Diem with a woman on her knees. Though Diem had bound her hands and feet with Arboros roots, the woman was fighting like hell—not to get at Diem, but at me.
In fact, none of them were fighting Diem. The whole of Vance’s army had their sights set on me and me alone.
“Her,” Vance snarled. “Kill her!”
His commands went ignored, and his troops continued to close me in. I pushed my way through to Diem’s side, where she was gripping the woman’s temples with a determined glare.
“I can’t find a way in,” she gritted out.
I set my palm against her skin and let my shadows flow. “Absorb my magic. The extra strength might help.”
“I have plenty of magic. There’s nowhere to put it. It’s like he’s hidden the door into her mind. All I can see is empty space.”
Vance let out a roar of frustration. He blew another whistle. “If you won’t kill her”—he swung his finger to Diem’s army—“kill them all instead.”
Diem jerked her hands back as if something had burned her. She gaped down at the woman in horror.
The Descended around us came to a stiff stop. Their bodies looked like puppets dancing on strings as they lurched away toward our army’s lines. I looked across the field to Alixe, whose eyes darted between the advancing enemy and her Queen, awaiting Diem’s orders.
“Shields,” Alixe yelled, and not a moment too soon. A mammoth wall of twinkling, multicolored light enveloped our army just as a wave of crackling magic surged across the pass.
“Alixe can’t hold them off for long,” I told Diem. “Half our army is mortal. Shielding everyone will drain our Descended fast.”
“Don’t hurt them,” she insisted. She grabbed the woman’s temples again. “I need more time. She has to be in there somewhere.”
Diem’s skin began to shimmer as a bone-trembling amount of magic radiated in the air around her. My godhood roared, sensing her desperation and straining to get free of my body and help her.
But here, I could do her no good. I turned my sights on the one place I could unleash it in full: the man who tried to take me from my Queen.
I set on a furious course across the field. Vance was so busy basking in preemptive victory, he didn’t notice me craft an illusion to conceal my approach, though the godstone sword I carried repelled my magic, making it appear to float toward him like a menacing omen of death.
How very appropriate.
One strike, I thought, and he’s out of our lives for good.
I paused. If Diem couldn’t find a way to call Vance’s army off, would his death condemn them to obey his last command forever?
I glanced back at my Queen. My heart wrenched at the distress on her face as she fought to break the woman free of the hold on her mind. I cherished her unwavering belief that no one was too far gone to be saved. I loved her for it.
Unfortunately for these people, I did not share it.
If they were the price it took to rid my Queen of her greatest threat . . . for her, I would pay a terrible cost.
I kept my sword still as I crept closer.
Ophiucae’s shield did not wrap around the men like a skin as it had in previous battles.
It had expanded to form a spacious, protective dome.
Godstone could pierce it, but I could not.
I’d have to turn my sword into a spear, and I’d only have one chance to get it right.
A creaking sound rang out behind me as our army’s shield began to break. Diem had the power to strengthen it, but she was oblivious, consumed by her efforts, and calling out to her would give me away.
I continued on. Alixe would have to fight that battle on her own. I could not miss this chance.
Vance and his men were easy enough to fool.
They couldn’t get enough of seeing our army’s splintering shield, drinking it in with glee.
Their horses, though . . . animals always had a preternatural sense for magic.
Their dark, nervous eyes followed my every step.
When I moved to circle behind them, they whinnied and sidled away.
The men dug their heels in to keep them still, but the closer I got, the more the horses skittered to avoid me.
“Stupid beasts,” Vance muttered, jabbing his boot into his horse’s side.
“They sense something,” another said. He glanced into the forest. “Maybe we should have left the others behind us.”
I froze. Others?
Our army’s shield gave a thunderous crack, and a giant tear ripped through the center. Diem jerked out of her daze and raised her palms to help, but her efforts came too late. Vance’s troops had already surged through the opening.
Alixe thrust a hand toward the sky, sending a sizzling beam of light into the clouds—a signal for the archers. Bowstrings twanged, and a hailstorm of arrows rained down from both sides of the field.
A handful came down on Vance and his men. Though most bounced off their shield, a few godstone tips seared through the sparkling dome. Two of Vance’s cronies fell, and another was thrown to the soil by the buck of a wounded mare.
Vance escaped untouched.
I said a silent prayer: Blessed Mother Lumnos, give me this man’s life. It matters not who deals the blow. By their arrows or my sword, I am begging you, let this bastard die.
Behind me, the rest of the archers found their marks. The Sophos Descended began to fall, but the arrows didn’t stop them. With their minds locked on Vance’s command to kill them all, retreat was not an option.
Alixe sent up another signal. More arrows came, and more bodies hit the soil.
“Stop, Alixe,” Diem yelled, running toward her. “They’re innocent!”
My heart broke at the raw panic in her voice. To Diem, every life on that field was hers to protect, and every death would be hers to mourn.
I had to end this now.