18. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
The steel will fail.
The stone will crumble.
The shadows will fade.
The flame will keep the world alight.
It will find new stone.
It will bring back the shadows.
And it will remind the steel that it is stronger than it once believed.
~Calyr the Gold, Prophecies Forgotten
Maeve
I didn’t expect to end up a hundred miles away from Stormhaven on the edge of Sylvantia’s territory. I didn’t expect to be calling in my midnight armor or watching as Cole stretched in his gambeson.
The sounds of soldiers marching aren’t loud enough for a human to hear, but they’re impossible to ignore for Cole and me. The spear in my hands feels wrong. It’s heavier than anything made in Draenyth, but it’s the best option that Aric had. Six feet long and made of ash wood, it won’t stand up to prolonged battle. I’ll need to find another weapon soon enough.
I wrap my fingers around the shaft and breathe deeply in the cool autumn air. “Are you ready for this?” Cole asks. “You struggled in the Keep of Steel.”
I grin at him. “I was breaking and didn’t have shadows. Don’t worry about me now. Are you good to fight?”
The corner of his lip curls up, and I can’t help but think of just how handsome he is. “Unless the entire House of Steel is waiting for us, I’m not worried at all.”
I grin back at him, and we approach. Unlike the soldiers guarding Casimir, the High Fae on this road outside of the village of Harrow seem undisciplined and lazy. Thirty soldiers in gleaming plate armor would destroy a village the size of Harrow in minutes if they were trying, so why would they worry or be disciplined?
Then we see someone who makes both of us pause. Rhion standing in plate armor. His armor is like Darian and Lee’s, made to shift and move with any of his body modifications. I swallow hard. I may have more magical power than anyone else in Nyth, but Cole and Rhion have a thousand years of experience. Fighting Rhion isn’t my idea of a guaranteed win.
Cole’s voice whispers through our bond, “I’ll worry about Rhion. You deal with the soldiers.”
“Are you sure you’ll win that fight?” I silently ask.
He grins. “I only need to keep from losing until you’ve finished up the rest of them. Then it’ll be the two of us against him.”
I nod and focus on my plan. The House of Steel is evenly matched against Earth, but it’s weak to shadow walking, and anyone with exposed skin is vulnerable to revulsion shadows. There’s a reason that they convinced the House of Flames to fight that battle for them.
But, to start the fight, I reach into the ground and drawn the stone from below upward just as I did in Stormhaven, except that instead of pulling liquid stone over walls, I pull it up over the steel of the soldiers’ boots. It’s exhausting to cover steel with magic-imbued stone, but because of the Painted Crown, I can do it. Slowly.
Immediately, shouts rise from the camp, and I’m shadow walking. My body falls through the earth, only to reappear two steps behind a soldier who had her helmet off. My spear flashes in the afternoon sunlight as it strikes, piercing her skull in a single, Earth-enhanced strike. The soldier falls over, and unlike when I was hunting, I don’t have to worry about my spear being ripped from my hands. My House of Earth strength is far more than anything that these soldiers can overcome.
I feel the sword coming from behind me before I see it. Awareness of everyone around me is one of the greatest strengths that comes from my House of Earth bloodline. It can’t protect me from the strike, but I have other skills and powers to do that.
The steel sword hits the midnight dress that covers my body, and instead of crashing against me like when I’d worn the stone armor, the sword is sent to the void. It takes a tremendous amount of power to use revulsion shadows on steel, but with the Painted Crown and weeks of rest, I can do it easily enough.
The soldier stares at the half a sword he pulls back, but I’m already swinging. My spear moves so fast that a human wouldn’t be able to keep track of it as it makes the full arc around me. It connects with the soldier’s armor at the connection between the gorget and the helm, a narrow weak point that my spear tip slides right through. The power and accuracy of my slice is too much, and the soldier falls over, his throat spraying blood.
His hands move to his armor, trying to remove his helmet so that he can stop the bleeding, but my spear comes back down, stabbing this time. As his helmet shifts an inch upward, the opening is clearer than ever, and my stab goes clean through his spine. His breath comes out in a hiss as he lays motionless. I whirl around, and three more soldiers are racing toward me.
I shadow walk again, reappearing behind them. My spear moves like lightning, piercing their lungs through the holes for their wings. Each stab is so fast that none of them notice until they can’t breathe.
I’m reminded of the time that Cole sparred with Lee in Aerwyn as I look down at the three soldiers. Each one of them could be her, their faces covered by their helmets, as they gasp for breath.
There’s no one here to save them, just like Cole said. He was right to push all of us the way he did. For the briefest of moments, I’m terrified at the idea of losing one of my friends. There are so few people in my life now, and if I lost any of them… I don’t know if I’d be able to recover.
An explosion pulls me away from my thoughts, and I turn to see flames exploding around Rhion as he stands behind a stone shield that’s as big as he is, an extension of his body. He growls as the stone turns black, but he pushes toward Cole, who is covered in flames.
I want to go to him, to come at Rhion from behind, but my job is to kill the soldiers as fast as possible. I set my sights on the ones nearest their fight to make sure that they don’t interfere in the battle between the princes. By shadow walking, I get there before they’ve broken through the stone that covers their plate boots.
Wielding spears themselves, they try to twist to protect themselves, but my revulsion shadows whip through the air, severing the wood and making their spears useless. My spear lashes out, piercing weak spots in their armor with the precision and strength that only someone from the House of Earth would have.
Four more House of Steel soldiers lay dead at my feet, and I take a second to catch my breath. Ten soldiers are dead in under two minutes. Only twenty more.
They’re not just High Fae soldiers, though. They’re from the House of Steel, and they’ve had a moment to recognize what’s happening. I’ve used up my element of surprise, and now it’s time to really fight.
Five of them become enormous, much like Darian had done in the past. Their armor shifts to allow them some steel protection. I remember Darian doing the same thing, and Cole focused on the gaps in between the armor, especially the leg plates. The difference is that I don’t have to get that close. I have shadows.
Four of them grow eagle wings and drop their swords and spears, preferring the same massive crossbows that the soldiers in the Keep of Steel had used. With steel bolts. I grit my teeth at the thought of those damned things.
The other soldiers charge me. Eleven House of Steel soldiers covered in armor rushing at me should make me terrified. Instead, it makes me smile. A real test. I remember that day in Aerwyn when Cole had fought Darian and Lee in front of me, and I’d been so impressed by how he’d moved. Now it’s my turn. Six months of training and fighting constantly, and I finally have a fight that will both test me, and one that I can actually win.
Another explosion rocks the world behind me, but I ignore it. I have enough to worry about. Cole can hold his own against Rhion for another few minutes. The drumbeat in my core echoes the rhythm of peace that flows through me. Two separate emotions working at the same time in very different ways.
I reach into the ground and pull stone upward, creating a wall that the eleven soldiers who hadn’t transformed won’t be able to get through. Shadows climb it, reaching skyward toward the soldiers in the air. It’s merely a way to hide me. Bolts are released, but I’m already moving, and they clatter against the soil and stones behind me.
I shadow walk and maintain the ceiling of darkness where I’d been only moments ago. I need those soldiers to think I’m still behind the wall rather than behind them . Keeping that darkness above the wall stable by connecting to it through the void is harder than I’d imagined, but I don’t need it to last for long.
The soldiers who’d become enormous are beating at the wall I’d erected, and cracks spread across it.
More darkness sprays from my fingertips and moves toward the giant soldiers. I remember the villagers that these soldiers were planning to kill. The scent of revulsion fills the air. Death and decay. The dark tendrils move so much faster than they used to, each one of them finding its way to one of the Immortals beating at the wall at the same time.
Agonized screams fill the air as the House of Steel sees what it’s like to fight someone who isn’t afraid of them. Someone with enough power to fight back. The tendrils slip between the plates in their armor.
I think about the people that filled the villages that these soldiers and others have destroyed. They’d done nothing wrong. They’d simply lived in a village with a temple that might have housed a magical artifact.
These soldiers had murdered them. There’s no need to spare any vengeance. The darkness twists inside their armor and crawls upward. Instead of clinging to the outside of their bodies where the steel is, the revulsion shadows crawl through their bodies where there is no steel to sap their strength.
Like worms feeding on their bones, they wriggle up through their legs, through their hips and spines.
The massive Steel soldiers fall, crashing to the ground, their screams filling the air nearly as loudly as the explosions from Cole. Still, those shadows crawl, sending more and more of the High Faes’ bodies into the void. Rivers of crimson form behind them in divots in the earth.
The pain is gone before their lungs stop working. They know they’re dead. Their bodies just haven’t been informed. For a moment, I hesitate. My anger and revulsion at what they’ve done almost fading as I realize that I’m about to end five lives.
Even with as much damage as I’ve done to their bodies, they are High Fae, and they are House of Steel. Given enough time, they could probably heal and survive.
But they would just kill again. They would just turn their King’s cold lust for power into more bloodshed from those that are weaker than them. I can’t allow the weapon of my enemy to survive.
When I force my shadows the rest of the way up their spines, it is truly forced because my emotions are not instinctual.
Next are the flying soldiers, the males and females that are soaring towards me, crossbow bolts flying through the air. I could keep hiding from them, but I don’t have time for that. I leap backward as a four-foot steel bolt sticks into the dirt right where I was standing.
They’re not the only ones who can use ranged weapons. I hurl my spear at the first one, and it slams into the armor over her chest, leaving a massive dent and making her shriek. She doesn’t fall, though. That will take a different kind of spear.
Just like I’d pulled stone from the ground to create walls or my armor, I draw it upward, and it flows into my hand, becoming a dark brown spear. It weighs five times as much as the normal spear, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as it would to a human. I take aim and throw it as hard as I can at the same soldier who’s still trying to loosen her breastplate while her wings keep her aloft.
I see the other crossbow’s being pointed at me, and I hurl the spear at her. The tip connects with her face as it tears through her helmet. She falls to the ground without another sound.
I dance out of the way of the crossbow bolts and shadow walk away from the soldiers running at me. My spear takes down the other three flying soldiers in rapid succession.
A quick glance at Cole tells me he’s fighting against Rhion with his sword before I turn my attention to the soldiers barreling toward me. Cole’s fine. He just needs to give me another few minutes.
Then I see one of Rhion’s swords dig into Cole’s waist, and a sharp pain echoes on my side. I grit my teeth and refocus on my enemies. I need to kill them faster.
I don’t need to be clever. I know the weaknesses in that armor. I know how to kill Steel soldiers. I think about creating a stone spear and change my mind. Instead, I draw shadows into my hand and form the lightest spear possible. Made of nothing but shadows, yet it’s as solid as the stone spear I’d taken down those flying soldiers with. It’s the perfect weapon for what’s next.
I step into the void and reappear behind the soldiers. Quick stabs through the holes in their armor where their wings would grow have them falling breathlessly. I step back into the void only to leave again, appearing next to a different soldier. In and out. In and out.
This is why shadow walkers are so dangerous. You can’t hit something that can be anywhere. Each time I appear, it’s behind a soldier, and my spear strikes true each time. They try to put their backs to each other, to ward off my attacks, but even then, I appear too quickly for them to react.
Today, I am death. There were eleven highly trained House of Steel soldiers who’d thought they were prepared for me here only a few minutes ago. Now, they’re dead. Every one of them.
Then I’m off to fight with Rhion. I appear behind him just as I’d done to the other soldiers, my shadow spear thrusting with as much force as I can muster, but he dodges it. It’s almost like he could sense what I was doing, and he shifted his hips just enough that my spear skid across the steel instead of piercing it.
Cole comes down hard with this black-steel sword in a chop, and Rhion blocks it, wielding two swords himself, just as Darian had, except that he didn’t grow to become strong enough to use both of them at once. Rhion immediately counterattacks Cole with his other blade in a lunge, and Cole leaps back.
Flames explode around Rhion’s face, blinding him even though the power is absorbed by his helm. I swing my spear around for another stab. It should be an easy strike since Rhion is enormous and has his back toward me.
But a tail grows out of the same hole in his armor that all House of Steel soldiers have, and even without looking, that tail knocks the shadow spear off target. Then he pulls back far enough that I can’t reach him with the spear, putting both Cole and me in his view.
“Walk away, Rhion,” Cole says. “I don’t want to kill you.”
They’re the first words that I’ve heard this entire battle. Thirty soldiers lay dead on the ground, and just now is Cole trying to get Rhion to walk away. Why doesn’t he want to kill the son of his enemy? He should want to end the only genuine threat he’s come across, shouldn’t he?
“Aren’t you having fun, Prince Cole?” He says it with laughter in his voice. It’s almost as though this is all just a game, and the life and death aspect hadn’t occurred to him yet.
Cole growls. “You know, as well as I do, that fighting each other won’t fix anything. Your father has lost his mind, and you know it. The world is dying, Rhion, and we’re fighting each other instead of fixing it.”
Rhion’s laughter isn’t maniacal or insane. It’s simple, like a man laughing at a tavern when there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about a catastrophe. “Dear Prince Cole. He’s ever standing on his dais trying to prove that his way is better than the rest of ours. Even his father and King’s decisions don’t matter to the great Prince Cole. And yet, how many people around you have survived, old friend? How many people have you let fall to further your ambitions?”
Rhion’s swords come down in an aggressive stance, his legs poised to leap at Cole, and he laughs again. “You know, I used to envy you, Cole. I think it was the way everyone looked at you. It was the way they all thought you were someone to be worshipped. I didn’t have anyone who looked at me like that. Deep down, I think I even worshipped you a little. You were so much better at everything.”
His smile seems to embody everything about him. Confident and willing to wager everything on a single fight, he’s so different from Cole. “I decided after that day that Darian tricked me, I would become the greatest warrior. I would be the one that the world looked at with awe rather than you. Prince Cole, I have spent my life waiting for this moment, and today, I’m going to prove that you are not what everyone thinks you are. You are not a god to be worshipped. You’re no different from the rest of us.”
Cole stares down Rhion, a glare in his eyes, and he speaks to me through the bond between us. It’s not in words, though. It’s a vision of what he wants me to do. I leap at Rhion with shadow daggers, just like Cole had used in the House of Steel dungeons. Rhion turns faster than I can move and slashes through me, but the person who appeared behind him was made of shadows, and as the sword cuts through the effigy, I appear to the side of him and stab a shadow dagger through the wing hole in the back of his armor.
I understand what he’s telling me. Rhion isn’t afraid to fight someone who’s using shadows. He’s faster and anticipates what I’d do. He won’t expect an effigy, though. No one thinks about me enjoying being in the void, so I slip out of the physical world and into the darkness that gives me so much peace.
I maintain my focus, something that doesn’t feel so difficult anymore, and I reach out behind him, creating an effigy that appears just as I would from the pool of shadows behind him.
Rhion cuts it down immediately, but it disappears into nothing, and Cole is already attacking him. I send another effigy to Rhion, and before it comes fully into being, he cuts it down while still defending against Cole’s onslaught.
I create more and more effigies, feeling the world through them like a blind man fighting with sticks. When I feel a shadow touch something solid, I know Rhion’s overwhelmed, and I appear from the shadows at his feet. A shadow dagger appears instantly, solidifying into a razor’s edge while I move as fast as I can.
Rhion recognizes that something’s different, that it’s not all just effigies to draw his attention. He spins, and this time, he’s too slow. My dagger finds its mark in Rhion’s back. A hiss slips out of him as my dagger cuts into his lung like it’s done to so many House of Steel soldiers today.
His eyes bulge as he realizes just what happened. He tries to suck in a breath, but it doesn’t work. He spins, his sword coming down in a slash meant to cut across my body, and I hastily block with my shadow daggers. Normally, the attack would have cut me down, but Rhion is panicking.
Even though I had to pull my dagger out of his back, Rhion can’t heal himself without focusing almost entirely on that, and Cole isn’t giving him the time to do so. His black longsword comes down so fast that even I can’t track it. But Rhion does. He blocks and returns attacks repeatedly. The seconds tick by, and Rhion’s face turns blue, but he doesn’t stop swinging, doesn’t stop defending himself.
This is when the Prince of Steel dies, and he knows it.
I drop the shadow daggers and create a spear from the darkness. As soon as I move to attack, Cole shouts at me from our bond, “NO!” I immediately stop, not understanding what’s happening.
Cole’s movements are vicious. Every cut looks strong enough to break through anyone’s guard, much less someone who can’t breathe, but then I realize that Rhion’s movements are slower, less precise. Yet, Cole isn’t breaking through.
Then Rhion’s grip begins to shake. He leaps backward, and wings sprout from his back in an instant. Cole doesn’t let him fly, though. Fire explodes around him, burning his wings to ash, and Rhion falls.
He’s still, and instead of driving his sword into Rhion’s chest, Cole reaches down and rips his helmet off, tossing it to the side. He puts his hand against Rhion’s cheek at the same time that Rhion gasps in a deep breath. It took him a second to heal, and now he could begin the fight with Cole anew.
“I won,” Cole says softly.
“Your Wyrdling won,” Rhion says with a grin at Cole and then a glance at me. “Never knew anyone from the House of Shadows who could do all of that from the void. Clever girl.” He turns back to Cole and says, “You should kill me. You know that. Even more than my father, you should kill me.”
Cole stares at him with ice in those blue eyes of his, and he shakes his head. “No, Rhion. Swear that you will leave this place and go back to Draenyth, and I will let you live.”
I look at Cole with fear in my eyes. If he takes his hand away from Rhion’s face, Rhion could start fighting again, and now he knows another one of my tricks. I’d thought that Cole was the best warrior, that he was unmatched on the battlefield, but Rhion was fighting both of us at the same time and wasn’t losing. Why would Cole let him live?
Rhion laughs. “You won. Don’t muddy things. I’ve spent hundreds of years waiting for this singular moment. Either win and know that I’m the better of the two of us, or lose and die. Either way, I stop living the life I’ve wanted to escape for all these centuries.”
Cole grins at him. “Like you said, I didn’t win. My Queen did. This isn’t the battle you’ve been hoping for, and I’m sure there will be more. Swear your oath and leave. Say that we swept in, killed your men, and ran away when you’re questioned by your father.”
Rhion glances at me, and I really can’t understand why Cole is letting the enemy survive. As if he’s reading my mind, he looks back at Cole and says, “I’m going to ruin everything you’re planning. You know that, don’t you?”
Cole shrugs. “I don’t want to kill you, Rhion. It’s not you that needs to die.”
“You’re an idiot, but you’re right about one thing. This wasn’t the battle I’ve been waiting for. This wouldn’t be the death I was looking for.” He sighs and shakes his head before standing up. Cole lets him go, but a shadow spear appears in my hands on instinct alone. Rhion grins at me and says, “You’ve gotten better, Wyrdling, and it’s not all the Crown. Those men were well trained, some of my best. Maybe there’s more to you than I first thought.”
“I could have killed you,” I say.
He shrugs, and his lip turns up just the slightest before he turns back to Cole. “I swear on the magic that runs through my veins that I will leave this battlefield and go back to Draenyth. I will not turn back to try to catch you or surprise you.”
As he says the words, the clearing is filled with a complex scent. Like freshly forged metal, it’s ashy yet clean, with a sharp tang of steel. It is strong and terrible and unmistakable.
A band of silver encircles Rhion’s wrists like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not a debt. An unbreakable vow. Cole glances down at the silver bands, and instinctively, I know that if Cole had said the same thing, his bands would be bright red instead of silver, and mine would be brown.
Rhion looks at me again, his smile only getting wider. “I hope you know what you’re doing, letting Cole Cyrus make all your decisions, Queen Maeve. He has a habit of getting the people around him hurt.”
“Maybe those people needed to learn to protect themselves.”
Rhion chuckles and turns back to Cole. “One day, I’m going to get the fight that you owe me, Prince Cole. I’ll have the fight that will end with one of us dead.”
“I look forward to it, but it’ll be another day.”
Rhion turns away from us and leaps, his monstrous legs propelling him high into the air as he regrows a new set of wings before he’s neared the apex of his leap. Cole and I both watch as he flies away from us, not looking back even once.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” I finally ask as Rhion becomes a speck on the horizon.
Cole’s silent for a few moments, but I don’t push him. I’ve never known him to make what looks like an obvious mistake because of his emotions.
“I understand Rhion,” he finally says without looking at me. “We grew up together. He was always younger, always trying to compete with me when I never cared. I was just trying to survive my father and protect my friends. Rhion, though… He needed to outdo me, but if I let him, then my father would come down on me. I was his answer to Gethin and Rhion, and if I couldn’t destroy Rhion without a problem, then I wouldn’t be able to protect the House of Flames. But Rhion…”
He sighs and turns towards me. “Gethin is older than my father. He’s older than Brenna or Roderic. He’s ancient, and the Throne takes a toll on the person who sits in it. The stories say that the first generation of Great House Kings and Queens gave up the Throne and faded into the void. That was thousands of years ago. Those were the ones who were given power directly when the dragons became the Thrones. And Gethin was born not long after that.”
Cole purses his lips as he tries to decide how to phrase the next thing, and I frown. What does Gethin’s age have to do with why he didn’t kill Rhion?
“Rhion has suffered in ways I couldn’t imagine. At least my father accepted I would eventually take over his Throne. No matter how many times he burned me, he never even considered an alternative. Gethin has told Rhion since he was a child that he was too weak to hold the Throne. Instead of forcing him to become stronger, he ignored him. He treated him like an unwanted bastard since birth, all because I was stronger than him.”
I blink, understanding their history a little, but I’m still confused. “He’s still the enemy, Cole. He could have killed us. He wounded you. Even fighting together, we had to fight hard to win. Now he’s free to fight us again in the next battle, and we both know that there will be another.”
Cole gives me a knowing smile. “Did we really have to fight hard? You barely know how to use your Earth powers. As soon as you did anything beyond what a normal shadow walker could do, he lost. And I never intended to kill him.”
I grab Cole’s arm and pull him to face me. His smile gets wider. “You were holding back?” I ask, a little more dangerously than I probably should. It verges a touch too close to the way I’d talked to my friends when I’d gone cold.
“I was,” he says. “The goal was to beat him, not kill him. Maeve, you have to understand that the world needs Rhion to live. He’s the strongest Immortal in the House of Steel other than Gethin. He needs to control the Steel Throne when we’re done. The Conduit must be capable of controlling a Great House.”
The Thrones will anchor the magic. The Great Houses will be the Conduit. The Painted Crown will be the balance.
Those words run through my mind unbidden. They’re more words from Vesta that I barely remember. “We have to keep him alive when he’s actively trying to kill us?”
Cole nods. “It’s more than that, though. Rhion doesn’t want to ruin the world. You don’t understand because you didn’t grow up with an Immortal parent training you and watching your every move. It’s almost painful to go against them. I explained how Immortals have children because of their loyalty. No matter how many times I’ve done it, it physically hurts me to disobey my father. Luckily, my father’s first lessons were about embracing pain. Rhion isn’t from the House of Flames, and the thought of disobeying Gethin is inconceivable.”
I sigh, not sure I completely agree with Cole’s decision. He’s not afraid of Rhion, but I am. I’d thought no one could beat Cole, but today’s fight shook that confidence. I watched the Steel Prince move. Even if Cole is better than him, how many soldiers would we lose to him? What if it was Darian or Lee that was forced into that fight?
Is keeping him alive worth the risk?
“There’s nothing to be done about it now, but Cole, I don’t know if this was the right call. Rhion is dangerous. Maybe you could fight him and win, but I don’t think anyone else could.”
The look in his eyes is one of conflict. Not between me and him, no it’s an internal war, and it may not be the first time he’s fought it. “You asked me to stop bowing to you, Maeve. You asked me to be more like I was when you first met me. Should I wait for your decisions, or am I allowed to make my own judgement calls? Do you still trust me?”
I grit my teeth as he uses my own words against me. “I trust you even if I disagree with you this time.”
“I understand, and I think that’s supposed to happen occasionally.”
The silence between us is deafening, but I turn away first. “Well, we saved the village. Do you want to search it for this artifact?”
Cole chuckles. “I thought you’d never ask.”