42. Chapter 39
Chapter 39
A steel collar is the best way to contain a magical being. Whether their power comes from a god or dragons, only the House of Steel is immune to a steel collar’s effects.
~Sir Alistair Hawking, Magical Combat for Humans
Maeve
We’ve been busy teaching Alistair how to train his men to fight Immortals. Darian’s still working with their engineers to create tools that will keep the fragile humans safe while also providing a threat to Immortals.
Our part of this is done for the day, though. We have other issues.
The first is putting my ability to tell a lie from a truth to the test. The lock clicks under my fingers, and Casimir’s collar falls to the steel floor with a clang. He runs his fingers over his neck, over the worn skin that’s been rubbed raw. I watch as the tiny cuts heal as soon as the steel is away from him, and he smiles at me.
“You don’t know how annoying it is to have a cut that won’t heal for months,” he says. I don’t respond, instead looking to Cole who’s standing by the door. There’s no sympathy in his eyes as he stares at his father.
Casimir doesn’t seem to be surprised. When I hand him the two small swords that matched Cole’s description of the weapons Casimir would normally use, his smile gets wider. “Do you know how long it’s been since I took to the field?” He says it to me, but I know that he’s talking to Cole.
Because Cole is the one who answers him. “Before I was born,” he says with venom in his voice. “You refused to take part in the only war that’s been fought, instead sending your son and your armies to slaughter the House of Shadows.”
Casimir completely ignores Cole. “It’s been almost two thousand years since we warred with humans. I hope I remember what I’m doing.”
I blink at him in surprise. We’re about to fight for our lives, and he’s making jokes? It feels so unlike the man that burned his son to a crisp the night I met him. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a Steel soldier pretending to be Casimir Cyrus. That’s not possible, is it?
As if he’s reading my mind, flames flicker along his fingertips and move along his arms, not singeing the bright red military coat and pants he’s wearing. The gold buttons that run up his chest gleam in the firelight, and it’s like he’s coming alive.
I saw the way he’d smiled the night before he punished Cole. It was a different kind of smile. This is one of lightness and freedom, as though the fear and worry have been stripped from him. It’s the smile of a bird stepping out of its cage for the first time in years.
“Oh yes,” he says softly. “I’ve missed this. Son, it’s good that you get to see me take the field at least once in your lifetime before it’s time for me to go. You may hate me, and I may be the worst father you could ever imagine, but today, you’re going to see me do the one thing I know I’m the best at.”
Cole smirks at his father, and I know what’s going through his mind even without the bond tying us together. He thinks he’s stronger than his father, that he could win a battle with him. My stomach drops as I see the reality. Casimir Cyrus knows exactly how much stronger he is than his son.
“We’ll see, Father. I hope you can keep up. As you said, it’s been two thousand years since you’ve seen battle.”
A light of competition sparks in Casimir’s eyes, and I step back as he walks toward his son. Part of me wants to pull him back, to protect Cole from his father, but there’s no hint of fear in Cole. And no hint of animosity in Casimir.
“Once upon a time, the dragons named the Houses. My mother taught me this when I was young. The House of Shadows was the House of Darkness, named after Vyran. The House of Steel was the House of Strength, named after Sidon, and the House of Flames was the House of Destruction. Count your kills, son, and we’ll see if the Prince of Destruction can compare to the King.”
Cole only smiles as his father turns toward me. “Queen Maeve, are you ready to take us to the battle?” There’s not a single hint of sarcasm in his voice when he addresses me with my title, and I nod to him. I put one hand out to him, and my other toward Cole. Cole glares at his father, but he pushes off from the wall and walks toward me. Casimir waits until his son takes my hand, and then he takes my left.
I step into revulsion shadows and pull all three of us through the world. Casimir doesn’t show any kind of fear when we cross into the void. His hand doesn’t tighten around mine, and his body doesn’t tense as Darian and Lee did. He’s obviously familiar with shadow walking, which is good because it takes a few moments to find the correct place to pull us to. I’ve never been to this part of the world, so I have to estimate how far it would be.
I find it, though. A shadow coming from an old oak tree looks out at a soldier wearing steel armor. I can feel the metal, and there’s no question of whether it’s an Immortal soldier based on the scent that flows into the shadow.
Moving just a little further away from him, I pull us out of the void and appear on a hillside next to a boulder. Looking down from the hill, it’s obvious that we’re in the right place. Tents cover the grassy valley below, and dozens of flags flying the House of Steel emblem wave in the morning air.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Casimir says with what can only be described as glee in his voice as I let go of his hand. “A real army and no need to hold back or worry about my safety. Oh, I’ve missed this feeling.”
Reaching out through my bond with Cole, I ask, “Why is your father acting like this?”
“I have no idea,” he replies silently. “It’s unnerving to see him this happy. Watch your back, Maeve. I don’t understand what’s going on, but something is different.”
I nod to him, and Casimir ignores us, running down the hill. No planning. No thought. Just an old man who wants to try to destroy a small army.
Cole sighs and follows after him. I don’t, knowing that my body is still weaker than I’d like from the atrophy. Yes, I’ll be able to fight, but running down a hill is a waste of energy when I could shadow walk.
I don’t want to get there first, so I wait and watch. When father and son are about halfway to the tents, a soldier yells, and suddenly, every tent in the camp is on fire. I’ve never seen Cole control that much fire at once, and I wonder which one of them did it. I know that I still haven’t seen the extent of Cole’s power with flames, but no one knows how strong Casimir is.
Flames spring up everywhere. Everything that’s flammable is suddenly a bright white that makes the entire scene hard to look at. Soldiers in steel armor rush to put out some of the fires, but as soon as they stop stomping on them, they spring back to life.
I realize I won’t be able to shadow walk anywhere near them.
“Well, that’s annoying,” I mutter. I shadow walk about halfway down the hill, coming out as Cole slams into the first soldier, his attack knocking him to the ground. Casimir leaps into the air, flames sprouting from his feet and propelling him over the growing line of soldiers.
I reach into the earth and draw stone over their boots as I have so many times in the past, and once again, it throws off the entire line. Instead of creating a shadow spear that will just burn away as soon as I’m close to those fires, I decide to watch Cole and Casimir’s backs. The biggest danger in this battle is a surprise bolt in the back, and I can make sure that doesn’t happen.
Casimir’s body is propelled by flames. Each strike has him trailing fire behind him, and his swords smash into armor again and again, each one leaving dents in helmets and breastplates so deep that they must have crushed bones.
Cole is playing a much more finessed game. His sword slips between the connections at the throat and finding the slits where pieces of the armor would move. The thighs and sides that shift so that the soldiers can grow.
One of Casimir’s swords shatters as he hits a soldier squarely in the face, and he drops the sword only to pick up a longer one without missing a beat. It’s seamless. Flawless motion that goes from one death to the next. It’s a brutal and unflinching symphony of a battlefield. Cole’s light touch is like woodwinds and Casimir’s reckless destruction is like drums. Everywhere they move, bodies fall, never to get up, and today, even Lysara would be proud.
Cole keeps pace and the circle of soldiers that lie dead at his feet is no smaller than the circle around Casimir. The smile on his face is one of both pride and joy, the two emotions that he has to maintain to use his powers.
It only takes a few minutes of this death dance before the soldiers organize. The first crossbow bolt fires at Cole, and a blue sapphire plate appears in the air in its trajectory. It shatters as the bolt hits it, but the bolt’s momentum doesn’t even carry it another five feet.
An inferno roars to life in a circle around the two males, rising so high into the air that no one could see through it, myself included. You’d have to step within that circle of death to see well enough to fight or aim, and a moment of hesitation runs through the army.
No one has bothered to do anything about me, and as the soldiers surround the flames in preparation to charge into them, I create a bit of a distraction. Boulders made of obsidian the size of carriages fall from dozens of feet in the air throughout the crowd, each of them crushing the people underneath them and exploding outward, sending shards of black stone into the masses. Most of it glances off the armor, but some of it finds gaps. Others hit hard enough to cut into the thin steel.
Screams erupt as everyone tries to get out of the way. More boulders fall, and for the first time since I fought the Nothing, I feel a true drain on my powers, but I keep dropping those boulders. Each one kills four to five people at a time and injures a dozen more. It only takes a few moments before the crossbows I was trying to protect Cole and Casimir from are aimed at me.
Their bolts hit gemstone plates and harmlessly fall to the ground, but then they rush me. A tower of stone grows underneath me, lifting me into the air, and I continue to drop rocks on the few groups of soldiers that are still close together. Now, instead of just paying attention to Cole and Casimir, they try to distance themselves from each other and continue to look up.
Cole and Casimir must have gotten bored because they explode out from the circle of fire. They land in the chaos and fight with swords as they had before, except now, they only land for a few moments before leaping to the next group of soldiers.
This is what happens when two truly powerful warriors work together. When Cole and I had fought together, we’d fought separately. Cole and Casimir move as if they’d trained alongside each other their entire lives, and I know that can’t be true. Cole didn’t even think Casimir could compete with him in swordplay.
Casimir has watched Cole fight for centuries. He knows his son’s abilities and fighting style better than anyone; maybe even better than Cole knows himself.
They don’t speak as they bounce across the battlefield, not needing protection from crossbows because they don’t stay long enough to be fired upon. Each time the soldiers try to organize, Cole and Casimir interrupt them, ruining whatever they were planning. For several minutes, it’s almost like the entire army is frozen in confusion as they wait their turn to die.
And then a cry rings out that I’d never expected to hear. The Nothing . It goes from one soldier to the next, each of them shouting it as loudly as they can, and then they move. Finally, after dozens of them have died, they have a purpose and a procedure. The entire body of the army swings as I scan the area for the mist that I know so well.
And when I see it, I realize just how much trouble we’re in. It’s surrounded us. Somehow, it knew that we’d be here to fight this army. It used these five hundred soldiers as bait for us. The army moves into a circle, pushing back against Cole and Casimir, but they don’t attack as the Nothing moves with frightening speed toward us.
It's coming for him. It's coming for Cole. Deep down, it knows the ones I care for most, and it does everything it can to take them away from me. First Hazel, then Da, and now Cole . The terrible thoughts wedge their way into my mind as I confront the thing that shattered me for the first time since I woke up. I shake my head. No. It will not take Cole. It cannot hurt me anymore than it already has. These are fears based on old scars, not reality.
I reach out for the bond between Cole and me and remind myself that he’s here, and he won’t allow it to take him. I can feel him mentally preparing himself for his new enemy, and it reassures me. We are not helpless. We fought the Nothing for months, and it could never touch us. We will survive this trap.
Each one of those soldiers sprouts wings and takes to the sky. They won’t move toward Stormhaven. Not after we’ve already decimated their ranks, and the Nothing is here. They’ll retreat for now. Our job is done, and it’s time to get out of here.
We do not want to fight the Nothing. Already, because of how close we are to it, I can feel my power being siphoned off. It’s not enough to affect me yet, but even with Casimir here, we can’t beat something that can simply outlast us.
“Shadow walk or fly?” Cole asks as I move to him.
“Shadow walk,” I say, certainty in my voice. “You can’t carry both me and your father.”
He glances at Casimir and nods to me. If it were for a short distance, I’m sure that he could carry us both, but we both know that the likelihood of it being a short distance is slim. The Nothing has proven to be clever with its traps.
I put my hands out, and Cole and Casimir each grip one. I stare at the white mist as it moves toward us. Closer and closer, it moves. Like the steady ebb of time, it feels as though nothing can truly stop it. This was my greatest enemy for months.
This shattered me.
It has taken more people from me than I can count.
It is evil.
I won’t fight it right now, though. Even if the anger inside me is desperate for release, I will focus on what matters most. There are more important things happening than destroying the Nothing. “One day,” I growl at the mist. “One day, I’m going to bring an army with me, and we’re going to destroy you. We’re going to cut back the mists faster than you can regenerate. One day, I will have justice for the ones that were lost.”
There’s not an answer, but why would I have expected there to be? Shadows spread out at our feet, and then I try to turn them into revulsion shadows as I have so many times in the past.
But they won’t. They fade. Not just those, either. Every shadow in the area fades. It’s like when my Da was taken, and I couldn’t shadow walk to him. The Nothing controlled the shadows and kept me from them.
I don’t understand how. I’m the Queen of Nyth. I wear the Painted Crown. No one should be stronger than me, and nothing should be able to wrest control of shadows from me as I did to Cole when he wore the Shadowed Cloak.
“What’s happening?” Cole asks, recognizing my hesitation as a problem. He glances around and without me saying anything, a look of horror fills his face. “It can control the shadows?”
I nod to him, and for the first time since I learned to control my powers, fear wedges its way into my mind. Cole can’t fly with me and Casimir. If I can’t shadow walk out of here, then he’s going to have to carry me first and then come back to pick up Casimir. It could be hours before he gets back to pick up his father. Maybe he could survive that long. Fire is good against the Nothing, and from what I’ve seen, Casimir has no problem fighting.
My mind whirs as I try to figure out a plan. I could create a pillar for Casimir to stand on. The Nothing would eventually climb it, but it would take time. But then Casimir would be trapped with far less room to maneuver.
“We have to go,” Cole says. I glance at his back and see the eagle wings that have sprouted. “I’ll fly fast,” he says to his father, who’s smiling at him. “You’ll be able to hold off the mist, won’t you?”
Casimir chuckles. “And if I don’t, does it even matter? It was good to get to fight with you one time, Cole. I’m proud of you. All these years, I couldn’t tell you, but I’m sorry for the pain I caused you, and I’m proud of the King you’re going to be. I’m sure you’ll be far better than I ever was.”
Cole stares at his father. His mouth opens as though he’s going to say something, but then it shuts. “I’ll fly fast,” he mutters, and he wraps his hands around my waist.
“Ready?” he asks me, his voice barely more than a whisper, and I nod.
But Casimir interrupts us. “What’s that sound?” he mutters.
Sound? I don’t hear anything at first. It’s absolute silence initially, but then I hear a soft humming. It’s under the silence, almost as if I’m not sure if I can hear it or not.
Cole’s eyes open wide. “I hear it too,” he says.
But what is it? It’s so soft that I can barely make it out. Then Casimir hums along, his ears picking it up better than I do, and I gape. “The song of power,” I whisper. “The one my Da hummed. Cole, why does the Nothing want us so badly? Why does it set traps for us? Why did Da walk into it? How did it convince Hazel to be trapped?”
All the pieces click into place at once. My Da knew this song before he’d ever seen the Nothing. There are only two possibilities. Either it’s connected to the void, or it’s connected to my mother.
“Where has Brenna been?” Cole asks. “Why hasn’t she come to me to help? She should have come to you.”
I nod to him. “How sure are you?” I ask.
He gets an unsure look on his face and then looks at the Nothing. “It came into being after you were born. It’s hunted you even harder than it hunted me, Maeve. It all makes sense. Nothing else does.”
And Casimir says from beside us, “If you’re suggesting that Brenna controls the Nothing… She’s the only person alive that would have figured out how to do something like this. And, she’s the only one who would have the motivation to do so. I hope she doesn’t hold grudges…”
He walks toward the mist and before we’ve even really understood what he was going to do, he steps into the Nothing. Cole looks like he’s going to chase after him, but then he pauses and looks at me. “What do you think?”
It’s the only thing that makes sense. What happens to the people that aren’t found? Why do some people find themselves sitting outside the Nothing when the rest of the village is gone? Only a handful of people are ever found with their bodies destroyed. Where are the rest of them?
“If we’re right, I can see Hazel. I can see my Da. I can see everyone again. If I’m wrong…”
Cole nods as the mists get closer to us. “If you’re wrong, then we die, and the world is doomed.”
There are two things that I have learned to trust completely. My instincts and Cole. I look at Cole and say, “What do you think? If my mother is in the Nothing, then this is the best weapon we could ever find.”
My instincts scream at me to walk into the mists. Just like my Da, I stare into the fog as it approaches, and I swear I can see something inside it. Just like when I fought it. Just like when I tried to rescue that little boy.
He says, “I can’t figure out anything else. Let’s see if the Nothing just came up with the cleverest trap yet or if we’ve just been running from help this whole time.”
I nod to him, and I wrap my fingers around his. With a deep breath and a whispered prayer to Erelith, the Goddess of Lost Causes, I step into the mist.