28. Strategy Management
Turning myself in was the easy part. A Barony guard found me first, and he marched me through the empty streets of Willow’s Grave with my hands over my head.
The hard part was watching the bombardments continue as Caitria’s forces were unaware I’d given myself over.
Buildings continued to crumble and vines and bits of opal showered from the sky.
The guard leading me forward moved too slow, stumbling over rubble and prodding at my back nervously with the end of a red spear.
I had half a mind to race ahead and find someone more competent.
“Easy,” Ciarán warned in my head. “It has to be believable.”
“I’m not sure anyone is going to believe this guy was the one to capture me.”
“But he didn’t. You’re giving yourself up to save Willow’s Grave, which Caitria will believe regardless of who drags you to her.”
“Who’s there?” A voice called out in the dark, and I had to stop myself from sighing in relief at the sight of a group of guards.
“I’ve got the Saergrim!” the guard behind me shouted.
Red weapons appeared in the hands of the newcomers, and they hurried to surround me.
“You’re sure it’s her?” The guard with the most stripes on his uniform surveyed me from behind a ruby scimitar.
I blinked Skal into my retinas, and they all took a step back as my eyes took on the black sclera I was now so used to seeing on Ciarán.
“She’s the one that attacked Kamryn,” one of them said. “That woman outside wants her alive, but didn’t specify in what condition.”
Ciarán’s anger spiked along the tether, and I braced to defend myself, but another guard pulled his friend back.
“Don’t try it,” he hissed. “Did you see what she did to Kamryn? His skin is falling off. Touch her and she might do the same to you.”
I wiggled my fingers at them in a taunting threat and bit back a smile when they all shifted away from me.
“Get her to the gate fast so they quit with this racket.” The guard with the most stripes on his uniform looked up at the flashing sky. “Run.”
The streets passed faster now, and the border wall rose to occlude the night sky as we approached. The three guards flanking me kept quiet, but Ciarán filled the silence.
“Look who I found,” he said, and while the street ahead remained in place, Ciarán’s field of vision merged with mine. A ghost of the opal forest extended ahead of me, and a large, jade-green head bumped against my shoulder.
“Una’s there?” I asked.
“Of course. Where else would she have gone?”
“Careful. The soldiers might notice the giant green fox monster lurking outside their camp.”
“We’ll be fine. Focus on you.”
The street snapped back to normal. The gate was directly ahead, and Caitria’s green-weaponed soldiers waited in the open archway. The fires of their camp gleamed in the stone trees beyond the citadel limits, and I took a deep breath, reminding myself that Ciarán was out there.
The Barony guards handed me off to the soldiers with little fanfare. My glowing eyes confirmed my identity, and one of the men started yelling commands of a ceasefire. The knot in my stomach loosened, and the sky gradually quieted as the command was relayed along the tree line.
It would’ve taken a lot of Skal to launch an attack like the one Caitria’s army had tonight. That much Skal would be difficult to hide. Ciarán, I was certain, would find it quickly.
Hopefully more quickly than not, I thought, as soldiers paused in their activities to watch me be marched past them into their camp.
Tents interspersed the trees, the largest of which sat up ahead.
Piles of rubble glinting with glowing opal marked where parts of the forest had been razed to make room for the army.
I bit back the anger that roiled in my stomach. Stone trees were not something that could be replanted.
“It’s just rocks, Blue,” Ciarán said in my head.
“It’s not just rocks. This forest belongs to Willow’s Grave.”
Ciarán hummed in my head in reply.
The soldiers pushed me through the flap of the largest tent, but I must’ve beat Caitria home, because the tent was empty except for rugs, a cot, a small desk made of light wood, and a couple of wooden chairs.
A soldier forced me into one of the chairs nearest the middle of the tent and pulled my hands behind me. Heat swathed my wrists, and Skal buzzed in the air as he bound my hands with bonds of magick.
I made a show of tugging at the bonds and hissing at their heat. I wanted them to think they had bested me.
The soldiers exited, but through the tent canvas I heard one of them command the others to keep watch outside. I blinked away the retina guard, and my vision returned to normal.
“How’s it going?” I asked Ciarán.
“I’m almost there. I can see their fires. Did you see the Skal on the way in?”
“No. It’s probably in one of the tents. They wouldn’t keep that out in the open.”
Something rustled outside the tent, and I straightened up just as Caitria, disheveled and bruised, pushed through the tent flap and strode past me without as much as a glance. One of her pant legs had been ripped away, and claw marks raked down the side of her thigh.
Mom had made sure to leave her mark.
Caitria fell into the wooden chair behind the desk, pulled a paper and pen from a satchel, and began scribbling away.
I strained against the glowing bonds of gold that bound my wrists behind me, more for show than any real attempt at escape.
“Your brother said to tell you hi,” I said. Caitria’s eyes flitted up from her paper.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Okay, fine. He wishes you were dead.”
“Charming.”
“He was pretty cut up when he thought you were dead,” I continued. “He tried to murder me over it. Twice. He knew I’d come back, but still. Dying as a Nightmare still sucks.”
“Then you should’ve left him in the Second Sentinel.”
“No.” I shook my head and gave my bonds another theatrical yank.
“Because I get it. He blamed me for your death, and he tried to temporarily kill me for it. You know why? Because Tiernan is loyal. He was loyal to you. He took it out on me. He was wrong, and you weren’t really dead, but the loyalty still matters.
I take it you don’t know much about loyalty, considering what happened to Fana’s family. ”
Caitria pretended to ignore me, returning to her writings.
“Did you kill them?” I pressed. “Or did you just let Ferrin in through the window and sit back while he did all the murdering?”
“We split the work.” Caitria sat back in her seat.
“Is that what you want to hear? That I muddied my hands? I did. There were eleven Firelds. Together, we removed ten. Of those ten, I dealt with six. Of those six, only four were adults. Of the two that weren’t, one of them was Tiernan’s best friend.
He watched me do it, but he didn’t know it was me under the cloak.
If he had attacked me, I would’ve killed him too. ”
She listed the details off as casually as if she was recounting a trip to the grocery store, and my stomach churned.
“You’re horrible.”
“I'm committed. Or, as you might say, loyal. Not to the Firelds, and definitely not to my fool brother, but to Ferrin and his vision for Skalterra and Keldori alike.”
“And what’s that vision look like?” I pushed back on my toes, letting my chair tilt a few inches.
“Skalterra has its problems. I’m sure you’ve noticed. Ferrin says Keldori is flawed in many ways too. But with Skalterra’s more capable Magicians and the endless supply of magick waiting in Keldori, we are certain we can unify and strengthen both our worlds.”
“Ferrin is an idiot, and he’s going to get himself nuked by at least four different countries the second he tries to bring Magicians into Keldori.”
“And you are free to tell him so when he arrives.” She smiled wanly.
My stomach dropped, and I let the front legs of my seat slam back into the ground. “He survived?”
“Nervous?”
“Disappointed.” In my head, I added to Ciarán, “I told you he might’ve survived.”
He swore back.
Caitria continued to scribble at her paper.
“How did you meet Ferrin?” I asked. “He lived in the mountains, protecting the Quills. But you were with the Firelds on the southern coast. That’s an entire continent apart.”
“He visited when we were both new to the Riftguard,” she said blithely. “The Quills and Firelds tried to meet once a decade or so. He was kind to me, and we were both sorry when he had to return to the Second Sentinel.”
“Were you in love?”
Caitria laughed. “You speak like the naive young thing you are. Why does everything have to be about romance?”
“Were you?” I pressed.
She laughed again, but her brow furrowed and she refused to meet my eye.
“The life of a Riftguard is secluded and lonely. We are tied to our Sovereign family, trapped in protected isolation to preserve their bloodlines and the Rift. The Second Sentinel has an entire city. The Fireld Fortress, meanwhile, was only that. A fortress hiding in the underskirts of the New Kingdom. Ferrin was the first person of my age that I met that I didn’t have to bow to. ”
“I’ve been lonely too. I didn’t murder children over it.”
“I didn’t murder the Firelds because I was lonely.
I murdered them to open the Rift. Ferrin figured out how to project himself as a Nightmare to visit me.
It was an unheard of skill, but if anyone was going to figure it out, it was him.
He’s more talented than he lets on, and it wasn’t long before he figured out how to project himself into Keldori too.
He came to me one night, full of agitation and excitement.
He told me about it. I didn’t believe him.
Keldori doesn’t have Magicians. We assumed we’d left them in the Dark Ages, but without being able to rely on magick or Magicians as a crutch, it seems your technology has taken off in unimaginable ways. ”
“And that’s why you murdered the Firelds? For indoor heating and bad internet service?”
“Keldori is our home.” Caitria slammed her hands against the desk. “Our kind was cast out without a choice. There is nothing wrong with trying to return to where we belong.”