Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
NERISSA
Cleared of charges, so long as she lends her power to the crown until it’s no longer in need of her services.
– Formal release of Vienah, signed by High Steward Merik.
Nerissa – Airborne over the Juniper Sea
Deep blue waves rose to meet a tapestry like living fire as we approached Lotrennia. The coastal forest shone in a golden sunset with orange and blood red leaves set above the azure jewel of the Juniper Sea.
Aquila’s large body heaved a sigh as he soared through the clear skies, and I echoed the sentiment. I’d yet to release the tension in my shoulders since the Vael Lacrima had opened, but there was something soothing about flying back to the Land of Light and Life, even in the face of death.
Aquila had flown the entirety of the trip to Lotrennia, and the old man was exhausted. My fingers wove deep beneath his thick feathers, and I rubbed my hand against the tiny, downy fuzzies nearest his neck. He sighed into my mind.
The seven statues of the Bellators stood against the bright blue sky, and my gaze lingered on the demolished rubble that used to represent Enya, Lyvia’s ancestor.
Something stabbed me in the chest at the reminder of Lyvia’s absence.
It had been months since I’d seen her. Months since she’d returned.
I resisted the squeeze in my chest as I realized how much I missed her.
My gaze snapped up to the massive statue of Kyson, my own ancestor, and I scowled.
Do you miss him? I asked Aquila, my brows narrowing.
Aquila was silent as he pondered.
I miss who he once was, he finally said. He’d changed by the end of the war. He’d become untrusting. Doubtful.
I shook my head.
Reminds me of someone… I replied, my brows furrowing as I thought of my brother.
While I loved Bayne, his need to do what was right, what he believed was right, had begun to blur his faith in the rest of us.
I’d seen it with Lyvia, even after she’d proved herself ten times over.
There was a time I’d stand behind him no matter what…
But now? Something had shifted. A curtain of blind faith had been pulled aside.
Aquila grunted his agreement and banked, preparing to land in a small valley offshore.
“Are those tracks?” Kresida shifted as she called from behind me, her long arm stretching to the north.
I frowned and focused in on the sandy shoreline. What the—
Aquila swerved midair, and my stomach dipped. He surged upward and soared north instead of landing in the safe clearing of Ayla’s harbor.
“Those look like…” Kresida trailed off.
I nodded, my mouth setting in a grim line.
“Bears,” I finished for her, eyeing the deep tracks in the sand.
A chill breeze cut through the air as Aquila circled overhead, the tracks disappearing in the thick underbrush of the coastal forest. He landed on the vacant beach, white sand rising in a cloud.
Kresida and I hopped off, landing in the soft sand and setting foot in our homeland for the first time in over a year. We exchanged a look as we examined the massive prints that became clearer as the sand merged into damp dirt near the forest line.
“Ursa wouldn’t have sent Nivis bears to Lotrennia,” I murmured, shaking my head as I knelt.
“No,” Kresida agreed, her dark eyes sharp as she scanned the colorful forest of our homeland. “With Selvina in Votruvia, Ursa is all the people of Nivis have right now. She wouldn’t have left them. And why would she come here?”
Something tightened in my gut, and an eerie awareness crept into my veins as I replayed our last moments at the Vael Lacrima.
“Renova and Ganmira killed the bears on Kayj,” I added, reaching for the twin blades strapped to my back as I slowly stood, staring into the shadows of the firelit forest.
Kresida mimicked my movements, smooth and precise, before taking a slow step toward the tree line.
“You think they took the bears’ forms,” she said calmly, her body poised for attack.
Aquila’s wings beat a gust of dry, autumn air, and I blinked against the stinging bits of sand that hit the side of my face. He rose into the air and soared as fast as his weary wings could take him to the Gilded Fortress to warn Bayne.
“The goddesses are here.”
Kresida and I moved silently through the forest. The purple and red leaves dotting the green underbrush slid noiselessly against our bodies as we passed.
The tracks hadn’t disappeared entirely in the forest. The wide, deep indents in the mossy ground had shifted into two sets of thin, delicate human-shaped feet.
The inked wolf skull on Kresida’s dark shoulder shifted as she lifted a fist into the air, and my body stopped at the exact moment hers did.
Our movements were perfectly aligned despite our decades of training having not overlapped.
We were War Slayers, and the brutal drills of our shared upbringing positioned us as the perfect predators. Two wolves on the hunt.
We crouched in synchrony, Kresida’s fingers drawing a line through the air. My gaze followed, and my brows drew in as I spied the silvery, sheer wings of a pixie. I silently slipped past Kresida and lifted a small branch, stepping over a moss-covered log and into a small clearing.
My senses tingled as my eyes landed on the ground. Dozens of silvery pixie wings lay strewn across the forest floor, ripped from the tiny bodies of their bearers.
“The Embodied?” Kresida signed the question, her hand movements quick and precise after practicing so much on board the Hydra last year with Drystan.
My lips drew a thin line. While I didn’t love the pixies, the little creatures never really harmed anyone.
Elves always suspected they brought bad luck.
Death follows their flight. But if I’d learned anything about death in recent years, it was that it was misunderstood.
I’d seen Lyvia do terribly dark things with her shadows, but I’d also seen her welcome Xenelpha into that same calming darkness as life left her.
Beads of black blood stuck to the base of those wings and smeared across the ground. We silently stepped through the clearing, careful not to crunch their wings, when a howl ripped through the air.
My heart stopped.
Kresida’s face snapped toward mine, her dark eyes wide as the sound of the lost wolves of Lotrennia echoed through the forest.
Impossible, my heart chanted, as the pained cry of a wolf dragged out in a long, quivering note.
The phantom bite of a tattoo needle dug its fangs into my shoulder. The outline of my own wolf skull burned against my skin as if reacting to the call of its master.
We moved.
The howl cut off in a jerky, pained yip as Kresida and I raced through the trees, leaping silently over rocks and roots, twisting through leaves and ducking beneath branches.
My pulse banged beneath my skin. Flames licked to life as my power surged through my veins at the desperate plea in the wolf’s cry. Hurry. We had to hurry.
Muffled grunting and slurping reached our ears, and I forced myself to slow. Kresida matched my pace as the disturbing sounds became louder. Our forms lowered as the trees thinned. The leaves became brighter as the sun stabbed through the thick canopy above our heads.
A trampled path opened before us, and the potent scent of blood shoved into my nostrils. Moments later, the bright, crimson evidence of it lay smeared across the ground.
Movement pulled our gazes to a small clearing ahead, and we dipped into a low crouch as we crept through the brush.
A quiet rage grew in the storm of flames that rose in my chest as I took in the scene before us. Two human-like forms knelt in the blood-soaked dirt.
Ganmira’s long, pointed ears stuck out from beneath her jet-black hair, her naked skin as dark Lyvia’s shadows. Talons formed at the end of her long, stretched fingers, and she jabbed them into the lifeless form below her.
Renova’s snow-white skin was covered in blood. A long drape of hair covered her face as she shoveled crimson muscle and tendons into her mouth. My own mouth flooded with saliva as nausea rose, but the building wrath surged forward, squashing my own weakness.
I forced my eyes on the face of the dead wolf.
Its gray, thick fur was matted with fresh blood and gore, its golden eyes dull as they stared lifelessly into the forest beyond.
An unholy groan escaped Renova’s lips, followed by a sickening slurp, and my breathing began to quicken as the Embodieds’ actions rose to an unmatched level of war. They’d killed the princess of Lotrennia, and now, they fed on the guardians of the Land of Light and Life.
Kresida’s hand quivered on her knee, and I placed my palm on top of it. She peeled her dark eyes from the horrific sight and set them on mine.
“We need the others,” I signed, making small movements with my hands. “Move out.”
Her eyes were hard, a pained mixture of grief and anger swimming in their dark depths, but she nodded. My boot twisted silently in the mud when a heart-stopping whine reached my ears.
I snapped my head back to the clearing and waited for the wolf to cry again, but Ganmira and Renova had paused, lifting their heads and cocking them.
Their long, pointed ears twitched as they listened.
I stared at the face of the wolf they devoured, waiting for any sign of life, when the soft whine came again, this time farther away.
My heart pounded against my ribs.
There were more wolves.
Renova and Ganmira stood slowly, their strange forms almost glowing in the soft light of the woods. Their naked bodies appeared elf-like, though their limbs and ears stretched too long. The matching blue eyes narrowed as they scanned the woods for their next meal.
My gaze cut back to the dead wolf in the clearing, and my breath hollowed out. The remnants of large, full nipples bordered its butchered abdomen.
She had pups.
A small whine cried in the distance, and the Embodied snapped their heads in the direction before a blast of golden light ripped from their forms. My forearm flew before my eyes to shield my face, and when I blinked them open, the hulking form of two massive Nivis bears stomped through the forest.
Kresida and I moved.
The forest flew past us in a hush of heavy breathing and wind. The white bears hurtled through the trees before splitting at the start of a wide path. They opened wide, bloody mouths, bits of wolf hanging from the dagger-like fangs stretching from their gums.
The sound that followed straightened my spine.
Rather than a blaring roar, an ominous huff escaped their maws, the taunting laughter of the Embodied enough for my hair to stand on end.
Kresida and I skidded to a stop as their prey came into view.