ESSA
We stalked through the darkness, weaving among trees, keeping to the shadows.
Dragons. Riders. A handful of royal guards.
And all the loyal commoners we’d been able to muster—some two thousand hearty men and women.
It was a paltry number to take on the death machine that awaited us beyond Charcain’s newly rebuilt walls, but the Skrathan had never been ones to shy away from steep odds. And I wanted my bloody kingdom back.
The horse he rode snorted, as if in disdain. I felt the same way. Though Ollie was on horseback, I looked down at him, for I sat upon Othura, her scales and silver wings glinting in the moonlight.
I opened my mouth, ready to give Ollie a sharp retort. But before I could, I felt my dragon’s thoughts seep into my mind, a sensation like settling into the warmth of a bath.
They say only a fool ignores the counsel of a Torouman, Dear Heart, Othura said.
That was true. And I’d tried to entertain Ollie’s advice.
To break bread with Lord Natath and the noblemen snakes who’d fractured my kingdom.
To parlay with Prelate Kortoi and his fellow Gray Brothers, who’d helped bring about my mother’s death.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I was Queen Synaeda’s daughter. Irska of the Maethalian Skrathan.
Heir of Aulucia the White. It was not in my nature to lie down with wolves and let myself be devoured.
What I could do, however, was let them think I was considering their overtures—then gather my forces and strike before anyone expected me to.
Ahead, the spires of Charcain became visible through the trees.
Many of its once beautiful towers were now broken off, jagged as shattered teeth against the black sky.
Below, the walls of the keep, which once gleamed the pearlescent white of opals, were now cracked and patched with dark gray stone and mortar—the repairs like pocks and scars marring a once beautiful face.
“Essa?” Ollie said, and I realized I hadn’t answered him.
I met his gaze—and he must’ve seen the steel in my eyes, for he sighed.
“I know, Essa. Truly. Of course, you want to punish their disloyalty. Avenge your mother. Take back your kingdom. I’m only trying to spare the blood of these people.” He nodded back toward the commoners who followed us. “They love you. They trust you. And we’re leading them into grave danger.”
I glanced back at the column behind us. Men and women.
Old and young. We’d tried our best to outfit them, but most had no armor.
A few hundred had rusty swords or old spears, but the rest bore farming tools.
Pitchforks, scythes, and staves. I’d warned them what we’d face beyond Charcain’s walls.
Elite Lacuna knights. Vicious golena monsters.
The dreadful war mages of the Gray Brotherhood.
I’d warned them, and they’d followed me willingly.
Still…
I shook my head, banishing the doubt echoing through my mind.
“I will not deliver myself up to the traitors beyond those walls like a pig to a feast,” I said. “They have begged me to join them. They await my reply. And I shall give it to them—now, when they least expect it.”
Ollie sighed again. “As you wish, Essa.” I shot him a glance, and he amended: “My Queen.”
Ahead, our objective had come into view: the palace’s rear gate.
Here, the concentric circles of the city walls and the castle walls met, and a single gate served to provide egress into both.
It was a weak point in the palace’s security that was well known.
My mother’s generals had muttered about it all my life.
But the portcullis was sturdy, and the gateway was small, they always said; even if it were breached, only a small force could pass through.
Which was fine, because my army was small.
Everyone knew the plan; there was no need to explain it again, and no time, either. Already, the black of the night sky had begun giving way at the edges to the deep cobalt of dawn. We had to make haste.
A motion in the forest beside me caught my eye, and I glanced over, my hand on the hilt of my sword. I glimpsed a form in the underbrush. Red scales. Folded wings.
“Parthar,” I said aloud.
The young dragon poked his head out from behind a tree, looking at me sheepishly.
I’ve told you, you’re too young to fight. Get to the back of the column, and when the battle begins, stay out of it. Understand?
The little dragon gave a hoom of dissatisfaction, and a rebellious puff of smoke issued from his nose, but he turned and slunk toward the back of the column as instructed.
Seeing him made me think of Charlie. And thinking of Charlie made my heart ache afresh.
But I pushed him from my mind once again, refocusing on the task at hand.
I gave a nod to my Skrathan commanders—Pocha and Lure—and the three of us crept ahead on dragon back, making our way through the trees.
The other dragon riders followed, a mere forty of us left from the one-hundred strong who had defended Charcain on that fateful day, six months ago, when the great betrayal had fallen upon us like a burning stone from the sky.
Burning.
The word made me think of Charlie.
Charlie. Oh, Gods, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t think that name.
The last thing I needed now was memories flashing through my mind.
His lips. His touch. The feeling of our bodies entangled.
The pain of his betrayal. The bliss of our reunion.
And the gutting agony of seeing him there, lying amongst the devastation, his face pale, his graceful hands so terribly still…
Essa… Othura warned in my mind.
…Seeing Charlie…my lover, my love —I could say that now, couldn’t I? I could confess the truth—that I loved him—seeing him, Charlie—
Dead.
Tears suddenly filled my eyes, but I fought them back just as fiercely as I’d battle an enemy golena.
Queens did not cry. And Irskas only wrung tears from their enemies.
I had no time for mourning, no time to think.
I squeezed Othura with my knees, urging her on.
As she slipped out from the edge of the forest, into the open, I reached down and attached the clip that replaced my missing right hand to the metal loop on my saddle.
With my left hand, I drew my sword, the rasp and ring of its drawn blade setting my heart galloping.
Othura needed no urging from me. She spread her slivery wings, broke into a run, and gave a powerful flap.
We were airborne in a flash of moonlight, and I heard the whoomp of wings as the rest of the Skrathan took flight behind us. The attack had begun.
The guards on the walls were vigilant. I heard their shout almost immediately, followed by a shrill blast of horns.
Little good it would do them.
A series of ballistae were mounted along the walls, designed to take down enemy aircraft, but they were heavy, hard to aim, and easy to break.
We reached the nearest one and descended upon it before it could get a shot off.
Othura headbutted one of the guards manning it off the walls.
I slashed the other with my sword, sending him tumbling backwards, and with her back claws, Othura slashed the massive crossbow’s string.
It gave a low twang as it snapped, rendering the weapon useless.
Then, we were bounding along the top of the wall, sending guards leaping off for their lives.
My fellow Skrathan were similarly following the plan—disabling the ballistae and removing guards from the walls.
Ahead stood a gatehouse. I was ready to leap off and enter, but I could see through the doorway that Pocha, Lure, and a half dozen other riders were already inside, turning the massive wheel to raise the portcullis.
I looked down, over the wall, and saw our ground forces break the cover of the trees and rush toward the gate right on cue, Ollie and Dagar on horseback leading the way.
So far, so good.
Except behind us, I could hear the city waking up. More horns. A din of distant voices. The clanking of armor and the thud of hooves on cobbles.
They’re coming, Othura said in my mind.
I know. I replied. Let’s tell them hello.
Down from the wall we glided, Othura, with her libran grace, alighting in the courtyard as gently as a fallen leaf.
Behind us, other Skrathan’s dragons also flew down from the walls and fell into a narrow phalanx behind me. The gate was open, and our army poured through now, forming up into columns behind us.
I felt my heartbeat accelerating, a feeling of exhilaration and excitement filling me, boiling in my veins like the magma of Kayumal. With a flourish of my sword, I signaled onward, and Othura strode ahead. It was time to take my kingdom back.
Above us, an arched gateway should have welcomed us to Charcain’s inner courtyard.
But I could see as we approached that something was different.
The arch had been turned into a tunnel. And where it had previously led to an open space at the foot of the fortress, now it turned us aside, then opened up to reveal a series of newly constructed gray mud walls.
They zig-zagged, first left, then right, then they came closer together, so that the channel we were passing through grew narrower and narrower.
They were steering us not toward the fortress, I realized, but toward the city.
It made no sense. Had these strange, haphazard renovations been planned by a lunatic? Or by unhinged minds from the Void?
I don’t like this, Othura said in my mind.
Nor do I, I told her.
But we’d come this far and still encountered no resistance.
That felt ominous, but it also gave us no excuse to turn back.
And in truth, I wouldn’t have retreated regardless.
My enemies were so close that I could feel their presence, and my blood ran hot with the desire for revenge.
Rage fell over my eyes like a red veil. Thoughts of my mother’s betrayal pushed me forward like a wind at my back.
The channel between the walls narrowed further until we were forced to move nearly single file. The distant sounds of moving troops I’d heard earlier had given way to a tense silence. At any moment, the attack would come. I could feel it, my dragon sense prickly with foreboding.
Ahead, a gate stood open.
I could fly up. See what’s ahead, Lure offered, speaking in my mind with simnal.
But I shook my head. Do that, and we give away our location. I’d rather move fast and try to take them unawares.
Taking that as her cue, Othura bounded ahead, her wings folded tight against her body to pass through the narrow gate. I set my teeth on edge, bracing myself for an assault. My hand tightened on my sword as I prepared to wield it.
But there was no one to fight.
Beyond the gate, I’d expected to find ranks of Lacunae, hordes of golenae, archers and mages.
Instead, I found a squalid city. The homes had all been reduced to rubble, but amid the wreckage stood hundreds of small tents.
Drying clothes hung on ropes strung among the ruins.
Cooking fires burned. And men, women, and children, clothed in filthy rags, watched me with weary, wary eyes.
For a second, we all looked at one another, confused.
This appeared to be a vast courtyard. Surrounding it were the same type of hastily constructed walls that had funneled us here. The only exits, apart from the gate from which we’d entered, were two much larger gates that stood opposite us. As I watched, they both began to swing open.
From the one on my left, a Lacunae cavalry galloped forth, their black armor and wicked lances glinting in the dawn light.
From the other gate, golenae came, a stampede of clay-gray beasts with glowing red eyes and mismatched bodies, some with body parts of animals, some more human-like in form.
The commoners trapped between us screamed, mothers snatching up children, husbands stepping in front of wives, brandishing stones or chunks of broken off lumber as weapons.
An old woman to my right cried out and ran, stumbled in the long grass.
She fell, got to her feet again, and limped until she met one of the walls.
There was nowhere for her to run, so she crouched there, cowering.
And that’s when I saw the terrible genius of this trap, something only the likes of Prelate Kortoi and his Lords of the Black Void could devise.
It wasn’t enough to simply lure us in and trap us.
They had to complicate things by peppering the battlefield with innocents.
I glanced up and to my left, where the remnants of Charcain rose against the brightening sky.
We Skrathan could fly. We could take wing and storm the palace.
Find Kortoi and the nobles. Gut them. End this.
But the people who’d believed in me were pouring into the courtyard behind us now.
Leave them, and they’d be butchered by our enemies, along with the thousands of poor commoners trapped here by Kortoi.
And looking ahead, I saw that the number of enemies pouring through those twin gates into the courtyard was vast. In the thousands.
My stomach did a slow roll inside me, a feeling of dread rising to shiver my body and tremble my hand. This was like something from a nightmare—the terror. The powerlessness. The feeling of terrible inevitability. But it was all too real.
“What do we do?” I whispered to Othura.
She bared her dagger-long teeth in a snarl.
We fight, she said, and we charged forward, into the fray.