Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Aheadache splintered across my forehead, spreading like the forks of a river delta down my vertebrae.
No amount of pinching my pressure points helped alleviate the tension and I didn’t want to use magic for it.
The pain kept me sharp. If I used magic every time the stress got to me, then I’d be emptied before long.
Four more days had passed since I’d gotten back and my core group banded around me to discuss the upcoming attack. With the Dryads’ arrival, we’d magicked the war room into a larger space to accommodate Lesheno and his closest allies.
Rather than fabric, high stone stretched up to a ceiling made of glass to let the light in, like Queen Ffion’s war room.
A long oak table stretched between us with space for a second if necessary. Maps and pages torn from arcane spellbooks littered the surface along with a host of documents Lesheno’s archivists had brought regarding the Unseelie Fae.
I straightened my spine, if only to give the illusion of control. Illusions meant nothing these days, but we grasped for ours to keep them close.
Lesheno and Poppy debated with Allen and Doug regarding stealth and infiltration tactics. I glanced at Bronwen, my gaze skittering across my friend’s faces. She struggled to silence her anxieties and they manifested in frayed skin around her fingernails, cuticles chewed down to the quick.
Melia’s skin pulled tighter on her face as though she’d given her weight away to someone else who needed it more.
Mike stood quietly at my side, his energy somber and his expression grim.
I couldn’t for the life of me find any energy to spare to crack a joke and relieve the tension in the room.
Out of the core group, only Coral remained unchanged as she batted her eyelashes at Officer Allen, cutting in front of the line of flirtation ahead of Julie.
Coral’s auburn hair hung to the small of her back in light curls and waves, her makeup done to perfection. Her idea of war paint.
“This is where we need to land.” I pointed to a spot on the map.
“Otherwise we give away our position too early. Their camp isn’t on the high ground but they will still be able to see us coming.
They’re too close to the wall to come in through any other direction, but we shouldn’t go where they’ll expect. ”
“They’ll more than likely expend their energy watching the hills for an attack, but they probably understood the disadvantages of their campsite when they chose it.” Melia pinched her nose, holding her breath. “Our best bet would be to have the Encantado create a diversion by using the river.”
“Unless Dorian Jade already has his guards flanking the river banks.” Bronwen was the voice of reason but she wouldn’t come closer to the map.
She didn’t even want to be in the room.
“I hate how we call him that. Dorian Jade. It’s never one or the other, always a full name,” I muttered.
“The Unseelie traitor has no idea of your alliance with Queen Ffion. Or with us. According to intelligence, our partnership is still secret,” Lesheno admitted.
“Then double the attacks. Have them set for the same time and hit in tandem.” Coral, bored, studied her nails. “It’s the only way you really get a jump on them.”
“Land- and water-based double attack,” Doug agreed. “It might work. We could bottleneck them. What we can’t allow is them to bottleneck us.”
A peal of laughter sounded from outside. The silencing bubble kept our conversions private but allowed the echoes of camp to trickle in.
We were filled to bursting with the Dryads’ arrival, our camp now extending to the boundaries of the woods. Every inch of available space was occupied. A blessing and a curse at the same time.
Melia, the best caster among our core collective, had been forced into closer proximity with Lane and Arlyss. As much as it killed me to admit it, they’d both excelled at spell work at Elite Academy.
As for whether they were truly on our side or not, given their families’ position at Tywin’s court…
Melia would have to keep them in line.
The longer we delayed our attack, the more willing bodies we brought over to the cause, but the steeper my anxiety.
Like Bronwen, I hid the toll it took. At this point, I barely ate. I slept in shifts, and the only thing allowing me even an inch of rest was having Mike nestled around me.
Noren huffed heavily against my leg to prompt another scratch behind his ears.
“Should we divide the land attacks as well?” I asked.
“Consider sending one attack to the bottleneck, as they anticipate, and also set several others at strategic points. If Jade has scouts worth their salt, he’ll have them stationed around the perimeter of his camp.
” I pointed to the spots I’d choose if we were in the same position.
“So we come in from the cardinal directions at the same time. And perhaps if we have any Fae skilled with earth weaving—”
“I know a few,” Bronwen volunteered. “There were more when we had the Claw & Fang, but I’ve seen some Fae around the camp using those skills. I’ll seek them out.”
I bobbed my head. “Excellent.”
Where were the Burrendiggers when you needed one?
Suddenly the door to the war room burst open, and one of Melia’s scouts sprinted inside, half of his face covered by an armored mask.
“A cyclone hit a large swath of Faerie. It completely destroyed everything in its path.” He volleyed his attention between me and Melia and we both stood straighter.
“Go on,” Melia urged.
The scout brushed sweat from his brow. “The winds picked up out of nowhere, my sources report.” He nodded to Melia. “It’s bad.”
“This is the next obstacle,” I murmured, knowing it in my bones.
I was around the side of the table before I knew I’d moved.
“Go, Tavi,” Melia urged. “You need to get there immediately. Leave the rest of this to us.”
“Whoa, wait a second—” Mike attempted.
Coral scoffed, her scorn indefatigable. “There she goes again, playing hero. Now, Officer Allen—”
I dismissed her on my way out of the tent. Melia’s enforcer fell into step beside me. “Where did the cyclone hit?” I asked.
“West of Naveihn. Along the alpine ridge.”
Numbness settled in my veins as I hunted for Poppy. Multiple Dryads bent their heads to acknowledge me on my frantic way past. Noren kept tight to my heels.
We eventually found Poppy near the kitchens, with a jug of wine in her hand and her head tipped back in laughter.
Everything faded when our eyes locked. Holding my gaze, she chugged whatever was left in the jug and set it aside. “That bad, huh?” she asked dryly.
“I guess we’ll see. West of Naveihn.”
Another obstacle to eliminate. Much as I hated to press pause on planning our attack, there were people to help. I gave Poppy a sideways glance intended to indicate I was ready, but she had grabbed my hand and was already portaling us out of camp.
Blistering wind greeted us the second Poppy’s magic touched us down near the incident. Naveihn was a busy city near the base of a ridge of mountains almost impossible to pass, their tips painted white with snow even summer’s heat couldn’t touch.
This was the most northern point I’d seen in Faerie, and I squinted against the howling wind. I’d anticipated windswept plains and prairie-type landscapes. I was dead wrong. This was a sheltered valley of lush trees and fertile land.
A cyclone wasn’t natural for this geography.
An entire portion of the forest had been wiped out by the cyclone, leveled to the ground and leaving a huge crater of destruction. Rather than dissipating, part of the bruise-colored sky extended toward the ground.
A wide funnel of air still hovered over the crater. Nothing had touched the city yet, as luck would have it, but the cone of air refused to dissipate. It hung massive and bloated over the scar on the land, and any slight shift or momentum could send it directly in the path of the main population.
Poppy dropped my hand. “Oh, goddess.” Her habitual smirk was gone. “It’s surrounding the mountain,” she said. “See there, to the east? The pressure in those clouds won’t allow the cyclone to stop. It’s like a circuit of energy, perpetually looping over itself.”
An inevitable consequence of my powers. When does it get easier to bear?
The cyclone raged, tip brushing against the edge of the forest and slicing through trees like toothpicks. It churned against the ground and marked it irrevocably.
“Then we have to find a way to break the circuit before more damage is done. How many people live in these forests?”
I broke into a jog, moving closer to the edge of the damaged forest as though this was any other day with any other earth-shattering event, relegated to normalcy. The cold air pricked the inside of my lungs, and behind me, Poppy struggled to keep up.
By now she should be used to this kind of thing.
“Certain tribes of Unseelie Fae. Most congregate in the city, to be closer to the mining. Yet the forest is anything but uninhabited,” she replied.
“No towns?”
“Unless things have changed in the last hundred years, no. Nothing. Wilderness.”
I jogged faster, the winds picking up the closer we got to the edge of the cyclone. There had to be someone here, someone hurt by my actions—
Several people sat amidst the wreckage of trees near the base of the mountain, outside the range of the cyclone’s wind. They clustered together, staring at the wind as though it were such a confounding reality they couldn’t make sense of it.
“Hey!” Magic sent my voice outward.
They rose at our approach, huddled together in masses, sharing warmth to keep existing. Five of them carried weapons, long branches honed into spears. The others locked their knees and shifted side to side, making me the point in a triangle of survival.
Poppy stopped, following my lead.
A small rumble crackled the ground underfoot, a warning from the cyclone and a reminder of why we’d come. Caught between the people and the wind, I reached into my power to have it ready.
A shiver swept through the group. No, not a shiver. These people needed nothing to stay warm.