Chapter 19 Rhianelle
Blaire sits before the mirror while Lady Siofra works on her hair. She carefully applies an alchemical mixture that turns Blaire’s golden-blonde locks silver-white. It catches the light exactly the way my hair does.
I watch as my friend transforms before my eyes. The silver hair cascades down her back in soft waves. We have always looked similar, both pale from centuries spent beneath Astefar’s shadowed canopy, but now the resemblance is unsettling.
Blaire is about to become me. She will wear my face and lead my army.
“The eyes,” Blaire says, studying herself critically. “They’re not right. Mine are blue. Yours are lilac.”
Siofra produces a small vial of shimmering liquid, then signs, “I can fix that. Two drops in each eye. It will burn for a moment, but the effect will last a week.”
Blaire tilts her head back. I see her hands trembling slightly as Siofra administers the drops. She blinks rapidly, tears streaming down her face, and when she opens her eyes again, they’re lilac.
It’s like looking at a ghost of myself.
“The armor,” I say quietly, gesturing to the pieces laid out on my bed. My ceremonial battle armor, etched with ancient elven runes. “Will it fit?”
“We’re nearly the same size,” Blaire says, standing and moving toward it. “I’m taller, but in the chaos of battle, no one will notice.”
She begins putting it on, piece by piece. I help her with the buckles and straps. The breastplate, the pauldrons, the vambraces. Each piece clicks into place, and with every addition, Blaire looks more and more like the Elven Queen of Aelfheim.
“There’s one more thing,” Siofra signs, producing a small wooden box. Inside is a crown, the simple circlet I wear into battle. “This will complete the illusion,” she tells Blaire.
She places it on Blaire’s head, and the transformation is complete. Blaire looks every inch a warrior queen.
I smile at our reflections, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. I go to her and take both her hands in mine. “Blaire, you don’t have to do this. You’ve already given so much.”
She adjusts the crown with her free hand, not meeting my eyes in the mirror.
“You’ve given more,” she says simply. “You’ve given everything, over and over, and never once asked us to carry it with you. Let me carry this.”
“Blaire.” Her name catches in my throat. I search her borrowed lilac eyes for doubt and find none. Yet, I still have to ask. “Are you sure about this?”
“I am sure,” she says, meeting my eyes. “You saved me more times than I can count, Rhianelle. Let me do this one thing for you.”
There are a hundred things I want to say, but none of them will change her mind. My fingers tighten around hers. “You could die.”
“So could you.” Her voice is gentle, but there is no hesitation in it. “At least this way, we have a chance to save the kingdom.”
I see something there I don’t recognize. A strength and certainty that wasn’t there before. Maybe it was always there and I just never noticed. Did something happen during her recent return to Astefar?
Before I can question her, a horn sounds from the courtyard below.
The Noctrals are ready.
Less than half an hour later, we ride through the palace gates toward the Great Plateau.
The roads are crowded with soldiers, healers, mages, and wagons laden with weapons and supplies. Blaire rides ahead with Darstan and Siofra. Her silver hair streams behind her, and my crown gleams upon her head.
From a distance, she already looks like me.
The thought leaves a hollow feeling in my chest.
She will be a target.
The plateau stretches wide and flat when we arrive, ringed by ancient stone formations and low ridges. Thousands of soldiers are already gathering beneath the banners of Aelfheim. Vayne’s orcs hold the center while teams of elves dig trenches and raise palisades across the open ground.
Far beyond them, something dark stains the horizon.
The Fae King’s army.
Even from here, I can see the towering shapes of mammoths moving through the haze.
We dismount near the rear of our forces. My boots strike the ground, and pain pulses through the mate bond so sharply that I have to grip the saddle until it passes.
They haven’t stopped hurting Landon.
I force the thought aside and turn toward the summoning ground.
Twelve empty spaces have been cleared in the earth, each surrounded by several waiting mages.
They cannot draw the circles or call anything from Astefar.
Only I can do that. Their task is to anchor the magic once I open the passages and keep the circles from collapsing while the ancient fae cross into our world.
Bowls of salt, powdered chalk, and water have been arranged beside each space, ready for me.
“How many will you summon?” Arescaine asks quietly.
I look toward the approaching darkness on the horizon. “As many as I can call.”
He says nothing to that.
The wind carries the distant thunder of thousands of marching feet across the plateau. Twelve may not be enough.
I step into the first circle and kneel. The runes flare beneath my palms as I call into Astefar.
The earth opens.
Calling from Astefar is not like reaching into a cupboard. It is like reaching into a wound. You push past the pain of it, past the dark that presses back, and you find the things that live there waiting.
They are always waiting.
“I call upon the pact between crown and fire. I offer blood freely given, passage into the waking world, and a battle worthy of your hunger. In return, I ask that you fight beside my armies. When the battle ends, you return to the dark. Those are my terms.”
I close my eyes and search through the darkness until I feel the first presence watching me.
“Hellios,” I call. “Will you answer me?”
I draw my dagger across my palm without hesitation. Blood pools in the hollow of my hand. I hold it out to him. His fingers close over mine. The blood hisses and turns to steam where it meets his skin.
“Terms?” he rumbles.
“You fight until the battle is done,” I say firmly. “You harm no one wearing Aelfheim’s colors. When it’s over, you go back.”
His mouth splits into something that might be a grin. “And if I refuse?”
“Then you stay in the dark and miss the fire.”
For several heartbeats, nothing moves.
Then roots split the ground inside the circle.
The god drags himself through, tall as an oak and darkened by ancient fire. The soldiers nearest the circle retreat.
Hellios lowers his face toward me. “Will there be fire, little worm?”
“More than you could ever want,” I promise him.
“Then I will come,” he mutters.
The mages surrounding the circle raise their hands. Their magic catches the edges of the passage and holds it steady while Hellios steps fully into our world.
I move to the next cleared space and begin again.
Circle. Sigil. Blood. Call.
“Sawa, who sleeps beneath the drowned stones. I ask you to rise.”
Water floods the second circle despite the dry earth. Something long and silver coils beneath its surface before a serpent lifts its head into the evening air. Its translucent scales reveal blue lights moving inside its body, slow and distant as stars beneath deep water.
The serpent slides from the circle and coils beside Hellios.
I close the third circle and press my bleeding palm against its center.
“Hunter of the Red Moon, the gates are open.”
Smoke pours from the runes.
Hooves strike the earth. A great stag steps from the smoke, flames burning between the bones of its hollow chest. Four feathered wings lie folded along its back, their tips scorched black. Its silver antlers carry the skulls of the creatures it hunted.
“What do you hunt?” it asks me.
I point toward the dark army on the horizon.
“Them.”
He turns without another word.
By the fourth circle, sweat runs down my spine beneath my clothes.
I draw the sigils anyway.
“Eira and Eirwyn, daughters of the first shadow. Come together or do not come at all.”
Two pale hounds emerge from a single pool of darkness. They face opposite directions, joined by the same stretched shadow beneath their paws. One has no eyes. The other has no mouth.
The eyeless one scents the air.
The voiceless one speaks inside my mind.
We remember you.
“Then remember the bargain between us,” I remind them.
Blood for passage. Bone for shelter.
“You will have both,” I vow.
They move to stand at the edge of the field, their shared shadow writhing between them.
The fifth circle resists me. The chalk breaks twice beneath my fingers, and the final sigil refuses to close until I press blood from my palm into the line.
“Mistress of a Thousand Blades. I ask for your hand in battle,” I whisper.
A veil of black silk rises from the earth. Beneath it comes the pale face of a woman, beautiful and expressionless. Her body follows, long and segmented like a centipede, with dozens of silver arms unfolding along her sides. Each hand grips a different blade.
Her veil turns toward the soldiers. “What do you have for me today, little Rhianelle? Mortals again?”
“Demons and fae,” I offer.
Every silver hand tightens around its weapon. “Better.”
The sixth call shakes the plateau.
“Yselle, Mother of Rot. Wake.”
The earth bulges. Twisted trees pull themselves free, roots tearing from the soil. Faces move beneath their bark.
I hear Siofra make a small sound behind me, a breath pulled sharply through her teeth.
When Yselle stands, her shadow falls across three companies of elven soldiers. She turns toward them. A murmur of awe and fear moves through the watching army.
I move to the seventh circle. My hands are beginning to shake.
“Corven, Knight of the Last Roost. Your queen calls you.”
A flock of ravens bursts from the center of the circle. They wheel above us in a screaming spiral before collapsing together. Black feathers become armor. Wings become a cloak. A beaked helm forms over a face hidden entirely in shadow.
Corven kneels before me. “You are not my queen.”
“No,” I admit.
He tilts his head the way ravens do. “But you freed mine.”
“I did.”
He rises and draws a sword made from a single black feather. “Then my debt remains.”