Chapter 71
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
RYOT
The euphoria of our victory is dimmed by the sheer magnitude of the losses.
Caius is among them. The Elder.
Thalric is injured. Gravely.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes, Thalric. I swear to the gods—if you die on me, I’m bringing you back to kick your ass.”
Nyrica’s hands move with brutal efficiency, fingers slick with blood. The stitches he’s weaving up Thalric’s side are fast, tight, and merciless.
Thalric groans, his eyes sliding closed.
“Oh, nope ,” Nyrica snaps, catching his chin and forcing Thalric’s face up. “None of that. You keep those pretty eyes open, commander.” And he carries on stitching with a grim determination.
For the first time in his life, Faelon is silent, his shoulders slumped, his eyes hollow and distant as he clutches Caius’s body to his chest. His hands are bloodied, shredded from his own bow. Tears streak his face.
I should grieve, too.
But I can't.
Numbness has sealed me off. If I open myself to it, I’ll be lost.
I press Leina’s limp body against my chest, as if I can share my heartbeat.
The Veil spat her out—her and Vaeloria both—unconscious and broken.
Her skin is cold beneath my hands. Her breathing is so faint I have to press my fingers to her throat, searching for the tiny flutter of life still beating there.
She's covered in dirt and grime. The Aishan healer said he couldn’t feel her pulse at all, that she was cooling, and he had others to save.
But I know she’s alive. I know . I can feel it. I’m not crazy—not yet. Not until she’s gone.
So now I hold a dagger to the healer’s throat as he sews the flesh on her arm back together. Another works on Vaeloria as Einarr snorts and paces in a threatening way nearby.
I want Elowen here. Elowen would know what to do.
Elowen would heal her. But Elowen isn’t coming, so I stay where I am.
I hold Leina tighter and keep a watchful, bitter eye on the healer who would’ve let her bleed out without a second thought.
I murmur nonsense into her hair, to fill the hollow space between us.
Aruveth is doing what he can to return order—barking orders, dragging wounded men back from the brink, trying to count the dead.
And still, he comes to our desolate section of the beach when he sees us.
He kneels, propping his weight on his heels, looking first at Nyrica working on Thalric, then at Leina in my arms.
“Thank you,” he says roughly. Aruveth casts a hard look at the healer, who flinches but keeps stitching, his hands clumsy. I don’t move the dagger from the healer’s neck, and The Steward doesn’t ask me to.
“Without you. Without the Elder. Without her …” His eyes fall on Leina. He doesn’t finish his sentence. Maybe he can’t. But we all know—without Leina, without the Elder, they’d all be dead. Every last one of them—babe, woman, and man.
Leina's eyes snap open. She gasps in a deep, ragged breath, the sound of someone breaking the surface of water after drowning.
Color floods back into her skin, chasing away the deathly gray that held her.
The healer stumbles back, falling hard onto the sand, shrieking. He truly thought she was dead.
Nyrica doesn’t look up from stitching Thalric.
“Ah, gods,” I choke out, hauling her tighter against me, running my hands frantically up and down her back, needing to feel her alive in my arms. “Ah, fuck, you’re alive. You’re here. I thought—” My voice breaks.
Her eyes are wild as she tries to breathe.
I force my frantic hands to slow, to soothe, rubbing her back in lingering circles. “You’re alright,” I whisper. “You’re alive. You’re alright.”
She starts to cough. It’s a deep, hacking, unnatural cough. A collapsed lung? Crushed ribs?
I pull her back to look at her?—
And she vomits black ash onto the sand.
My heart stutters in my chest.
"What the fuck?—"
“Kher’zenn,” she spits out, in between coughing fits, spitting another mouthful of ash.
Aruveth edges closer, hands raised like he’s trying not to startle her.
“The Elder defeated them,” he assures her. “We’re still hunting for the ones that broke through the lines, but none have been found alive for nearly an hour.”
She shakes her head weakly. I pull her tighter against my chest, forcing her to lean into me. I don't want her to see Caius’s body lying merely feet away. Not yet.
The healer is still sprawled in the mud a few feet off, frozen in place.
“Finish treating her,” I snarl. He scrambles upright and fumbles back to work, stitching with shaking hands.
“Coming,” Leina rasps, her voice faint, broken. “Another wave. More than the first.”
Then her head lolls back against me, her body sagging into unconsciousness.
Aruveth’s eyes widen as he looks back out over the ocean, at the sky that’s been pouring rain since the Elder ripped the heavens apart. There’s no sign of the Kher’zenn on the horizon.
“Do you think she’s right?” he asks, his voice low, as if speaking it aloud might summon them.
“She hasn’t been wrong yet.”
“We won’t survive another wave.”
“No.” My mind is already racing ahead, trying to figure out the how, the logistics.
How to evacuate Leina and Vaeloria, both unconscious.
How to move the wounded, how to move millions of civilians when the faravars and men are already drained to the marrow.
How far can we run before we burn out completely?
Where can we even go? Do we take the time to burn our dead?
How much time do we have?
“Not enough.” It’s Nyrica. His voice has a harsh snap to it. It’s only then I realize I’ve been speaking aloud.
“We lead them into the Peaks,” Nyrica continues. He’s finished stitching Thalric up, and has his forehead pressed to Thalric’s. “Stay with me,” he murmurs, no teasing. A plea. “You’re not done yet. We’re not done yet.”
Nyrica wipes rain—or maybe tears—from Thalric’s face with bloodied, trembling hands. Thalric doesn’t wake, but his chest moves in a rise and fall.
“The draegoths won’t survive the cold. We leave the dead to the sea,” Nyrica looks toward Faelon clutching Caius to his chest, “and carry the wounded and the children on the able-bodied beasts. The adults walk and pray for mercy.”
“The people won’t survive the climb,” Aruveth says. “It’s too steep. No one’s equipped for winter. The cold will kill them as surely as the draegoths would.”
“We go through the adamas mines,” I say.
Aruveth’s head snaps toward me. His mouth tightens. I’m sure he’s thinking of the danger—the mines are a labyrinth of hollowed-out mountains. But after a beat, he nods.
“It could work,” he mutters. What he doesn’t say is that we have no other choice. He surges to his feet and strides away, shouting orders for his seconds, snapping the remains of the Altor into motion. I stay where I am, holding Leina closer, her small weight burning against my chest.
Nyrica surges to his feet. “I need to make a harness for Thalric,” he mutters, striding off.
Faelon presses a kiss to Caius’s now-cold forehead—a whisper of a touch, the kind meant for someone still breathing, for someone who might come back if you loved them hard enough. The kind meant for a father.
For the first time, the grief hits me full force. Guilt rips through the numbness, my chest tightening, my throat burning with it. But I clamp it shut like a tourniquet on a wound. We don’t have time.
Not yet.
I watch as Faelon wades into the crushing waves, as he lets Caius go, as the sea takes him with greedy hands.
Faelon drops to his knees in the surf, his head bowed, the rain mixing with the salt spray.
He mumbles something I can’t hear. And then he stands.
Without another word, he moves to join the work of saving the living.
The healer backs up from me, hands raised. “I’ve done all I can for her, Altor.”
I stand, settling her more firmly into my arms. Einarr chuffs, pawing the sand near Vaeloria’s prone body. The healer who was working on Vaeloria also backs away, nervous eyes on Einarr.
“The faravar doesn’t have any obvious fatal wounds. I think it’s resting,” he reports.
I nod my head, acknowledging him, but I speak to Einarr.
“Can you carry them ?” He’s exhausted. He used his own energy to buttress mine during the battle, but I’ll drag them all across the desert myself if I have to.
Einarr snorts, tossing his head sharply, feathers ruffling. “ Save your doubt for someone who’s earned it, Lastwall.”
I rest my forehead on his, calming both of us, before I lay Leina next to Vaeloria, tucking her up against the faravar’s chest. It will do them both good to be near each other.
I don’t tell Einarr to stand guard. I don’t have to.
He steps over their unconscious, vulnerable bodies, straddling them, then spreads his wings, making a shield no one would dare test.
I turn away, scanning the chaos for Aruveth. We’ll need leather. A lot of it. I have a harness to make, too. One that can carry a beast.