Chapter 37 Kaelen
Kaelen
“Pull every scout back here. No exceptions.”
My chest feels heavy as I stare down at the hastily scribbled message, crumpled and small between my hands. Surprisingly small, for such a shattering moment.
After all this time, this is how the end begins.
Full approach. Dawn tomorrow.
I clear my throat, aware of the eyes on me where we stand in the center of the great hall. “How many are still in the Veilspire?”
“A dozen.” Eldritch takes the paper when I hand it to him, scanning it. The scout, his features familiar in a way that reminds me of what else I need to do today, waits silently for orders. “You heard him, lad. Pull them all back. Anyone you can get to.”
“Go,” I say hoarsely when he looks to me for permission.
I’m turning to Eldritch before the scout has reached the doors.
Around us, dozens more work around each of the long tables.
They’re piled high with weapons, with iron and steel, with shields, with everything we could pull from the storage rooms. On the other side of the room, Eres confers with a small group, his head lowered to listen before he points at a stack of boxes.
Quills. The branches of every nightdusk tree in the Umbercroft have been stripped, each quill added to the boxes he counts now with a crease between his eyes.
“This is it, then,” Eldritch says softly. “About damn time, too.”
I understand his words. The waiting is almost worse.
Almost.
“The Council will meet in an hour,” I say abruptly. “I want you there, and Neela too. Final preparations.”
He nods toward the people around us. “And what do we say to them in the meantime?”
“The truth.” I take another look at them all. So many familiar faces, and yet so few. “Tell them today is the last, and to make the most of it when the work is done.”
This work can only take us so far. “No training today, but the Passing should go ahead tonight. Will you find Valcor and let him know?”
He claps my shoulder as he moves past. “We’ll see you at the meeting.”
But there are things I need to do first.
The prison is cold. The two boys standing at the entrance straighten when they see me approach. I pause in front of the taller one. “Weslyn?”
“Yes, sir.” He shifts, uncomfortable. “Nothing to report. How’s the… the witch?”
“Well enough, thanks to you.” I glance past him, down the dark steps. “Go on to the hall now. Your orders here are complete. Eldritch will tell you what needs to be done.”
I step past them, only for his voice to follow. “Is it time, then?”
They’re young—too young for what’s to come. And frightened. “How old are you? Fifteen?”
“Sixteen.” Weslyn straightens, but his face is blanched of color. “But I’m going to fight, sir.”
“You can go with the evacuation.” My brow furrows. “Did nobody tell you?”
“They did.” He meets my gaze, chin tipping up. “But I’m staying, to hold the line.”
The boy beside him is going. I can tell by his silence, though there’s no shame in trying to live when you’ve barely started. Some of the younger soldiers bear the knowledge of what’s coming with humor. With dismissal. Some of them have no idea what’s coming.
But this one does, I suspect. I press my palm to my heart. “May Erevan be with you then, soldier.”
“And with you, sir.”
My feet feel heavier as I descend the steps. Nythen sits silently on Lyra’s cot, his eyes closed and his head pushed back against the wall. He speaks without opening them. “I thought I’d be here until the witches came.”
I study him through the bars. “Tomorrow. The Council is meeting in an hour. And I considered it.”
“The scouts—”
“I’ve called them back. All of them.”
His eyes slide open. “Thank you. Who brought the message?”
“Hester.”
His shoulders sag at the mention of his youngest son. “What do you plan to do with me, then, Crown Prince?”
“I assume you want to fight.” I know he had five children, once, and a partner that was much kinder than he ever has been. And only Hester is left. “Hester is pulling back the rest of your scouts.”
When I reach for the keys, his eyes flicker. “You assume correctly.”
I shift through them, picking out the one for his cell. “It may interest you to know that the witch you almost tortured into madness saved several Darkwielder lives yesterday. One of them was Sera Valcor.” I fit it to the lock. “And Lyra will be standing in the line tomorrow, just as you will be.”
His eyes narrow, as if searching for the trick as the door swings open.
“If you look at her.” I lower my voice. “If you touch her, or make her feel in any way uncomfortable, I will shove erevas through your skull before the Lightbringers get near. Do you understand?”
Slowly, he nods.
“Be at the Council chamber in an hour and then spend your final night with your son. The Passing will go ahead.” I step back. “The time for fighting between us is over. Eres might give you the quilling antidote, if you can persuade him. His temper can be worse than mine.”
He’ll be lucky to get any at all, and from the look on his face, he knows it.
***
My mother’s chambers are dark, the light blocked with a rumpled curtain dragged across. I don’t bother knocking, since she won’t answer if she’s not inclined to. And she’s never inclined to, not when she’s in her moods.
“There is a Council meeting in an hour.” I fold my arms. “You’re needed to attend.”
Queen Maelira of Umbraxis is little more than a bump beneath the covers of her bed. Her voice comes slowly. “I am unwell, Kaelen.”
My mother gave up a long time ago. Her short, brief appearances in public, her sporadic attendance at Council, both are nothing more than smokescreens to purchase her the space to wallow in her grief. I haven’t seen her for days.
“Vaelion’s army will be here after dawn tomorrow,” I say quietly. “This is the end of Umbraxis, mother. And we all have to face it.”
I walk over and rip the curtain down, letting light spill across her bed. “We need you for the battle. Better to die out there than in here.”
The stories I heard as a child seem like little more than lies, now, as I stare at her. She doesn’t move. “Father wouldn’t want this end for you.”
Her sigh is buried as she rolls over, giving me her back. “He’s not here to see it.”
But I am.
Valcor and Nythen will stand beside their children tomorrow. And my mother, the monarch, can’t see fit to even raise her head from the bed to say goodbye.
A victim of whoever finds her first when Vaelion sweeps through Umbraxis. No doubt they’ll make a spectacle of it, some sort of execution ceremony. My voice hardens. “Get up.”
But she doesn’t, even when my anger turns to pleas.
“I have to go.” I can’t look at her any longer. “There are people depending on me. On us.”
When I was a child, I would hide from my nightmares in this bed, hidden between two people who would never have let them touch me.
But I’m not a child anymore.
Her hair is barely visible. I press my lips to it. “Goodbye, mother.”