Chapter 48 #2
“They came.” Cai sounded just as surprised as I was. The merged group of bandits stormed down the hill and into the fight. We were still outnumbered, but if we were to go down, it would not be without trying.
Cai took my hand, leading as we tried to fight our way through the mass of soldiers. I tried to hold on to him with all my might, but we got separated, and I lost sight of him in the crowd.
One of the Argonians came at me with a sword, which I dodged in the nick of time.
But he struck again, and I only had the dagger to hold off the blow.
My shoulder was still bleeding, and if it had been any other dagger, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But the Myrgonite glowed when it hit the steel of the sword, nearly denting the blade.
The soldier didn’t hesitate to come at me again. I grabbed the hilt of the dagger with both hands and forced the sword away from me, before turning quickly enough that I landed the dagger in the soldier’s neck.
Blood spattered as I pulled away and he grasped at the flowing blood. Another life gone by my hands. I didn’t have time to consider it. This was about survival.
I looked around, trying to find Cai once more.
Where are you?
I was nearing the hill when someone bumped into me — a fighting soldier, a falling body, I wasn’t certain. The force was enough to knock me off my feet, causing my crown to fall off and slide across the icy ground.
My fingers dug into the mixture of blood and dirt as I attempted to push myself up, but the ground was slippery, and my dress was by no means helping.
“Here, I got you.” Two arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a standing position.
“Rhen, you’re alive.” I let out a breath of relief at his familiar face. And then I saw the dark eyes he shared with Cordelia and her dead body in a nearby cave. How would I tell him she was gone?
Before he could reply, an Argonian soldier came at him, but Rhen dodged and pulled me out of the way. When he tried to come towards us again, one of Uncle Arthur’s men stabbed him with a sword, but that didn’t stop the Argonian from fighting.
“You need to get out of here,” Rhen said, trying to pull me to safety.
“You think?” I cried out, still clutching the dagger, but the crown was left behind.
“I mean it.” Rhen’s grip on mine tightened. “We need to retreat.”
“Retreat?” I called out with surprise. “I know we’re not exactly holding the high ground right now but—”
He stopped to look me in the eye. “I need you to trust me, Elara.”
Of course I trusted him, but that didn’t mean I understood.
I continued to look at him with confusion when Rhen spotted someone behind me.
“Your Majesty,” he called out. I looked over my shoulder to see Cai running towards us. Relief flooded his eyes when he confirmed I was still okay. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.
“I have a plan,” Rhen informed him. “But I need you to retreat with your men.” At first Cai appeared sceptical. But then something flickered in his eyes, as if in understanding.
He gave a brief nod and started calling for the retreat, helping me back up the hill behind him.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are we retreating?”
Cai didn’t answer me, still calling out for his men to follow him. The Argonians seemed pleased at this, some of them killing our men even as they were running away. I looked for Rhen, until I spotted him not coming with us but running straight towards the middle of the fighting.
We made it to the top of the hill, out of breath and covered in blood. The archers formed a defensive line, keeping the Argonians from coming up the hill after us. My eyes stayed on Rhen. He was looking for something, jumping over the corpses to get there.
And then I saw it.
The Evernean crown in the middle of it all, its gemstones reflecting the weak morning sunlight.
“No,” I breathed out.
All this time. It couldn’t have been there all this time.
Rhen was still running, sword in hand, and I finally understood what he was about to do.
“No, he can’t,” I said, grabbing Cai’s arm. “It’s going to kill him.”
Cai looked at me with sad eyes.
Rhen had almost reached the crown. The third Myrgonite object.
“No, no, no.” I managed to take a few steps down the hill before Cai grabbed me, pulling me back.
“No!” I gave out a cry.
Rhen stopped in front of the crown as it lay on its side in the middle of the valley. He lifted his sword high above his head and then he plunged it down.
At first there was only a piercing light, so bright that I had to turn my face into Cai’s chest not to be blinded. There was a loud noise and then I heard the anguished cries from the Argonian men. Cries of pain and torture. Cries of death. I couldn’t watch.
The light began to fade, pulling back into the Myrgonite crown.
When the light returned to normal, the crown was still there but broken.
Rhen’s bloodied and battered body lay next to it.
It wouldn’t take a physician to know he was no longer breathing.
But all around him, Argonian corpses covered the ground, too many to count.
Just about the entire army had been brought down by the last magic that erupted from the Myrgonite stone. The royal crown. My crown.
All around it was deathly quiet, apart from a cool winter breeze and the cries of a few circling crows, already there to feast on the flesh of dead soldiers. No one knew quite what to do. No one knew what exactly had just happened, what they’d borne witness to.
And then the air began to hum.
It was a soft buzzing at first, and in a few seconds, it became louder.
The ground beneath my feet began to shake and I grabbed Cai for support.
“The mountain,” Cai said under his breath. I looked to see what he meant. Rocks were beginning to crumble at the top of the mountain. Snow peaks cascading into rivers of snow.
“It’s the caves.” I wiped a tear-stained cheek, or maybe it was blood. I was no longer sure. “They’re collapsing.”
The wave of magic sent out from Rhen destroying the crown must have caused structural damage to the Myrgonite mines. The ground beneath shook harder and it became an effort to keep standing.
The remainder of the Norrandish army watched as the mountain with the Myrgonite mines collapsed into itself, created dust and rocks and rubble, reshaping the earth as if the Myrgonite stones had never been there at all.