Chapter Twenty-Two
I stand in a narrow corridor beneath the walls of Faros, not far from where I healed Elia the night before, the weight of my chainmail hanging heavy on my shoulders.
There are a dozen soldiers before me and a dozen more behind. But at my side is Ronan.
He’s a vision in his armor, tall and proud and as natural as if he had been born in it. I feel as though I’m seeing a different Ronan here than the one I’ve known, a version of him that is both foreign to me and deeply familiar, a general standing in the boots of the man I love.
He helps me with my helmet, stealing a kiss before lowering it onto my head.
Though it wasn’t made for me, it fits well, Ronan having insisted on making me try on a dozen before finding the one that suited me best. “Remember, there’s no shame in falling back.
If the fighting gets too heavy and the line starts to break, retreat, no matter what I do. ”
I nod noncommittally.
“That’s an order, soldier,” he says. “Out here, you listen to my commands, and you obey them without question.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, rolling my eyes at him a little, but I know that he’s right. He’s the far more experienced fighter and soldier, and I’d be foolish not to listen to him regardless of his status.
Although if he orders me to leave him in danger, he can take that order and shove it up his ass.
He must sense that thought because he leans over and whispers right next to my ear. “If you’re good, I’ll give you a very different set of orders. And maybe a chance at your own command.”
I sweat at the thought, my mouth running dry. “I’ll take the orders,” I whisper back. “And the punishment, if I disobey.”
“Fuck,” he mouths.
I don’t know if it’s the heat of the bodies in the tunnel or the threat of our impending death or the words we’ve just said, but my need for him overwhelms me. I lift my helmet and kiss him, hard, my grip on him bruising, and he kisses me back just as fiercely.
Someone behind us whoops, the sound of it along with Taran’s throat-clearing cough sending me into giggles.
“Well, it’s a bit different from how I usually psych myself up for the fight, but I must admit it worked. My blood is pumping, that’s for sure. Who’s with me?”
The soldiers yell back. “We are!”
“Then ONWARD!”
The postern opens, and out we run.
The light of day is an assault on my eyes as we clear the tunnel, dozens of soldiers pouring out from the walls onto an empty stretch of land marred by wide ditches and defensive wooden pikes.
But it isn’t long before a shadow looms overhead: arrows pelting our shields in a deluge as we scramble to cover ourselves from fire-born flame.
Then an even larger shadow advances. I cower down, but it passes over my head and into the wall behind me, a huge bolder shattering on stone, the ground shaking from the impact.
The soldiers charge out into formation, lining up to face their foe. My feet move under me automatically, driven by some instinct to stay with the crowd, to stay near Ronan.
He’s nearly unrecognizable to me here, shouting out commands, waving his sword with so much certainty, so much skill.
And so little fear. He’s not just a king here; he’s a warrior, a soldier.
A hero. He belongs in paintings and weaved into tapestries, his deeds sung through the ages and carved into the walls of the temples.
A living legend.
And me?
Well, I’m here.
I’m here on the field at last. It’s what I wanted and waited for, what I spent years dreaming of while my family fought and bled and died for our cause.
And here I am, after all this time, in the thick of the fight.
On the other side.
The battlefield is nothing like the skirmish in the streets of Faros during the Festival of Night.
Those fights were quick and bloody, our movements desperate and penned in by the narrow alleys and the fleeing civilians.
In the darkness, it was nearly impossible to tell friend from foe, nearly impossible to know where to go next, the only real guide the sound of screams.
Here, the lines are clearly drawn. The soldiers hold their formation on both sides, engaging in a melee at the front with the rear lines attacking from range, searching for cracks in the collective armor.
It feels wrong somehow to stand here between Ronan and Taran, clutching my sword and shield and waiting for my turn to fight.
It’s the anticipation of it that unnerves me, the long inhale before the slaughter begins.
Before I step forward into the fray to end someone’s life.
Someone who I know. There, two cohorts back near the catapult.
The son of the castle’s carpenter. And here, coming closer.
One of my sister’s servants, a woman who braided my hair once while I was waiting for Adria to finish her lessons.
Neara. She’s good with her sword, better than I would have expected, but not good enough.
I watch her fall with a strange sense of detachment. My self-preservation instinct, which has so often failed me, has fully taken control now. It knows that if I think about what’s happening, I am lost. It keeps my legs moving, my arms moving, my shield up.
It feels Ronan beside me: alive and fighting fiercely, using his magic freely to cut holes into their formation that his soldiers punch through. It feels Taran on the other side: shielding us from their fire, flinging his ice with deadly precision, his calm preternatural, unfailing.
And it responds with shadow. Here in the light of day, my shadow is as powerful a weapon as any other. I plunge the enemy into disorienting darkness, and when I lift it again, they’re gone, fled like actors on a stage vanishing before the curtain opens, only there will be no curtain call.
It feels like hours, but I’m certain it has only been a few minutes when our cohort advances, swapping places with the flagging group at the front.
Ronan adjusts my shield and his own, blocking as much of me as he can from view.
“Are you with me, Sylvie?” He looks down at me, his face framed by his helmet, his hair dripping with sweat.
He’s a force of nature, and yet I know if I asked him to, he’d risk everything to take me away from here.
The truth is, I’m terrified, but I know I’m not alone in that.
The closer we get, the more I sense the feelings of those around me, their anticipation rising on a fever pitch, the suffocating horror of violence bearing down heavier and heavier until it’s all our line can do to hold up their shields, until it takes every ounce of strength they have left to lift their swords.
And here in the center of it is Ronan. The golden god-king. The glory and the fury of daylight incarnate.
Gods, how could I be anywhere else but beside him?
“Always, Ronan.”
We charge forward, and our swords and spears clash with shields and flesh. It’s impossible to know who or what I’m striking. All I know is to press forward, to keep the lines tight, to keep pushing through the fatigue, through the terror and the screaming and the loss.
Fire catches on Ronan’s tunic, but I extinguish it. A surge of wind nearly topples my shield, but Taran forces it upright. A well-timed strike with a spear punctures my arm. I barely feel it before Ronan’s hands are on me, healing the wound.
Nithyria fights well, but they’re outmatched.
These are some of their best, but they’re desperate.
They know their cause is in its death throes.
Their lines begin to break. We force them back to the next ditch.
They stumble against it, the earth-born desperately trying to raise the land.
To keep themselves upright before they’re crushed under our relentless spears.
The ground rumbles, but it isn’t the earth-born.
It’s hooves, hundreds of them, the cavalry charging from their left wing, finding a weak point in our lines and breaking through to rout us.
My head lifts along with several others, my body tensing in fear.
I’m surrounded by our soldiers, but with the sound of hoofbeats in my ears, I feel naked. Alone on the field.
“Hold!” shouts Ronan. “Hold the line!”
But the lines are slipping, crushing together to flee the relentless charge of the riders, death galloping forward on four legs.
And then I hear a voice I know better than few others.
“With me!” cries Adria from on high, her voice floating over the field from horseback.
Then I spot her, her blonde hair streaming from her helmet, her smile full of triumph and freedom, a woman unburdened.
She leads the column of calvary, smashing through our lines and overwhelming our defenses, her grey stallion leaping over ditch and barricade.
Our cohort breaks, panic setting in. One moment, I’m there with Ronan and Taran, charging forward, and the next, I’m flung backwards into chaos, the swords and shields surrounding me our own.
I can’t tell friend from foe in the fray, I can’t see whose sword pierces my side, whose elbow cracks against my ribs, whose arm tugs on my helmet, pulling me down.
“Siege lines, forward!” shouts Adria, her voice miles from where I last heard it. She’s a whirlwind on the field, a terror, the avenging angel of my nightmares.
Though I’m standing in the open, the walls close in on me.
A thousand memories of our childhood flash through my mind.
Adria in the parlor playing games. Adria in the bailey, yelling at me to get down from the wall.
Adria in her bed, telling me not to crawl in during a storm but letting me stay anyway.
Adria shouting at Seth, shouting at the servants, shouting at me.
And me, small, dark, and terrified. Terrified and enamored, desperate to please her and to be her, to shape myself into someone that she admires and respects. That she loves.
My legs won’t move. My arms won’t lift. The soldiers around me are gone, fled or regrouping, but I’m trapped there alone in my memories.
“Sylvie!” Ronan’s voice is small and far away. Or I am small; I’m not sure which is true. “Stay there. I’m coming.”
And then, there’s only darkness. But it’s not the darkness of sleep. It’s not the darkness of injury. It’s not even my own darkness.
It’s the darkness of night, and I know who it belongs to.
Ronan.
I can’t explain it, but I know it. I recognize his magic even in this form.
I feel his presence wrap around me, shielding me, protecting me.
It isn’t his light. It’s his shadow, my shadow, my own power filtered through him, his magic a lens that draws on my power, refining it.
Finding the strength to wield it that I do not have.
I see him through the darkness. My eyes meet his, half a battlefield between us.
And I lift my sword.
He is my power. He is my strength and my shield, my will to fight. He pulls me from the darkness of my mind; he channels it and changes it, guiding me to him.
And I follow.
I fight my way through the people who raised me. I push my way through his own people, turning them around, urging them to keep going. All is not lost. All can never be lost, not while Ronan lives.
Not while we live. Because I can feel him through whatever it is that binds us together, and I can see the awe and wonder in his eyes as he fights his way back to me. I can see myself through his eyes.
Yes, he is a force of nature. That can’t be denied.
But so am I.
The gates open behind me, and our own cavalry rushes in. The charge wasn’t planned—Adria’s own charge was a surprise—but we must have been ready for it. The clash of the riders turns the tide. The cohorts regroup. The lines reform. We’re back in formation, and we’re charging forward.
And I’m back at Ronan’s side. He crushes his shield into the ground, freeing his hand to reach for my waist, healing a gash there I can’t feel. He brushes my neck with his hand, and then he lifts his shield once more.
“To victory!” he yells, and my heart swells as we take up the cry.
“To victory! To victory!”
In minutes, the battle is won. Their lines break, their people flee. Adria shouts the retreat from somewhere far, far away.
I raise my eyes over my shield and watch her go, watch the blonde streak of her until it vanishes into the distance, a single point of light lost among the sands.