Chapter 55 The Ride into Ruin
THE RIDE INTO RUIN
The night sky screamed.
The vortex above Skalgard churned like a wound tearing itself wider, red lightning stabbing down in violent bursts below, Vaeris’s army was falling apart.
Tents ripped free of their stakes and cartwheeled into the darkness.
Soldiers scattered across the plains like ants fleeing a kicked nest. A bolt struck the center of the camp, and the explosion sent bodies flying.
“The scouts said half their army deserted,” Uther called over the wind.
Whole squadrons broke ranks as lightning lit up the earth, leaving blackened craters.
Kairos grunted. “This is our opening.”
Elwen stared at him. “You expect us to ride through that?”
“Yes. We’ll have a better chance if they’re—” Kairos stopped, his nostrils flaring. “What is that?”
The wind blew hard, rippling canvas tents as a sound rumbled. It started as a vibration in my chest, then it climbed into a hair-raising wail.
Uther clapped his hands over his ears and Elwen doubled over.
Runebreaker.
Tazurel’s voice boomed inside me.
I grimaced. “I hear you.”
Break the seal.
Kairos caught my eye, his brow furrowed. “Dragon?”
I nodded. “He wants us to leave now.”
Kairos bristled. “Tell that overgrown lizard that he can go fuck him—”
The screech sharpened and Kairos staggered, blood trickling from his nose.
Tell him this: I tolerated your ancestors. I will not tolerate you.
I repeated Tazurel’s words, and Kairos spat on the ground.
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t antagonize him.”
You carry conflict in your scent, runebreaker, Tazurel murmured. Your heart reaches for the fae king, even as another part of you strains against the cage binding us—against the debt you pretend not to feel. You would save your lover and your sister and still insist you’ve paid no price.
Heat rose in my throat, sharp and unwanted. I wanted to say that he was wrong, but the seal waiting in the Square pulsed at the edge of my thoughts, and the lie wouldn’t hold.
Uther helped one of the warriors upright and Kairos gripped the pommel of his broadsword, grinding his teeth.
“We can’t reach the city,” I whispered. “There’s an army.”
I’m aware, Tazurel said coolly. I will kill as many as possible.
“Aren’t you and Vaeris on the same side? Why don’t you just…order him to withdraw?”
Only two of you hear us. You listen. The other does not.
My stomach dropped. The other.
“Rheya? She hears you, too?”
The cold presence withdrew so sharply it felt like a door slamming shut inside my skull. My sister, alone with this voice and Vaeris. What had he made her believe?
Uther lowered his hands from his ears.
Kairos turned to me. “What else did he say?”
“He’ll help kill Vaeris’s army.”
“I don’t trust anything he says, but we should go while his army is in chaos.” Kairos scanned the battlefield again. “What do you think? Cavalry charge?”
“No,” Uther said. “That needs an enemy line, and anyone riding in tight formation will die from that lightning.”
“We’ll ride through it,” Kairos grunted. “Light and loose. Rely on your mairen, they’ll sense the danger before we do.”
Uther nodded. “Speed over force.”
Kairos faced us all—Elwen, Uther, the four warriors, me. “Listen closely. We take the Square, figure out what Vaeris is doing, and we stop it.”
Lightning clawed across the sky, the wind tearing at his hair.
“I don’t know what we’re walking into.” His impassive gaze swept the warriors. “If you get a clear shot at Vaeris, take it. Whatever he's doing with that seal, we stop it. Move.”
The warriors scattered. Kairos stepped toward me.
“The deal. How bad is it?”
I pressed a hand to my ribs. “Gone. Since we started heading north.”
“I thought about leaving you here.” His thumb brushed my jaw. “Then I remembered who I was dealing with.”
“Rheya’s in there.”
He smiled grimly. “I’ll kill Vaeris before he can call it in.”
We both knew what Vaeris would ask me for, and we were riding toward the only rune that mattered.
His hand slid to my neck. “If Vaeris gets close, run. Don’t argue, don’t try to be a hero. I will handle him. If he asks you to break the seal, fight it.”
I bit on my lip and nodded.
“Aelie.”
“I heard you.”
Rain sheeted against my face.
Wraithspine was already behind us. The mairen had swallowed the descent in minutes, and now there was nothing between us and Skalgard but frozen plains and the black fingers of dead trees.
The wind tore at my hair and clothes, trying to rip me from the saddle. I clung to Kairos’s waist, my thighs burning with the effort of staying mounted.
“Have you ever done anything this stupid before?” I shouted.
Kairos let out a short laugh. “No.”
He urged Morvaen faster as lightning split the sky. The strike hit our left, and the thunder shook through my bones. The mairen screamed and bucked, nearly throwing me. Kairos pulled on the reins, forcing Morvaen back on course.
“Easy,” he growled.
What remained of the army sprawled before us. Tents lay flattened. Cookfires had become bonfires. Soldiers ran in every direction, panicked. A cluster of officers yelled orders that no one obeyed. A Skaldir warrior stumbled into our path, sword raised.
Kairos’s scimitar whistled in a silver arc, and the soldier’s head flew off his shoulders. We rode through the spray of blood.
Bodies everywhere. Some were burned, still twitching. A Skaldir warrior knelt, screaming as the air cracked with light, turning him to dust.
Kairos veered hard right, dodging another strike. The impact threw mud and stones into the air, and something hot sizzled past my ear.
“Fucking dragons!” Uther snarled.
His blade carved through warriors who stood their ground. Elwen bent low over her mairen’s neck, evading a spear thrust and answering with a dagger to the thrower’s throat. The others were spread out, weaving through the carnage like wolves through scattered sheep.
A group of Skaldir warriors spotted us. Five of them held spears. An officer shouted, trying to rally them into a line.
Kairos held out his hand.
His mist exploded in a white wave. Soldiers scattered, choking, blind, and we tore through the gap before they found their feet.
The gates loomed ahead. Massive. Iron-bound.
Lightning struck, so close I felt the heat. Morvaen reared. I slipped, grabbed at Kairos, and dragged myself upright. We kept riding.
“Fifty yards to the gate!”
A bolt of red gathered above us.
“Kairos!”
He flung out his hand. A crimson dome wrapped around us, and through it I felt him—his fear, his love, his absolute determination to keep me alive.
Lightning struck. The impact split the air. Light seared through my eyelids. The dome shuddered and cracked but didn’t break.
Kairos panted hard.
“Are you okay?”
He grunted.
The gates rose before us. Twenty yards. Ten.
“Get ready,” Kairos said.
Skaldir soldiers poured from the gatehouse, blades drawn.
Mist erupted from Kairos like wings unfurling, slamming into the first two and sending them sprawling. He leapt from Morvaen, broadsword materializing in his grip.
Uther was right behind him, his axe cleaving through shields as Elwen moved like water, her twin blades opening throats.
I clung to Morvaen’s saddle as Kairos cut through the line. One Skaldir soldier went down with a wet crunch. Another flanked him, and Kairos drove his blade up under the fae’s jaw.
The sky boomed.
A massive bolt snaked through the vortex. I shrieked, throwing my hand up as the blinding light struck Morvaen’s flank and arced into me. I hit the ground, convulsing. My fingers clawed dirt as pain crackled in my skin, branching through my chest.
Kairos hauled me upright. “Aelie!”
“I’m fine,” I gasped.
Morvaen limped closer, a scorch mark blackening his flank.
A whistle split the air.
Kairos twisted, yanking me aside as an arrow stabbed into the mud where I’d stood. I looked up.
Archers lined the battlements. Dozens of them, nocking fresh arrows.
“Kai!” Uther bellowed. “Above!”
The volley arced overhead and electricity snapped between them, weaving into a net of searing energy that spread like a web. Then it pitched down.
“Incoming!” Kairos roared. “Shields!”
His arm swept up, forming a shimmering dome.
The arrows struck. Lightning screamed across the barrier, hunting for cracks, and the shield flickered.
Kairos’s arms shook, veins bulging in his neck.
“The gate!” Elwen shouted. “We have to move!”
“Working on it,” Kairos snarled.
Another volley. The archers weren’t stopping.
Uther grabbed my arm. “Can you break the rune on the gate?”
Runes gleamed on the massive iron doors—a lattice of interlocking magic.
“Yes.”
“Then go,” Uther barked. “We’ll cover you.”
I stumbled toward the gate, Uther’s bulk shielding me from the left, Elwen guarding the right. Arrows rained down. One grazed my shoulder.
My hands slammed against the giant rune, and the magic bit through the gloves like a row of teeth. I gasped, pawing the threads aside. It was like touching muscle. So hard to grip, the power immense. It sucked at my arm, dragging me closer.
Break.
An arrow thudded into the gate, inches from my skull.
I shoved back, tearing at the threads. They slipped, slick and wrong. I plunged deeper, turning my head as magic seared through me. I seized on the core—a knot of rotten threads—and pulled.
Blood dripped from my nose.
Break.
The gates blew inward with a deafening boom.