Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sylvi
The whole camp was engulfed in flames by the time I reached the healer’s tent.
Smoke coiled through the air like a living creature, thick and acidic, choking the breath from my lungs. Screams rang out across the camp, punctuated by the thunder of catapults and the hiss of flaming balls of fire tearing through the air.
Fear clawed at my spine, but I didn’t stop to think. I ran.
Inside the tent, the stench of blood and bile wrapped around me like a suffocating shroud. Cots lay overturned. Bandages and glass vials scattered the floor. I nearly slipped on something slick as I lunged toward the back where I kept my gear.
Moonshadow was still there, hidden beneath a cloak on top of my trunk.
My hand closed around the hilt, the familiar weight grounding me as the world burned outside.
I belted the blade to my side with shaking fingers and dashed back into the storm of chaos just in time to see Ingrid near the supply wagon, crouched beside a young page, her hands moving quickly to bandage his leg.
“Ingrid!” I shouted as the sky lit up, a blazing pot of pitch arcing through the air like a comet trailing smoke and heat. My heart seized as it curved downward—right toward her.
“Ingrid!” I screamed again, running, but the pot struck the supply wagon with a deafening crack, detonating into a rain of fire and splintered wood. The shockwave hurled me backward. I hit the ground hard, ears ringing, the wind knocked from my lungs.
Shouts bled through the buzzing in my head as I rolled onto my side, coughing, smoke and ash choking the air. My vision spun as I pushed up to my feet and wobbled toward where the tent and the supply wagon used to be…where Ingrid had been bending over the young page.
Gods, chaos reigned all around me. Debris was littered everywhere. Blood slicked the ground. Bodies laid strewn on top of each other.
“Ingrid!” I shouted over the raucous sounds of battle, stumbling toward the wreckage, legs buckling beneath me as I fought through the smoke. “Ingrid!”
“Syl…vi,” a voice croaked.
My world came to a halt when I finally found her crushed beneath a collapsed support beam, her body twisted unnaturally. One side of her face had been burned, and her tunic was soaked red. Blood streamed from her nose and mouth in steady rivulets.
Her limbs jerked once, then stilled.
I dropped to my knees beside her. “No, no, no. Gods, please.” I cradled her head in my lap, brushing soot from her cheek. “You’re alright. You’re going to be alright. Just…just stay with me.”
Her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came. Her gaze unfocused, staring past me into some place I couldn’t reach. Her breath rattled once, followed by a slow release until her chest no longer rose.
My throat closed.
I held her as the fires crackled around us. Held her as the chaos surged and the air thickened with the scent of burning flesh. Held her as my first sob broke loose and nearly ripped me open from the inside.
Gods. This couldn’t be happening. Ingrid… No. She couldn’t be dead.
I looked down at her face, at her blank eyes, and shook my head.
How had this happened? How had we missed this?
How had I missed this?
“Captain!”
I barely registered someone calling after me until someone had their hands on my shoulders and was yanking me up to my feet, pulling me away from Ingrid.
“No…no. I can’t leave her.”
“Captain, please. You can’t stay here.”
“I can’t leave her!”
“She’s gone!” Astrid’s voice cracked through my haze as she yanked me upright with force. “She’s gone,” she said more softly, taking me by the shoulders. “There’s nothing we can do for her now. But there are others who need our help.”
I blinked. Astrid was right. The dead couldn’t be saved. But the living still needed me.
I laid Ingrid back down as gently as I could, saying a silent prayer to the god of the underworld to carry her soul safely through the halls of the dead, then rose to my feet, fingers curling tightly around Moonshadow’s hilt.
I shoved the grief down into the hollowest part of me, deep and dark and quiet. There would be time to break later.
I straightened, every movement aching. “I need to ensure the princess is safe.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No,” I ordered. “I need you to take whoever you can find that can still fight and kill the bastards manning those fucking mangonels.”
Astrid nodded and disappeared into the smoke.
I ran through the chaos, weaving between tents and corpses, past flames and scattered gear. The acrid scent of burning cloth and blood clung to everything. Smoke thickened the deeper I ran. I pulled an arm over my mouth, eyes watering as I neared the royal pavilion.
The princess’s tent loomed ahead. Gold-trimmed, flanked by two ornamental banners still fluttering stubbornly despite the chaos.
Silhouettes slithered from the darkness, masked and armed, slipping from the folds of smoke like wraiths. They surrounded me in seconds, blades glinting.
The eyes behind those masks held no fear.
I drew Moonshadow in one smooth motion, blade singing from its sheath.
The first came at me with a jagged axe. I ducked, drove my elbow into his throat, spun, and slashed across his ribs. He dropped, but another took his place.
My body moved on instinct, parrying, striking, pivoting on slick mud. I slashed through the second attacker’s thigh. A third attacker grazed my shoulder with a dagger. I drove Moonshadow into his stomach and yanked it free with a snarl.
More attackers appeared.
Blood trickled down my side. My legs ached. But I kept going, ducking beneath another blade. I elbowed the masked soldier across the jaw. He went down with a grunt, and I didn’t wait to see if he got back up.
Another rushed me, short sword raised. I caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted, and rammed the pommel of Moonshadow into his throat. He dropped, gagging.
I turned just in time to see another figure sprinting at me from the side.
These fuckers just kept sprouting out of nowhere like ants from an anthill.
A flash of light caught my eye, and I spotted a flaming arrow embedded in the ground nearby. Without hesitation, I snatched it up by the shaft, spun on my heel, and drove the burning tip straight into the asshole’s eye.
He shrieked and crumpled, flames licking his hair.
A rumble split the sky and the ground trembled as a roar tore through the clouds. I stumbled, looking up, and my heart stopped. A dreki wreathed in frost sliced through the air, wings jagged as broken glass, scales shimmering like ice.
Winter’s grace…
Gasps echoed around me, everyone’s attention faltering, all of us momentarily frozen beneath the shadow of the beast.
But I didn’t have time to marvel.
Something unseen slithered through the ground—a whisper of power, wrong and cold and rotten. It latched onto my bones, coiling fast as invisible chains snapped shut around my legs, tightening with brutal force.
A familiar metallic taste flooded my mouth, and then…
Snap.
A wet, sickening crack split the night as both my legs bent the wrong way.
I collapsed with a scream that felt like it tore the sky apart, Moonshadow clattering uselessly from my grip. White-hot agony detonated through me, blinding and nauseating, fire and ice scorching every nerve as I hit the mud.
I writhed, choking on garbled pain, trying to crawl, but torment exploded in my knees. Fuck. My legs were nothing but useless slabs of broken bones and mangled flesh.
Hands seized me, rough fingers wrenching my arms behind my back, the sudden pressure sending lightning through my shoulders. I screamed again as a boot slammed down on my spine, grinding me into the earth. Someone kicked Moonshadow farther away, and rope bit into my wrists, cinching them tight.
My cries tore loose again, calls for help, strangled sobs, but a filthy cloth was shoved into my mouth, cutting them off as they hauled me upright and dragged me toward the trees.
My broken legs scraped over dirt and stone, over frozen roots and churned mud. The pain was indescribable, yet I thrashed, snarling, something feral clawing its way up my throat.
“Someone knock her the fuck out!”
The pommel of a sword struck my temple with bone-crushing force, and a burst of white light erupted behind my eyes. Sound collapsed into a shrill ringing, the world tilting violently as my vision fractured, doubling, smearing, fading in and out like a dying flame.
Darkness clawed for me.
But before it could pull me under, I lifted my head, and through blurred, burning eyes, I saw it…
The dreki diving through the clouds like a falling star, frostfire erupting from its chest, incandescent and horrifying, a god’s vengeance given wings.
Jack…
Tears spilled freely down my cheeks as I reached for the tether that I knew had always anchored me to him, and I tugged, the world finally slipping away.
The dull and hot pulsing ache throbbing in my legs pulled me from dreamless sleep, my body shivering as I came to.
The lids of my eyes felt sticky as I tried to make sense of my surroundings.
Damp, cold earth kissed my cheek, and the sharp bite of rope still cut into my wrists.
Pine smoke and the scent of unwashed bodies hit my nose.
I lay on the forest floor, bound, my gown half-torn and stiff with dried blood. I tried to move, but pain shot up my legs.
Fucking Hel.
Memories flooded my mind.
The sounds of bones cracking as some unseen force had gripped me and snapped my legs like brittle twigs.
Being gagged and dragged away…
Ingrid…
Oh, gods. Ingrid.
My breath caught, and I shut my eyes as the image of her broken, charred body flashed in my mind, so vivid I almost vomited. Tears spilled down the side of my face.
She’d not deserved to die like that.
If only I’d gotten to the camp sooner. If only I’d run faster. If I hadn’t stormed into the forest full of rage. If I hadn’t kissed Jack…
My heart lurched in my chest. All those soldiers…my soldiers. Their bodies burning. Their screams choking the night. So many of them…dead.
Because of me.