Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Fuck.”
They both immediately sprang to action. Alethea yanked her dress back into place as Nakir raced toward his leather armor in the corner, hastily fastening the pieces together.
“Go,” Nakir ordered his general as he worked as quickly as possible. “You know what to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alethea hardly had time to think about how strange it was to hear Dawes call Nakir “sir” before he strapped a pair of swords to his belt and took her by the arms. He heaved her to his chest, staring down at her with the same burning intensity he had only a moment before.
“Do not go far from me,” he commanded. “Do you hear me? You must do exactly as I tell you.”
She nodded weakly, and he led her from the tent.
The moment they emerged into the camp, the night sky illuminated by torches and burning fires, they were immediately surrounded by chaos.
Fires were already raging on the outskirts of the encampment.
Alethea watched in horror at tell-tale signs of lightning and firestorms in the distance as screams and shouts filled her ears.
Nakir’s grip on her was unrelenting. He drew one of his swords and held it ready as he scanned their surroundings.
She didn’t have the experience to know what he was searching for—all she could see were soldiers rushing through camp, toward the melee that seemed to be focused heavily to the west.
Nakir led her to the north, back toward the glen—a direction that initially confused her. He was leading her away from the fighting, which meant he was leaving his soldiers to defend their camp without his help.
After a few minutes, the cacophony of battle had gradually faded into the background. Nakir was pulling her away from the fray. Fear gripped her—terror for the lives hanging in the balance because Nakir was not there to lend his aid.
“Wait,” she pleaded, but her words were abruptly silenced by a blade slicing through the darkness toward them. Nakir evaded the attack, agile, and Alethea stumbled into his back, narrowly avoiding the deadly strike.
The enemy soldier parried Nakir’s next attack, and it was at that moment Alethea became acutely aware of how much of a liability she was in battle.
She was a mouse caught in a clash of dragons.
She tried to pry herself away, to escape his grip and run to somewhere that he wouldn’t need to protect her, but he held firm even as he ran his sword through the enemy.
The blood made her want to vomit. She stared in horror as the man fell to the ground, the life draining from him. Tears filled her eyes, and she swallowed a scream.
But the sellsword wasn’t alone. Another adversary emerged from the shadows, brandishing a greatsword in both hands.
Alethea gasped as Nakir’s grip on her tightened, his face twisted with pain.
A blade had sliced across the bicep of his sword arm, and blood spilled from the wound, dripping down his elbow at an alarming rate.
“Let me go!” she begged.
“Never.” Nakir dragged her along as he swung his sword, ending the man who’d maimed him with a single slash to the neck. The enemy soldier fell to the ground, lifeless eyes staring into the darkness.
Alethea had no more time to panic at the sight of the bodies. Nakir only got a moment of reprieve before more of them appeared from the alleyways between tents. A colossal figure emerged from the shadows, a living mountain moving with an otherworldly grace.
Balthasar.
His long blond locs were loose and bloody, and his eyes were cold. Around him, enemy soldiers fell screaming even before his narrow blades found homes in their necks. He placed himself on the other side of Alethea, putting her between the two of them.
“Just like old times,” Nakir mused, finally releasing his grasp on her and drawing a second blade.
Balthasar held a long dagger in each steady hand, reminding her of something her father had once said. “Swords are for fighting—for defending oneself in battle. Daggers are for ending lives in the dark.”
She hadn’t seen Balthasar or Nakir fight before.
She’d never even seen battle outside of stage plays.
Nakir moved like the fire spinners who’d once graced the court, his parries and dodges executed with mesmerizing precision.
Balthasar’s immense frame seemed tailored for brute strength, but his speed was lightning-fast, his agility matching the fluidity of water.
Balthasar’s was sheer terror, a raw force of darkness unleashed upon the battlefield.
Many of his combatants fell before his blades ever reached them, clutching their heads in agony.
Alethea found herself caught between them, a fragile wisp amidst the storm. Even as the enemies attempted to slip past them to reach her, no one made it close enough without a blade running through them.
“There’s a bunch of these fuckers,” Nakir commented through gritted teeth.
Alethea caught sight of his face, pale and pained. Even still, he didn’t slow.
“More of them to the north. They’re all mercs. Leandro Gregor’s sellswords.”
Panic held her in its grasp, her entire body trembling as she hovered between them, desperate to stay out of their way. “They’re here for me.”
“I know.” Nakir blocked an incoming attack from one side before another came at him from the other, each strike met with a calculated response.
An opening formed between two tents, and Nakir pulled Alethea through it, Balthasar following with his back to them as they were pursued.
Their path was blocked by an overturned supply cart, and Nakir held her shoulders and checked her for injuries.
Terror clawed at her, echoing a single word. Helpless.
“Let them take me!” she begged. Alethea was desperate, especially when she noticed the amount of blood spattered on his armor. His bicep was bleeding profusely, though he hardly seemed to notice. The metallic scent hung heavy in the air, but his face was set in a hard line.
“No.”
“You’re hurt!”
“I said no, Alethea.”
A fiery explosion to the north told her at least Kerrigan was still alive.
“You’re not a pawn to be passed around!” Nakir’s eyes were fierce, resolute.
The roar of battle surrounded them, drowning out all other sound. Balthasar’s form was a blur of motion.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
Helpless.
“No one else has to die!”
Balthasar continued to defend them, his blades deadly accurate even in the dark of the night.
Nakir shook his head, eyes filled with determination. “They signed their own death warrants the moment they stepped into this camp. They’re not taking you.”
How could he summon so much conviction?
Balthasar was drawing as many of them away as he could manage, but as the battle continued to crash around the camp, Alethea knew that they had moments before it reached them once more.
Helpless.
The singular word gripped her, threatening to pull her into its suffocating depths.
“No,” she whispered to herself, pushing back against the spiraling thoughts.
Perhaps she would never pick up a blade, never wield a sword, never defend herself in battle, but the Weave had given her a gift. All her life, her mother had taken it and abused it—so it was time she used it for something greater.
“Fine,” she breathed, her eyes radiating white light. “But you won’t do it alone.”
She opened herself up to that well of magic, letting prophecy flow through her fingertips.
They glowed with white light, echoing the intensity in her eyes.
Nakir tried to protest, but it was too late.
She remembered the night he saw her prophecy while she slept and dared to imagine allowing her powers to flow into him.
She couldn’t fight, but she could do this.
She could give him the gift of foresight.
“Draw your blades,” she commanded, her voice suddenly ethereal and otherworldly. “Do it now, Nakir.”
He had no choice but to obey, especially as a pack of sellswords came rushing toward them, and Balthasar was nowhere to be seen.
Nakir unsheathed his second blade, and the glow stopped him—both blades lit the same way her eyes did, and she watched him put it together.
His jaw tightened. The would-be-king did as she ordered, lifting his swords against the oncoming wave.
She leaned back against the wooden cart for support as she dove deep into her well for enough magic to not only summon prophecy, but to also let it flow through her into Nakir’s consciousness. She could only hope he’d be able to make sense of what he saw, or else it would be for nothing.
But then she witnessed it: a brilliant flash of white light emanating from Nakir’s swords.
It was a beacon of foresight, a glimpse into the intricate dance of combat, revealing the perfect moment to strike, the precise instant to block, and the exact path to survival.
One by one, the enemy soldiers fell before his unstoppable onslaught.
She was so absorbed in her vision and protecting Nakir she hardly noticed when someone snatched her away from the safety of the cart.
She cried out, blinded by her powers and weak against their hold on her.
In the chaos, a sharp blow to her side sent her sprawling to the ground.
Nakir stepped in again, covered in blood, and thrust his blade into the chest of the mercenary who’d grabbed her.
And then... quiet.
Alethea pushed herself weakly out of the dirt, scanning their surroundings, only to see there were no more enemies left standing. Only bodies. Nakir kneeled beside her, eyes full of wonder.
“Are you all right?” he asked, but she couldn’t answer. “How... how did you do that?”
Her mouth dry, she blinked up at him. Something wet was trickling down her side, and she glimpsed bright red blood pooling against her dress.
Her blood. Nakir watched in horror, clamping a hand down over the wound.
“It’s all right,” she promised faintly as a chill ran down her spine. “I saw this too.”
Everything faded to black.
The voices returned. Those terrifying, haunting voices whispered the secrets of the universe like a sweet promise.
Dark, powerful, terrible secrets, enough to drive anyone mad.
They floated around her, whispering prophecy into her ears.
Every vision she’d ever had flashed by in sequence until she no longer recognized them.
She saw new visions of a great battle between the gods and the mortals, the greatest war in hundreds of years.
A pair of dragons soared high into the sky while the sun rose over a bloody battlefield, Anya’s light shining upon faces that had accepted their end.
Forces fighting for Death, against Death, alongside Death.
A woman made of pure white light rising into the sky, reaching higher and higher, until she touched the Weave of Life itself.
It was—would be—the greatest war the Realm had ever seen.
“Alethea.” She slowly opened her eyes to see Nakir and Emi standing over her. She was in a tent alongside dozens of other wounded as Healers worked tirelessly around them.
“There you are,” Emi breathed, her smile weary but warm. The mage’s face was smudged with soot and dirt, and her clothes were singed, but she was otherwise unharmed.
Alethea opened her mouth to tell them something important—something critical.
Her dreams. She had to tell them. Had to warn them.
But they slipped from her mind like sand between her fingers.
Her eyes filled with tears of frustration, especially as the pain from her side flared.
The throbbing ache served as a cruel reminder of the enormity of what she’d witnessed.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Emi soothed, trying to smile but unable to hide her worry. “You’re okay. You just need to take it easy.”
The storm mage’s words washed over Alethea like a distant echo, barely registering in the whirlwind of her thoughts.
“I saw...” Her voice trailed off as she discovered a frustrating inability to articulate the profound visions.
“What did you see?” Nakir asked, hovering just behind Emi.
Alethea struggled, desperately trying to grasp the fleeting remnants. “I... can’t remember.” The words hung heavily in the air, a profound sense of loss weighing down her voice.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, but it didn’t feel okay. It seemed so important, so vital, yet the threads slipped away, leaving her with only a haunting sense of unfinished purpose.
“Is everyone all right?” she asked quietly.
Dawes approached them, placing his hand on Emi’s back reassuringly. “The attack on the encampment was largely unsuccessful. Thanks to Emi and Kerrigan, we sustained minimal losses.” He turned to Nakir. “We captured Leandro Gregor. He’s waiting in my tent for questioning.”
“I’ll be there shortly.” Nakir clasped Dawes on the shoulder before leaning down next to the cot where she was resting. “You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me after all.”
Alethea touched the edge of the bandages around his arm. “Nor you for me.”
Nakir chuckled, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips. She was aware of Emi’s eyes on them, and her cheeks burned, but the storm mage held only warmth.
That was when she realized Balthasar and Kerrigan were there too, each looking over at her in concern.
It was so strange to be cared for by these people who’d been strangers to her not so long ago.
She didn’t understand how she deserved any of this.
But perhaps she didn’t need to understand it.
Maybe... maybe she could just accept it.
She may not consider herself worthy of being sacrificed for, but for some reason, Nakir did.
Maybe one day, she would ask him why. And maybe she would believe him when he told her.
“I want to come with you,” Alethea stated, daring to take up space for the first time since she joined the rebellion. “Gregor. I want to be there.”
Nakir glanced at his spymaster. Whatever passed between them was unreadable to Alethea, but when Nakir turned back to her, he seemed to accept her wishes. “Very well. Can you sit up?”
She could, though not without some pain. Alethea eagerly pushed past it, unwilling to be left behind while they questioned the son of her mother’s most trusted advisor.