Chapter 12
Petra
Night had long since fallen. My palm had been slashed over and over again by my blade.
My heart had been slashed over and over again by the bodies I saw laying in the streets of Eserene.
People who’d fallen at the hands of Occulti.
People who’d been caught in the fire blasted from the drivas’ jaws.
And people who’d survived the battle only to die before I arrived to heal them.
If only I’d been strong enough to conjure a fucking storm and heal them all at once.
“Don’t look at them, Petra,” Cal murmured in my ear for the hundredth time tonight, gently guiding me away from two bodies strewn over the sidewalk, their hands joined between them.
“I need to,” I answered quietly, giving them my full attention. They deserved that much. I hoped they were safely inside the walls of Soren’s castle. I hoped they knew I was coming to save them. Had they lost faith in those final moments? Had they questioned their decision to follow me?
Cal’s steady presence at my side was the only thing that kept me from crumbling to the cobblestones and beating my fists until they were bloodied. I was so angry. So, so fucking angry, and so tired. My feet dragged, but I was going to make it through the entire city tonight if it killed me.
On a street corner in the middle of what once had been Ockhull, I set my sights on the last of the injured.
I’d whittled down the words from a long-winded spiel to just the facts — it wasn’t Noros, it was Malosym and the Occulti.
I prepared to comfort the man who lay alone and weeping in the street, readying myself to once again answer the why and the how he was sure to ask as I healed him.
As the man rolled to face us, his eyes caught in a sliver of moonlight, and Cal went still beside me. That startling shade of blue stared back at us, swimming with tears.
Kauvras curled in on himself, around a large wound in the center of his abdomen. It couldn’t have been too deep or else he wouldn’t have survived this long, but the cobblestones beneath him were stained red nonetheless.
I sliced through my palm again, gently laying it across his cheek. A great whoosh of breath left his lips as the wound on his stomach pulled together and he stilled, his eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment before they opened again and landed on his son.
Carefully, Kauvras pushed to sit up, gingerly touching the scar that now marred his belly, visible through the tear in his leather.
Then he shifted his weight, arranging one knee beneath him as he crossed a fist over his chest. “Daughter of Katia. I swear fealty to you as the one true ruler of this realm.” He raised his head then, but his eyes remained low.
“Please accept my most sincere apology for the way I behaved in our previous interactions. I do not look to make excuses for my actions, but please know I was…” He swallowed hard.
“I was not in control of myself, your Majesty, you must understand.”
I nodded. “Malosym had your blood, therefore he had control over you.”
“Yes, your Majesty. He made me…crazed. You must know I had no idea of his true identity. I’d called him a friend for so long. I simply thought he craved power.”
“As so many men do,” I murmured, nodding again.
Kauvras’ presence was just as commanding as he had been before, with his broad shoulders and tall frame. But the absence of Malosym’s control had made room for something else — a steady calmness.
“For our previous interactions against me, you are forgiven,” I said carefully. “But I’m not the one you need to apologize to, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
Pain contorted Kauvras’ features, so much so that had he not been staring at his son, I’d think to check his back for a dagger. “I…” he breathed, his chest heaving.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Cal clipped, averting his eyes from his father back to mine. He gave a small nod, urging me forward. “We’re facing far more pressing issues.”
“Of course,” Kauvras agreed. “Thank you, your Majesty, for healing me.”
I dipped my chin, turning to Cal. His brows were furrowed, a silent battle waging behind his eyes. “Let’s get to camp,” I said, and his face softened with relief as he turned away from his father.
◆ ◆ ◆
A soldier pointed me in the direction of the correct tent, and I shouldered my way inside, Cal and Kauvras trailing silently behind me. Generals and lieutenants huddled over a map, but the moment I entered, every person in the tent hit a knee, a fist over their chest. “Daughter of Katia. ”
With a deep breath, I nodded. “Thank you all. You may rise.”
Two dozen expectant faces stared back at me, some I recognized from Oxblood Outpost back in Taitha, though I couldn’t remember any names. Cal settled at my side, Kauvras fading into the crowd of faces. Nell and Whit stood among them, proud smiles on their tired faces.
Finally, my eyes landed on Commander Summercut. I beamed at him, warm relief like salve on a wound. “Glad to see you alive, Commander.”
“Not as glad as I am to see you alive, your Majesty. But, and please don’t take offense, I think what I was most glad to see was the fact that Katia’s beasts are not only a thing of legends.” A murmur of agreement sounded around the tent’s interior.
“No offense taken at all, Commander.” I laughed, and it felt good. “I was very glad to see them, too.”
“And please don’t take offense to this either, but were you planning on telling us about them, or…”
I blinked slowly, confused. “I didn’t know about them,” I finally blurted as understanding dawned on me. “I didn’t even believe they existed.” Summercut nodded, wide-eyed, waiting for me to proceed. I took a deep breath, clearing my throat as I looked around the tent at the eyes all trained on me.
A commotion sounded outside, muffled voices just audible through the canvas tent, and everyone went quiet. “But you need to rest, Lieutenant!” a harried voice strained, exasperation evident in his tone.
“I feel fine,” a familiar voice answered too abruptly. “I need to be here.”
“But–”
Miles pushed through the tent’s flaps, where I could see a young squire standing stock straight, wringing his hands in front of him. I gave him a quick nod and his shoulders dropped in relief before he scurried off and out of sight.
“Your Majesty,” Miles greeted with a nod, coming to stand at my other side .
“Lieutenant Landgrave,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the concern from seeping through my voice at the shadowy circles beneath his eyes and the slowness of his movements. “You do need to rest.”
“I need to be here,” he answered, peering down at the map. “Carry on. I’ll catch up.”
Cal’s brows were furrowed at his brother for a moment before he gave me a slight shrug. I cleared my throat, knowing I would get nowhere with denying Miles his spot in this tent.
I turned back to the waiting faces. Even though these men had trained for years to exemplify all the hardness and fearlessness of a military leader, I could feel dread coursing through them, could smell the stink of sweat, see the nervous glances exchanged.
“The bad news,” I started, “is that I was wrong. The battle was not fought between the Saint of Pain and an army of Vacants. It was fought against Malosym and the Occulti. Or…some form of the Occulti. I think.”
“You think?” Summercut asked cautiously.
“I… Yes,” I answered, suddenly not feeling as confident in my answer as before.
Summercut shifted on his feet. His expression was not one of disbelief, but of confusion. “But they looked like Vacants.”
“I know. But their swirling eyes, and the sheer number of them… How else could there have been that many of them? How could Malosym, back when he was Castemont, have created such a large army of Vacants? I don’t know how, but I know they were Occulti.”
A fragile silence fell over the tent, laced with tension, until Miles’ gravelly voice broke it. “I have a theory, your Majesty.”
My eyes widened. “You do?”
“I think he used the Vacants as vessels for the Occulti.”
Silence fell once again, but this one was different. This one wrapped around my neck, flexed and constricted until my throat felt too tight to breathe. “What? ”
“It’s been a long time since I read about them,” he continued, his hands flexing at his sides, “but if I remember correctly, the Occulti can take any shape. So my theory is that, for some reason, he created them to look like Vacants. Maybe to take you by surprise. Maybe it took less power. I don’t know. ”
I had no answer for him, no response to this theory that felt like the truth.
I scrubbed at my jaw. One commander’s face had gone completely white.
Another clutched his chest, his jaw ticking.
Everyone around the table was silent, the implications of what this all meant for their departed loved ones soaking in like blood on the earth.
Finally, I managed to utter a few measly words, “There might be something to that, Lieutenant.”
“ Saints ,” Summercut whispered. “Where is Malosym now?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, fighting to keep his stare.
“But I know he’s coming back. I don’t know when, I don’t know where, and I don’t know how.
But I do know we haven’t seen the last of him.
But Katia and Rhedros are still trapped, and I need to free them.
Somehow.” Heads nodded all around. I looked up at Cal for a moment.
“That’s all the bad news. The worst news is that…
” I steeled myself. I didn’t even want to believe what I was about to say.
“His conquest doesn’t stop at the Human Realm.
It doesn’t even start here, really. He’s infiltrated and laid ruin to the Saints’ Realm, and he didn’t stop there. ”
The energy shifted suddenly in the room, from fear to something different. My words were met with muffled murmurs, brows that had been furrowed in concern suddenly rising. Summercut leaned over the table slightly, his eyes hard on me. “You’ve seen the Saints’ Realm?”