Chapter 32
So this was what Cleodora used to get into Skayan; this fire Haar.
“How do we stop it?” I asked, staring at the wall protecting Lazankh. It had already begun to crumble in places.
Kier shook his head. “I don’t know.”
There was one way to halt the flames, but with this many soldiers, the field full of witnesses… “There are thousands of people inside the walls,” I said, a knot in my stomach. I was going to throw up, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Full, projectile style vomiting.
“Where’s the other band of soldiers?” I asked. “They found our first, but what about the second?”
“I don’t see them.”
So Cleodora could have already found and murdered them. I shifted my weight, keeping magic pooled in my hands, assessing the Bluescale warriors directly in front of us. There were fifty of them, all huge and muscular enough to indicate a fight against them would be inevitably short.
But a ripple moved among their ranks, hands flexing on shields and spears and azure lightning bolts, boots shifting weight, leather creaking as glances were exchanged.
Fuck waiting for them to decide on a way to kill us. I raised my hand, reaching out to Valour and Baby, pulling hard on those bonds to call them to me. I sensed their panic, swiftly followed by relief. Had they lost sight of me too?
“The three closest to us,” Kier said under his breath, flexing his hands, more fog creeping out of the forest behind us, sapphire magic dancing through it as Kier’s wedding ring lit up. That was new. I wondered what the Haar could do when blended with Kier’s regular gemstone magic?
I nodded to say I understood, and tensed my arm to release my magic, no goal in mind other than to push them back, keep them away from us—but a sky-blue spear came from over their heads.
From behind them. It soared through the air so fast that I barely had time to stretch my crackling blue magic into a hasty shield.
But the spear soared over our heads, alive with so much magic that I felt its brush like lightning and my fine hairs stood on end. I turned, my heart jumping into my throat, just in time to see the bolt hit Cleodora.
“Ruthless gods,” I whispered. I hadn’t felt her, hadn’t heard her.
We’d be dead if that warrior hadn’t thrown his spear.
And like that was the catalyst the others had been waiting for, a large group of Bluescale goblins broke off from the rest of the army and arranged themselves protectively around us.
“That was some throw,” I said breathlessly, locking eyes with the tall, rangy man who threw it.
Two horns protruded from his forehead, his face harsh and rugged, and when he grinned, huge canine teeth bared in my face.
But it was like being grinned at by Baby; a little terrifying, a lot dangerous, and fucking cute.
“Thank you, your highness.”
We had a moment of victory, a split second of relief, and then it began. Lazankh’s solid walls began to crumble.
“Kier,” I hissed urgently, a warning shivering down my spine. “We need to get to the walls now.”
If his mist could put out her flames, we could save the wall, save the city. But we had to do it now. I couldn’t afford to think about our friends and family. I couldn’t afford to fall apart.
Blue streaks skidded into my vision, knocking aside two Bluescale warriors to get to me, and the relief that hit was so visceral that even my good knee wobbled.
“She’s getting back up, your highnesses,” my new warrior friend warned us, his attention fixed on where Cleodora had been pinned to the ground with his spear. He flexed his hand, driving it deeper, but he was right. She wouldn’t stay down.
I exchanged a tense glance with Kier, and his shoulders dropped.
He knew what he needed to do, as well as I knew it.
The flames licked higher across the wall, throwing orange flares of light across the gathered army, and if that was what the queen was capable of when she was speared through the chest, I didn’t want to know how quickly the walls would fall when she regained her strength.
A flash of blue near the watchtower drew my eye, and my heart stopped for a beat. “They made it.” That was Kier’s dragon, with Hames and Ryvan on her back. They should be safe since they reached Lazankh, but the fire…
“Kier,” I said urgently, motioning for Baby and Valour to return to my rings.
“Do whatever you can to stall the army,” he ordered the warriors around us and squeezed my hand.
Fog swept in as fast as the fire, wrapping us in soft, cloudlike substance. A weight fell off my shoulders, the Haar familiar and comforting despite all the people he’d kidnapped. But not killed. He never killed anyone.
Shouts rippled across the field in waves, building from shock and surprise to horror to fear. The Haar was here. The Haar would kill them, like it had killed so many. I felt Kier’s shoulders hunch, his body turning to cold stone around me as their terror hit him.
Their voices became a low murmur as the fog carried us to the guardtower and deposited us atop a part of the wall that had yet to crumble. It wouldn’t be long until this fell apart too, unless Kier could smother the flames.
“Do you have enough fog to put all this out?” I asked, my stomach leaping into my throat at how high up we were. Below, people yelled in alarm as the Haar bled down the wall like a waterfall, spilling over pockmarked bricks and patching the holes.
Sweat beaded on Kier’s forehead. “I don’t know.”
I wrapped my fingers around his forearm, reaching for the place our bond lived inside me. “Can you take some of my power, and convert it into fog?”
He shook his head, a furrow of concentration between his brows. “I don’t know.”
Shit. Whatever Cleodora said, whatever caused this weakness I felt in his soul, it needed to die right now. I squeezed his arm. “You’ve fought battles far worse than this, Kier.”
“A motivational speech?” he asked with a rough laugh, his gaze distant, mist pouring from his hands, rushing around our feet until it felt like we stood on a cloud. That didn’t help my queasy fear at all.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Your muscles are more fearsome than any goblin in the land, your prowess with a sword unmatched, your ability in both magic and battle deserving of legend and song—”
Some of the cold thawed as a puff of laughter left him.
At least until the shouting below swelled, their shock growing as realisation seemed to catch: the fog was putting out the flames.
Lazankh was protected by the Haar. And as if commands swept through the soldiers, they began to move as one, surging towards the wall while we were still weak.
A commotion came from the back of the ranks, our Bluescale allies blocking as many as they could, but hundreds still aimed themselves at the gates set in the walls.
The shields will hold, I told myself, curling my other hand into a fist, one second away from reaching for Valour.
How many could you take out if I sent you down there? I asked her.
She replied with an image of her teeth ripping off arms and legs and heads. Lots, was her answer. But would it be enough to stop them breaking the gateways? I wanted to have faith in the shields, but Skayan had been shielded too, and look where that got them.
I knew we had people stationed behind each entrance, ready to fight, but once the gates were broken, it would be a constant battle to keep out the enemy. And their numbers tripled the fighters we had.
“Shit,” Kier hissed, startling me out of my head.
I saw where his focus was immediately; in the field below, Greenheart goblins were pooling their magic into an enormous battering ram.
Bright flickers of magic came from necklaces, bangles, earrings, the whole field lit up with it.
I got the sudden, ice-cold suspicion that we were going to lose this fight.
“Cover the gates in fog,” I blurted, panic making my heart fast, my words abrupt.
A half-thought had Valour and Baby bursting from my rings, my jaguar throwing herself over the edge of the wall and sliding down the stone, her claws sending up blue sparks.
Baby simply leapt, and landed on top of two soldiers, immediately savaging their throats.
Just like that, blood spilled, and we were truly at war again. I was going to throw up.
But Kier listened without questioning the logic of my request, the Haar’s opaque, dense mist covering each of the gates below.
“Can you—kill them with the fog?” I asked haltingly, part of me up here but the rest of my focus down there while Baby ripped into soldiers with his sharp teeth and Valour wound around their ankles, tripping them to make easy prey for my jaevar.
“No.” Kier swallowed, staring at the melee, horror bleaching the colour and life from his face. “But I might be able to send them somewhere, like the Haar did with our people.”
“Do it,” I said instantly, reaching for my sword and hissing when I remembered Cleodora had it. But not the stone, not the relic keeping me safe from her. I wondered how many times she’d tried to take control of me, and failed.
Shouts came from within Lazankh and I carefully crossed the wall, my stomach pitching as I peered down.
Khali was down there, and I was relieved to spot Jakoda and Ryvan with her.
None of the others, but they were surrounded by Bluescale warriors holding spears and shields lined in lapis.
They were ready for the war that hammered at our doors.
I should be down there with them.
“If they get us, it’s over,” Kier sighed, as if I’d spoken aloud. “If they get us, Greenheart has won.”