Chapter 34
It wasn’t romantic.
Everything went to shit about ten seconds after Kier’s announcement fell on everyone gathered in the castle courtyard and the city streets beyond, their magic and weapons still in hand, mood twitchy and violent.
Quiet had settled beyond the walls, like Jyrard and Cleodora were just waiting for the city to fall into their hands. Or maybe the Haar had swept them away.
I doubt we’d be that lucky.
Kier explained the Haar’s origins with raw, heartfelt precision, his voice wavering when he spoke of Danette, but if anyone in the crowd felt sympathy they didn’t show it.
A tense murmur went through the crowd when Kier told them everyone the Haar had taken weren’t hurt or dead, simply transported somewhere else.
The sound was like a scoff, throaty and disbelieving.
Well, they’d believe it when we returned everyone Bluescale had lost. Assuming that was even possible. What if they were lost forever?
The first shout began when Kier explained his plan to defend the city, to prevent Lazankh from being conquered like Skayan. I didn’t know that particular word, but I was guessing it was goblin for bullshit.
“Tell them she ate the king’s heart,” I murmured. He did, and was met with a scoff. Ah, crap. Did they even believe Cleodora was out there with her army? Or did they think Jyrard had come to save them from Kier?
“That can’t be good,” I groaned when a wave of civilians surged at the walls around the castle. Just to remind you: they still had weapons in hand.
I wasn’t surprised when they set those weapons to the wall. Disappointed, but not surprised.
“The Greenheart queen wants to eradicate the Bluescale Court and merge both courts into one empire, with all of us answering to her every whim and command,” Kier said with remarkable authority.
“Her goal is total domination, and she will not hesitate to kill anyone between her and that power. Neither will my brother Jyrard, who murdered Prince Corvyr in his quest for ultimate power. They will not hesitate to harm you if it suits them.”
Great speech. People still hurled themselves at the gates, though. Kier saw them too and his shoulders dropped a fraction. Behind us, the council members gathered at the fringe of the room shifted on their feet. Looks were exchanged. Heavy with significance.
If the people of Lazankh wanted to be conquered, was there any use trying to save them?
These were the same people who cheered Kier’s name, who offered loaves of bread and pots of steaming sweet potato stew on festival days, who’d lived safe within the walls, who trusted Kier.
But they weren’t listening, or they’d already decided on their turn of events.
I motioned for Kier to cut off the magic amplifying his voice and said, “This isn’t going to work. The only thing that will convince them is getting our people back.”
Kier looked from the crowd to the council behind us. He nodded, but I saw the words in his bleak sapphire eyes. I don’t know how.
I jumped at a sudden collapse of grating brick. With my heart in my throat, I raced to the balcony’s edge to confirm what I already knew. The angry mob had forced their way in. Exactly like the army forced their way into Lazankh’s city limits. Deja vu, anyone?
I turned to face the council, walking with brisk steps, assessing how many weapons I had on me and thinking of the emergency bag I packed an hour ago. Clearly, I was psychic because we were going to need it.
I hoped my troupe had their things packed, ready to go. I hoped Cherish was lucid and healed. The alternative made me almost throw up. What if she…?
No. Cherish was strong and fierce and a badass magic wielder. She was going to be fine.
“It’s not safe for you in the castle. They’re angry. They’re afraid, and rightly so. But they won’t behave like the citizens they were just this morning; they’ll loot and destroy the castle, and they might attack anyone in their path.”
My future friend Khali straightened, her blue puffs of hair a cute contrast to the deadly serious expression she wore. “We need to evacuate.”
“Counter offer,” I said, “because I honestly don’t think there’s enough time to find a safe way out of the castle.
Have you ever been in the Chamber of Truths?
There’s enough space to house the council, the staff, and everyone who lives here.
You’ll need to take provisions with you, to wait out the intrusion. ”
Nidash, covered in mud from when he landed in the middle of the field, stepped forward and asked, “Where will you be, your highness?”
Someone scoffed. An ancient man with papery white skin and a wispy beard. I was so not in the mood. I gave him the middle finger and then pretended he didn’t exist.
“Kier and I need to recover the people we lost to the Haar. It’s the only way to stop Cleodora’s invasion, and to invalidate any claim Jyrard will try to make. Do not trust him, or anything he says. He’s a puppet for the Greenheart queen.”
“Maybe we can negotiate—” Khali began.
“She proudly told me her goal is to raze this entire court to ashes and build a shining new goblin empire upon our corpses. You cannot negotiate with her, and you can’t trust Jyrard.”
“But we can trust you?” the ancient guy scoffed, glaring at Kier and I. Belt Beard stood beside him with a matching expression. Lovely. “You, who brought the Haar upon us?”
“We’re the only royals left who’ll fight for you instead of against you,” I retorted before Kier could say whatever he’d opened his mouth to. My voice came out as honed and vicious as a knife’s edge. “So yes, you can trust us. You have no other option but to trust us.”
They were ripping the gate to the castle down if the crashing sounds of wood and stone were anything to go by. It was time to go.
“Warn everyone in the castle to hide,” I barked. “Now! Unless you’d rather sit around like lemmings and wait for them to attack you?”
Khali gave me a solid nod that restored my faith in the council just a little, and she and Nidash corralled the others. The old guys shot us matching suspicious looks, but I clasped Kier’s hand and gripped tight. “There’s a secret way out through the tunnels, isn’t there?”
It was a guess, but knowing the warren of staircases, chambers, and tunnels beneath the castle, it was a pretty sure bet.
He nodded, scrubbing a hand over his jaw as he looked over the balcony at the unrest.
“Kier, we don’t have time.”
They’d made it through the wall, and it was a pretty short stretch of grass to the front door.
We hadn’t had the time of forethought to barricade it.
I yanked him back inside the castle, racing around the table where meetings were held, and ground to a halt at the sight of Hames standing in the door to the hallway, his massive shoulders blocking out the light.
His expression was as grim as I’d ever seen it.
“You created the Haar,” he said in a low rasp.
I stiffened, my heart clattering against my ribs. “Hames—” I began.
“Not intentionally,” Kier replied, jumping at a louder, much closer crash from outside. “I would never intentionally create it. I didn’t realise, I never knew—”
“I lost my entire family to the Haar,” Hames snarled, his lip curling back, exposing wicked-sharp teeth.
My stomach sank. I didn’t want to have to pick a side, didn’t want to choose between Kier and my troupe. A heavy weight crushed my chest, making my shoulders curl inward. Guilt swelled so thickly I choked on it.
“We’re going to get them back,” I promised, my voice too weak. “I swear it, Hames.”
The way he looked at me then gutted me. Stabbed a knife into one side of my belly and ripped it across until all my insides spilled onto the floor. Hames was my friend, my protector, the brother I never knew I needed. And he looked at me like he hated me.
“You knew.” He shook his head, a bitter laugh bubbling up. “All along, even when I told you about my family, you knew who was to blame.”
My face prickled with heat, skin stretched tight over my bones. “It wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t control his grief—”
“His grief? What about mine? What about all of ours? The only reason the conflict between Greenheart and Bluescale started is because of the fucking Haar. Zaugustus is dead because of him.”
“That’s not true. Cleodora—”
“You can’t blame everything on the Greenheart queen just because she fucked with your head,” he snapped, his voice so loud that I flinched back.
“Enough,” Kier warned, pulling me into his side, his hand warm on my hip. If Kier had been full of cold out in the forest, now it was my turn. I shivered with it.
Hames dragged in a slow breath, his expression icing over. “Whatever happens to you now,” he said to Kier with barely controlled hatred, “you deserve every moment of it.”
“And me?” I asked in a small voice. My stomach knotted, tightened, cramped. “He’s my mate; if he dies, I die. Do I deserve that?”
He said nothing. Hames said nothing.
I nodded, blinking fast, ignoring the spike driven through my chest. “Well,” I said in a breezy tone that took immense effort, “don’t let us keep you. We’re off to find where the Haar sent everyone, and safely return them.”
“Where?” Hames laughed bitterly, his eyes fixed elsewhere like he couldn’t stand to look at me.
Tears welled but I mentally snarled at them to stay inside my damn eyes.
“The Haar destroyed everything. It slaughtered thousands and reduced their homes to dust. The towns are in ruins, the cities are barely standing, and the people are dead.”
I shook my head. I had to trust Kier. I had to trust the Haar. He saved them, not killed them. I began to tell Hames that when a resounding bang came from downstairs, and my breath caught. I threw a frantic look at Kier.
“Aren’t you even going to ask about Cherish?” Hames asked with disgust, like I physically repulsed him. “Do you even care?”
“Do I—” A laugh, twisted and raw, burst from me.
“It’s taking all my fucking focus to deal with this shit,” I threw a hand at the balcony, the people of Lazankh turning on Kier, “because all I can think about is Cherish getting hurt. But she won’t be able to heal with the castle under attack, so this is where I have to—”
“The healers were barely able to save her.”
I blinked. Froze. “But—we got her to the castle, to the healers. She’s going to be fine. Right?”
“She bled out on the flight,” Hames said through clenched teeth. “By the time she reached the castle, she had no pulse.”
I shook my head. Over and over. “No. No, she was fine, I saw her fly to safety—she was fine.” My voice rose, but it was shaky, tight. “Tell me she’ll be alright. Hames. Please. Tell me she’ll be alright.”
“No thanks to you,” he muttered, his voice echoing off the ceiling, each echo stabbing me in the chest. I reached for him, pleading, but he stepped back and clenched his jaw. Not looking at me at all.
My bottom lip quivered. Downstairs, more of the wall collapsed, or maybe they’d breached the castle. And in the infirmary, my friend had nearly bled to death without me.
“We’re leaving. Now.” Kier grabbed the emergency bag from where I left it and marched toward Hames. “Get out of our way.”
“Why don’t you make me?”
Hames gave me a look heavy with disappointment and something else. Disgust, maybe. Or maybe he hated me now. Maybe he couldn’t stand the sight of me. “You’re leaving with him?”
“We’re going to fix this,” I said in a strangled voice, meaning the words as a promise.
I just wished we could keep it.