Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
The Hall of Thunder earned its name tonight. Steel rang like lightning. Boots thundered across the packed earth. Humid air clung to the sweat of eighty-plus exhausted warriors, thick as steam from a forge.
Kai’s shoulders had long ago gone numb, but her mind was still on the battlefield of her latest nightmares.
A land stripped of color. Her warriors turned to ash beneath the gods’ wrath.
She refused to allow her people to die so easily.
So they trained long after much of the mountain had retired for the night.
Kai swung her sword and broke Otekah’s guard, nearly clipping her second’s shoulder. Otekah bent at the waist to catch her breath, her brown skin topped with a thick sheen of sweat. Her bright blue headband was soaking wet.
“Are you all right?” Kai asked.
Otekah shook her head and straightened. She opened her mouth to respond when Poloma’s shout stole their full attention.
“See this space?” Poloma, standing in a wide gap between two younger females, drummed the packed earth with the butt of her spear. “This is where your sister dies. Do it again. Tighter.”
Otekah grinned. “Suddenly very happy to be right where I am.”
Kai chuckled. “Take a minute. Catch your breath.”
Otekah sheathed her sword and picked up her skin of water. “Are you ready to tell me why you’re punishing all of us?”
“I’m not punishing anyone.”
“What does Fala think of all these late sessions?”
Kai released a breath, and her stomach flipped, a sick twist that settled lower than it should. “She’s distracted elsewhere.”
She told herself it didn’t matter where Fala was. That Atsadi’s presence at her side wasn’t a betrayal. Not truly.
Otekah’s eyes widened. “Oh?”
“She and Atsadi are…getting to know each other better.”
“Oh?”
Kai stretched her neck from one shoulder to the other. “I’m trying to be open. He’s not a bad male. I just…”
She believed his innocence most days. But on the others, the nightmares came, and the mere mention of his name made her jaw clench.
She’d get through it once they spent more time together. Once she was satisfied that her warriors didn’t require more intensive training. And after this situation with Usti was resolved.
Kai came out of her head, staring toward the massive east gate, currently sealed by a thick crossbar. Two secondary exits flanked the north and south ends of the chamber, and a fourth, older tunnel loomed near the rear—big enough for oxbeasts to pass through on their way to their airy.
High above, the viewing galleries yawned empty. No one stayed to observe this late.
The torches lining the walls sputtered. A sharp flick of light. Then another. Then…nothing.
Kai faced them fully, her insides suddenly cold. “Did you see that?”
Somewhere behind her, metal struck stone—a slip in form, not a strike. A cough followed, sharp and wrong against the usual sounds of practice.
“See what?” Otekah asked.
Kai didn’t have an answer. Only a…feeling.
She stepped away from the partition, crossed to the closest torch, and the flame fluttered sideways. A draft? But there shouldn’t be a draft.
The next flicker of flame twisted faster, sharper. Then died.
The hair along Kai’s arms stood on end.
She followed the breeze to a high vent—ten feet up—and froze. A hiss curled out. Too even for wind.
She stepped closer. The sound sharpened. Not a draft. Not natural.
From the arena beside her, a pair of warriors began to cough.
Fear had a sound.
It was fists pounding the palace gates.
Voices swelling like a storm, demanding answers from their “crownless king.”
It was the hush that swept through crowds as Dimitrios’s name passed from market stalls to temple steps.
It was the scrape of boots as men backed away from his banners, afraid of the rumors—whispers that he’d let the pirates in, that the gods had abandoned him, that Soterra’s calm was the promise of an easy conquest. It was in the prayers offered with desperate hope, not to the gods, but to Alexandra Vidalatos.
The one who would save them.
The kingdom was turning on itself, and it crashed against Dimitrios in waves as he stepped outside the palace to face it.
A regiment of King’s Guard stretched the length of the marble stairs, shields flashing sunlight.
Along the outer walls, guardsmen formed layered rows, spears and shields at the ready.
The people outside the walls had been tens at dawn, and hundreds by midday. By evening, it would likely be thousands. They were riding in from all over the country.
Nikolas lingered in the shadows of the marble colonnade, arms crossed, and the silver pin of his station—a sword and stallion—glinting at his shoulder. He’d been unreadable for days. Jaw set like stone. Eyes giving nothing.
Pateras had made several adjustments to his ranks in recent weeks, one of which was to promote Nikolas from Regiment Commander of the cavalry to Colonel of the Palace Guard, placing him in charge of all palace security and the royal guardsmen.
A significant rise in rank, though Nikolas cared little for titles, and the adjustment made his place at Dimitrios’s side legitimate.
Dimitrios scanned the faces outside the walls and iron gates, where rough hands clung to the bars.
He couldn’t discern what the mob was yelling exactly, but he’d been briefed on why they were here, battling the high sun and heat.
They meant to remove him by force. They meant to clear the path for their rightful sovereign.
Alexandra’s declaration had spread swiftly into the city at large—he could thank the loose lips of the lords for that.
“They will pick Alexandra,” his grandfather had warned long ago. “She’s spent years winning them over. You’re nothing but an outsider.”
Nikolas appeared at his side to scan the crowd. “I await your orders.”
Dimitrios examined Nikolas’s stiff posture. “Where’s the friend who speaks only in clever nonsense and annoys me to no end?”
“He hasn’t been welcome in a woman’s bed in what feels like a month of Sundays, nor access to a bartop without threat of a brawl.”
“You’re sober and stiff, is that what you’re telling me?”
Nikolas’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, and a smirk broke through.
“All right, if you really must know what your ‘friend’ would suggest… This problem could be easily solved with an assassin or two—you happen to have a few friends in the Guild who might be up for the challenge. Titos and Alexandra can’t be that hard to reach. ”
“That’s not exactly how the Guild works.”
“Then, as your Colonel of the Palace Guard, should I order a blanket death on all civilians before they overtake the outer walls?”
Dimitrios snapped upright. “No. Why would you even consider such a thing?”
“The gates won’t hold forever, and those people”—he aimed at the main gate—“are out for blood. Yours.”
“Colonel!” A runner burst through the palace doors, breathless. “A missive from the Supreme Commander.”
Nikolas broke the seal and read the contents, his jaw flexing. He swore under his breath.
“What is it?” Dimitrios asked.
Nikolas lowered the parchment, heaving a sigh. “Soterra’s forces have taken the old iron road through the north pass. They’ve set up blockades at the river crossings.”
Dimitrios closed his eyes. “They’re cutting us off.”
“Merchants were already blaming you when this”—he waved the parchment around—“was only a possibility. Farmers won’t be able to sell their grain, and traders won’t be able to move their wares. In the end, as far as these people are concerned, Alexandra will be right about you.”
The words struck with precision, but not because they were new. They were already whispered in the halls, in the hush that fell over a room when he entered. Crownless king. Useless.
But it was the crowd’s fear that pressed hardest against him now. They were already gathered, already trembling, already angry. All over rumors.
If they were going to riot, let them riot for the truth.
Dimitrios’s jaw set. “We’ve kept them in the dark.”
Nikolas frowned. “And?”
“It hasn’t worked.” Dimitrios stepped toward the gates, toward the restless swell of his people. “It’s time they hear the truth.” His voice was calm, but his insides vibrated like struck steel. “They deserve to know what we’re up against.”
Nikolas’s brows shot up. “Are you mad?”
Dimitrios’s gaze swept over the crowd, over the guards gripping their spears, over the sky that felt too close.
If this failed, if they turned on him, there would be no coming back.
No one would remember the man who tried to protect them—only the fool who brought ruin to their gates.
But if there was a chance, even the smallest chance, to save them…
“No,” he said, the marble echoing beneath his boots. “I’m their king.”
“I’m their king.”
Milonia’s breath fled her chest. Her heartbeat skittered.
Dimitrios had come far in little time. To think, he was once a man with one foot in another land, heart possessed by ghosts, weak. Someone her father could unseat with little fight.
The man striding toward those people, however, was a king. Passionately so.
And it might kill him.
One way or another, Dimitrios Vidalatos would fall. If not by blade or riot, then by crown. The kings on this continent would make sure of it.
Milonia stayed hidden in the column’s shadow, breath shaking loose from her chest.
No more. She would not be one of the weapons aimed at his back.
“Momma?”
Milonia flinched. She turned, a smile already in place as she faced her son. “Caius, you shouldn’t be here.”
“But I’m finished.”
“Everything is packed?” She hooked her hands to her hips. “Don’t forget, we’re not coming back. If you leave it behind,”—her voice threatened to crack—“it’s gone forever.”
Caius frowned, his small nod tight. Silver lined his eyes. “I thought you said we would get to stay for a long time. I like it here.”