Chapter 46
Chapter
Forty-Six
Dimitrios had expected a battle.
What he found was a massacre.
The ridgeline offered him no room for hope. The truth unfolded in grim, blood-soaked strokes. Smoke billowed and steel clashed. Men screamed. Bodies lay scattered in the dust.
The Soterran army pressed without mercy.
The Perean banner still flew, barely, clutched by a boy too young to be on the battlefield. Near him, a soldier took a blade to the gut and fell without a sound. Another was trampled by a horse.
Dimitrios’s horse sidestepped beneath him, sensing the tension.
Nikolas rode up alongside, face grim. “Gods.”
Behind them, the ridge was quiet. His forces watching. Waiting. The trained soldiers in front, helmets donned, greaves and bracers in place. Shields at the ready, spears in hand.
And farther back were his people. Armed with determination and old blades taken from hearths.
Sharpened tools of their trade. They were blacksmiths and fishermen.
They were too young and too old. They were souls who didn’t know war, and eyes that had seen more than enough. And yet, they’d come anyway.
They’d followed him every step of the way.
Dimitrios dismounted and faced them. The wind tore at the blue cloak draped over the overlapping plates of his silver cuirass.
“They thought they could break us,” he shouted. “That we wouldn’t fight.”
Spears slammed into the dirt in agreement.
“Our fathers built these lands,” he continued. “Your mothers bled for them. So will we. Together.”
Their roar broke through the air, scattering birds from the trees. Weapons stabbed the sky.
Dimitrios swung back into the saddle. He looked to Nikolas, then to his people.
“Nervous?” Nikolas asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Good.” His horse shifted. “I was beginning to think you were no longer human.”
Dimitrios grinned and kicked his heels into the horse’s side. “Race you there.”
Behind him, swords high, Perean hearts answered Soterran steel with a thundering charge.
The walls groaned. Dust fell in soft spirals from the ceiling.
Kai didn’t slow. Let the mountain threaten and tremble—Fala was somewhere in this ruin, and nothing would stop her.
The Unseen stayed tight behind her, weapons drawn, breath silent. Drakaa was never more than a half-step back, silent and sure, until they erupted from a narrow tunnel into a cavern—
Usti’s men blocked the path forward.
Only three.
Kai laughed. “Who wishes to be first?”
The closest male lunged, axe swinging high.
Kai dropped low and rolled beneath the swing. She rose in one fluid motion, pulling the sword from her back, and cut behind his knees with a clean, brutal arc.
He howled—
Drakaa plunged her knife through his throat, and the sound died with him.
Kai met the second male. Their swords clashed. A jolt rang through her wrists. He shoved her against the stone wall, pinning her with a forearm.
She planted a heel, twisted, and broke free.
More armed males poured into the cavern, all bearing the mark of Rising Moon.
The Unseen met them without hesitation.
These weren’t warriors—just miners with delusions. No match for fighters whose blades had been honed over centuries.
A knife shot through the air for Kai.
She spun her opponent into its path—
The knife sank into his back with a wet thud, and he screamed.
She shoved him aside.
A low groaning trembled through the stone—a sound that didn’t belong to man or beast, but the mountain itself.
“We’re running out of time,” Drakaa said.
Kai nodded. “I have to find Fala.”
“Go,” the Eternal One said, already turning her attention to her next fight. “No one will follow.”
Kai ran the tunnel’s length and met a line of healers guiding more wounded out. All bloodied and coughing. Tear trails stained their dusty faces.
Still, no sign of Fala.
Her chest pulled tighter with every step.
“Fala!” she yelled into the void ahead. “Fala!”
A male leapt out of a shadowed crevice—
His shoulder crashed into her ribs, slamming her into the wall. Black stone scraped her skin. Her sword clattered out of reach.
He slammed her a second time.
Her head bounced off the rock. Her ears rang. Vision blurred.
His teeth flashed, and the mountain’s bioluminescence highlighted his Rising Moon tattoo.
And, at her throat, a knife sank past a layer of her skin.
Supreme Commander Pateras bent beneath the arcing blade aimed for his throat, then rebounded with a thrust that forced the soldier back. They traded blows in a brutal rhythm, each man driven to the defensive by the other.
Dimitrios gathered his reins and began to turn his horse—
Pateras stumbled, his footwork no longer the clean, disciplined rhythm of a trained soldier. His heel snagged on the stiff leg of a fallen horse.
The Supreme Commander crashed down, arms splaying wide in the blood-soaked dirt. A groan tore from between gritted teeth as he lifted his sword to counter another blow—too slow.
Dimitrios kicked his horse into a sprint.
The sword came down from above.
Pateras’s eyes widened—
Dimitrios launched from the saddle, crashing into the soldier mid-swing. They rolled through blood and dust, steel flashing. One strike, clean and deep, stilled the soldier’s breath.
Pateras staggered toward him, breath ragged, face smeared with blood and dirt. His knees caked in mud. “Thank you.” He hauled Dimitrios to his feet. “I am in your debt.”
Dimitrios shook his head. “I’m just glad to find you’re still breathing.”
“Barely.” He grunted and pressed a hand to his ribs, where his cuirass had buckled from a brutal hit.
Around them, the battle was reinvigorated.
Dimitrios clapped him on the shoulder. “I hope you’ve got just a little fight left.”
Pateras gave a slanted grin. “A bit more, I think.”
They moved together, deeper into the fight.
The Soterran forces didn’t know what to do with the chaos that met them. A host of Perean soldiers, fresh and ready, swept through their lines with spears and short swords.
Behind them, dealing final blows to any who survived, were the blacksmiths and farmers and fishermen.
The north pass trembled beneath it all.
Dimitrios carved through the enemy lines with the weight of his father’s hope on his shoulders. His mother’s sacrifice was the fire in his lungs. His grandfather’s contempt fueled every strike.
But it was Milonia’s voice that lingered like a ghost at his ear. “To the people who love you, you’re already their king.”
Crowned, crownless, it made no difference. He fought for his people. And if he fell, all of Perean would know he’d chosen them.
A horn sounded in the distance.
Pateras had fallen back, lost to the surge, and Dimitrios pressed forward, alone. Breath scorching. Sword growing heavier.
Shapes closed in. A shadow passed over his shoulder.
He turned—one step at a time—sword gripped tight, breath ragged.
Four. Five. Six Soterran soldiers. Fanning out like wolves in a ring of dust and blood.
Behind him, the battle raged on. Without him.
So be it.
He raised his sword.
Kai breathed against the knife’s edge. Read the male’s hesitation. She met his brown eyes with cold fury.
“My blood will be answered with yours,” she said through gritted teeth.
He flinched.
She tensed, ready to strike—
Behind him, a blur of movement burst through the crevice—shadow and sweat, streaked with mountain dust. His shirt hung open over a sweat-slick chest, hair knotted high.
Atsadi froze, and his dark gaze flicked from Kai to the male and back.
Kai had seen many versions of her husband: thoughtful, kind, relaxed, even scared.
This was none of them.
His nostrils flared. The cords of his neck strained—then he roared, low and guttural.
Atsadi exploded forward, and his shoulder slammed into the male’s side.
They crashed to the ground in a tangle, one blade flashing between them.
Kai couldn’t tell who had the upper hand. They rolled fast, a blur of limbs and steel, the brutal sounds carrying more weight than sight.
Atsadi finished on top, several feet away, and drove his elbow into the man’s temple. Once. Twice. A sickening crack echoed, followed by stillness.
His next breath was sharp. His head hung forward as if too heavy to bear.
Kai staggered to him, her mouth too dry, her thoughts a jumbled mess. All but one: he’d spent the evening with Fala. They were supposed to be together.
Atsadi got to his feet and gripped her shoulders. His voice came out almost pleading. “What are you doing here? This whole shaft could collapse any second.”
“Where’s Fala?” she demanded.
His hold loosened, and his jaw turned slack. “Fala? We parted a long time ago.”
Her heart clenched, breath gone.
“Kai.” Atsadi shook her gently. “Breathe. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“The healers. They went into the mines to help.”
“I know—”
Atsadi froze.
Her mouth worked, but only one word escaped. “Fala.”
“No,” he said, head shaking. “She went home. She’s safe.”
Tears erupted from her eyes. “Fala went into the mines. She’s still down there.”
Nikolas had lost sight of Dimitrios some time ago. Too long.
He was far too young to go down in infamy as the man who let the crownless king die in their first real battle together.
Still, it’d be nice to know his friend wasn’t bleeding out somewhere.
Nikolas cut down another Soterran. His horse was slick with blood and froth, sides heaving beneath him. The enemy lines were breaking. He could feel it.
He wheeled his horse in a tight circle, searching—
There.
Dimitrios.
Six soldiers closed in.
Nikolas raised his sword high. Sunlight kissed the steel, catching every Perean eye.
“To your king!”
“We’re coming, Augustus,” Blaze whispered to the salt air. “Just hold on.”
A few minutes ago, he’d truly thought Augustus and Mettius were lost. Not because of the elk—Augustus would’ve handled that.
But he hadn’t counted on Augustus falling to Thorne in a fight.