Chapter Forty-Nine
“What do you mean, Artemisia has earth dragons?” I asked as Xander got to his feet.
“I connected to a common swift to see which way we should go, and then I sent it back to the Carian army to check on them. They’re on the move. There are cavalry riders up front with bags attached to their horses that the red dirt is pouring out of.”
“The dragons!” I reminded her.
“Yes, at the back of the army, there are earth dragons. They are massive.” I remembered the drawings from my grandmother’s book. Earth dragons were covered in impenetrable scales that resembled stones.
And they hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years.
“How many?” Xander asked.
“Two dozen? Maybe more?”
By the goddess. “Do you have anything in Troas to fight dragons with?”
“No,” he said, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “We were preparing for an army of people, not earth dragons.”
Ahyana’s eyes went wide. “Then what are we going to do?”
“I need to get back to Troas and warn them. I don’t know that the walls will protect us. We should move everyone into the palace’s lower caverns to keep them safe. But there’s not enough time to do that.”
“How much time do you need?” I asked him.
“Two days? Maybe three?”
“I’ll get them for you,” I said.
“How?”
“We’ll use our magic to delay them.”
A thousand different emotions flitted through Xander’s eyes. He wanted to tell me no. He didn’t want to leave me behind.
But I wasn’t the only person he had to worry about. He was king. He had an entire nation he needed to protect.
“I will be fine,” I promised him. “I saved you from a den of thieves, didn’t I? Got my brother out of the Carian camp? You know that I can do this.”
He grabbed me and pulled me close. He kissed my temple. “I know you can. I just don’t want you to.”
“You have to go,” I said into his neck. “You’re the only one they’ll listen to. You have the authority to command the army. Let me do this for you.”
Xander pulled back, his gaze intense. “You promise me that you’ll come back to me.”
“I promise.” I infused as much conviction as I could into my voice. “And if there’s one thing Locrians are known for, it’s keeping our word.”
He didn’t smile at my joke. “How am I supposed to be parted from you?”
“There are hundreds of thousands of innocent lives that hang in the balance, and you are the only one who can get them to safety.” I studied the lines and angles of his face, committing them to memory.
He was doing the same.
“Come on,” I finally said, taking him by the hand. He had to leave as soon as possible. When we reached the others, we told them what was happening.
“Haemon, I’m going to need you to go back with Xander,” I said.
“I won’t,” he said with a shake of his head.
“You will. You’re not well enough to fight. And I don’t want my husband traveling alone.” The second one wasn’t an actual reason, because Xander probably could have taken on the entire Carian army by himself, but I wanted my brother to feel like he needed to go.
“Your sister can take care of herself,” Xander said as he started packing a bag to take with him. “You will distract her if you stay. She’ll worry about you. She needs to know that you’re safe so she can do what she has to.”
The faith my husband had in me . . . his words were like warm honey spreading through my limbs. Infusing me with strength and confidence.
Haemon nodded, but it was obvious he didn’t want to leave, either. He also packed a bag while Xander said a private goodbye to Io. She hugged him tightly.
Luna had woken up and I went over to her.
“You should go back to Troas, where it’s safe. Xander and my brother are going now.”
No.
Stubborn beast.
My brother had finished packing and I went to say goodbye. “I really will be all right.”
He shook his head. “I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you again. I love you.”
“I know and I love you, too,” I said. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. He still felt so fragile, like he might float away.
“And I promise that I’ll protect your husband. I can see how much you love him.”
Was it that obvious? I pulled away to see Haemon’s smile, but I couldn’t return it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I haven’t told him,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because right now the bond only goes one way. If I tell him, that will make it stronger, won’t it? It will hurt him more if something happens to me.”
“Lia, that is not how that works. If you didn’t love him, when he said the words to you, no bond would have been created. Both people have to feel that way for it to work. I think it would hurt him more for you not to tell him.”
My mouth hung open slightly. I’d had no idea.
“Haemon! Let’s go.”
Realizing that I was running out of time to decide who was going where, I approached my sisters, and Zalira said, “Before you say a word, we’re obviously staying with you.”
Everyone nodded and I again had to fight back tears.
“I didn’t want to assume.”
“You should assume,” Ahyana told me. “Always assume that we are with you.”
We decided that when we were done delaying the army, Suri and Io would share a horse so that Haemon and Xander could each have their own mount.
They climbed up onto their horses, and I went over to see them off.
“I’ll take care of Io,” I said to Xander.
“I know you will.”
“Be safe,” I said.
Say the words. Tell him.
But I didn’t want it like this. I would tell him. When we could be alone and the words could be just for him.
He leaned down to kiss me fiercely. “Do not die,” he ordered.
“I won’t.”
“I love you,” he said, making the bond resonate in my heart, and then he made a sound and his horse leapt forward, with Haemon’s close in pursuit.
Xander’s light grew dimmer with each passing moment.
I love you.
“What now?” Ahyana asked.
I turned back to face my sisters. “Now we go and see what kind of damage we can do to the Carian army.”
“Why are they using the earth dragons to pull up those trees?” I asked.
“Because that’s the only way to kill an olive tree,” Io said sadly. “Pulling it out by the roots. It takes a new olive tree so long to reach maturity—they are ruining the livelihoods of every Ilionian farmer from this area.”
We were on a ridge where we could easily see the Carian army in the valley below us.
I couldn’t stop watching the dragons. They were so big, much bigger than I’d expected.
Their scales resembled rocks and they looked like walking hills.
Their long tails had a ball of spikes on the end, and I could only imagine the damage they could do with those.
What I couldn’t tell was how the Carians were controlling the dragons. How did they get them to do what they wanted?
Xander had been right. Those dragons were going to knock down the walls of Troas like they were toys. I didn’t understand why Artemisia’s former general had been concerned about breaching the walls.
Unless there was something that would make it harder for them to control the dragons during battle.
“How are you supposed to stop a dragon?” Ahyana asked.
“With another dragon,” Zalira responded.
But the only other dragon we had was Luna, who sat perched on my shoulder, even though she barely fit. She snorted derisively several times and it made me think she didn’t like the earth dragons.
“Let’s see what we can do to stop them,” Io said. We had all drunk fortification potions and agreed not to power each other so that we would retain our strength. We would take turns trying to slow down the army.
Io knelt on the ground, putting her hands flat out in front of her. “Dea Khloe.”
I watched as roots erupted out of the ground in the valley and wrapped around the dragons’ legs. While it seemed to frighten them initially, they just stepped forward and snapped the roots.
“It’s not working,” Ahyana told Io.
“I know,” she said.
Then she sent the roots after the infantry, and that caused a widespread panic that lasted for as long as Io did. She was trying to hold on, but this was taking an immense amount of power.
She turned it off and collapsed to the ground. She was still awake, but only barely.
That bought us several hours as the army hacked at all the exposed roots, making certain they wouldn’t rise up and try to harm them.
Once they started forward again, Ahyana was ready for them.
“Dea Karpophoroi.”
The ground hummed and shook around us.
“What is that?” Zalira demanded.
“Cicadas,” Ahyana said with a smile.
Millions of large black bugs rose out of the earth. They made a deafening sound as they swarmed the soldiers, turning the sky dark.
I put my hands over my ears but it wasn’t enough to drown out the high-pitched noise.
“Look at that!” I pointed at the back of the supply train. A large group of soldiers was heading east, back the way they had come.
They were deserting.
“They might be superstitious. Maybe they’re taking this as a bad omen,” Zalira said.
The Carians couldn’t fight off the cicadas. The bugs were loud and they were everywhere, swarming endlessly.
The cicadas were bothering one of the dragons and it began to swing its tail in annoyance, or perhaps it was trying to bat them away. The dragon accidentally hit several carts, spilling their contents onto the ground.
Ahyana lasted twice as long as Io had. Her body started shaking, and she made several sounds of pain.
“You’ve done enough,” Zalira said. “Rest.”
Her sister nodded and turned off her power. The cicadas stayed. They continued with their noises and flying around the area, but they began to settle. To find trees and plants to land on.
But the chaos they had created was immense.
It was twilight and the army had to stop. I couldn’t imagine that they’d sleep very well with that constant shrill/whine the cicadas made.
“Time to move to our next location,” I said. “We’ll hit them with another round in the morning.”
I hoped that what we had planned for tomorrow would be enough to make even more soldiers turn tail and flee back to their homes.