Chapter 17
Ryker
The purple rays danced underneath my fingers like it didn’t want to recognize me.
There was no vengeful pull. No wallowing hum bouncing off the cave walls or hissing in my mind.
Solkar’s Heart, the last true fragment of the fallen star which had birthed the crater, pulsed languidly.
Slowly.
Dimly.
Like it was deciding whether to answer me at all.
Finally, the Rays twisted and coiled around my skin, easing the strain in my chest.
“What changed?” I muttered, pushing harder against the rock, as if I could plunge into its very depths to uncover a wound which should have been impossible.
The Northern Clans were the prime suspects. But they wouldn’t have been baring their teeth for more power if they had any way of accessing more than I’d been willing to negotiate years ago, when I’d broken my Clan from the alliance and joined the Blood Brotherhood without any battle or retaliation.
I wondered if they regretted not allowing our sick children on their shore. Not because of the little ones’ deaths, but because they’d lost their reluctant ally as a result.
I growled. And Allie wanted me to still believe in blood relatives. My mother, the only true family I’d had, rested above me in the Memory Hall crypt, her statue clutching her famed broadsword even in death.
I cared for people not out of misplaced obligation, but because I wanted to. Then again, Allie had never made it seem like cherishing her relatives was born out of simple duty, down to the last distant nephew. She liked who she liked and she didn’t hide her disdain for the others.
Which is why I knew that the arranged marriage we’d both been bound to wouldn’t make a difference if she truly wanted me out of her life and relegated to a simple name on a contract once I told her the truth about her father’s death.
My throat tightened with every word I had to mutter and every plea I’d have to shout. I could only hope she would listen.
The dagger burned in my coat, the purple pebble in its pommel vibrating so close to its birthplace.
The shards of Solkar’s Heart which had broken off on impact had been fused into my warriors’ weapons, to guard and quicken.
But they were too small to affect the Heart itself.
Even if one of them fell into enemy hands, as mine clearly had, they didn’t have the ability to drain the magic.
The Northern Clans had a feeble pebble they squabbled over. Again, not enough to bleed the Heart, which still had the same menacing crystal edges I’d first seen as a boy, when my mother had revealed it and my duty as its protector.
But the Heart didn’t feel the same–and I felt powerless because of it.
It offered no answer. It either couldn’t or wouldn’t, and I didn’t know which was worse.
My hand lingered on the rock, but nothing changed.
With a sigh, I finally let go. The light retreated from my hand, pulsing back into its lair like I’d never bothered it with my mortal worries it obviously did not care about.
Yet I cared about it–and I had to find its wound and restitch it.
Better than I’d repaired Geryll’s leg.
With all my Blood Brotherhood powers, I’d detected no physical ailment within him, which made it worse. I worried–and all the healers who’d seen him agreed–that the blade which had struck him had been magicked to leave pains no mortal hands could fix.
Rare, but not unheard of.
Once his blasted wedding was over, I’d ask Zandyr to recheck Geryll’s veins. Taking him to the Morgana Clan–or worse, the Shuddering Isles–was more of a punishment than a cure, but I would do it if we weren’t able to mend him.
With war looming, all the Clans and factions had closed their borders, but we’d find a way.
I would.
I fisted my palms as I rushed up the stairs and out of the Memory Hall, feeling the weight of my ancestors’ expectations on my heels.
The crater was bleeding under my watch. Not theirs.
They’d done their duties, sacrificed, and met their gods as they should have, now turned into memories and statues that watched over us.
And I knew they were disappointed in me.
Those thoughts tormented me all the way to the training arena behind the fortress, which rattled with the clash of steel and the grunts of the warriors, rising to the sky like a dark prayer.
The hissing wind and shards of ice and snow it carried did nothing to deter them. Perhaps the Veghearas weren’t the most stubborn lot in Malhaven, after all.
Solkar himself would have been proud of our warriors if he deigned to look down upon us with anything other than spite.
The more experienced formed a circle around the greener ones, protecting even in make-believe battle.
Pride and terror fought within me as I stopped on the ridge overlooking the arena, where Vylkor already awaited. He greeted me with a grunt and a fist to his heart.
My warriors were fierce.
The Blood Brotherhood army was the best in all of Malhaven.
But war was war.
It demanded its sacrifice.
“Our warriors will shake the Capital,” Vylkor said with unearned triumph.
“What matters is that they scare the Serpents away,” I said.
“Yes. But they will also impress our new Clan.” He turned to me. The snowflakes that fell on the patch covering his missing eye melted as soon as they touched the dark leather, as if terrified to linger. “Is everyone coming with you?”
“Only the most experienced at first.” And hopefully last. “The younger ones will stay home to guard the crater.”
Solkar’s Reach had lost too many of its younglings and was still safer than a battlefield.
Vylkor frowned. “You secured the exit. We have warriors at the entrance.”
But the forest sounded different, the lake’s ice had shattered, and someone had stolen one of my daggers to kill a rival Clan leader. As much as Vylkor had earned my respect, these secrets weren’t for his ears.
“If the entrance has been breached once, we can’t take any chances,” I said instead. My gaze caught his and didn’t let go. “Someone needs to stay here. Someone I can trust. To guide them. Look after them.”
As much as I could with the dagger burning against my leathers. But I knew the one thing Vylkor cherished above anything else, even his own life.
The crater.
He’d dedicated his entire life to Solkar’s Reach. Never married. Had truly never looked with any interest at anything other than his sword.
Despite the corners of his lips tightening, he nodded gravely, like the true warrior he was, and turned back to the arena. “Good thing I still got one eye.”
I huffed a laugh through my nose.
Vylkor’s eye was another reason he had to stay home. I’d seen him stumble through the fortress halls, still not accustomed to his new vision. It would take months–maybe years–to regain his fierce precision in battle, long after the start of the war.
I wouldn’t let him be slaughtered by the Serpents.
“What about the Huntress and her kin?” he asked with much more bite than I’d anticipated.
That was another problem.
Allie would surely want to join the war.
I wanted her safe and away from bloodshed–which meant nothing if she decided otherwise.
She would be remarkable against the Serpents.
But I worried. Always when it came to her.
“No Vegheara should be out on that battlefield,” I said.
Powerful and fierce as most of them were, someone wanted that family dead. Especially Allie.
The first poisoned arrow shot at the wedding had been aimed at her.
Not Alaric.
Not Silas.
Not any of her cousins.
Her.
“I have seen your Huntress in battle,” Vylkor said. “She is not helpless.”
A rumble vibrated through my chest, pride fighting with a sudden, unexplainable jolt of jealousy I thought I’d dealt with last night.
“She’s frightening.” His tone turned foreboding. “She can control light.”
Tendrils of alarm snaked up my spine; I hadn’t foreseen this obstacle. The people of Solkar’s Reach were fierce, yes. But they were also superstitious. “You live in a land carved by magic. Our ancestors faced magical seas to reach Malhaven’s shores. Your body moves at speeds that defy nature.”
“Only Solkar has dominion over light.” He shook his head, ancient fears dancing in his eyes. “What if–what if she takes it away?”
“No human is that powerful.” I turned to him fully. “You were fine with her powers when she helped us in the passage."
“I was.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know,” he said and I heard his frustration. “I’d never seen power like that. The Protectorate was our enemy mere months ago. It’s hard to suddenly trust.”
“Trust me, then. The Huntress is no danger to us.”
“You’re my Commander, of course I trust you,” he said earnestly.
“Good. And, Vylkor, if she chooses to remain here–” If there were any merciful gods, she would. “–she will be first in command. You better get over your fear of her power until then.”
“Yes, Commander,” he said with the tone of someone who wanted to argue until the sun set, but thought better of it. Then a weird smile pulled on his lips. “At least she’s on our side and not the Serpents’.”
“Keep that blessing in mind.” I turned back to the warriors. How many of them harbored the same fears as Vylkor, but were too scared to tell me?
I heard some say the problem started when that Huntress of yours arrived, Beren’s words hissed.
Had they found a way to poison my warriors’ minds?
But how? Nobody from the Northern Clans had stepped foot in this crater for eons.
I’d seen no pamphlets like the ones polluting the Capital with lies, nor heard any whispers of dissent. Sylvester had been nothing but thorough in keeping both of his ancient eyes on the city.
He’d found no evidence of something amiss.
Nothing visible, at least.
Since my mother’s passing, only I had been burdened with the constant pulse of the crater. But it was nothing but a whisper now, like Solkar’s Reach had disowned me.
This was the worst time to go to war.
Yet I had to.
A familiar glimmer caught my eye, followed by a stab of unease.
“What are Nadya and Geryll doing here?” I asked.