Chapter Forty-One #2
Aemyra spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground as Clea hauled the body out from under their feet with a hasty blessing.
“Are you all right?” Adarian shouted from the back of his horse.
Massaging her side, Aemyra didn’t have time to worry if she had just sustained an internal injury.
“Get Iona and Nell into position now!” she yelled.
With one last look at Adarian, she left her guard behind and fought her way closer to the city walls with Fiorean. Soon they were surrounded by Dùileach affected by the chemical agents, struggling to overcome the Covenanters with their magic muted and veins burning.
Gritting her teeth as she felt the familiar cloying sensation of the binding agent, Aemyra held fast to Fearsolais as her magic petered out.
“Just a little longer,” she ground out desperately.
Maeve’s infantry were being overrun, and the Balnain fleet was kindling on the waves. If they didn’t activate the antidote quickly, there wouldn’t be any Dùileach left to save.
“Fiorean!” Aemyra yelled as a surge of Covenanters pushed through the lines.
As though it went against every one of his instincts, her husband turned away from her. Obeying his queen to the very last. The Covenanters’ jerky and aggressive fighting style wasn’t suited to compact combat, and Fiorean’s smooth, rotational technique made short work of the soldiers.
He cut down the line of men with his sword until he reached Maeve. As planned, her infantry locked their shields and lifted their king above the crowd.
Fiorean remained steady on his knees and unsheathed Aemyra’s dagger, the red gem held aloft.
Gritting her teeth, Aemyra sheathed Fearsolais and sprinted for the nearest trebuchet. Scrambling up the splintered wooden beams, she had almost made it when a Covenanter grabbed her ankle.
“Where are you going, Queenie?” he taunted, flinging her to the ground.
Her bones rattled as she landed, neck straining to avoid a head injury, and she just managed to get Fearsolais between them.
“You Dùileach scum are all the same,” he spat.
Side-stepping her blade, he reached down, gripped Aemyra by the neck, and squeezed. Terror flooded her system and she scrambled against him, twisting just enough that his hand slipped.
Unfortunately, he found Thear’s necklace.
“The pursuit of vanity will never fill the void in your souls,” the Covenanter said, wrenching the chain back so it dug into the soft skin of Aemyra’s throat.
There were too many fighting soldiers around them, and she wasn’t even sure Fiorean could see her. She clawed at her neck, leaving bloody scratch marks on her own skin as she tried to stop this man from strangling her.
But the chain was thin and it cut into her throat effectively as the Covenanter leaned back with all his might.
Just as Aemyra thought she was about to die, the clasp snapped.
The Covenanter reeled backward and she gasped for air on her hands and knees, unable to see where Fearsolais was.
“Move!”
The shout came from directly above as Riya landed with Sujaron, an arrow already embedded in the eye of the man who had tried to strangle her.
Gasping for air, Aemyra looked wildly around for the crystal.
The damp sand was growing more compact around the hundreds of pairs of boots and darkening with blood.
But there was no sign of Thear’s mother’s crystal.
“No,” Aemyra croaked through her damaged throat.
A queen scrabbling in the dirt, Aemyra shoved corpses out of the way, desperate to find their last hope.
Just as she thought it was impossible, her palm slid across the smooth stone and she plucked it from the sand. Not wasting any more time, putting the aches of her body and fury of her dragon from her mind, she scrambled back up the trebuchet.
Fiorean was still in position, his face pale as he beheld her with blood streaming down her neck. Hands shaking, Aemyra pushed her tangled braid out of her face so she could see, fingers catching on the iron of the brooch.
“Great Mother have mercy on us,” she intoned as she thrust her arm out into open air.
She held the crystal in position, in perfect alignment with the garnet.
From ten rows behind her, Adarian gave the signal. Wreathing his palm in flames, he waved it in an arc and fifty of his cavalrymen raised the clay pots above their heads with shaking arms.
The phoenix warriors had sacrificed their magic, and in some cases their lives, to confiscate and empty the pots of the chemical agents.
To be refilled with Adarian’s liquid suspension.
Utterly confused, the Covenanters hesitated in their advance, wondering if this was some kind of trick.
Splattered with blood and gore, Nell and Iona joined Laoise and Clea at last and summoned their elements.
Aemyra braced herself. If this blast of power incinerated her arm, then that was the price she would pay. But it had to work. She had to free every Dùileach in this territory from the agents of the Chosen.
Without looking, she heard the four elements being summoned. A rumble of the earth, the sharp bite of flame, an impossible gust of air, and the damp kiss of water. Ready to combine in an act of magic that had not been seen since the Fifty Year War.
As if time had slowed down, Aemyra waited for the blast and her eyes landed on a healer several rows back. Too many hailed the courage of fighting warriors and forgot about the strength required to cheat death. To heal.
A gift more powerful than any other.
That’s it, Aemyra thought.
She lowered the crystal.
“What are you doing?!” she heard Fiorean roar.
The four elements had already been released, twisting loops of magic soaring over the heads of the fighting chimeras. When the elements hit the gemstone, they blasted through the garnet in a writhing mess.
Then Aemyra ripped the brooch from her hair and switched Thear’s crystal for Bronwyn’s.
The one containing spirit magic.
Magic that Bronwyn herself had said could only be used to heal and protect.
Just like an antidote.
When the elements amplified by the garnet hit the crystal, they merged into a beam of pure white light.
Fiorean was almost knocked from the shields and Maeve was forced to anchor him in place lest the connection break. The scabbard of the dagger prevented the weapon from slicing his fingers, but his hold was precarious.
The bolt of light shuddered through the brooch and the iron grew hot in Aemyra’s hands, hot enough that she wished she could summon her shields to protect her.
Then light exploded from the crystal in all directions.
Pure blessed magic struck the clay pots and shattered them, mist exploding over every Dùileach who had been affected by the chemical agents.
As quickly as the beam of light had arrived, it winked out and Aemyra sagged against the trebuchet. Clea had collapsed, her magic completely drained, and Iona’s face was as pale as her hair, but they had summoned enough. Surely it had worked?
But the Dùileach of her army had cringed away from the antidote, fearing it to be another trick of the Covenanters who were still ripping through the lines of infantry with reckless abandon.
“Why isn’t it working?” Aemyra muttered, terrified that she had made a mistake.
Ignoring the pain in her throat and back, Aemyra clutched the splintered wood and made ready to curse every Goddess personally.
Then, like a single candle lighting the way through the darkness, a Dùileach flame emerged.
Covenanters hesitated upon sighting the impossible, and suddenly another flame joined it, then a few rows back a whip of air, and a jet of water.
The antidote had worked.
It had worked.
Aemyra smacked her hand against the trebuchet in desperate relief, a sob choking her.
Clipping the brooch back into her braid, she gave thanks to Bronwyn.
None of them had even thought to use spirit magic in the experiments. Unheard of for two centuries, they hadn’t even considered it could be the missing component.
Suddenly, the tide of the battle turned. The cavalry urged their horses to advance, Adarian weaving expertly through the lines of soldiers to catch up, hatchet swinging from one hand, fire in the other.
Fiorean leaped from the shields, blood splattered across one side of his face as he fought beside Maeve.
“With me!” Aemyra screamed, raising a flame-filled fist above her head.
From far behind, the pipes sounded to both rouse her army and terrify the enemy.
Cheers went up for the queen, her soldiers pushing forward with determination. The enemy clansmen balked, but the Covenanters stood firm outside the city walls.
It wouldn’t matter now—with the antidote administered, victory would be theirs.
A dragon’s roar came from the night-draped sky above, and Aemyra hoped her father was seeing this from Gealach’s back, prayed that she was at last making Draevan proud.
She didn’t have time to find out because before she could scramble down from the trebuchet, it exploded.
Landing on the compact sand, the wind was knocked from her lungs and she threw a hand up to protect herself from the shards of wood raining down.
She didn’t even have space to get her legs underneath her before the first Covenanter attacked.
A jet of fire seared his face before he could reach her, and Aemyra coated herself in flame.
Unable to get to her feet, she wielded her magic in an inferno of death.
They fell where they were slain, bodies trapping her on the ground, and she realized she was in trouble.
When the next assailant crushed her chest, Aemyra wondered if she might win the battle but not survive herself.
Then emerald claws landed in the sand, a barbed tail swiping lines of Covenanters away, and Draevan skidded to his knees.
With a mighty push, her father freed her as Gealach roared his challenge to the enemy army, flames licking his teeth.
Draevan’s black armor was gleaming in the torchlight as he took up a defensive position in front of Aemyra.
Her father, facing down thousands of soldiers with Dorchadas held aloft.
“Get away from my daughter,” he growled.
Draevan gave no warning before he cut his hand through the air, a violent slicing motion that no one registered until the whisper-thin line of fire burned away the throats of a hundred men.
They collapsed to the sand, and suddenly Fiorean was helping Aemyra to her feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked, bending his forehead to hers, thumb skating the thin line of blood circling her throat.
Still struggling to take a breath, all she could do was nod as her father backed up to stand beside them.
“Three dragons and four Daercathians against six thousand men. I like those odds,” Draevan said eagerly.
In answer, Fiorean summoned his magic.
Her husband commanded fire like it should be afraid of him.
Faced with Gealach, the enemy soldiers balked. The blue banners streaked with wavy lines to represent Clan Sutherland, and the city of Edinbane began to tremble alongside the white pennant of the True Religion.
“You have made your choice to fight against the true queen,” Draevan bellowed into the night. “The might of Clan Daercathian is upon you. Choose to fight, and you will die. Surrender, and your queen in her benevolent mercy will let you live.”
Aemyra lifted her chin and tried to look like a queen instead of a crushed, weary soldier.
Aervor and Terrea circled overhead, like vultures anticipating a carrion feast, and Gealach growled menacingly beside the three Daercathians.
Most bearing the Sutherland banners turned tail and ran, leaving a wall of black armored Covenanters in their stead.
“Is this surrender?” Fiorean muttered.
Draevan made an angry noise in the back of his throat and sent Gealach up into the air.
“If they value their lives,” Aemyra replied.
If Laird Lorna Sutherland was yielding the city now, Aemyra would accept it to spare her people, then take her head for treason.
Just as they thought it was over, Covenanters appeared on the city walls, each of them with a bound and gagged priestess held precariously on the edge.
“Not surrender then,” Aemyra said.
Fiorean and Draevan automatically took up defensive positions in front of the queen as the lines of Covenanters parted to let someone through. A sandy-haired woman who could only have been Laird Lorna Sutherland approached, to reveal whatever leverage she thought would save her life.
Another ache swept through Aemyra’s torso from back to front, and she suspected the spear had done more damage than she had originally thought.
Laird Lorna came to a stop flanked by three guards, thousands of Covenanters blocking the way into the city behind. The woman was a little older than Draevan, and there was nothing but hatred in her eyes as she glared at the Daercathians.
“Was the sgillinn you received from Athair Alfred worth ferrying Covenanters through your port now?” Draevan asked.
Laird Lorna looked disgusted. “Athair Alfred and I had hoped Fiorean would prove useful to our cause. It seems we were mistaken to trust him.”
The promise mark burned and Aemyra stepped forward, eyes flitting up to the priestesses on the high walls.
“I am the true queen. Surrender now and I will spare your clanspeople.”
“Your Grace,” Lorna began, managing to make the title sound like a mockery. “Our fight is a holy one, a quest sent to us by the Savior himself to purge the world of all evil.”
“Those priestesses are not evil.” Aemyra raised her voice so that all the soldiers in the vicinity could hear her. “And I will fight to my very last breath for them.”
Lorna laughed. “Your Goddesses are nothing more than false imaginings. There are no records of them, no tangible evidence that they ever existed. They are a delusion that lives within your minds, and your magic is a corruption, a twist of nature born in your blood. Your Bonding with beasts is a sick, perverted custom that must be abolished.”
Draevan’s fire banked as his hands began to shake, his fury on behalf of the Goddesses terrifyingly apparent.
“You have lost. Throw down your swords, free those you have taken prisoner, and turn the city over to me,” Aemyra commanded.
Then a voice came from behind Laird Lorna.
“The dragon queen cares only for her precious Dùileach. Those of us without magic will never prosper under her rule, no matter how many false promises she makes.”
With a clatter of shields, soldiers parted to reveal a raven-haired woman in humble homespun wool who Aemyra needed no help in recognizing.
Sorcha.