Chapter 13
Nyra paced along the top of the low stone wall that ringed the eastern yard. Her breath plumed white in the cold, and her shadow stretched long behind her across the pale frost under the first hint of dawn.
Down below, a Keth Veyl had ordered the clearing of the vast courtyard and scattering of salt against the slick stone. Companies of Sylphar already filled the space. They shifted into ranks without a word spoken aloud, flowing like a flock of silent geese answering some unseen call. The High Veyl moved among their assigned groups with quiet gestures, guiding each unit into place.
She stood at the edge, arms folded over her armor, and watched as three hundred Veyl archers drew their bows as one. There was no shouted cadence, no barked command. The only sound was the soft collective intake of breath as the archers raised, nocked, and aimed. With a single gesture from the frontmost Keth Veyl, a flat palm slicing downward, the entire front line released their arrows in a rolling wave. The shafts hissed through the morning air before striking the distant targets. Even at this range, most found purchase in the straw, clustered around the painted rings with uncanny precision.
She paced to the far side of the wall as the lines shifted, files folding inward and outward like a living spiral. Across each rank, the whole formation turned on invisible axes, every motion mirrored in perfect sync. Archers adjusted with no spoken command, responding only to the quick, subtle signals passed hand to hand along the line.
Down the sides, a dozen groups of skirmishers weaved in between the painted posts, some sprinting, others skipping the raised cords that spanned the space at calf-height. The groups reached the far side, then fanned and pivoted, the file turning on the heel of its foremost male, a High Veyl. Not one checked for orders, not one faltered. Nyra watched a silver-haired Veyl trip, roll, and fall back in line without breaking the stride of those behind, its skin flushing a deep violet-red in embarrassment.
She let the routine continue for another hour, taking mental notes on the strengths and weaknesses. The Sylphar armies did not rely on brute force or massed numbers, but on the interplay of hundreds of individual calculations that worked together as a whole. They were trained from infancy to obey with no need to be told and to read a gesture’s intent before it was made. It was beautiful in its way, but it carried a cost, as one mistake could fracture the whole, and hesitation was a death sentence.
Nyra scanned the formation, searching for that flaw. She saw it near the center. One of the mid-line archers lagged a fraction of a second behind the volley, her arrow flying wide and low. Nyra memorized the female’s face, then turned to the aide who stood just behind her.
“Tell the Keth Veyl to watch the fifth row, center. There’s a weakness there. Assign two High Veyl to shadow and report on her progress.”
The aide nodded and vanished.
She exhaled and let her eyes drift to the west, where the sun had begun to illuminate the highest peaks of the pass. If the humans attacked now, at this very hour, they would meet the full force of Sylphar readiness. And if they chose to wait, she would spend every morning honing the drills until perfection was the only thing left.
She allowed herself a slight moment of pride as she remembered the chaos of the human armies, how their officers, the equivalent of her Keth Veyl, shouted themselves hoarse, the endless trumpet signals, and the way their soldiers stumbled through formation like half-broken oxen. The contrast made her laugh, a soft, private sound.
She watched for a long time until the sky was bright and the archers’ breath no longer steamed. When the session ended, she climbed down from the wall, her boots hitting the packed earth with finality. The archers watched her as she passed, and she acknowledged each with a nod. The female in the fifth row stared at her boots, but Nyra caught her gaze and held it for a moment, letting the memory of the mistake burn itself into her mind.
She continued to the entrance of the keep, stopped just inside the entrance, and allowed the open air one final gust against her. The wind could funnel in curious ways through Redan Pass, and it caused her to shiver a little. Nyra had never minded the cold, but today, on the threshold of her new conquest, with her fingers curled around the sharp stone of the entry, a downdraft spiraled from the cleft above and whipped across her face with the icy, crystalline shock of a blade. It skittered along her jaw, up her cheek, across the patchwork of old scars that criss-crossed her face, making her blink. The feeling brought her mind unbidden to a place she had not allowed herself to visit in months.
Dawn in the Sylphar capital, Auralith, cityscape ablaze with first light, with every building face in the enormous market a shattered gold and violet, every curve and angle remade in a thousand prisms. She remembered the bells in the high courts, each ring unfurling like a ribbon through the streets and alleys, threading through the haggling and laughter and the soft, secret music of a people who had learned the art of beauty even in war. As a child, Nyra had scaled the buttresses of her mother’s workshop to watch the sun explode across the city’s crown. She had dreamed of command, of a place in the histories. She missed those simple days.
The wind changed, and for a heartbeat she felt ten years old again, with skinned knees and a mind on fire, certain she could change the world if someone handed her the right set of keys of power. She gripped the hilt of her sword with her off-hand and let the memory burn, sharp and stinging. She wondered, not for the first time, whether those towers would ever welcome her home again.
She blinked hard and set her jaw. Nostalgia would not rule her. Not here, not now.
Instead, she took a deep breath, adjusted her collar so the scarred line of her neck was less prominent, and lifted her chin. The bells of Auralith were still in her ears, but they rang less now like a summons and more like a reminder not to forget who she was. To not forget what she had been given.
She stepped through the entrance, the heavy door closing behind her, and allowed the chill of the pass to fall away into memory. In the silence of the entry hall, she exhaled, slow and even, and allowed herself one small moment of gratitude that the world outside was as cold as she needed to be. Then she strode down the corridor, armor gleaming, skin shimmering, every line of her body honed to purpose.