Chapter Forty-Six
Réalta Avermont
“Hurry over here!” Gilen yelled as he shifted from his roc form. “Réalta, I need help. He needs stitching along this wound.”
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Fidela’s nearly empty saddlebag bounced at my hip, but still, I pushed on. The wounded kept coming. I couldn’t fight with my soldiers, shifters, or High Fae, but I could try to keep them alive.
I skidded to a stop as Gilen carefully slid a wounded male shifter from his shoulder onto the ground. His base layer was torn to shreds, and a deep gash split his brow, blood smearing the features of his face.
“Do you know him?” I asked, fingers fumbling as I tried to thread a needle.
“Yes.” Gilen’s voice was clipped, unwilling to give me more.
I’d seen Gilen earlier through the trees, flying from the battlefield with what looked like a bear in his talons after helping save Castor and Gunnar.
“I’ll find a High Fae and see if they have any more healing vials to spare,” Gilen said, standing to his full height, though his eyes never left his fallen friend.
“Go. I’ll do what I can.” I waved him off, then called after him before he was out of reach. “Wait! If he wakes up, what’s his name?”
I didn’t want another delirious warrior or shifter waking up and trying to kill me. That had happened three times already, and I doubted my luck would stretch to a fourth.
“Xander,” he whispered in a low tone, as if saying the name cost him something.
“And he’s your—” I started, pinching the torn skin of the shifter’s brow together.
Gilen’s eyes snapped to mine. “He’s not a lover.” He swallowed hard, sighing. “He… he was my beta.”
“Oh,” I said softly. “That’s—”
“It’s not something you’ll ever understand.”
And with that, he turned and ran into the forest.
Well, alright then.
I had barely knotted the last stitch when the valley erupted.
Shots cracked through the air between the mountains.
Sharp snapping sounds echoed against the rocks along the base, followed by mournful cries rising with them.
The deaths of humans, shifters, and High Fae all blending into one mournful chorus that would haunt me until my dying breath.
The ground trembled beneath the weight of clashing forces, the scent of smoke drifting in on a rising wind.
I pressed a clean wrap to Xander’s middle, binding a different wound tight. “Stay with me,” I whispered, though he was still unconscious.
Great, now I’m talking to people who can’t even hear me.
A horn sounded to the south, and my breath stilled.
From where our healers’ station opened to the battlefield, I noticed that Minaeve’s human force had broken formation. They weren’t pressing toward the shifter flank. Instead, they were turning, charging straight toward the river that cut like a hidden wound between the mountains.
“The High Fae ships,” I whispered, hope beaming bright against the sound of battle.
Fae sailors flew the banner of Skylar and Daxton, bows raised and decks lined with new High Fae eager to join this fight. The human forces surged toward them in a brutal wave, and at the very front of that wave, astride a familiar black warhorse, was my father.
A pulse of something hot and fierce shot through me.
I tightened the last knot in Xander’s bandage with trembling fingers, then shoved my tools back into my half-empty satchel. Around me, healers shouted warnings, supplies clattered, and someone screamed for help. But everything fell into a blur, washed out beneath the pounding in my ears.
“Fidela!” I called.
My mare’s head snapped up from where she’d been tethered. She whinnied sharply, sensing my urgency. Before I could think better of it, I hauled myself onto her back, taking the reins. My heart hammered as loud as the cannons firing from the river.
“Go, Fidela!” I said, kicking her side, before I could change my mind.
We tore into the fray, dodging fleeing shifters and streaks of High Fae blades battling against mages, their magic lighting the space in blinding color. Dirt and ash flipped from the worn grass and stung my cheeks. But still, I rode faster, pushing through chaos that I had no business entering.
But my father was there.
I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, but something deep inside me said I had to try to bring him back.
Fidela’s hooves thundered beneath me as we crossed the last stretch of blood-soaked grass. All around us, soldiers clashed, magic shrieked across the sky, and the valley rang with cries of pain and fury. But I barely saw any of it.
My father, King Taran, rode at the front of the human forces. His expression was carved from stone—hard and merciless. Not the man who once taught me to ride. Not the man who, despite his grief, raised me to become his heir and lead with my heart.
“Father!” I shouted.
His head jerked toward me. His horse skidded to a halt, hooves churning mud and chunks of grass. For a moment, I thought he recognized me. Then I saw it… A dark shimmer slid across his eyes, like something beneath the surface was trying to claw its way out, or perhaps hold him in.
“Minaeve…” I whispered. “What has she done to you?”
“Réalta.” His voice was all wrong, like he was someone else. “You should not be here.”
“Father, please,” I begged, easing Fidela closer even as the mare snorted nervously, ears pinned back. “Fight her. I know you’re still in there. Look at me! Please!”
His gaze twitched, and for a moment, here in the thick of battle, I thought I had him. But then his grip tightened around the hilt of his sword, and a tremor of dark magic pulsed through the air, raising the hairs on my arms.
“Leave,” he said, his tone commanding. “Or be cut down.”
My heart twisted. “You would never—”
A distant boom swallowed my words as light flashed from the river gorge. I barely had time to turn my head before cannon fire screamed across the battlefield, tearing through the valley.
The shockwave hit before I could brace myself.
“Fidela!” I cried as the mare reared in panic, her scream piercing the explosion’s roar.
Something slammed into my chest, forcing the air from my lungs.
My vision blurred and the valley tilted, dissolving into shards of color and pain as I fell from my saddle, the taste of blood and earth filling my mouth.
Voices echoed distantly, like they were dragged through water.
Somewhere above me, horses screamed, men shouted, and the white ship’s cannons reloaded with a metallic groan that made my bones vibrate.
I tried to push myself up but failed. The ground rumbled beneath me with the thundering feet of soldiers clashing in battle. My ears rang, but I pressed my palms against the ground, forcing myself up.
And then, a shadow fell over me.
At first, I thought it was smoke, or a trick of the light from the sun overhead. But then it moved, and the air grew cold enough to fog the breath from my lungs.
Oh, gods, a nalusa falaya, a fallen.
Its form was wrong—jagged, as if carved from living shadow. Skeletal fingers stretched out toward me, and I swallowed a panicked scream as a sword appeared in the other hand. Darkness clung to it like a tattered cloth, and where a face should have been, there was only a hollow void.
My pulse lurched. “No,” I rasped, scrambling backward.
Pain flared through my middle from my fall, and I had no weapon to defend myself. My healer’s dagger was gone, lost when I was thrown from Fidela. I pawed at the ground, fingers brushing dirt, grass, searching for something, anything I could use. But there was nothing.
The fallen crouched, its elongated arm raising a blade of shadow that shimmered like it was hungry for more blood.
I tried to scream, but my voice broke.
“Réalta!”
I’d recognize his voice anywhere.
“Stop!” my father roared.
Gods, I had never seen him run like that. Not a king or a warrior, but a father protecting his daughter.
“Father!” I cried, reaching out.
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes seeing him come for me, knowing that Minaeve’s magic was not strong enough to allow him to stand by and watch his daughter die.
The fallen’s blade froze in midair, its hooded head tilting toward Taran. “This human has turned against the queen,” it said, voice raspy like it had been screaming for years.
My father threw himself between us, his back toward me, shielding me from the wrath of the fallen creature.
“This is my daughter,” Taran said with the authority of a king. “I will deal with her myself.”
My stomach dropped as he turned, drawing a dagger from his belt, eyes dark and determined for blood.
“Father?” I trembled, refusing to comprehend what my eyes were telling me.
He took a step toward me. The blade was angled over my chest as he raised his arm overhead. “You… are too weak to rule, Réalta.”
I never realized words could break a person’s soul. My insides shattered as he spoke against me. Bile rose in my throat as I realized that my own father was going to kill me.
I caged my breath and closed my eyes, every fiber in my body tensing, ready to absorb the blow, when a massive growl broke the silence. I snapped my eyes open to see my father flying as a massive bear swatted him aside like he was nothing more than an insect on a windowsill.
Speechless, I gawked wide-eyed at the bear standing protectively over me.
Behind him, the fallen skeletal creature shrieked as it raised its blade once more, ready to attack, when the tip of a broad sword speared its neck, slicing through whatever this creature was made of.
The fallen’s corpse blew apart into a cloud of choking black dust, dissolving across the trampled earth.
The last of its shriek faded into the roar of battle around us.
Captain Wyndfall appeared behind the creature, sword raised, breath ragged.
His armor was dented and splattered with blood: some his, and some not.
Head on a swivel, he scanned our surroundings for another threat as a scream tore through the skies followed by golden feathers slicing through the clouds of smoke and destruction.
Swooping down, Gilen shifted and ran toward me. “Princess, what in the gods’ names were you—” he started, then stopped when he took in the scene, his head snapping to the bear. “You healed quickly.”
The bear grunted, shaking its massive head.
I looked at the creature who saved me from my father, and my gaze met the warmest set of cocoa-colored eyes I had ever seen. They were deep and full of wonder, but also a hidden strength that somehow seemed to flow into me.
The bear moved forward, lowered its head, and offered me a lever to stand.
“Princess, meet Xander,” Gilen said, shaking his head.
“Xander,” I repeated. A low rumble vibrated against my palm as I ran it down the bear’s back. “Thank you.”
“He said he owed you for stitching up his head and wrapping his chest,” Gilen added.
“You’re welcome,” I said, the feeling of his fur softer than I thought it would be against my touch.
“Réalta?” Captain Wyndfall’s voice cracked, bringing me back to the present. The hardened captain who never faltered appeared shaken. “What do you want to do with—”
“He’s mine,” I cut in, releasing the bear’s fur and striding across the grass to stand before my father. I looked down at him as he struggled to breathe. The swipe of the bear’s claws had ripped into his side like a knife through butter.
He was dying.
“Réalta.” He gasped, dark eyes finding mine.
I hardened my stare, kneeling beside him as my fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger he held above me only moments ago.
I steadied my resolve as I raised the blade. “Your reign ends today, King Taran.” And I plunged the dagger into his chest.
The sound was wet and sickening. Something I would never be able to forget. His body jerked as the blade pierced through his armor, through flesh and bone, like it was nothing, sinking into his heart.
I sobbed, my hand shaking. And despite the rage and betrayal spiraling through my chest, I reached out and held my father tight, not wanting to let go.
“Réalta. Thank you for freeing me.” His voice was coarse and barely above a whisper. “Now, you… are queen.”
There he was—my father. The man who, despite his own heartache, loved me. Who raised me to lead our people with a strong heart.
My voice was hardly more than a whisper. “You came back. For a moment, you came back to me and then…”
And then his chest failed to rise, and his heart stopped beating.
I’d killed my father. The king was dead.
Captain Wyndfall knelt beside us. “The hatred in his heart was too much for him to overcome, Princess. You made the right choice.”
“The darkness he already bore was too easy for Minaeve to manipulate to her control, Réalta,” Gilen said quietly. “And now, you are queen.”
A sob tore from me, ugly and raw. I bowed over my father’s chest, fingers clutching his armor while the battle raged on, feeling distant.
“We need to move,” Gilen said after a moment, his tone soft but still urgent. “The front line is pushing this way. And Minaeve will have felt his mind snapping from her control. She’ll know he’s gone.”
The ground trembled underfoot. There was another blast, another scream… But I couldn’t bring myself to move, not yet.
“Réalta…” Wyndfall hesitated. “I understand this pain. I loved your father as a brother. But if you stay out in the open—”
“Just a moment,” I whispered.
Wyndfall bowed his head and granted it while Gilen paced uneasily behind me. The bear seemed content to stay with us, making no sound of protest.
I released my father, the corrupted king, sensing a sliver of darkness settle beneath my ribs.
In that moment, the final lesson of ruling became clear: even those who dream of ruling with love and a gentle hand must make choices that will haunt them.
The crown did not fall onto my head. It was carved there, in the blood of my father, that would forever stain my hands.
Now I was queen, and I had a kingdom to help save.
“Alright, I’m ready,” I said in a balanced voice. “Let’s go.”