Chapter Fifteen
Xandril
“Good! Again!” Hilduin shouts to her formations, her battle whip splitting the air with a crack like lightning.
From my vantage on the ramparts, I can watch their progress without disturbing it. The captain turns, cracking her whip again, then looks up to me with a wink and a smile.
I nod in return, some of the worries rooted deep in my chest finally starting to retract.
The king’s guard has gone from a useless collection of vagabonds and wastrels to a force comparable to my Emerald Wardens.
In fact, they’ve shown themselves capable enough that I might even trust them to protect my queen.
Soon. Not yet. She’s too precious.
“Why aren’t you down there?” Valenar asks, joining me from the stairs, his steps so quiet I didn’t hear him coming.
“I—” I fall silent when I spot the daggers in his hands, his tail twitching, ears flattened. “What—”
Val lunges at me before I can finish that thought. I turn just in time to block the strike. I retreat a step, trying to make sense of what in the shattered realms is happening here.
“Come on,” Val grunts, thrusting a dagger toward my exposed side.
I twist out of his reach.
“Fight me, damn it!” he cries, both daggers coming at me from different directions.
“Why?” I shout, shoving him away.
Standing at the opposite side of the walkway, Val glares at me, breathing heavily, venom in his eyes like I’ve never seen.
“I’ve never known you to be a coward, Xandril. I would not have stood by your side all these years if I thought you were. Where has your fight gone?” His tail flicks back and forth, catching on a stray twig that escapes his notice.
“Hilduin wanted me to stay out of the trainings!”
“I don’t care about Hilduin or the rotted guard. What I care about is you bending the knee to those Iron generals after everything we’ve done. Everything we sacrificed to save Emerald, you’re going to carve it up for those bastards?”
The dam.
I knew it would be an unpopular proposal with the reach, but I never thought I’d have to fight Valenar for his support. He has been with me at every other step—planning a coup, claiming the throne, finding a bloodsworn bride, and at every step, the same truth has held.
“I’m trying to do what I think is right. I’m trying to save the reach,” I growl, feet planted and braced for his next attack.
Val opens his mouth to respond and a shrill, heart-rending scream echoes through the bailey, freezing my blood in an instant.
“What was—” Val starts, but I’m already on the move.
Pushing past him, leaping down the stairs, I’m shedding my armor all before I can think. I race to the stables as fast as I can, praying I’m not too late.
I’m not the first one to respond, but most everyone is lingering outside of the stable, nervously looking on and collectively wincing when the ifrak lets out another pained bellow.
I hear her panting even as I push through the onlookers, and as I circle to the door of her stall, my worst fears are confirmed.
“Are you her bonded?” I ask one of the two demons standing outside the laboring beast’s stall.
“I’m the marshal. That’d be Visri,” he says, thumb pointing toward the other. “We were trying to help—calf’s breached, probably won’t make it—but she damn near skewered me. I told Visri to give her space, but…”
The marshal doesn’t have to finish the thought. Without intervention, it won’t be only the calf that we lose tonight. A soulbond with an ifrak is a special thing, and losing a bonded beast is a pain that dims the soul, one that no one should have to endure.
The devastation is shared among the three of us.
The birth of a new ifrak is a rare and sacred thing.
More than a mere tragedy, to lose either mother or calf—nevermind the nightmare scenario of losing them both—would cast a dark cloud over the reach that I’m not sure it could recover from in its current state.
Beyond that, there has been enough loss this winter. Enough to mourn under my rule. I’m not going to let this go without a fight.
“What’s her name?” I ask, stepping into the space between Visri and the marshal, inching ever closer to the ifrak.
“Starcaller,” Visri answers in a sob.
Hearing her name, Starcaller stamps her feet, swinging her massive head to threaten us with her tusks. Visri has to retreat, his spine bent forward with grief.
“I need you two to fetch supplies,” I say, listing some plausible items before sending them on their way.
Or trying to.
Visri stays rooted in place, pale and sick-looking, but not willing to leave.
It’d be admirable if he wasn’t wasting time. I can’t focus on helping Starcaller if I’m also trying to make sure my stable groom isn’t impaled.
“I…I can’t,” he says. “She needs me.”
My hand lands on his shoulder with more force than I intend, but that works in my favor. “You have done what you can for her. Now let me.”
“But—”
“Starcaller is as much mine as she is yours. I will not fail her,” I promise.
The groom considers it for a moment, the choice to trust me in this moment is probably making his soul scream in protest.
To his credit, he swallows whatever objections he might still have, takes a step back, then another.
“Please, Your Highness,” he says, choking down a sob as he turns away at last.
“Shh, Starcaller? I’m here to help you.” I keep my voice calm, soft, punctuating each phrase with the coos and clicks that ifrak riders use to calm them.
“I need you to trust me.” I have to be able to get close enough to reposition the calf, and I have to be able to get it done before the calf suffocates or Starcaller collapses from exhaustion.
My soothing tone and rhythmic clicks seem to be working. The frantic swirl in Starcaller’s eyes seems to slow just a bit, and staying as steady as I can, I move into the stall with her.
“There, we can trust each other, right?”
The moment I say it, I can tell I’m wrong.
Something shifts in Starcaller’s demeanor and she rears up, thrashing her head.
I’m a heartbeat away from the pointy end of her tusk going through my guts, narrowly missing that fate only to catch the broadside of it.
With the force of a battering ram, she sends me sailing across the stall into the opposite wall, even the rafters above trembling from the impact.
“Okay, maybe not trust,” I wince. “But cooperate?” I ask, pulling myself to my feet.
There’s no time to acknowledge whatever might be broken or dislodged.
Every second that passes lowers the chance that I can save either of them.
“Can we try cooperation? You can’t get through this alone,” I whisper, clicking and humming like it’s all a lullaby I’m singing to her.
One step closer, then another, hand outstretched in a peace offering.
The humming has her in a sort of trance, and I’m just about to reach her when her belly lurches and Starcaller screams again.
Head ringing, I try to focus on the ifrak and the calf wriggling inside her, its legs pressing out at all the wrong angles.
They don’t have time for me to worry about going deaf. And the moment I hesitate or show fear, she’s going to kick me out by whatever means necessary. With every strand of my soul telling me to hurry, I have to project calm. I have to stay steady or I risk spooking her again.
But every time I get close to being able to manipulate the calf, Starcaller’s wracked by another painful contraction that makes her shy away.
I’m planning my next approach when all of my senses sharpen.
Suddenly, every part of me is on high alert, and I know deep in my bones that we’re not alone.
Without looking, I know who it is, too. There’s only one person who has this effect on me, and the waft of her sweet floral scent is the last bit of confirmation I need.
I curse the swell of emotion that rises from deep within me.
I’d thought that it only happened when I looked at her, so I’ve done my best to look past her at every available opportunity, but now it’s her presence alone that brings up that unnameable feeling. Also anger. So much anger.
“You need to leave,” I shout over my shoulder. She’s putting herself in harm’s way just by being here. The stable walls have held up to Starcaller’s rampage thus far, but there’s no telling how she’ll react when she realizes she’s lost her calf.
If she loses it.
“I heard the cries,” Ingrid says, panting as if she ran here the same way I did. “I thought it was a woman, but then they told me it was Starcaller, so I—”
“You need to leave,” I growl again. Starcaller swings her tusks, and I manage to avoid them entirely this time…only to take a swift kick to the center of my chest.
Ingrid’s hand reaches down, offering to help me up.
“It’s not safe for you here,” I tell her, letting myself indulge in the soft warmth of her touch as I slip my hand into hers. I pull myself up with my own strength, but I can’t resist that chance to touch her. “You need to go outside.”
She crosses her arms in front of her, face flushed, either from her run down here or the argument, who’s to say which. “I can help,” she says, petulant.
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t need your help, and I don’t need you broken into pieces.”
I start to step around her, but Ingrid moves to block me. “Well, I don’t need you broken in pieces, so perhaps it’s best if we work together.”
Why would it matter to her what happens to me? She would still be queen.
“I’m not hopeless,” she adds, shrugging off her cloak. “I do have experience with this sort of thing. Normally sheep and cows, mind you, but I learn fast. Trust me.”
I’m trying to form a response to that while she’s tying her golden hair into a knot behind her head, the precise movements of her fingers leaving me mesmerized for a beat.
She drops her hands and tilts her head to the side, leveling a look at me that could rival any I’ve seen from courtiers. “Is your pride more important to the reach than these animals?”
Shattered realms, she’s incredible.
“Fine. We’ve wasted too much time arguing about it,” I snap. “Stand over there and do what you can to calm her.”
Ingrid arches a brow at me, hands on her hips, and for a moment I think she’s going to keep the argument going.
The moment passes, though, and she circles to Starcaller’s front, singing the same hums and clicks to Starcaller that Visri and I had.
And it’s definitely singing when she does it.
Soft and sweet. So melodic that my breathing slows as much as Starcaller’s.
With the panic gone, clarity moves in. Ingrid keeps Starcaller’s focus on her, and I move around the animal without fear of being trampled.
It’ll be a mercy from the gods if we’re even able to save Starcaller, but I know without a conversation that Ingrid is as determined as I am to save them both.
By the time I’ve started actually repositioning the calf, the crowd of onlookers has moved into the stable, the intrigue of both royals being involved in such an event is too great to resist. Visri and the stable marshal have brought all the supplies I asked for but never needed, and their nervous energy is mixed in with all the other tension, a whole stable of breaths held each time I make another calculated move.
It’s no easy task with a creature this large.
The calf isn’t much smaller than I am, and there might not be another demon who could do this unassisted.
Starcaller is already fighting her instincts to let me and Ingrid be in the stall with her, there’s no way she would tolerate another body, not even her bonded.
I have to do this on my own, and it requires every bit of strength and finesse that I possess.
Working from multiple angles, I maneuver the calf inside her belly, muscles screaming for a break, sweat dripping to the hay-strewn floor.
It’s hard, exhausting labor for both me and the ifrak mother, but the moment the calf’s head emerges, we get the second wind needed to see it through to the end.
Front legs follow the head and neck, and then the whole calf slides out in a deluge of blood and fluids.
I could be swimming in it for all I care right now.
Every bit of my attention is on the calf.
I’ve got to get it on its feet in the first couple of minutes or it won’t be able to support itself.
Ingrid’s still humming to Starcaller, praising her for doing such a good job, but the ifrak’s not having it.
She knows something’s wrong, and the mournful cry that leaves her as she nudges the still calf is almost more than I can bear.
I was too late.
I failed the reach.
Again.
“What’s wro—oh,” Ingrid says, coming around to investigate.
I look to her to see if this loss has as profound an impact on a human as it does the rest of us, but she doesn’t seem to understand.
Instead of standing back and letting the mother grieve, Ingrid moves in, hefting the calf’s head into her lap and using her dress to clear the blood and mucus from the babe’s snout.
She works quickly, not in a rushed, panicked sort of way, but confident, efficient.
I can’t see everything she’s doing because I’m now focused on making sure Starcaller doesn’t turn hysterical and crush us all. Mostly Ingrid.
There’s a small squeak, and I first think it’s Ingrid coming to accept reality, but then Starcaller trumpets and her calf sneezes again, wobbling up to shaky legs as it seeks out its mother’s milk.
“I…You… We did it?” I stammer, still not believing it.
“We did!” Ingrid cries, flinging her arms around me, too short for her hands to connect.
So dainty. And precious. Soft and sweet.
But strong. Amazing.
I wrap my arms around her in return, neither one of us caring about the blood and gore covering us. With the thrill of success coursing through my veins and Ingrid in my arms, I can only think one thing.
Mine.