Chapter 29
RAINIER
There was a family huddled in the middle of the square.
Just north of the Wend, but close enough that Em would have evacuated them, a woman knelt. She pulled her two small children toward her, burying their heads in her chest. With sunrise approaching, a dense mist had taken over, making it hard to see. The woman’s ginger hair was mussed, as if she’d been dragged out of her bed, but I couldn’t tell if they were injured.
I’d already rifted and taken care of the enemy archers on my walls, waiting to pick off my soldiers as they were pushed northward by the Nythyrians who had scaled our walls and broken down our wards. And when the rifts opened around us, more soldiers pouring out, it was clear what they wanted to do. I’d done everything I could to avoid it.
But I had to ruin our own defense by destroying the walls—making the ground rumble and bury what had stood for millennia. I would not have my soldiers backed into a corner.
But now, there was not a single soldier in sight as we moved south to meet our own. We crept down an alleyway, and I was confused by the sight before me. Debris and bodies littered the ground, and there was no one else in the middle of the square. So quiet, the only sound I heard was the muffled wailing of the toddler clutched to the woman’s chest.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Lasu asked, as he crept forward on my left. Without Dewalt, Lasu had quickly taken on the responsibility of defending my weaker side. Though it was his left eye missing, and he’d joked that perhaps he ought to be on my right, I had every confidence in the man.
“Don’t move,” I warned, certain it was some sort of trap. Gone were the sounds of my soldiers who had rushed to defend their city the moment the horns blared. I couldn’t understand where they’d gone. And the family huddled in the square, just beside an upended cart, made no sense either. No one seemed to be holding them captive, and yet the mother’s body shook as if she were stifling sobs, and the toddler continued to cry.
Spotting a trellis leading to the top of an abandoned tavern, I motioned for Lasu to climb it with me. I didn’t want to open a rift and risk drawing the attention of whatever the woman was fearful of. Quietly, we climbed to the roof, avoiding weather-rotted tiles beneath our feet. It was still dark, though pockets of fire had started in the Wend, and the mist made it nearly impossible to see.
“There’s a ward there,” Lasu pointed out, noting the blood-drawn circle in the center of the square. Well, I wasn’t meant to rift into it, that was for certain.
The newborn at the woman’s chest let out a piercing shriek, and she fearfully shushed it. At this angle, I was better able to see the shroud of shadows twirling around them, indistinguishable from the mist this early in the morning.
“Not sure the point of this,” Lasu grumbled, crouching at the edge of the roof. “They’ve laid siege to a city full of innocents. Do they expect you?—”
“Rainier,” the Supreme’s voice boomed—echoing into the night. I flinched, and I reached for my ear. It was so fucking loud, I wondered if he burst my gods damn eardrum. For a brief second, the clash of metal and shouts of battle were clear, but they dimmed quickly. Frantically, I searched for the Supreme—Zaphus—but there was no sight of him. He chuckled, and shivers ran up my spine.
“We do not wish to rule over corpses, Rainier. It is time you surrender. It is time she gives me what I want.”
“Look,” Lasu said, pointing a few streets over, only visible because of our height. I blinked, confused, when I saw movement. Soldiers fought in the streets. The glint of metal was clear alongside flashes of light and wisps of shadow. And yet, we couldn’t hear a sound. Were we supposed to think we were alone? That my soldiers wouldn’t be in danger if I did what the Supreme asked?
Suddenly, a growl reverberated below us, and the woman screamed.
The swirling shadows had morphed into something else. On four legs, three animals paced around the small family, snarling and gnashing their teeth.
“For every five minutes your wife is not here with her blood, I will allow my wolves a taste,” the Supreme’s voice echoed once more. It seemed he had been blessed by Ciarden, after all. I swallowed, and my stomach tightened.
“What if you use Emmeline’s light?” Lasu asked, nodding toward the shadow creatures. “Would they be able to withstand it?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. And besides that, I wasn’t sure what kind of ward they’d drawn. Could it block my divinity? If the Supreme saw Em’s divine light slam into the ward, he might harm his captive to spite me. To test it, I decided to gently nudge at the earth below the woman. If I could somehow force the ground to crack, I’d know better what I could do.
I jumped down into the alley from the roof and crept closer. If I failed, I’d need to find a way through the ward to save them. I knew in my bones, it was what the Supreme wanted. But I couldn’t find it in me to turn away from the callous murder of the most vulnerable. If I allowed them to die without any action, Em would never forgive me. I would never forgive myself.
I already needed her forgiveness. She had been right when she’d uttered coarse words at me as we dressed for battle. I hadn’t trusted her. I hadn’t trusted her clever mind, relying too much on my perception of her soft heart. I should have trusted her to weigh our options, to look at the broader consequences. Shielding her had always been my weakness.
“Now, now, young man,” the Supreme’s voice spoke, this time softer than before, as I prodded at the earth in the square with my divinity. “I can feel that.”
A blood-curdling scream rang out as the infant child was ripped from the mother’s arms by one of those shadow creatures. Viciously shaking it back and forth, the babe in its maw was silenced nearly immediately.
“Stop!” I shouted, but it was too late. The woman jumped to her feet, and the toddler wailed. With tight curls like Elora’s, yellow like butter, I knew what the Supreme had intended.
It was an unnecessary detail, for the man to choose a child who looked like my daughter. I would have sprinted past the wards either way. With a shout, Lasu and my other soldiers followed behind me. Just as divine light struck the shadow creatures, the ground beneath us gave way.