Chapter 50 Knight
KNIGHT
SAERIS
Stargazers, also known as kingfishers, can be found in abundance from the Gilarian Mountains all the way down to the coastal cities of Marinth, Bodish, and Inishtar. Many individuals among the Fae, selkies, elemental sprites, and satyr populations consider the stargazer a symbol of hope.
—Excerpt from Fae Creatures of the Gilarian Mountains, a missing tome from the royal libraries of the Winter Palace
“PLEASE! PLEASE! ”
The scream burned as it rose up my throat. My skin, too.
Everything hurt.
I was being jostled.
Carried.
Kingfisher was running.
“Hang on, Little Osha. Almost there,” he rumbled.
The sky was wrung out, streaked pink, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and slashed over a warped canvas.
I craned my head back, trying to remember where the hell we were—what the hell we were doing—and the details of the last twenty-four hours suddenly came rushing back in with stunning clarity.
A solemn, dark figure stood motionless, a hundred feet down the slope of the mountainside.
The Hazrax watched us flee, the shape of it smudged around the edges, as if it were only half there.
My head was killing me.
I looked down at the snow as it whipped by beneath me. Fisher’s boots left deep indentations in the brilliant white carpet, and . . . and there were other impressions in the snow, too. Not quite as deep. Much smaller, and certainly not Fae.
They were paw prints.
Lightning swept through me, clearing the haze in my head. “Put me down, Fisher!”
“No. You were unconscious,” he snarled.
“Please! I’m fine now, I swear!”
He wasn’t happy about it, but he slowed his run. He hadn’t managed to set me down before I heard a chittering squeal and a small white fox was leaping into my arms.
He was alive.
Alive!
Onyx squirmed so hard I nearly dropped him. He screamed with excitement, his whole body wagging as he licked my chin and my cheeks. His tiny heart battered against his newly healed ribs, pure joy radiating from him as he turned and rained kisses down on Fisher, too.
“I know, little one. I know. We’re happy to see you, too,” he said, his voice rough.
I stared up at my mate in wonder. “It worked?” Could I trust this? Was it real?
Fisher nodded. “It worked. You did it.” His expression was breathtaking—pride and a dash of wonder thrown in for good measure. “You accomplished something that’s never been done before.”
“And will never be done again,” I added, glancing down at my shield.
The Hazrax’s rune hadn’t just faded. It was gone.
My other runes were raw, blood oozing from my mangled skin.
Even the God Bindings spiraling around my wrist and up my arm were pulsing with pain, but the hurt could have been a thousand times worse and it would still have been worth it.
Onyx was alive. He whimpered, frantically rubbing his muzzle against my cheeks and butting my chin with the top of his head. I’d saved him. I’d done it. But the cost . . .
“You must think I’m crazy.” I didn’t even want to look at my mate . . . but when I did, I found no consternation or anger within the endless green of his striking eyes.
He laughed a little breathlessly. “Yes,” he agreed.
“You are crazy. You came looking for me. You took on Belikon by yourself and you outsmarted him. And you made a costly sacrifice to save a friend,” he added.
“Only a crazy person would have done all of that. But I would have made the same choices, Saeris. So I suppose we’re well suited. ”
“Lo, visitors on the mountain!”
The cry boomed through the air. It echoed off the faces of the other mountains that crowded around the one on which we stood. Fisher and I turned as one, looking up the slope—
I hadn’t noticed it before: the monstrous palace of bones protruding from the snow and ice to the right of us on the slope.
Arched ribs, soaring up to meet the brightening sky.
Notched vertebrae, the size of small houses.
It made sense that the remains of the dragon were still here.
Fisher and his friends had slain it and ended its tyranny.
Belikon had troubled himself to claim its head as a trophy.
But the rest of it was too big to clear from the mountainside.
The Ajun Fae had let the beast’s bones rest where they had fallen, and now they formed a megalithic structure almost as impressive as the city of Ajun Sky itself.
People were gathering along the parapets of the city. Someone shouted down to us again, waving frantically. “Lo! Hurry! they cried. “A black tide comes!”
Fisher twisted automatically, peering down the mountain, and cursed. It took me a second to see what he was seeing. The Hazrax was gone. But farther down the hillside, the dark outline of guards with bows and swords in hand could be seen, scrambling toward us with startling speed.
“Shit,” Fisher hissed. “Belikon. He shouldn’t have found us. Not this quickly, anyway. Come on. We have to go.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I had enough energy to sprint toward the towering black metal gate that encompassed the city.
I did not have enough energy to face Belikon a second time in one day.
I sure as hell wasn’t losing Onyx again, either.
I ran like the wind. If the fox knew we were in danger, he didn’t seem to care; he chittered and relentlessly licked my face, and he was still doing so when we pitched up in front of the ominous black gates that barred our way into Ajun.
They were closed.
“Hey!” Fisher hollered. “Let us in!” His shout rebounded around the abandoned courtyard on the other side of the high metal bars.
Belikon’s guards were gaining ground, still more than two hundred feet below, but they were coming. They’d catch up to us eventually. “Hello?” Fisher bellowed.
Hello . . .
Hello?
Hello!
Suddenly, the black gate jerked. It let out an almighty, metallic groan . . . and very slowly, it began to slide. The sound of thick chain feeding through a winch system rattled my bones for a moment, and then the ancient gate began to open.
How many souls called Ajun Sky home? From the outside, with its huge recess pushing deep into the mountainside and its glittering towers of quartz and calcite, it looked like it could house thousands. Tens of thousands.
But only one person calmly descended the stairs that led down into the courtyard and crossed the cobbled stones to greet us. He wore a shit-eating grin that would have put Carrion’s to shame when he came to a stop before us.
“You should have told us you were coming,” he said, with that warm, lilting accent of his. “It’s a point of pride for the people of Ajun that these gates should always open to you, brother.”
Renfis.
By the time Belikon’s soldiers reached Ajun, we were already moving.
Furious shouts boomed beyond the walls, bouncing off stone.
The sound traveled strangely through the bitter air.
Salvos of magic, blue and green, burst harmlessly against invisible wards that protected the city from attack.
Even the arrows and hurled spears crashed into the boundary magic and were deflected, shooting off in other directions or splintering to shards upon impact.
The mountain shook as they attacked the battlements. The tall struts of iron remained unmolested, though. Belikon’s guards were still Fae, after all. They wouldn’t touch the gate.
“How sure are we that they won’t get through?” The wind caught my words and carried them away. I wasn’t even sure my mate had heard me until he replied.
“Very sure,” he answered. “This city has never been breached. And there are only a thousand or so guards out there. Far greater forces have tried and failed to bully their way into Ajun Sky. There’s only one way in or out, and Belikon has no friends here.
No one in their right minds will just let him in. ”
“Nevertheless, we should hurry,” Renfis said. “Time is of the essence.”
Lorreth had explained more of what had happened at Ajun, particularly with Merelle, Ren’s twin sister, but there had still been more . . .
The city of Ajun was made of stone. Its foundations were robust and deep.
The tall, terraced houses that lined its streets were pretty, their ice-adorned fascias glowing a soft pink in the early morning light.
Ren hurried ahead of us, though still took time to tousle the hair of Faelings with rosy cheeks who ran up to him and tugged playfully at the pristine white cloak draped around his shoulders, marking him as a knight of the Orrithian.
I’d heard him referred to by that name plenty of times: Renfis of the Orrithian. Foolishly, I’d never questioned what the title meant. Now, as he guided us through the mountainous keep, he explained everything that had happened to him after he’d left Cahlish, and it all began to make sense.
“The Gilarians listened, thank the gods. They were already making preparations when I left them. I was almost at the border of the forest. I would have reached Ballard inside a day at the rate I was traveling, but the second I hit the foothills of the Shallow Mountains, I felt a searing, burning sensation in my chest. It knocked the air right out of me, and I fell from my horse. Thought I was being attacked. I figured I’d triggered some kind of ward, but .
. .” He shook his head. “I ripped off my chest plate and tore my shirt open, and there it was.”
Kingfisher had been making frustrated, grumbling noises ever since Ren had stopped hugging him and clapping him on the back—there had been a lot of hugging and back clapping once we were inside the walls of the city and the gate had closed behind us.
Now, my mate was audibly berating himself for not solving the mystery of the general’s disappearance sooner.
“Your oath mark,” he sighed, shaking his head.
Renfis nodded. “My oath mark. I was being called to serve. I didn’t have any choice but to go.”