Chapter 68
DIEM
The blood sun threw our morning into chaos. For the mortals, it was a warning from the Old Gods, a sign of something terrible to come. Fear spread like a contagion, and when the time came to leave for Fortos, many—far too many—refused.
I gave an impassioned speech to remind them of the importance of this battle, but it persuaded few. The same omen had appeared on the eve of the Blood War, and the mortals were still scarred from the massacres of that loss.
Then I revealed something deeper—that the two blood suns we’d had since held special meaning for me. The first had marked my birth, and the second came the day my mother disappeared and my life changed forever. Both days had set me on the path that brought me here.
If the blood sun is a harbinger of destruction, I told them, then the destruction it warns of is mine.
They took it as a violent promise of what I would do to my enemies. I’d meant it as something much darker, but the misunderstanding worked in my favor. With a bit more urging from my mother, most eventually relented to come.
Among the Descended, the blood sun had the opposite effect. For them, it was a promise from the Kindred of victory and prosperous days ahead. When the Houses of Lumnos City arrived with their gleaming armor and pristine weapons, it more than made up for the numbers we lost among the mortals.
It left me wondering if that had been the Old Gods’ intention all along.
Teller’s godstone concoction, though valuable, also cost us precious time applying it to the army before we left.
It was a gamble—if the godstone wore off before battle, we didn’t have enough to reapply, but with Ophiucae’s aura continuing to grow nearer and stronger, the risk of an ambush was too great to ignore.
The arrival of the Emarion Army ships we’d called in were more than the small Lumnos port could handle, which also added unexpected delays. In the end, it was late morning when my legion finally gathered in the full shine of the sanguine sun.
Luther led two horses through the crowded lawn, his own massive black beast and the dappled grey mare he’d gifted me at my Challenging.
At some point this morning, he’d changed into a set of dark blue armored leathers embroidered with thorny black vines and edged in gleaming silver thread.
His hair was pulled back tightly, his beard shaven away, and the Sword of Corbois’s jeweled handle glittered over his shoulder.
Though I’d been very fond of the rugged, unbound version of him these past few months, seeing him like this—so clean-cut and regal, the indomitable Prince I’d first loved—had my stomach fluttering.
“Your horse, my Queen,” he said, offering the reins.
I took the mare and stroked a hand down her cream-white mane. “Feels like the morning of the Challenging all over again.”
She’d been wild and untrusting that day, and she hadn’t calmed much since. Today, though, she was eerily docile, except for an anxious twitch of her head each time her dark, glossy eyes turned up toward the sky.
“You were the victor that day,” Luther said. “You’ll be so again when this is over.”
Our eyes locked, and his confidence blazed within them.
I was a messy knot of doubt, tied with fraying rope; Luther was a column of steel.
I wondered if he truly believed our success was assured, or if this was another of his carefully crafted masks for my benefit.
I searched our bond for an answer, and I found the one constant that never wavered—his reverent faith in me.
“Luther,” I said softly, “if things go badly today, I want you to know how much I—”
He curled an arm around my waist and drew me against him, silencing me with a kiss. He paused just long enough to murmur against my lips, “Tell me later,” then devoured me again with fierce resolve.
I put my hands on his chest and eased him back. “I want to tell you now. Just in case.”
“When I was dying of godstone, I wrote notes to everyone I loved in case I never got to say goodbye. Taran told me you wouldn’t read yours.
You told him to burn it. You refused my goodbye, so now I’m refusing yours.
” He placed his hand on top of mine where it lay on his heart.
“We don’t have a goodbye anymore. Whatever you have to say, tell me later. Whenever later comes.”
He kissed me again, and I lost my will to fight it, the touch of his lips a refuge I needed too much. His hands looped around my waist and tightened in a bold, possessive grip, and I knew it was a message to the gods: I belonged to him, not to fate.
“Don’t mind us,” a voice said dryly. “It’s not like we’re in the middle of war or anything.”
I was already smirking when I turned to see my brother, nose wrinkled, the godstone mixture in his hands. “If you two are finished being gross,” he said, holding up the bowl, “it’s your turn.”
“You better kiss Lily like that before the battle starts,” I teased.
“I’d rather he not,” Luther grumbled.
Teller wisely didn’t answer. Instead, he led us toward a firepit with a large cauldron of melted wax. Luther stepped forward first, and the guard in charge turned a ghastly shade of white.
“This, uh, this might sting a bit, Your Highn—I mean, um, Your Majesty, King Luther, sir,” he stammered.
“King Consort,” Luther corrected, sitting in a chair beside him.
The man’s hand trembled as he dipped a long wooden paddle into the cauldron and wobbled it toward Luther’s face. When the wax touched his skin, Luther grunted, and the guard’s shield blinked into place.
I pressed my lips together to hide my smile and glanced at the soldiers milling about with stripes of glittering black across their eyes. “There’s a nice side effect of your invention,” I said to Teller. “My army looks terrifying.”
“Maybe we’ll scare the other side into running away,” he joked.
My smile faltered. Ophiucae had the power to make them fight against their will, and he’d already proved he’d use it. This war would only end with his surrender or his death.
Or with mine.
“What did you and Lily do this morning?” Teller asked.
“She helped me prepare some, uh, medicines.” I rubbed at a bandage hidden beneath my sleeve. “Just in case my army needs them.”
He frowned. “I don’t like that she’s coming with us to Fortos. Any chance I can convince you to make her stay?”
“Can I convince you to stay?”
“I’m a guard. Lily’s not. She doesn’t belong on a battlefield.”
“No, you’re an academic. Lily’s a princess. Brecke’s a craftsman. Mother’s a healer. None of us belong on a battlefield.” I shrugged. “Every time I try to protect someone, all it does is get them hurt. This time, I’m letting everyone decide for themselves, even if I hate their choice.”
“Is this about what Symond made me say earlier?” Teller asked. “D, I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
Except that he did. I wasn’t blind to my brother’s suffering, nor to the role I’d played in causing it. That had been Symond’s goal—not just to wound me, but to remind me that the blow had come from my own hand.
“You’ve brought a lot of good things to my life, too, you know,” he said.
“You’re the reason I met Lily. You encouraged me to tell her how I felt even though everyone told me to stay away.
Because of you, I got to see Umbros and Sophos.
How many mortals can say that? And you’ve always looked out for me.
” He nudged my side. “You’re a pretty good sister, I guess. ”
I raised my brows. “Just pretty good?”
“You’re an okay sister.”
“I’m a great sister.”
“A tolerable sister.”
“Your favorite sister.”
“Also my least favorite sister.”
“Well, you’re my favorite brother.”
“I’m telling Taran you said that.”
“Did I say favorite? I meant second favorite.”
“Too late. The title’s mine.” Teller gestured to Luther. “He’s done. You’re next.” He glanced at the guard with the wax and pointed to his upper lip. “Maybe put a little extra on her right here.”
I swung for him, and he grinned and jumped away. His eyebrows danced in the goading way they’d always done when we’d sparred, and though I wanted to throttle him, my love for my baby brother soared.
“Should I string him upside down by the gate until we leave?” Luther rumbled in my ear.
I wheeled to face him and temporarily forgot how to breathe.
With his dark hair and chiseled features, the effect of the godstone made him devastatingly handsome.
His pale blue-grey eyes glowed against the dark, haphazard streak of black, two moons on a horizon of star-flecked midnight.
He was light and shadow incarnate, beautiful and frightening.
When I finally recovered from the shock, my body was aching to do something more wicked than breathe.
Luther’s lips rose into a knowing smirk.
With effort, I cleared my throat. “Save the mixture for someone else. Symond said it wouldn’t work on me.”
“You’re getting it anyway. So are the mortals. It will make it harder for him to spot the Descended and easier for us to tell our armies apart. We don’t want a repeat of Mort-Feu Pass.”
The reminder brought my mood back to somber. My army held almost the entire spectrum of Emarion—every gender, every skin color, every body type, every bloodline. All we lacked was a Centenary.
Through more nefarious methods, Ophiucae’s army might be just as diverse. This was a true Emarion war. The way we’d struggled to tell friend from foe in the thick of battle was symbolic in the worst kind of way.
I braided my hair back, then sat and lifted my chin to the guard.
My muscles tensed in anticipation of pain, but when the molten wax touched my skin, I found the sting exhilarating.
Something in me responded to its heat, like calling to like.
The strange sensation I’d been feeling all week sparked anew and trembled within me.
It felt like rage, excitement, terror, grief, and hope swirling in a tempestuous, fiery ball—but oddly enough, it didn’t feel like mine. It didn’t feel like Luther’s, either.