Chapter 70
DIEM
Eighty men.
Eighty mortal men.
Only eighty mortal men.
“Where are the rest?” Alixe squinted into the distance, where Vance and his men stood in rod-straight lines at full attention, a strange contrast to their dirty clothes and roughshod, shaggy appearance. “There were more when we faced them in the past.”
“Our lookout came to warn us before he saw their full numbers,” the Fortos Vice General said, looking them over with scorn. “If I’d known it was only this many, I would have stayed and put an end to them myself.”
“Where are the Descended?” Luther asked. “He had a group of them in Sophos.”
“They surely faced a battle in Arboros,” Nidara said. “Maybe these men are all he has left.”
“Or maybe the rest are hiding behind an illusion,” Alixe murmured.
Everyone fell quiet, their eyes rising to the empty horizon.
I glanced back at my newly united troops.
Back in the forest, I’d presented the Faunos Descended with the same choice I’d given everyone else: fight or flee.
Though their faces paled when I shared the full truth of who and what we faced, fighting was a way of Faunosian life, and they agreed to join us.
We discovered, grimly, that they had left behind their old and infirm—nature’s way, they’d called it.
Their children were sent with an escort back to Lumnos, and we resumed our march toward Fortos, where we’d found Vance and his men waiting for us at the forest’s edge.
Our luck was almost too good to be believed.
Had I not wandered off, we would have missed the group from Faunos and Fortos entirely.
Now, we wildly outnumbered Vance’s men, and our position couldn’t be better.
They were entirely exposed on the Fortos flatlands, with nowhere to retreat to or hide, while we had the Lumnos forest on our side.
Our archers had already taken up position high in the trees, and huge swaths of my army were concealed within the woods, waiting to make a surprise strike.
Vance and his men didn’t even have a shield. The glittering grey film of Ophiucae’s magic that had wrapped around them in prior battles was gone. Even with their godstone weapons, this would be an easy slaughter, over in minutes, without a single casualty on my side.
The mood of my soldiers was giddy. Many smirked with preemptive triumph. I even heard pockets of laughter as soldiers joked that they’d been foolish to be so afraid.
But my advisors weren’t smiling, and neither was I.
Because Vance and his men weren’t attacking.
They weren’t advancing.
They weren’t surrendering.
They weren’t even talking.
They were waiting.
“Maybe Ophiucae took my offer,” I said. “His shield is gone. He’s not helping Vance anymore.”
My mother and my mate exchanged a look. “My Queen,” Luther said, “his aura . . .”
“I know.”
If Ophiucae had abandoned his army, he’d apparently stuck around to see what came of it. The strength of his godhood had reached a head-pounding level, and it was still growing. He was either still getting closer or he was concealed nearby, refueling his magic from the soil.
“Surrender,” I shouted at the men. “Lay down your weapons, and your lives will be spared.”
Behind me, my soldiers grumbled at my offer. With victory appearing certain, they were itching to take revenge.
Ahead of me, no one moved. No weapons dropped, no heads leaned together in strategic discussion. They acted as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Stubborn bastards,” I muttered.
“You cannot win, Vance,” my mother yelled. “You’re too outnumbered.”
There was no triumph or smugness in her tone. These men had been hers once. I could see how it grieved her to contemplate killing the same rebels she’d sworn to lead.
“Ophiucae promises you freedom while he enslaves another,” she said. “This isn’t the way, Brothers. Freedom means having the power to set our own destiny. What power do you have that isn’t his to control?”
Still, they ignored us.
“I know you think the same of the mortals who fight with me,” I called out. “You think they serve a Descended Crown. You’re wrong.”
I reached inside to the small piece of Kindred magic that still remained within me—the nine-armed candelabra of the Crowns.
Their flames flickered and swayed as if struggling to stay alight in a breeze, causing them to swirl into a single trembling fire.
Strangely, when I tucked my Crowns away into the cold, dark shadows, the warmth in my chest only grew hotter.
I gestured to the empty space above my head. “The laws are in the hands of the people now. Isn’t that better than an eternity under Ophiucae’s thumb?”
Only silence answered back. Vance didn’t even give his usual sneer at my pleas. Just eerie, empty nothing.
I glanced at my mother. “Come with me. The rest of you, hold your positions.”
As I dismounted my horse, a clink beneath my boot took me by surprise.
I looked down to see a golden plate inlaid into the road to mark the Lumnos-Fortos border.
From the heavily wooded surroundings, I’d believed the border to be many yards ahead.
The Forging magic had deteriorated so badly that the landscape of each realm, once starkly defined from one step to the next, had become difficult to distinguish.
Fresh saplings had sprouted deep into the rocky flatlands, growing faster than nature on its own should have allowed.
It was as if the land itself was healing, its harsh scars turning blurry and pale.
I rubbed at the burning in my ribs as my mother and I walked toward Vance. Luther’s shield shimmered into a dome around us. Shadows curled at my feet, then took the form of a dark silhouette walking at my side.
My hand tightened on Sorrow’s Edge. Even with Luther’s shield, it was a risk to leave ourselves so exposed. One well-aimed godstone arrow could be fatal.
We stopped thirty paces away. From here, I could see Vance’s face more clearly. His expression was calmer than I was used to, lacking his usual snide contempt. Perhaps he’d seen our large numbers and accepted his fate.
“I recognize these men,” my mother whispered. “They’re all from Lumnos.”
I squinted closer. Their faces arose in my memories—neighbors, old patients, vendors I bought from at the village market, a former schoolmate I’d flirted with, a friend of Teller’s from when they were boys.
This wasn’t simply the remains of the militia Vance had recruited from across the realms. This was a carefully cultivated group of the men among his troops that my mother and I knew most.
My insides churned.
“This doesn’t have to end in bloodshed,” I said. “We’ll bring you safely back to Lumnos, and I’ll leave it to the council to decide your fates.”
Vance wouldn’t even look at me. His eyes stared over my shoulders into the trees.
“You always said no sacrifice is too great to see the mortals freed, Vance,” my mother said.
“So prove it—give up your pride, and come tell the council your story. Help them understand what drove you to this place. Make them see why we must never go back to how things were before. Live, and fight for our people in a different way.”
Her words fell on indifferent ears. Not a twitch, nor a frown. She huffed with frustration and started toward him. “For Old Gods’ sakes, Vance, don’t be an id—”
Every blade in every hand rose in an instant. The mortals moved as one, their weapons snapping up and pointing to her.
She froze. Behind us, leaves rustled as archers nocked their arrows in the trees.
A sickening suspicion took root in my stomach. “Mother,” I whispered, “step back.”
She slowly eased back to my side. In a single, unified movement, the mortals’ weapons jerked down to their side.
“No,” I breathed.
My hands trembled as I shoved my mother behind the dark silhouette of Luther’s shadows. The blood had drained from her face, her eyes round with the horror of our shared realization. “Gods—they’re . . . he . . .”
“Stay here,” I ordered. I took a shaky step forward, just short of where my mother had gone. I paused, waiting for a reaction, then held my breath and took another step, then another. As I approached, Vance and his men stayed relentlessly still.
Inhumanly still.
“Diem, stop,” Luther shouted in the distance, his growl a cover for the apprehension I felt through the bond.
But these men wouldn’t hurt me. Ophiucae wouldn’t allow it.
So forward I went, my heart breaking with every step. Fear ebbed, and anguish took its place as the mortals’ features sharpened into excruciating focus.
Smooth brows.
Hazy, unseeing eyes.
Minds and hearts . . . empty. Erased.
Enslaved, just like the Descended.
Dead.
I stopped in front of Vance and gazed into the foggy brown eyes that had once crinkled with a welcoming smile when he’d first met me as the mortal healer who craved a revolution—then filled with disgust the moment I disobeyed him.
I reached down to his hand, shuddering at the deceptive warmth of his skin, and slowly pried his fingers off the godstone sword he carried.
He didn’t resist, nor did he react when the weapon slipped out and thumped to the rocky soil at his feet.
Behind me, my mother let out a cry, our fears confirmed. Vance would never have let me disarm him if there was anything left of him to protest.
After his role in my father’s slaughter, I knew it wasn’t Vance she really mourned. The rebels who stood beside him had trusted her, then him, to lead them to freedom, only to be let down by them both.
I walked up and down the lines, disarming each man and moving their weapons out of reach. Luther raised a shield to block anyone from retrieving them, and I threw him a somber look over my shoulder. His features were hard with understanding at what we both knew came next.
“Let me do it,” he called out, light crackling at his palms. “I’ll make it fast and painless.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want the mortals in my army—or, frankly, the Descended—to watch the rebels so easily erased from the world by Descended magic. Especially not by his.