Chapter 11
It was three days after Kinlear’s accident when Soraya first started to change.
They entered the battlefield in silence, none of the usual pre-battle banter shared between the two of them.
The rest of their aerie noticed it, but Arawn thought perhaps it was because the night was colder.
The snow fell faster than it normally did.
The war eagles ruffles their feathers, and shook their heads in protest of it.
Kinlear was still sick, back in his bedroom in a runic sleep...and Soraya hadn’t even been allowed to visit him. Not once, since he’d fallen in front of her in the Eagle’s Nest.
The shadows beneath her eyes revealed how utterly haunted she was by it.
Arawn said a prayer, begging the gods for strength as the shadowstorm crackled, and dark wings rose form the distant Sawteeth, outlined by the Acolyte’s magic.
And the war began.
The battle plan was simple, tonight:
Kill as many riders as they could, by taking down their raphons first, with Sacred magic. The darksouls weren’t affected by it, not with the first many hits – as if the Acolyte’s protection worked the way their own runes did.
But blades would always do.
Arawn was confident as he led his aerie into the sky. They flew faster, bolder than they had in weeks, taking down darksouls as they went.
Gods, Arawn hated the monsters, every single one of them. Their strange shadow magic, their awful fangs and claws, especially their bloodthirsty raphons. Too many war eagles and Riders had been ripped from the skies by them.
They fought as the night darkened, until Riven, through his Ehvermage magic, had gotten word from the ground forces that a darksoul troupe had accompanied a pack of shadow wolves away from the battlefield.
..and to one of the few remaining nomage camps that hadn’t been overtaken by the war.
It was an hour’s flight to the west, where a lone Ravenminder’s tower stood at the steps of an old temple.
Recruits often stayed the night there, in hopes of a safe rest until morning, for it was heavily runed.
A small fortress, but a needed one, in times of war.
They flew far, and fast...and found the Ravenminder’s tower blown apart, with smoke trailing towards the stars, and little hope that there would be any survivors left.
Somehow, it looked like the enemy had gathered their shadow magic together and sent a dark wave of it surging across the camp, for everything had been melted in the war path. Like a great scar in the earth. The very temple itself had been cut in two.
Even the stones of the Ravenminder’s tower had been melted.
..the runes stripped from their surface.
It was a sure sign that the darksouls and their magic were growing stronger.
There were bodies strewn all over the camp, blades useless and forgotten beside cold, dead hands.
The snow in the courtyard was stamped down with shadow wolf prints, and Arawn was about to signal to his aerie to leave.
There was no reason for them to stay here, not when the warfront needed them back.
But then...
A light in the darkness.
A torch, flickering to life at the edge of the rubble.
“Survivors!” Riven shouted. “But—” He shook his head. “There are shadow wolves hiding among them. Too many to count, Arawn!”
As if the beasts were just waiting in the woods that surrounded the camp...eager to play with their wounded prey. As if war was all a game.
Arawn’s stomach dipped as he caught sight of the group of survivors, a torch between them. Foolish nomages, it was a surefire way to be spotted and then shredded. But they were scared, and cold, and alone...
“Dive, Soraya!” Arawn shouted as a familiar howl rose from the treeline behind the ruins.
She was a blur as she dove to defend them, her eagle faster than his. He turned back to Riven and Indriya, who searched the sky for hidden riders, clouded by shadow magic. “You two, stay aloft and watch our backs!”
He’d just turned Cyrra towards the camp when the wolves poured from the trees.
There were far too many to count. They headed right towards those survivors, who still struggled through the deep snow, not a single damned weapon between them.
But the wolves were too fast.
They reached the survivors just before Soraya did.
And that little light went out.
No, Arawn thought, as the snow and wind clouded his vision.
Soraya leapt from her eagle’s back, landing in the midst of the chaos. She rolled to her feet, her blade and her magic already in her hands. And she gave all she could to defend the one survivor left.
He was a nomage, a young man with dark hair and a frail body. He was tall, and thin...and his leg was bleeding, so that he had to limp.
Just like Kinlear.
And Soraya was screaming as she fought the wolves away from him. Five...ten...even as Arawn joined her, sweeping Cyrra downwards so that her wing clipped one side of the line of wolves, sent them careening backwards into the trees in a tangle of shadow limbs.
He slid from Cyrra’s back, his blade already blazing in his hands.
And together, they fought.
Back to back, with the wolves forming a dark circle around them, and a useless nomage at their side...Soraya and Arawn fought.
But there were too many wolves. They lunged forwards, and Arawn narrowly missed a claw to his guts as Soraya ducked behind him.
He heard the impact.
The snick of a claw against human skin, and the nomage fell beside them...instantly lifeless.
Survivors died all the time. Arawn barely noticed him, but it was Soraya who screamed in agony as he died...as if she’d known him. But she hadn’t.
No, it was Kinlear she saw, Kinlear she’d replaced him with as he lay there, lifeless in the snow.
And Arawn knew what ran through her mind. He’d shared the same thoughts when he was a boy, when the reality of Kinlear’s future struck him.
His illness.
His death.
He watched as she screamed an invocation, a guttural thing, and let Avane’s power flow through her.
It came as a great blast of wind that surged from her outstretched hands.
She spun, pushing it towards the shadow wolves, who yelped.
And tumbled away like fallen leaves, a heap of wings and shadow fur on the edge of the trees.
But she didn’t stop there.
No, she didn’t dare release her magic, not one bit. Instead, she screamed her god’s name, begging for more power.
Avane granted it.
She dropped to a knee, weakening, as that wind surged from her in a gale force.
She’d formed a wall, a furious fortress of wind that the wolves could not breach. The trees bent behind it. Their branches cracked, snow tumbling in heaps upon the wolves...
And still, she did not stop.
“Let go!” Arawn yelled from behind her. “Soraya!” He placed his hand on her back, for she hadn’t heard him over the howling of her magic.
More beasts had arrived in the sky.
He could see Riven and Indriya already fighting them, raphons having picked up on their eagles’ scent.
“Let go!” Arawn yelled again. “Soraya!”
The wolves snarled and snapped as they tried to get to their feet, as they fought against the power of her magic. To get to her from behind that veil. But she held them there...
And as she did...
And he realized, suddenly, she couldn’t let go.
He’d heard of this before. Of a Sacred who begged their god for more, because they knew it would block out the noise of their own humanity within. She was going to burn out.
She was going to collapse under the sheer weight of that magic if it backfired and took every ounce of her energy with it.
“I can’t let go!” Soraya screamed. “I won’t!”
She was sobbing, her face a mask of pain, and he had never seen her like this. Not once, in all their days. He sheathed his blade, ignored the snarling wolves, and stepped around her, the wind folding past him as it sensed the Sacred claiming in his blood.
He stopped before her...and put his hands on either side of her face.
“Look at me, Soraya.”
She was so cold, so frozen. Her lips were turning blue.
“He’s dying!” Soraya sobbed, as tears slid down her cheeks.
Still, she channeled the gods’ magic. Still, she did not let go.
How long, until it ran out? How much more did she have to pull from the well that Avane had filled?
He’d never seen a Sacred go on like this.
“He’s dying, and the gods won’t save him!
” And then she threw her head back and screamed at the night.
At Avane. “You have power to make me do this! So why don’t you godsdamned save him? ”
Arawn gasped.
His body turned to ice. Never, in all his days...had he heard a Sacred speak to one of the Five like that.
And it was instant, the culling of her magic. As if Avane had heard the slight, felt the hatred that had just poured from Soraya’s heart...
And cut her off.
The wind died in an instant. Behind them, the wolves rose to their feet.
But Arawn spun, an invocation sliding from his lips, his blade already flaming in his hand.
His love for the gods was real, and true, and Vivorr sensed it. They would not harm Soraya, not while he stood in her path.
Three heads landed, smoking in the snow, as the shadows melted around the wolves’ bodies like oil. To the others, he put up a wall of his own magic.
He formed a shield of flames in a blazing circle around them.
“We fight for them!” Arawn said to Soraya, as he turned to look at her, hands still extended on either side of them.
..holding that line of fire. He whistled for Cyrra to return.
“Because that is who we are, Soraya!” And that fire was in his gut now, rising to every part of him.
“We fight every emotion. We crush every human instinct we have, every bit of weakness and temptation, so that our gods bless us. So that others can live.”
She blinked back tears as she looked at him, shaking her head.
“Why?” she asked. “Why don’t they heal him?”