Chapter 15
Arawn Laroux, Crown Prince of the war-torn kingdom of Lordach, collapsed backwards against the snow, his chest heaving.
Gods above, he was out of breath.
A few months away from the altitude of the north—the damned mission to escort the nomage recruits here, as it was all he could handle these days—coupled with time away from the skies...and he swore his lungs had shrunk.
Was this how his brother felt, each day he woke and couldn’t breathe?
For a moment, Arawn pitied him, for it was like his lungs had forgotten how it felt to soar far above the Expanse. To be free from the pressures expected of him in this walking world.
He longed to be weightless again, on the back of a war eagle, leading his aerie.
He longed to be free.
Get up, Arawn told himself, as he leapt to his feet and faced his opponent.
He wouldn’t be bested, not now. Not while the nomages were watching.
It was partly why he came to their barracks to help train the recruits when everyone was awake, readying for another night of war.
When he could be close to it, to ease himself back into the rhythm of battle that he knew and—regrettably, even loved—without feeling that tremble of fear that came from fighting a darksoul or their shadow wolves.
A Crown Prince was not supposed to be afraid.
But Arawn was.
Gods above, he was, because what if he couldn’t heal? What if he could never get his magic back?
A face flashed in his mind. A face marked with hatred as she tipped her head to the sky and screamed Avane’s name.
Arawn shook it away.
War was a game he knew all too well. And it required magic to really make a difference, to level a wave of enemies in a fight. He’d be dead without it.
Still...he knew this.
A blade in his hand.
A heart pounding in his chest.
He knew the steady pattern of steps and swinging, and it brought him back to the memory of who he was before Soraya.
Before her defecting.
Before his heart snapped in two.
Before, before, before.
He wanted to erase every part of it.
His emotions were drowning him, day and night, a new beast he’d never really known or understood until her death.
His own pain, his own mourning...even the strange waves of newfound desire he had, when the Raphonminder was near...
No.
He wouldn’t allow himself to go back to that feeling again. To dare care for a woman who would never be his.
The worst part was how little he knew of her, beyond the fact that she was small, and dark-haired, and so much like Soraya...
It had dredged up the beforeness inside of him.
And he hated it.
He grunted as his next opponent left, cradling their arm—he’d broken a bone, no doubt, from the power of his swing. Thank the gods his blade was runed not to cut, or the nomages he’d already faced would be piled up dead.
A small clearing was laid out in the middle of their camp, surrounded by pale tents and mud-splattered snow.
A few of the Watermages had crafted blocks of ice for the crowd to sit on, and nearby, a war bear roared hungrily, awaiting its nightly meal of fresh-slaughtered meat.
There were no servants here, no one waiting on his every need.
A far cry from the Citadel’s halls. But Arawn didn’t mind it one bit.
It was simplicity of the nomages that he came for.
It was the thrill of winning a fight, even if it was against someone untrained...because it reminded him that he was not weak.
He was not useless.
He was still a warrior, even without his famed flames in his hands. And he would force himself to train like one, to remain honed as one, until the gods gave him back his magic.
They will, he thought, as the snow poured over him and his hand flexed over the pommel of his sword. And when they do...the darksouls don’t stand a chance.
He needed to unleash himself upon them.
He needed to fight...the way he once had.
Another nomage soldier entered the ring. Arawn readied himself, shaking the snow from his shoulders. It only took three swings of his blade before the man bowed out, not wanting to be the object of Arawn’s rage.
“Next!” Arawn barked.
A boy, hardly even a man yet, stepped into the ring.
And the fight began.
The recruits were awful. Each one of them, one after the other, became a blur of faces and trembling hands and training swords left discarded in the snow.
They weren’t trained soldiers. They were farmers and seamstresses and bakers, and would it be so bad to draft a butcher, someone with rage in their bones, for this war?
This was why they were losing.
Because the Acolyte had people committed to the fight. People with souls stained with shadows, proud to bare their sins...people who had tossed aside everything they had ever known and loved to fight for his darkness.
And Lordach?
Lordach had sweet little sacrificial lambs, pulled unwillingly from the safety of their homes, sent weak and trembling right into their own slaughter.
Arawn barely had to pay attention as he went through the motions.
One after another, he defeated the nomage recruits—if one could even call them that—and pointed out the ones that would be better suited for other jobs. Like helping collect the dead from the battlefield, come morning.
Every so often, the wind whistled past his ears, a painful reminder of the past. It tugged at the fringes of his pale braid, and he caught himself glancing north.
Into the distance, where the Citadel stood like a beacon in the night as it perched upon the cliffs. A shining castle on high, and beside it, the ancient temple...with her inside.
Ezer.
Ezer and the bloodthirsty beast.
Even her name had him swinging his blade harder, as the poor nomage that faced him unwillingly accepted his wrath.
Every hit brought her back to his mind.
Ezer and her smile.
Ezer and her scars, the ones that marked her as a survivor.
She was small as a mouse, and yet the woman had faced a pack of shadow wolves in the woods, days ago...and walked away unharmed.
She had stood, face to face with a raphon...and dared call it hers.
As if the beast that had most men soiling their pants was considered a cuddly pet.
Why couldn’t he get her off his mind?
You feel nothing, he told himself. You are as cold as the snow beneath your feet.
Something slammed against Arawn’s shoulder.
He blinked, surprised.
The nomage actually got a hit on him. Arawn nodded his approval, then refocused and ended the fight in two slashes of his blade.
“Well done,” he said, helping the soldier to her feet. “But not good enough. Not yet. Go to the next ring.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” the woman said, and she ran off to the next clearing, where the others, the ones more skilled with a blade, rather than the ones who swung them about like farmers with pitchforks, were practicing with other Sacred soldiers. Earning their best shots at surviving the war.
That infernal wind howled again. She’s dead, he told himself. She’s dead and she’s never coming back. And more snow danced down from the cliffs, sending a wave of muddled white over the dark stone temple.
Arawn was glad for its help in blocking Ezer out.
She was a curse sent to distract him.
Or perhaps she was a gift, meant to remind him he could still feel things, like desire. But then he thought of Soraya again...and guilt overtook him, too.
How could he ever think of anyone but her?
Ezer was nothing to him. A new distraction, a fresh face. A test of the gods, perhaps, to remind him that someday, he would have to sacrifice what he loved most.
Unless there was nothing to live.
Nothing to give but his own heart in his hands.
His kingdom, his loyalty, was to the gods alone. And that was where he should place every private thought.
The next opponent entered. Two hits this time, barely even a shift to his position, and the nomage boy dropped his damned sword.
Arawn sighed, a cloud of his breath soaring away on the wind.
It reeked here.
It reeked of weakness.
Of fear.
Of death.
Perhaps part of that is coming from you, his conscience hissed at him. It often spoke from the depths of his mind, like a coiled-up snake just waiting to strike. You carry the scent of failure everywhere you go.
“Do that again,” Arawn warned the soldier, and pointed at the fallen blade, “And you’ll find yourself headless. If not by a shadow wolf, then certainly by a darksoul once they lay their claws upon you.”
“Yes, Sir,” the boy replied.
His face had gone green, but there was no time for pity.
So, the fighting went on.
Arawn threw himself into it with everything he had.
He fought until he lost himself in the motions.
Until he no longer saw Soraya’s face with every swing of his blade. He fought until his body grew weary, and then he fought past that, too, for with every strike, the mourning lessened, or perhaps it disappeared, covered up by exhaustion.
He fought until he forgot about his scars and his sorrow.
Until Soraya’s faced switched with Ezer’s...her sharp edges and her quiet strength.
She’ll get herself killed, Arawn thought for the thousandth time, as another opponent left the clearing with their tail between their legs. And you do not care, Arawn. This is war.
“Sir. They’re ready for you.”
A voice called out to him, familiar and warm with the promise of laughter. Indriya...once his Third. Her braids were as pale as his, her black skin a beautiful contrast. And with her trademark snarl, sometimes, he swore even the war bears flinched when she was near.
“Not the greeting I was hoping for,” Arawn said. “And since when are you a messenger?”
“Since you nearly took off the head of the servant who just came to fetch you five minutes ago,” Indriya said back, and shrugged. Arawn hadn’t even noticed. “Now take off the death glare and walk with me.”
He sighed aloud as he sheathed his sword, doing his best to hide the tremble in his fingertips. Gods, he was cold. He was tired, despite the need in his bones to keep fighting.
And Indriya knew it.