Chapter 27 #2
Through the pounding of blood in my ears, I finally caught the murmurs of the crowd, the ones that Dare must have heard already.
“Possessed by his own father—”
“Tried to kill himself right there—”
“Can we trust him to lead if—”
“That’s not true,” Dare disagreed with Thorne, his hand still gripping his shoulder. “I’ve seen how men follow you. Not because you’re his right hand, but because they admire you. And their king has fallen—”
“I’ll take care of Kaelan,” I promised. “You go. Don’t let this fight be lost.”
We needed to distract the crowd from the fear they must feel after watching Kaelan fall so publicly.
The warning horns sounded from our distant outposts.
We turned as one toward the horizon.
Steel flashed against the gray sky as Edric’s banners crested the ridge. Cavalry poured over the rise in disciplined ranks, armor gleaming, lances leveled. Infantry followed behind them in blackened waves.
Panic rippled through our forces, uncertainty spreading like rot as eyes darted from the approaching army to Kaelan’s unmoving form on the ice.
Kaelan lay where they’d wrestled him down, frost crusted along his armor, the bonesteel crown stark against his dark hair. Their king didn’t rise. He didn’t even seem to breathe.
He was the only symbol they needed. But in this moment, he was only a symbol of Edric’s power.
“They won’t hold otherwise,” Thorne said grimly. “They need him.”
“He can’t lead them,” Dare said. “Thorne. Please. The lords won’t follow me. But you’re one of them.”
Thorne looked down once more at Kaelan—at the stillness, the terrible silence—and something like grief flashed across his face before it hardened into resolve.
He released Kaelan slowly, his hands unfurling, his body seeming to be bowed over with grief as he stood, but then he raised himself to his full height.
He stepped forward. “Hear me!”
The response was fractured—half-turned heads, eyes sliding away. A lord lowered his sword. Another took a step back. Someone else followed, boots crunching on ice as the line wavered.
Fear cracked what unity Kaelan had forged with blood and fire and hope.
Thorne swore under his breath, the word vicious and useless.
Dare rose to his feet.
He didn’t look toward the lords with their banners and polished armor and eyes already calculating retreat, but toward the mass behind them. Toward the workers with rough hands and borrowed blades. Toward the peasants who had no banners at all, only fury and hunger and too much to lose.
They stood packed together, breaths steaming, knuckles white around spears that had never been meant for war. They weren’t looking at Kaelan. They hadn’t been so intimately close to see their king fall.
And what was a king or a lord to them? Was Kaelan really a symbol of freedom to them, or just another crown that might be more merciful?
“Hanna. Can you raise shadows for us?” Dare looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes wide and desperate.
Fear stabbed into my chest. What would it cost me this time?
But I spread my arms, and the Shadow Weaver’s power rose around me eagerly, growing from those writhing shadows at my feet to cover me like a gown. I spread my arms, and so did the shadows. They rushed out in a flume like wings.
Even Dare’s eyes widened in awe.
Then Dare turned from the lords, his jaw set. “If these lords are cowards, then I’ll take the ones who don’t care about their lives as much as they do their freedom.”
Dare jumped from the stage and ran. He surged through the lords, who shied away with their fine horses and rich cloaks, gaping at him uncertainly.
He raced toward the workers, the peasants, the men and women gripping stolen weapons with white-knuckled determination.
“Listen to me!” he shouted. “Your lords might fail this kingdom, but you never will!”
The lords grumbled in response, but Dare didn’t hear them, and if he had, he would never have cared.
“Your whole lives have been a fight, but you’ve never given up!
You don’t need a king to tell you when to fight!
No one knows better than you!” Dare’s voice was never as perfectly calm and cold and modulated as Kaelan’s.
Dare’s voice rose with passion, and so did his fist, and so did the fists of a thousand peasants, following him. “Follow me!”
Then Dare looked back at me, his arm slicing through the air. “Follow the Shadow Queen!”
Their eyes rose above the lords themselves to me, dressed in shadows. The Shadow Weaver knew her role; shadows spread around me, above me, making me seem enormous.
My toes brushed the ice, and I realized I was levitating, born by shadows.
The ground seemed to darken beneath them. Gasps tore through the crowd. Someone dropped to one knee. Someone else lifted their weapon and let out a wild shout, and it echoed through the crowds.
“Follow me!” Dare shouted, running toward that far distant mass of darkness, spreading across the horizon. Edric’s seemingly endless army.
My breath caught in my chest wondering if they would follow him or not.