Chapter 60
—Connak—
The world around him resumed. Umbrin swarmed the city from all angles, falling in on Broan. Danek and Baila fell out of their paused stances and dropped to the ground, surprised by the sudden shift. Danek looked around desperately. “Where is she?”
“Fuck!” Connak screamed, then turned and ripped his blade into the belly of an Umbrin. The king shouldn’t have been able to get out of the wards. Either he found a way around the magic, or he was strongly projecting. Regardless, it was cause for concern.
He couldn’t hear Kienna’s mind, but he sensed her presence.
Wherever the king took her, they were close but too far for him to reach.
Ruva tore through the clearing, growling and ripping through Umbrin as they closed in on her.
The savage look in her eye and the foam around her mouth indicated the same thing. She, too, couldn’t reach Kienna.
The Umbrin continued to flood around them.
Broan erupted the ground, flinging the Dead Army through the air and giving Connak enough time to approach where the king took Kienna.
To study it. Feel the air. There was still a magical tether to the location.
He could sense the deep pull of the gravity around him.
They’d be back. He needed to be ready for it.
—Kienna—
They walked along the forest floor near the Ashborn tree. No Maren in sight. Kienna could have kicked herself for thinking he would take her to her mother. She recognized the initials carved into the bark immediately. A+G. Avenna and Galric.
Vaerin stood next to her. “Let yourself see, child.”
Something within her shifted first, as if a knot was being untied. The pressure released in her mind, and then the world shifted around her, back to the familiar scene of her parents holding her near the tree. Before Vaerin seized them.
“She’s perfect, Gal.” Avenna’s voice sighed melodically.
Kienna clung to the words, stepping toward her.
She froze the scene in her mind and studied Avenna.
Hair of ash and speckled brown eyes, trying hard to be the gray that nearly matched her brother’s.
Honey bronze skin. Incredibly youthful, her mother outshone the world in beauty.
Kienna tried to paint the lines of her face, envisioning what Avenna would look like if the fire removed itself from her veins.
In the right light, she was part of River Storm.
So familiar in her childhood. Warm tears surfaced, tugging Kienna away from her thoughts.
Weary from the sight, she pushed the vision forward. King Vaerin watched with a smile that dared her to trust him, a reminder that she couldn’t fully trust anything in front of her.
Avenna handed the baby to Gal, the bright lullaby glowing in the enchanted forest. Watching him, Kienna realized she knew nothing about her father.
She knew everything about her mother’s hopes for her.
Everything about who she was and the people she surrounded herself with. The Elvish never talked about Galric.
Why?
He ended his song. “Kienna has been protected with the roots of Trinity.”
How odd, she thought. The first time she saw this vision, Galric used the name Kalyra.
“Visions can be fickle,” Vaerin said behind her as if reading her thoughts. “If you have the right sorcery, they can be manipulated.”
“Are you insinuating the queen manipulated what I saw?”
“Move the vision forward a little,” Vaerin suggested. Kienna did as she was told until he stopped her right at the attack. “I only mean to say that there are two sides to every coin. You’ve never bothered learning mine.”
Large blasts of red magic flew around them. Gal and Avenna deflected, but they weren’t deflecting King Vaerin.
“Run!” Gal said. “Take Kienna. Get her out of the forest. Get her away from my mother!” This, too, was different from what Kienna heard when she saw this with the queen. With Elira, Gal told Avenna to get the baby to the queen. Kienna rewound it in her mind.
Away.
Gal told Avenna to get the baby away from the queen.
“It’s convenient for you that I’m seeing this.” Kienna crossed her arms, watching the playback of Galric falling to the ground.
Avenna rushed to him while King Vaerin walked to the baby in the tree. He picked her up, handing her over to his soldier, Dren. “Take Kienna to River Storm, and tell the troops to retreat.” He peered back into the forest, eyes resting distantly.
“What about the Elvish City?” Dren asked, holding the baby.
Vaerin turned, the red scowl glowing over his lip. “The war is over. The queen has what she wants. She’s sworn to stop her pursuit of the child if we leave now.”
Dren nodded. Younger then, his skin was worn from battle, ash settling between fine lines forming on his forehead. He had a full head of hair as dark as night. He looked at Kienna and smiled. Then he disappeared.
Vaerin waited for a time, then turned as the Elvish army surrounded them from behind.
Queen Elira stood in front of them. She locked in on Vaerin.
Vaerin ignored the stares. Instead, he held his hand out to his sister as she caressed Galric’s cut cheek.
Avenna looked pained as she stared at Vaerin, but she rose anyway.
“Come, Ave. I will keep you both safe.”
Avenna glanced back at Galric, a tear falling down her cheek. Galric nodded to her. “Go, my love. She’ll need you more than me.”
“She cannot become this, Ave,” Vaerin said fiercely. “You understand. She will remain in River Storm with me, and you cannot allow her to transform. The world will turn on her. I will have no choice but to turn on her.”
Avenna nodded and walked off into the forest.
Very much alive.
The vision faded, and Kienna stood in front of the Ash tree again, only the initials to ground her.
King Vaerin’s hand on her shoulder startled her, but she didn’t pull away.
She worked to understand what the king would gain if what he showed her was true.
Or what he’d gain if what he showed her was a lie.
“I won’t fill in the void of what happened to your father. I won’t assume I know what they did with him, but you must know it was not me.”
“So, what then?” Kienna scanned him for any hint of deception. She almost prayed for a hint of truth. What if she could allow herself to dream of having a mother again? Would she give it up to go back to her, knowing who she was?
“We need to fight back,” Vaerin sighed, brushing the trees around him.
“They broke their oath to leave us be. We must tear down their city and the source of their magic. For the sake of the realm, my child. You know how to open the wards. I sense the knowledge in you. Tell me how, and we can make them pay. I can truly make them pay.”
Kienna’s head reeled from all the information the king threw at her.
She tried to push past the songs in her head and then the riddles.
She couldn’t rely on them anymore. She couldn’t rely on herself not to overthink and panic.
She could only rely on what she knew, and that was from the letter Avenna wrote her.
She warned against Vaerin and Elira. They would try to control her.
Two sides of the same coin.
She was tired of being controlled.
—Broan—
Broan blasted through as many Umbrin as he could to get back to the others.
Seeing Baila fighting Danek gave him pause before he jumped to help.
He hadn’t seen Baila since their arrival in the Elvish city.
Danek mentioned he and Kienna fought her in Dalelry, but she and Broan never managed to sync up.
“Good to fucking see you, Vinebitch,” Broan said, holding his sword in front of him.
Baila tilted her chin and laughed. “You’ll be a lot easier to kill.”
Broan tightened his grip on the blade. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She filled her body with a glowing green, the brown freckles of her face glowing like the flecks of lichen on stone. Baila really did look like a witch with how she channeled nature into her body like poison.
Broan angled himself next to Danek, rolling his sleeves. “Alright, Brother. I guess we go out fighting.”
“I don’t plan on dying.” Danek spun a swirling torrent of wind that deflected a set of vines flying their way. Broan puffed out his lip and shrugged his brows. That was impressive. Baila grunted from the effort, weaving the plants around to get a space in between them.
The wind blew so violently that anything in its path fell apart.
Broan slammed his fist into the ground, pushing a pile of rubble toward her.
He got lucky when it knocked her down and managed to take out another set of Umbrin.
More pooled out of portals. Where the fuck were they coming from? And how was the king doing this?
“Keep them out of here,” Connak yelled from the center as Danek cut into one at the same time he deflected Baila’s attempts of covering his feet with vines. “I’m pulling at the tether. He’s projecting, so something should pull him back.”
“Let me toss you in the air,” Danek said to Broan.
“The fuck you will!” Broan didn’t intend to fly anywhere.
“It’s all wind,” Danek grunted. He spun his body up and around the other side of Baila, pushing winds high enough that the Umbrin barreling for them couldn’t make it through.
Their bodies flung in the air. “My guess is if you come down hard enough, you can shake the earth. Channel the energy toward the portals, and see if we stop them.”
Baila ripped vines from the ground, clinging to them for balance. She didn’t look confident like the Baila Danek described in Dalelry—or Dove Port, for that matter. Granted, Baila didn’t appear to be carrying a shadow blade.
“Fucking hell,” Broan grumbled. “Do it.”
Danek let go of the torrent blowing Umbrin back and channeled it toward Broan, propelling him into the air.
Broan nearly pissed himself as he flew up, but he wouldn’t let Danek outshine him.
Fuck that. Broan yelled a battle cry and dove toward the earth.
When he landed, his fist crashed so deeply into the rubble of the desolate city that the earth quaked, crumbling the archways.
Danek stumbled then steadied, but Baila fell into a crevice opening within the ground.
Good fucking riddance. Now, if she would only let go of the vines holding her in place, she could fall into the pits of whatever underworld prepared itself for her.
The fucking pretty boy had other plans. He lowered to reach his hand out to Baila. Broan let go of the magic quaking the earth, watching as the portals closed and the Umbrin stepping through them were sliced in half. Why did it seem like they were not ridding themselves of this dead army so easily?
“What are you doing, Brother?” Broan asked. “Let her fucking die.”
“She’ll pull herself out in the end,” Danek said as the world stilled. “Keep watch for Connak, would you?”
Broan rolled his eyes. “You’re going to leave me fighting these fucking beasts on my own?”
Danek’s eyes lit up. “If I can fight a leviathan by myself in the desert, you’ll be fine.”
Broan’s lips curved. He’d have to ask what a leviathan was, but he was impressed by the things Danek did while he was gone. He only wished he’d been there to see it.
—Danek—
Danek leaned over the edge of the open crevasse.
The earth split nearly in two around Baila.
She held tightly to the vines. No risk of falling, but maybe she’d listen for a second before deciding she wanted to lunge up and kill them all.
Ruva pancaked over to him, whimpering as he watched behind Danek.
“How’s it hangin’?” he asked. It was a stupid first line. He knew that. He gathered that Baila had a mixed bag of emotions about him, yet another reason for her to hate Kienna as much as she did.
Baila glared at him, her green eyes already working out how she could climb up and kill them. She writhed, pulling her magic to her hand.
“Do you enjoy this?” Danek asked.
She paused.
Danek pressed. “Leading dead things, I mean. I never thought that would be your story, honestly.” He pointed to the vines and the flowers around her. Even in the pits of broken earth. “You tend to the living. What mental work do you have to go through to make any of this okay?”
“None of your business. I do what I know is right for the realm. Your Elvish are evil. They poison the world.”
“We know,” Danek said. “They’re a means to an end, but we don’t stand with them either.” Judging by the parted lips and furrowed brows, Danek knew he hit a nerve. “You didn’t know there was a third option with us, did you?”
Baila kicked at the ground and let the vines inch their way up her legs. “Doesn’t matter. I could never stand with Kienna.”
Ruva growled at the distaste in Baila’s tone.
“Neither could Broan. Look at him now.” Danek looked at the Viking slashing Umbrin as he protected Connak.
The mere strength he had to stand when it would be easy to fall.
Easy to take the king’s hand and go back…
Danek hoped Kienna was okay. She’d be back.
He knew it. She was sure of herself. She wouldn’t have gone with the king for no reason.
“There’s no way back from this, Danek.”
“Yeah, there is. You just have to take the chance.” He reached his hand to her.
The vines stopped ascending, and Baila stared at him.
“Help us, Baila. We can protect you.” Danek didn’t know if that was fully true.
She had a lot to answer for. The Elvish army would not be accepting of her.
Certainly not Connak and Tristian. Not after Dove Port. Not after Tislin’s death.
Kienna would.
Not at first, but Danek could convince her. Kienna knew better than anyone what the king could do to someone’s mind. She would come around and fight for Baila.
“Trust us,” Danek said when he saw her hesitation. She was hesitating. That was a good sign. “Broan can take you to the mountains. Away from all of this.”
Ruva growled behind him. Danek turned to see an Umbrin closing in.
He flipped his body and ripped his sword, but it was too late.
The creature grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him from the ground.
Danek summoned the wind. Before he could do anything with it, a vine crashed through the Umbrin.
The creature collapsed to the ground. Danek flipped over, ready for more.
He was met with Baila’s hand reaching for him.
He grinned as he took it. “Welcome back to the living.”
“Don’t let me down, Danek.”
Connak stood from the center and looked out at them. His eyes caught on Baila, then brushed past her. “She’s coming back.”