Chapter 57
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
PHOENIX
My pulse spikes.
No fucking way.
“I said, arrest him!”
My voice is harder this time. A command with no room for misinterpretation. Around me, thirty Ezkai stand motionless in the pouring rain. Blades drawn, yes…
But nobody moves toward Reizei.
Nobody moves at all.
My gaze sweeps past their faces. Some are confused, looking at their comrades while others…they look at Reizei with determination.
The cold that seeped into me moments ago spreads through my chest now, reaching my fingers, my throat.
Looking me straight in the face, Reizei speaks. “Stand down.”
Two words.
Calm and unhurried. Like he’s been waiting years to say them. Like he’s been holding them in his mouth, warm and ready, for exactly this moment.
The sound of weapons lowering is a blow to my stomach.
Not all of them. But enough.
Enough for me to know what this is.
I look at the faces of men and women who won’t meet my eye. Fae who swore an oath on their knees in front of me.
But that’s not the worst of it. My gaze lands on Bloom, just a few feet away from me, her weapon lowered…
So, this is the moment I’ve been dreading.
Bloom…one with an easy smile, always ready to banter and tease. One who I thought was on my side, maybe even becoming a friend…
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. She was one of those who stood behind Nightingale that night back at the Ezkai Academy when Kata tried to drown me.
Fern, at Bloom’s side, looks even more shocked at her close friend’s betrayal than I feel.
In that moment, I don’t think.
I’m blinded with the ache of betrayal as I move.
My dagger finds the side of her throat before Bloom can take a step away from me. Her eyes widen a fraction, lips parting. I drive it in and drag it forward.
I step back as she drops. The rain swallows the sound of her hitting the ground.
Sneering, I look up at the men and women around me. “Fucking traitors.”
For one second nothing happens.
Then everything happens all at once.
The yard explodes. Steel on steel, bodies crashing into each other, shouts swallowed by rain and chaos.
My remaining loyal Ezkai crash into the turned ones. I can’t always tell which is which, and that alone makes my stomach turn.
Despite it, I fight.
I move through the yard, both daggers drawn, fast and low, targeting anyone who raises a weapon against my own.
A Caligos wearing my Ezkai’s leathers lunges at me from the left. I sidestep him, and drive my elbow into the back of his skull.
I keep moving.
My eyes are looking for Reizei in the chaos.
But he’s gone.
Of course he’s fucking gone.
A scream cuts through the noise. Not one of pain, but of warning. I spin in time to see Ezkai Cassandra surrounded by three Caligos loyalists.
She’s fast, she’s trained, she’s better than all of them individually.
Not all of them at once, though.
I’m already moving. But I’m not fast enough.
While she dodges the blade that comes at her throat, one catches her right under her ribs. As she stumbles, the third man slides his blade clean across her throat.
Ezkai Cassandra, the one instructor back at the Ezkai Academy who was kind to me, my loyal Ezkai soldier who trusted me to be the leader she was willing to serve, drops without a sound, the rain washing red across the cobblestones.
I stop breathing for a second.
Keep moving, something in me says. You have to keep moving.
So I do. I’m halfway across the yard, fighting against two Caligos loyalists, when it hits me.
A searing, tearing pain rips through my stomach so violently I stagger sideways and crash into another soldier.
My hands fly to my abdomen.
I look down expecting to find a blade, blood, something.
Nothing.
My hands are clean.
My stomach is whole.
But the pain is still there, radiating, real as anything I’ve ever felt. I dodge a punch, and then a blade coming at my throat.
Realization crashes over me like ice water.
Jax.
I spin, scanning the yard desperately. Bodies everywhere, rain and torchlight and chaos.
No, no, no.
My eyes tear across every face, every figure—
There.
He’s on his knees by the far wall, one hand braced against the stone, the other pressed to his stomach.
A turned Ezkai stands over him, pulling a blade free.
The world narrows to a single point.
I cross the yard faster than I know I’m capable of. The turned Ezkai looks up just in time to see me coming and not in time to do anything about it.
I drive my dagger into his chest and leave it there, dropping to my knees in front of Jax.
“I’ve got you,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “I’ve got you.”
His face is grey, hands soaked in dark. When he looks at me, his eyes are focused but only just.
Despite it, he still manages a weak half smile. “I know, darling.”
A thin line of blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.
“Retreat!” I bellow.
I get my shoulder under Jax’s arm and haul him upright. He bites down on a sound that I feel in my own ribs.
“RETREAT!” The word tears out of me so loud it cuts through the chaos of the yard. “ALL UNITS, RETREAT NOW!”
I half carry him, half drag him towards the gate. Where’s Ravenna? She was with us. I know she was.
Jax is trying to take his own weight and failing. I tighten my grip and refuse to let him fall.
To my left, I catch Ezkai Xander, still fighting. Outnumbered. Oh gods. Not him, too.
A blade comes down and I watch his arm—I watch him—
Noire appears right then from the shadows. He gets a shoulder under Xander, hauls him upright and sprints towards the gates.
I don’t have enough time to process. All of us—what’s left of us—are moving, a broken and bleeding exodus through the gates into the dark.
We have to get to the carriage.
A few of my loyal Ezkai ride after us, too.
I get Jax to the carriage first. I rip the door open to find Vera on one of the cushioned benches, leaning against the wall.
“Oh, thank the spirits of the gods.” I breathe the words out.
I get Jax up and inside, next to Vera, before I head outside, shouting for Ravenna.
“Here—General—” Ravenna’s one of the remaining riders. Loyal.
“Jax is hurt,” I tell her, pushing her inside the carriage. “Don’t let him die.” My voice cracks on the last word. “Ravenna. Don’t you let him die!”
She doesn’t answer me. She’s already working, hands moving fast and certain.
Noire carrying an armless Ezkai Xander approaches then. Both of them are soaked with rainwater and blood.
“Here, get in,” I order and help Noire with Ezkai Xander.
Once they’re inside, I tap the side of the carriage and scream at the coachman, “Move! Fast!”
The horses whine and the carriage lurches forward right as I slam the door shut behind me.
It’s tight inside with all of us cramped in here. Vera looks like a ghost of herself, but she holds Jax against her while Ravenna patches him up.
His heartbeat overlapping with mine inside my chest is weak. Too weak.
“Our bond, the connection, can I give him my essence to heal him or something?” I rush the words out, looking between Noire and Ravenna.
Noire shakes his head. “Unfortunately, it only works one way.”
Fuck…
Fuck!
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard the taste of copper fills my mouth. I look at Jax, his head tipped back against Vera’s shoulders, Ravenna’s hands pressed hard to his stomach.
Noire sits next to me, fastening a belt around what’s left of Ezkai Xander’s arm so he doesn’t bleed out either. He’s pale, head resting against the back of the seat.
More than half of my most loyal men and women have chosen Reizei’s side tonight. I’ve lost Ezkai Cassandra, and gods know how many more… The few who are riding after us…
The rain hammers the roof of the carriage as we ride back to Jaakii.
I didn’t see their faces. Did Ezkai Bjorn and Ezkai Emil make it? Did Fern?
I don’t know how long we ride. Time has gone strange, stretching and collapsing at once.
My eyes keep finding Jax. The grey of his face. The shallow rise and fall of his chest. Ravenna’s hands don’t stop moving, and I take that as a sign I shouldn’t let go of hope just yet.
Kazh warned me.
Lorca warned me.
Even the dragon showed me exactly what my choices could cost.
I thought I understood the warning.
I thought…saving Vera was the right thing.
Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.
Right now, with Jax’s heartbeat flickering against mine like a candle in wind, I can’t tell the difference.
I press my back against the carriage wall and close my eyes.
We lost. We won.
I don’t know which one matters more tonight.