Chapter Thirty-Five #2
“For years you have lived in hiding.” His voice carried to the gathered.
“Stripped of your wings, your homes, your families. You were told to forget who you were.” He paused, giving his words room to land.
“I forgot too. I told myself I was nothing but a pirate. I let myself believe it, because the truth was too heavy to carry alone.”
A murmur rippled through the gathered army but stopped when Calroy continued.
“But I refuse to hide. Refuse to forget.” His grip on my hand tightened. “And beside me is the goddess of the sea—Yeri, returned, exactly as the old stories promised. Not a legend. Not a hope passed down by firelight.” His voice rose. “Real. Here. Ready to fight beside every one of you.”
Cheers and shouts of approval boomed. Calroy raised a hand, and the noise subsided.
“The queen took everything from all of us. The Caelum people lost their wings. The Seaborn lost their kingdom beneath the sea, their families, their freedom—hunted, sold, and silenced. She tried to erase two gods in one stroke, believing neither would ever rise to stand against her.” He paused, letting the word sink in. “She was wrong.”
The crowd held its breath.
“Today we stand together.” He lifted his fist toward the sky.
“For Caelum! For every wing she clipped, every Seaborn she chained, every life she stole, and every name she tried to erase! Today we remind her what gods look like when they remember themselves and what their people look like when they fight for what is right!”
The roar that followed shook the trees.
“I knew there were Seaborn among you,” I called out.
A man stepped forward from the gathered crowd. Built like a warrior, broad through the shoulders, his eyes bright green.
“My name is Yong.” He pressed a fist to his chest and bowed. “I have rallied every Seaborn I could find who escaped the Seelie queen’s reach. It is an honor to serve you, My Lady.”
“Hoo!” The hundred behind him echoed the gesture in unison, fists striking chests, a sound like a single heartbeat rolling across the shore.
I had nothing to say that matched the weight of what he’d just given me.
A hundred people who had chosen to keep fighting instead of disappearing.
Who had found each other in hiding and held on, the way Jina and Minha and I had held on to each other in the cavern.
The way Nam had held all of us together with nothing but stories, songs, and the stubborn refusal to let us forget who we were in her own way.
I bowed my head to him instead. Some things deserved more than words.
Then from somewhere in the gathered crowd, a voice carried a tune.
Then another. Then the sound built, until it moved through the whole assembly like a tide.
The song. The one Nam used to sing by the firepit.
The one Minha had hummed in the dungeon.
The one Hope had sung at Mount Kael with dirt on her face and fire in her eyes.
We were born of the sea and our people will rise,
We were never meant for cages, we will not compromise.
The pearls that they took were the tears that we shed,
For the sisters we lost and the mothers long dead.
But the tide always turns and the sea always calls,
A star in the darkness will unite us all.
I pressed my fist to my chest and held it there, until the ache passed and the tears subsided. Calroy squeezed my hand, grounding me, then his eyes swept the crowd one final time.
“The queen took everything from us. Our wings. Our kingdoms. Our names. But she could not take what we are. And today, we take it back.”
He flapped his wings and hovered higher. “This is what she feared most.” He gestured at the crowd—winged, Seaborn, soldiers, all of them standing shoulder to shoulder. “She built her entire reign on keeping us apart. Today, that ends.”
Fists pounded the air, voices rising in one unified sound. Then, one by one, they dropped to their knees, heads lowered.
“Rise, my fellow comrades.” Calroy’s voice carried over all of them. “Take the sky and fly. And those who cannot—ride like the wind.”
One of the winged men, broad-shouldered and silver-haired, launched first, the rest following in a great rush, hundreds of them lifting at once. The sky filled with wings, sunlight catching feather after feather until it looked like the whole horizon had come alive.
The remaining soldiers swung onto their horses, the ground rising in dust with the sudden charge of hooves, the sound rolling out of the forest like thunder finding its feet.
Calroy lowered us back to the ground in front of Selene.
Minha scanned the tree line like she expected an ambush. Fraya stood with arms crossed, weight shifted onto one hip, the look of someone calculating odds. Jina pressed close to my side, her fingers finding mine.
“What do we know of the queen’s movements?” Calroy’s wings folded in.
Selene’s wings shuddered. “Our source says she’s left the castle.”
“When?”
“Two days ago. She’s moving south with her army toward the coast. She’s decided to come to you instead and choose her own ground.”
“That doesn’t sound like her.” Rowhan furrowed his brow.
Palto rubbed his jaw, considering. “I would have to agree with Rowhan. Something is amiss.”
“Perhaps her plans have changed.” Fraya hummed, unconvinced even by her own suggestion.
“Then this is the perfect time to use the secret passage,” Rowhan said. “While she’s distracted moving toward the coast, the castle will be lighter on guards.”
My chest tightened. “We move now.”