40. Chapter 40 #2
I swung onto Daiti’s back and lifted my sword once more. “We march on the palace! Do not stop until the city is ours once more.”
The riders of Kelvadan lifted their fists and let out their howling battle cry.
The lords and clansmen wasted no time adding their own calls to the mix, trying to drown them out as if in competition.
To the accompaniment of their shouts, I wheeled Daiti around and led the way out of the storeroom and turned his nose back toward the palace.
As I looked up the last tiers of the city though, my eyes locked on the spire reaching into the sky at the very top of the stacked structure. That is where our true victory lay.
Even as the thought took root in my head, the ground trembled—not a true earthquake, but a threat, like the rumble of thunder in the distance.
I pulled on the tether in my belly, all but begging Erix to hurry as well, even though I was sure he also felt the urgency hanging in the air like smoke.
As the lords and all the riders of the clans and the city followed me, I quickened my pace.
Together, we wove our way up through wider and wider streets.
Although we met less resistance, a sense of foreboding built in my chest. Calix had likely gathered his remaining forces at the palace, pulling them tightly around him in an impenetrable fortress.
But that fed my fear less than the unforgiving intensity of the sun overhead—growing so hot I thought it sought to melt us.
Another tremor ran through the ground, this one enough for Daiti’s usually perfect gait to falter for a moment, just as we crested the last rise before the palace gate.
If we did not find victory soon, all would be lost.
The wrought iron gate of the palace courtyard came into view, and my fears were confirmed.
Soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, filling the entire space between the gate and the palace doors.
Swords gleamed in their hands, although they seemed to have learned from the battle at the oasis and foregone their heavy plate armor.
This time, they were just as likely to succumb to heat as we were.
For just a moment, I hesitated. Erix and the soldiers from Doran were not here yet, giving Viltov the advantage in both numbers and position. Then, the shrill cry of a command rang out from the courtyard before us, and a line of archers raised their bows and nocked arrows.
The fight was upon us, whether Erix was here or not.
So, with a sharp cry, I urged Daiti into a canter. The scraping and pounding of hooves and boots on the stone behind me, mixed with the cries of “For the desert!” and “For Kelvadan!” told me that the army at my back followed.
My heart pounded along with the rumble of the charge, rising into my throat as my breath came faster.
Arrows whooshed overhead, but I didn’t even duck, instead just tilting my head to the side to avoid one brushing past my ear.
The heat of the sun burned across my skin, and I let it, allowing fire to dance at my fingertips.
A gate still stood between me and my enemy, but this one would not take a lava wyrm to destroy.
I was enough.
I threw one hand out in front of me and a gout of fire shot forward with enough force that it might have knocked me back if not for the strength of Daiti beneath me. But my stallion ran as strong as ever, and the heat of the flame melted the bolt holding the finely wrought gate closed.
This one had not been fortified, whether because Calix did not expect us to make it this far, or because he did not think we would be foolish enough to charge into his most closely defended stronghold, I could not say.
In the end, it didn’t matter as Daiti and I hurtled through the gate, nearly knocking one of the two halves off its hinges as it banged open.
The tide of battle took me instantly, strong as the tidal wave I had once tried to hold at bay.
This time, though, I went with it willingly.
All the lightning and rage and turmoil I had held within, I cut loose from its binds.
If there were ever a moment to let the storm beneath my skin out, it was now.
The courtyard around me turned into a raging sea of battle and blood, rising and falling like the dunes shaped by the wind. I sat at the center of it, wreathed in wind and lightning and fire as I fought with both magic and blades.
Aderyn’s sickle blades shone in the corner of my vision, and Elion’s shouts filled the air, causing the stolen horses of the enemy to buck and throw off their riders. Izumi and Badha fought shoulder to shoulder, all who came near them falling to the ground in a matter of moments.
It all faded into the background though, my head overtaken by a buzzing haze of frenetic energy and need, driving me forward.
The hum began to take on an undulating rhythm, almost like a melodic voice.
For a moment, I thought it was my mother’s voice, but then I realized where I had heard it before—in the mist, spoken by the strange woman with a thousand faces.
Our goddess.
Look up.
I tore my blurred vision from my sword, which rose and fell on instinct alone. For a moment, I was stunned to see a stone face looking down at me, lips curved into a mischievous smile. But just over Kelvar’s ear, a dark red gleam shone.
I blinked and found a dark silhouette with windswept hair standing on a terrace a few floors above the courtyard. The red light came from something in his hands.
The Heart. It was so close I could see it. It was within my grasp.
Daiti’s muscles bunched beneath me, ready to propel me forward through the last lines of men between me and the palace door. A cry from beside me stopped me cold in my tracks, like a bucket of water had been thrown over my flaming skin.
The voice was Aderyn’s, but it was not her normal fearsome cries.
Instead, her voice was full of pain and panic.
I whipped my head around to see that she had dropped one of her blades and instead grabbed her stomach as she hunched over.
Liquid stained her pants and dripped off the sole of her boots. It was tinged with blood.
I lunged forward, putting myself between her and an attacker that meant to use her moment of distraction against her. Even as I did, though, a fresh wave of Viltov cavalry joined the fray.
Fear bubbled up in my chest, thick and hot as the lava wyrm’s magma.
I needed to get the Heart, but I could not leave Aderyn exposed in battle when the tide was against us—not right now.
I looked up again, but Calix had disappeared from the terrace.
I needed to find him before he escaped, but I couldn’t be everywhere I was needed at once—everything the desert required in one moment.
The tether in my belly snapped taut, and I knew all at once that I was not alone
Blinding light flashed as magic that was not my own danced in my chest. Erix’s feral cry cut through the accompanying thunder as he charged into the courtyard, the lightning he had summoned striking down the attackers closest to us instantly.
Even as he ran straight toward me, the men of Doran followed hot on his heels.
Their axes and broadswords whistled through the air, pushing the forces of Viltov back and drawing their attention enough that I managed to herd Aderyn’s piebald mare to the side as she nearly slipped off, out of the thickest of the fighting.
I prepared to help her down, but she shook her head vehemently. “Go!”
I hesitated and she ground her teeth. “I want the desert to be here when my baby joins us. I need you to make sure it is.”
A hand on my shoulder made my short sword fly up, ready to stab an assailant in the eye socket, but I staid it just in time when I recognized Badha’s face.
“I’ll stay with her,” she assured. I looked again at Aderyn, and then back at the dark form of Erix, cutting his way through the chaos toward the palace doors. In a matter of moments, he would be free of the battle and crashing through the doors to hunt down Calix.
And while I didn’t know what exactly we needed to do to heal the Heart once we had it, the echo in my bones told me it would take two.
Together.
We had promised to do this together.
Aderyn gave me one last nod—one warrior to another—even as her face pinched in pain.
As always, her commands brooked no argument.
With one hasty thought aimed at the desert, begging her to be merciful for just a bit longer, I jumped down off Daiti’s back and sprinted toward Erix, falling into stride with him as we pounded up the steps to the palace doors.
Aderyn would fight her battle, and I would fight mine.