Chapter 22
Eleven days later, the vile stirrings of death whispered over Derren Castle.
I knew it before the trumpets called. Recognized the shiver of death over my skin, so similar to that on my return to Rove Castle the day Nicosia’s forces flew over its walls and slaughtered so many.
There’s a strange formalness to war, I discovered. Almost like the start of a ball. The dancers line up, eyeing each other, searching for a suitable partner and stepping onto the floor just as the musicians begin playing.
The Sestan army lined up much like that, taking their time to instate order, as though they were going to ask Derren Castle for its hand in marriage as opposed to utter surrender.
I wanted to search their ranks, try to find Nicosia among them, or any of the others I’d met in Rodsfell.
Instead, I stayed in the infirmary with the other healers, passing out helmets for when we’d have to crawl onto the ramparts to reach our injured.
If Sesta tried to fly over on its soulbound warbirds, our archers would be ready.
When a distant horn sounded—richer and lower than the brass at Derren—I winced. I felt the army coming upon us like a wave upon a ship, growing as it swept off the horizon, silent, then muffled, then buffeting as a great storm right before it fell onto the crew and smothered them all.
I am not afraid. I am to be feared, I told myself.
Drawing on a fraying string of courage, I reminded the others, “Our role is to keep the soldiers going. We are not spectators; do not let the battle distract you from healing. If we become overwhelmed, prioritize fatal wounds first. You’ve all been assigned a district; don’t go outside that district.
We cannot afford to let any side of the castle weaken. ”
My gaze flitted from face to face, seeing terror, determination, anger. Brekk, one of the healers from Rove, stood over the rest in the back, remaining darkly calm. He nodded when our gazes met.
Seln asked, “Where will you be, miss?”
I lifted my head against the weight of the question.
“I will focus on the king.” For I knew his lumis unlike any other.
Should Renn fall, I would be the swiftest in healing him.
If Seln ever saw the golden threading in his lumis, I feared she’d make the connection between us she’d so far failed to piece together.
Fear cut through my gut, and I was glad Renn would not feel it too sharply. I’d rebuilt the basalt wall—Renn’s idea, initially. He feared hurting me, and I feared distracting him. If Renn fell, all of Cansere would go with him. I’d merely be the first.
I continued, “If you’re hurt, heal yourself first. You’re not good to anyone slow, dead, or dying.
You six”—I gestured to a group of healers standing together, including an elderly man named Hord and Sarra, from Rove—“will wait here. If any soldiers come on their own or bring injured, those will be your charges. Otherwise, you will need to replace the present shift when they grow too weary to continue.”
Quiet nods.
I hated this next part, but it had to be said. “Officers take priority over the enlisted.” Visions of my brothers passed behind my eyelids; I blinked them away. “Do you all have rations on your persons?” It was imperative we keep up our strength.
I took my time looking over our crew, ensuring a confirmation from every soul.
I clenched my hands into fists so they would not tremble.
“Prepare yourselves,” I whispered.
And the wave crashed down.
I slipped in a puddle of blood.
My heel skidded out from beneath me, one knee dropping to the hard stone. The soldier in question had already bled out, an arrow to his eye. There was no saving him. His gore added to the dozens of other stains permanently etched into my dress.
Righting myself, I hurried past, keeping my head below the battlement, where another soldier writhed, holding the burned side of his face.
Nicosia’s dragons breathed fire. They hurled it over the wall in delicate glass vials.
I grabbed the soldier’s ear—his armor covered the rest of him—and dowsed. A simple pegboard for a lumis, thank goodness. It took little effort to return fallen pegs to their holes.
He ripped from my grasp the moment I finished, disorienting me; I could not blame him for it. He picked up his bow and shot into the fray below.
I took a few seconds, letting dizziness wash over me. I’d been at it for hours. Wisps of hair freed from my braid stuck to perspiration on my forehead and temples. A man cried out—one of ours, I was sure—farther down the wall, but Fil was down that way. He would tend him.
Turning, I peered through a sliver between merlons, spying two suns in the sky.
One dove into the army on wings of light.
The way he fought was mesmerizingly gruesome.
Renn moved as though his armor were made of feathers, swifter than any man on horseback, cutting through the sky like a ship through the sea.
The way he unfurled his wings and charged into the fray, knocking down entire squads at a time before rising back up toward the heavens .
. . he looked like the phoenix of Cansere.
But instead of a beak and claws, he wielded an enormous glaive, bloodied blade reflecting the sky.
I heard a thump behind me and drew away from the wall, an archer filling in my space almost immediately. A man lay unconscious down a set of two steps. Checking his lumis proved quicker than checking a pulse.
His death lines were erratic, but he lived. The unbalanced scales of his lumis made me think of Lonnie, gods help her wherever she was now. Merciful, that it wasn’t here.
I rebalanced them. In the present, he blinked, confused.
“Hurry back,” I commanded, even with my tongue heavy in my mouth. I needed to head back to the infirmary. I would be a fool not to take my own advice. An hour of rest, and I could return.
Only for every hour I slept, Renn’s risk increased that much more.
Crawling past a low part of the battlement, I hurried as best I could toward the keep. A limping soldier nearly knocked me over.
I recognized him at the same time I heard Death cackle in my ear. Our heads were higher than the battlement.
“Brien!” I cried, grabbing his elbow and hauling him down.
An arrow soared over us just after I did so.
I dowsed into his familiar lumis of grapevines, pressing magic into twisting stems that had wilted, healing a twisted knee.
When I came to, I could barely keep my head up. My heart fluttered, overtaxed.
Brien grimaced. “Go back, Nym!”
I nodded. Or I tried to. “I am.”
Cursing, he took me by the elbow and tugged me into the bailey. “Ursa is gone. Your strength won’t be what it was.”
As if I didn’t know. I twisted from his grip. “I may not be able to run as fast, but I can still run.” A headache pulsed behind my eyes. I clasped Brien’s armored wrist. “Stay alive.”
He nodded and hurried back onto the rampart.
I dragged myself to the infirmary.
“Sarra,” I called. To my relief, that was all she needed. She secured an apron and headed out to the wall, taking my place.
I looked hard at Hord. “If I sleep more than two hours, wake me.”
He looked like he might argue, but the man nodded.
And I slept.
Renn cleaved a horse and rider in two with a single strike.
I looked away reflexively, then back to ensure he hadn’t been hurt. I could barely tell dragon from phoenix on the battlefield, but I could always spot Renn.
And so could everyone else.
I watched through a slit in the stone as an arrow embedded near his groin; I felt a dull bruise in my own leg, the pain partially blocked by the basalt wall.
The foolish man didn’t retreat to the castle, but flew out of sight, returning moments later with an enormous shield, plowing through his assailants like a wedge through snow.
Then, pushing off corpses, he launched into the air and volleyed himself into the bailey.
I sprinted from my perch to his side, as did a few other soldiers. Limping, Renn waved them off.
“It’s not that bad,” he hissed.
I grabbed his sweat-soaked face and dowsed into his lumis, swallowed by light and rotating baubles of color.
Lit up in all his godliness, his lumis was almost too painful to look at.
Like falling into a sunset. I found the break in a large red globe and mended it, the glass giving way to me easily like it were a purring cat.
I knew the moment Renn yanked the arrow out, because the orb cracked again. I smoothed the breaks away, leaving only the residual scars from his breaking. The pain in my thigh abated.
There was no time for well-wishes or promises; as soon as I released him, Renn soared into the air again to carry Cansere on his back.
Another thing I had not expected in dealing with craftlock-edged war was the battle continuing in the darkness. With healers aiding soldiers, the men could come back, back, and back again, pushing their advantage, driving us to weariness.
If the dragons had not realized Cansere had crafters, they soon would.
Once night fell, Sesta sent its birds.
Men soulbound themselves to great birds to fly over our wall, just as they had in Rove. But Derren Castle had prepared itself. Volleys of arrows shot through the air, hitting bird and dragon alike.
And then Hawksend’s battalion charged from the shadows.
Canseren soulbinders dove into the fray, linking enemy soldiers to one another, to horses, roots, or anything soul-filled to make them easier targets for swords and spears. Cavalry stormed in, riders soulbound to their steeds. Nicosia’s men attacked on one front and defended on the other.
I was glad the darkness hid the violence, though even within the walls of the infirmary, I could hear it, and on the blood-slick walls, I healed it.
By the end of the night, I had to pull Sarra and Denwick from our small healers’ brigade. Their hearts could not endure the war, and I feared their minds would break for it.
They came for the gate in the morning.