68
Raiden
Smoke drifted from the blue-slatted roofs of Mistros City.
Elegantly curved walls shattered, a sea of dust and debris coating the narrow streets.
Children screamed, their cries raking Raiden’s ears as he guided them to the hill leading to Windspire Castle.
Blood splattered their clothes, and his stomach twisted as mothers screeched names, their children missing in the rushing crowd.
“This way!” Kora yelled. “Your king is waiting for you!”
She raised her hand, light blooming from her fingertips, signalling through what remained of the Mist. Everyone ran, their footsteps pounding against the cobblestones.
Some tripped, and Raiden flicked his hands, his magic propping them back up to avoid being trampled on.
As they cleared through the western section, he motioned Kora to follow.
Courtyard by courtyard, they cleared families and businesses, guiding them to the safest path to the castle, where Zephyr waited with his men.
A splice of red-hot frustration cut through Raiden’s chest. His father had condemned them, he’d caused their suffering for a decade and hid the truth from them all.
Ever since Ilma, he’d been elusive with his plans, never allowing his children to get too close.
Raiden frowned, his father’s words troubling him.
The way his anger had simply vanished, his vendetta against him and Kora forgotten.
Why had he wanted to take Kora and Erick to the highland?
It was a dormant volcano, the land barren and dark.
They avoided establishing towns on the west side of Galen in fear of the volcano becoming active once again, the Horrow Mountains their only protection from it.
Raiden couldn’t comprehend his father’s actions.
In fact, he’d never been able to. He’d grown comfortable with the distance Zephyr had erected between them—Aerion and Skylar included.
But as he barrelled towards danger, a small thread of worry lined his spine.
He reached out with his mind, probing the distance to the castle, but his father’s mind had always been shut off to his gift. Always resistant to allow Raiden in, both physically and mentally.
Raiden’s concerns evaporated as they sprinted to the promenade. Ships sailed in, advancing as cannon blasts tore apart the city. His beast raged at the destruction, debris blowing up into the air, mixing with the thin Mist. He coughed, hacking against the dust filling his lungs.
Endless green sails stained the horizon. Magnificent ships of mahogany and figureheads of serpents and shadows. That golden insignia blazed, the wretched thing leaving a bad taste in Raiden’s mouth.
Skylar and Erick stood upon the shore, countless mercenaries filling out the miles-long bay. Even those farthest away would be able to hear Skylar once the battle fully began. Cannons flew, but none aimed for the shoreline of Galenite soldiers.
Barron was targeting the civilians and the city. Raiden growled as he kept pace with Kora’s surprisingly fast yet short legs. Hector’s ship was ready in the centre of the dock, Fallen Angel’s red sails stark compared to the fleet of Galenite warships either side of it.
Aerion had been swift. His organisation true and thorough. He was the right person to lead this war, the right person to succeed their father. He was a born leader.
And there he stood, on the edge of the main dock, his arms raised and trembling as the faintest shimmer surrounded the fleet of ships. Aryn stood to his right, his head swivelling as he kept an arrow nocked in his longbow.
“If ye betray us, lassie, don’t think I won’t stop to kill ye,” Hector barked as they approached the dock with haste.
“Touch her, and your pirates will be left without a king,” Raiden’s snarl echoed, and Skylar’s brows flew high as they passed her.
Erick’s mouth thinned, his stare glued to the horizon.
Kora’s fear had drenched the bond when she’d taken Erick to the side.
Raiden had watched from the other side of the army, granting Kora the privacy she wanted.
Erick was still weak, despite Kora’s healing magic, yet he was laying his life down.
Something like respect filled Raiden. Erick was doing what he should’ve done ten years ago.
“You have my word, Hector,” Kora spun to face him. “I will protect the innocent.”
He marched to his ship, pausing to glare back with his one good eye. “We’ll see.”
Wind tore at the sails, the sea rolled and crashed, spilling across the deck, soaking their crew. Grey clouds smothered the sky, cutting off the sun as the Talmon Empire neared. Kora had sailed far enough out, and Aerion was allowed a reprieve of his magic.
Thunder rolled, and Raiden glanced up at the sky. Flashes of lightning streaked through the clouds as they grew heavy and dark, like shadows of death dancing above them. The Mist had completely faded this far out, and when he glanced back to his homeland, he could see a clear outline of the city.
They were a sitting target. His father’s magic could no longer maintain the protection.
Raiden couldn’t imagine being able to sustain something so grand for so long, and why he’d even done it.
How could Zephyr have kept it a secret all this time?
Had he never planned to tell them? Raiden clenched his jaw, confused at the fury and worry clashing together within him.
He wanted to be mad. He wanted to yell and demand his father tell him everything.
But all he could wonder was if Zephyr was safe. If the civilians fleeing to him were alive. If his father would make it to the mountains unharmed.
“Fire!” Kora’s voice tore as she signalled from the helm. She was mighty, a fierce captain full of life. Her hair whipped around her, her eyes of the brightest blue as she echoed her command twice.
The warships’ cannons blasted, cracking in time with the sky’s tempo.
Burnt black powder brandished his nose, cries of war swimming through his mind, churning memories of his decades of violence in the conquest. His heart levelled out, the familiar numbness overcoming him as he succumbed to his years of training, detaching himself from his fear.
His past surged, that killer instinct consuming him. A beast. A soldier. A pawn. He would be whatever he needed to be. To protect the island. To protect Kora.
He closed the bond as much as he could, not wanting Kora to experience this side of him. Of what he was becoming. Raiden lingered in the crow’s nest, scanning infinite ships for a splotch of darkness. Of inky tendrils that spooled like tar. A cold spot in the sea of fire and blood.
Hector’s commands were audible as he ordered his crew, his ship storming the front.
Fallen Angel soared as fast as her figurehead’s wings.
The Galenite fleet converged, forming a perfect semi-circle, protecting as much of Mistros City as possible.
Crew members roared as enemy ships on the far sides collapsed, the triple-cannons in the Galenite warships sinking them.
But there were still so many. Dozens of enemy ships. Carrying those soldiers. The ones that tore the fabric of reality and defied the laws of the islands. Who reeked of sulphur and bitter, cold darkness.
Fire exploded from all ships, the booms of cannons ringing in Raiden’s ears as he scoured every ship, every fucking deck, looking for him. He wouldn’t lose Kora again, he wouldn’t allow her back into Barron’s clutches.
The ship rocked, Kora spinning the wheel with flair that brought a smile to his lips in the midst of death. She belonged on a ship, her essence beaming from every pore as she navigated the vessel through the increasingly choppy waters.
A storm was coming.
The gods were watching them. Raiden could feel it deep in his bones.
Salted water sprayed, the sea becoming more violent the closer they approached the empire’s armada.
Raiden licked his bottom lip, relishing in how it reminded him so much of Kora.
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, until a sickening coldness snapped at his mind.
Taunting. Leering. Deadly.
There.
Raiden’s stare landed on a ship in the heart of the fleet as a raven’s claws probed, testing the strength of his mind. Shadows filled his mind’s eye, flashes of purple throughout, until they formed a pair of familiar glowing eyes.
“I see you,” Raiden growled.
Barron was trying to infiltrate his mind, trying to take over as he’d done with Kora. A laugh was the only response to Raiden’s magic pushing back, consequently revealing his own illusion magic.
He didn’t care. He wasn’t the only mage with more than one power anymore. Something lingered on the horizon of mage history, a new era of blended powers. No one had realised it yet, but there were at least three mages now with dual powers. Himself, Kora, and Blake fucking Marwood.
He hadn’t found anything in the Galen Archive, the history of scriptures and magic declaring only one gift was possible per mage. But somehow, the three of them defied nature’s laws.
“You can’t protect her forever.” Raiden frowned, the voice unfamiliar. Neither male nor female, but something other. Something jabbed at his mind, and droplets of dread dripped down his neck.
“Fucking watch me,” he snarled, his inner beast roaring, demanding blood to be spilled at the threat of his future bonded.
“She will be ours. She is the key. Or come face me yourself, son of Zephyr.”
A second jab followed, the dread coiling tight. Raiden’s magic lurched, his winds telling him to fly, telling him to attack. That he needed to eliminate the threat now. He gripped onto the crow’s nest, his blood pounding in his ears as he fought the primal urges wrestling within.
He glanced back at Kora. She was transcendent, even now. Her magic shimmered, growing brighter every moment. A blue fire in her veins that echoed her eyes, and a divine glow that sparkled in each strand of moonlight hair.
“Her blood will be spilled, and I will take my rightful place among the divine.”
He couldn’t let anything happen to Kora.
He couldn’t repeat the past. Raiden hissed, his magic and mind screaming at him.
He had to do this. He’d been here twice before, had watched as Kordelia had thrown herself into war.
Had witnessed as she’d been consumed by Barron’s mere touch of magic.
Even with Iris, he’d hesitated. Had been ignorant of where his enemies lurked, and it’d cost her life.
Raiden wouldn’t fail again. This time, he would do what he’d been born to do. What Zephyr had raised him to do.
“Kora,” Raiden stroked the bond, imagining the faintest of brushes against her cheek.
The pain at what he was about to do nearly tore him in half.
But he couldn’t allow Barron to be near Kora ever again.
This time, he had to choose war over being with his love.
He had to choose to strike first, before the enemy could sever his heart.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t let something happen to you like Iris. Sail back, now. Don’t come after me.”
“What? What are you doing?”
Raiden fully closed the bond, and gasped as he sagged in the crow’s nest from being cut off from her. He shot into the sky, unsheathing his sword as he dove towards Barron’s ship.