Chapter 57
Where’s the pain? That’s the first thought that strikes me when my mind slowly filters back into reality.
Where is the pain? My hands were hurting so much, but now there’s nothing. What does that mean? Am I dead? Have my powers already returned to Mortidem? And if that’s the case, why am I still able to hear my own thoughts?
Fen, I reach down the bond but find it empty. Fen!
Fear surges through me as I blink my eyes open, only to realise I am flying.
I have slipped into a vision.
Thank the Gods!
Tentatively, I scan the scene. I am above a road. A road that is faintly familiar, but I need to be higher to know for sure. I fly upwards, fragments of sound drifting to me on the breeze.
Shouting. No, screaming.
Is the battle still raging? Did Kyor not end it the way he’d planned? And if that’s the case, then where is he? My heart hammers against my frail ribs. Has he been captured? Or worse, killed?
The thought is all it takes to spur me into action.
Very rarely have I tested what this small frame of mine can do, and never have I done it like this, out of pure desperation.
I don’t think about the stress and strain on the small body as I push its muscles to their limit, soaring higher still, feverish to reach the pyrrhic.
But I’m so far away from the mountains. So very far away. Why?
My mind muddles. It makes no sense. I’m nowhere near Isthyr. Miles and miles from Kyor and the battle. So what were the screams I heard?
I might not know why I’m the only Sanning with Raven Sight, but I know these slips are not random. I’ve been brought here for a reason, and the sooner I learn what that reason is, the sooner I can hopefully return to Kyor and Isthyr.
With a slow sweep, I turn around and head away from the mountains, back the way I came, following the cries of despair carried on the wind.
A city appears in the distance, surrounded by dark walls, and with four towers stretching up to the sky from the centre. The soft red glow from the windows suffuses the night sky. And then I hear it. The beat under the cries.
The drums of Galreck are always beating, but today the beat sounds ominous.
It carries a warning with it.
Galreck. Why am I in Galreck? There can only be one reason. The third dagger.
I quicken my speed, dipping and diving on the rising thermals.
Faint cries, the likes of which I heard when I first opened my eyes, purl on the air, and with every beat of my wings they grow stronger.
Pained screams, not of one or two, but of dozens, maybe even hundreds, grow louder and louder the closer I get to the city.
My gaze shifts to the edge of the forest, just beyond the slums, where shadows cling to the darkness. There are bodies moving briskly. Fleeing, perhaps? From such a distance, it’s difficult to tell. I need to get closer, but the exertion burns in my tiny avian frame.
I urge my form on, finding a pace I can more easily maintain, and am hovering over the very outskirts when the cry reaches me.
‘Run!’ The single word pierces through the rest. ‘Everyone run, run!’
My insides coil as I sweep down, cursing my stupidity in flying the wrong way to begin with.
If I’d just taken the time to consider where I was, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time and energy racing towards the mountains.
I might already know why I’ve been sent here, what carnage I’m here to witness.
As I sweep down, closing in on the shadows I assumed were fleeing Galreckians, the sight that hits me is enough to make me retch.
It was never people. No, what I see is so, so much worse.
Rottings. Hordes of Rottings, not fleeing as I first thought, but instead heading straight for Galreck.
It wasn’t just my dagger that Mila was coming for. She needs them all to make sure she has the right one, and while she sent her Morathkian fools to fetch mine, Galreck was not offered the same courtesy of being given a chance to fight back.
Tears blur my beady eyes.
I need to do something. I need to help them in whatever way I can. But how? My tiny heart is thrumming so fast, it almost deafens me to the constant cries and wails that rend the air, one after another.
‘Fuck!’ I jerk upwards as a Rotting swipes at me, but not in threat, just out of annoyance. Of course it’s not threatened by me. I’m a fucking raven. I can’t do anything like this. I can’t protect anyone in this form.
‘Go north!’ someone cries. ‘They’re coming from the forest! Go north! We will hold here!’
‘We will hold them off!’ someone else agrees. ‘Get yourself to safety!’
A handful of Rottings have already reached the outskirts of the slums, where brave men and women stand, full of fear, with rakes, stakes, and blunt knives to protect the others from the Rottings.
One of us.
My heart aches at their bravery, and I want to sob for them all. Because they might slow down one or two of them, but after that…
With a new ripple of fear, I soar back upwards, seeing how the horde of Rottings trails deep into the forest. How deep, I dread to think.
Still, there is no sign of a Myrkr, so at least the Galreckians have magic on their side. Though knowing how little of it the slum residents will wield makes me feel sick.
A blast of wind, stronger than even Llin could have produced, batters me from the side. My body tumbles wing over wing, dizzying me and sending me off course. Finally, I recover myself and sweep back to the city.
As I look out, I see a familiar face. A kid hoisted onto the back of a horse.
A kid who’s surprisingly good at blackmail for someone his age – a skill learned from life in the slums. Lofty.
Two other children cling to him, their terrified faces shining white in the dark, hands trembling as they clutch their ill-made weapons, trying to stifle their sobs.
‘Burn, arseholes!’ someone cries as they lunge forward to protect the children, a torch in their hand.
The flames catch a Rotting’s tattered garments, quickly engulfing its body entirely, but the creature barely slows as it continues to lurch on.
Lofty’s horse rears, the children scream, and before I can cry out a warning—
I fall back out of the vision.
This time, there’s pain.
So much of it.
My head is throbbing, my arms and legs feel as though the muscles have been torn from the bones, and my throat is burning with such ferocity I fear that even Fen would turn his nose up at it.
I would never eat your trachea, Little Raven, he sniffs, and I can’t deny the joy that sings through me to feel his mind next to mine.
Not unless you considered it an honour, Fen adds after a moment’s thought. And you wanted me to do so on your death.
No, that’s all right. I breathe a sigh of relief. Are you okay?
Of course I am, he replies with affront, as if the idea of him being harmed is ludicrous.
And Kyor? My heart hitches. Where is he?
Our mates both survived, he confirms, but the word survived doesn’t fill me with confidence.
I scramble up and, for the first time, look around me.
‘Gods, no…’ Tears sting my eyes at the sight in front of me.
Body after body piled on top of the snow.
Some with arrows in their chests, while some lie in bloody circles, evidence of the Issen ice spears plunged through their hearts.
But mostly the dead wear a familiar fern-like pattern on their skin, their eyes wide, not with a final gasp of pain but with disbelief.
Morathkians. Killed by their prince.
The thought is enough to rupture my already frail heart. Not for them, not for their loss of life, but for Kyor. For the marks I know he will surely feel he needs to add to the tally.
‘Kyor,’ I whisper out into the cold. ‘Kyor?’
My calls are met by silence, and I’ve just drawn a breath, ready to scream his name, when I spot him, kneeling over the crumpled torso of one of his own men. I stumble towards him, clambering over bodies, with no care given for the corpses that crack and bend beneath me.
‘Kyor!’ I cry out.
This time, he hears me, and when his eyes meet mine, there are tears trickling down his cheeks.
‘Why didn’t they just listen?’ he whispers in anguish. ‘Why didn’t they just listen to me? I’m supposed to be their prince. I’m supposed to lead them. Protect them.’
There’s so much grief emanating from him. Every inch of his body overflows with the pain he is suffering. Pain I would, at any other time, let him feel, but right now we don’t have that luxury.
‘I need you to listen to me.’ I take him by the shoulders and twist him around, forcing him to face me.
He shakes his head. ‘I killed them, Rose. All of them. On this side of the pyrrhic and beyond. Everyone.’
‘Kyor, I’m sorry for what you’re going through, and we’ll talk about it later, I swear, but we have something else we need to worry about right now,’ I reply.
His face pinches. ‘What can be more important than this?’ He gestures to all the bodies lying around him, dressed in a mix of black fighting leathers and the maroon of the knighted guards.
‘I saw the Rottings, Kyor. The Rottings, they’re going for Galreck. They’re going to destroy it.’
The change is instant. He straightens his back and looks at me. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. There were thousands of them,’ I say. ‘I saw them from above. As many as were waiting in that temple in my vision, maybe more. They’d already reached the outskirts of the slums. People were fighting them off, trying to give the others a chance to escape, but…’
‘The dagger.’ Kyor takes even less time than I did to understand. ‘They want the final dagger.’
I nod.
‘We have to stop them. Everyone in the slums, everyone in the city … they’re going to die if we don’t.’
‘Rose—’
‘She cannot get that fucking dagger, Kyor. We can’t let her.’