CHAPTER 43
DRAKNOR LANDING
Drakens have not crossed Vallennan shores in over three hundred years.
– Caldris Historical Record, Vol. XIII
The morning Draknor would land, the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, dawned cold and grey.
And if there had ever been a heavier morning, Kara could not remember it.
The camp seemed to even breathe silently – thousands of men and women waiting, not for victory, but for death, for grief, for agony yet to come.
No one spoke. Not really. They’d all risen before the sun.
Orders were muttered, shields strapped tighter, blades honed again and again, though they still did not feel sharp enough for what was coming.
The stillness was worse than panic, worse than action.
It allowed her too much time for her mind to wander.
To envisage the worst scenarios. Kara didn’t leave Sebastian’s side.
Nothing would pull her from him now. Their bond pulsed with dread, her fear of losing him was mirrored in his own.
They ate a little, for strength’s sake, around the fire with Veyra, Kaelen, and Serena.
“We have a few hours yet,” Veyra said knowingly. Her children nodded in solemn agreement.
“Do we win?” Sebastian blurted out.
Veyra studied the flames for a long moment before answering.
“It is... unclear. There are too many decisions not yet made.” She paused, and for just a moment, her composure cracked.
Her hands trembled. But when her gaze lifted, her face was carefully impassive.
“I cannot promise you victory, but today, we have a chance. A true chance. And that is more than most battles allow.”
Kara’s heart sank.
A chance. That’s it?
Sebastian glanced down at Kara, his fear for her evident. “Then tell me this, if you can. If we survive this... if we drive Draknor back–” his jaw tensed, “–will the Council try to take Kara again? Bind her like before?”
“Captivity does not lie in her future, Warrior. That is clear.”
What about grief? Does grief lie in my future?
But she didn’t dare ask. Some answers were too terrible to hear aloud. Sebastian let out a long, slow breath, and fell silent, lost in thought. His hand brushed his satchel unconsciously. “We shouldn’t risk the Arcanth out there. If I fall, it could end up in their hands–”
“It will not,” Veyra cut in. “It will remain at the rear with my people. Fatàn will shield it. Nothing will touch it.”
Sebastian gave a sharp nod, and with surprisingly little hesitation, handed the satchel over to Veyra.
Finally, when they could delay no longer, Kara walked at Sebastian’s side over to the Thorne army.
Sebastian’s voice carried over the sea-wind, firm and commanding as he called the men to him.
Captains and lieutenants gathered quickly, their soldiers forming ranks as orders rolled from his tongue like he’d been born for this moment.
Kara stayed close, terror and admiration warring in equal measure inside her.
Tobias appeared next to them, carrying two sets of armour.
One was unmistakably Sebastian’s – a dark metal breastplate with the silver dagger wrapped in thorns emblazoned across the chest. The other was lighter – a sleek steel – also engraved with the Thorne sigil.
“You’re riding front line,” Tobias said. “You wear protection.”
Kara looked to Sebastian as she took it, who was clearly unsurprised. Of course she’d need armour.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said, eyeing all the straps and buckles.
She watched Sebastian tie his own, lacing up his breastplate and bracers with fast, efficient movements.
Finally, he reclaimed a crimson cloak from one of his men.
The transformation was instant. The man she loved was replaced by the Commander his soldiers needed.
Then he turned to her, saw her holding the breastplate like she’d never seen one before and his lips twitched. His expression almost amused.
“You have no idea how to put that on, do you?”
“Not even remotely,” she admitted.
“Come here.”
She stepped closer, and he took it from her, lifting it over her head and moving it into place against her chest. The weight of it surprised her, her crimson surging automatically.
Sebastian’s fingers moved quick and practised over the straps.
When he was done, he cast his eyes over her.
Relief, and something deeper moved through the bond at the sight of her in Thorne armour. But he just murmured, “Better.”
She watched as he and Tobias checked every corner of the encampment once again, refusing to leave doubt anywhere.
The battlefield formed exactly as planned.
Sorrel’s bowmen were ready on the north and south ridges and mountainside, their quivers full, Evelyn amongst them, joined by groups of Caldris and Lyrans.
Durent axes and hammers stood ready behind their barricades of stone and timber, set to hold the field if the enemy broke through Thorne’s ranks.
Kara recognised Merrick’s sons amongst them.
Strange, to fight beside those who hated her.
But Draknor cared nothing for grudges. The Healers tents had been pitched further back, but on all sides as she’d suggested, green banners marked high so the wounded could see them in the chaos.
The Navyrian ships’ blue sails billowed in the wind as they braced themselves offshore to meet Draknor at sea.
Sebastian spoke with their admirals briefly, grim nods exchanged, then turned back to his own men.
When at last there was nothing left to check, no more words to give, Sebastian and Kara took their places at the front of the line.
Behind them, the Thorne infantry had formed up on the sand, covering the half-mile depth and stretching the width of the shore.
Disciplined. Silent. The kind that only came from men who had done this before, and knew exactly what was coming.
The barricades held behind them, their fall-back position if the beach fell.
Kara mounted her valmare and drew up beside Sebastian and Tobias, both flaring matching crimson.
She summoned her own magic and was surprised to find that it was crimson that answered first. A command rippled through the Fatàn ranks, and a shield roared into existence, vast and unbroken, covering their entire defensive position, arching over soldiers, tents, and the ships offshore.
Everyone was in position. As ready as they ever would be.
This is it.
“Sebastian?”
He turned to her.
“I love you. More than anything.”
“I love you too, Kara. Stay by my side, okay?”
She nodded. “Don’t worry about me. I was taught by the best warrior in Vallenna.”
He smiled at her before she looked back out to the sea. And then she saw them. Black sails. Dozens. Hundreds even – until the horizon itself was swallowed by them.
Draknor had come.
Their bond jolted. Sebastian’s fear for her safety spiked so intensely that it stole her breath. He was terrified of how exposed she was. She pushed back fiercely through it – warmth, strength, her vow that she wouldn’t leave him. Not now. Not ever.
Tobias’s voice rang out, loud and commanding. “Hold your ground.” Then lower, for Sebastian and Kara alone, his gaze fixed on the shield above them. “Now we see if Vallenna stands.”
Their darkness struck first.
Black magic slid across the waves like oil, tendrils of shadow curling against the Fatàn shield.
The deep ruby arc above them shuddered and groaned under the weight of it, spider-web cracks forming.
Gasps rippled through the lines of soldiers.
They were going to get through. Kara’s pulse raced.
The dread that had haunted her all morning came to life before her eyes.
Like falling into a nightmare. Beside her, Sebastian’s hand flexed on the hilt of his blade, crimson burning across his knuckles.
“Steady,” Tobias commanded.
The shadows slammed harder, the sound echoing across the field, making the shield flare with sparks of ruby and ebony light.
Kara’s valmare shifted beneath her, sensing the wrongness in the air.
Then she heard it – a loud metallic rip.
A jagged tear appeared in the shield in the north-west corner.
It had taken them less than fifteen minutes.
The tear was only about twenty feet wide, but wide enough for three Draken ships to surge immediately through the breach.
Shadows poured with them, sails black as night, straight towards the Navyrian vessels waiting in the bay.
Their forces responded immediately, sailors bellowing, waves rising like walls, glimmering with the sapphire-blue magic under their command.
One Draken ship capsized in a thunder of spray, another split clean down its hull as water magic slammed into it.
For a breathless, impossible moment, Kara thought they might hold the sea.
The hope lasted less than a minute. With a sound that was a mix of a thunderclap and glass breaking, the entire Fatàn shield gave way, shattering into fragments of light that fluttered around them.
Shouts of fear and shock echoed down the line.
No one had expected the Fatàn shield to fall so quickly.
Veyra’s people scrambled to recast – but this time the dome shrank, flaring only across the sand and fields.
Shieldweavers tried desperately to throw their magic back across the sea – to protect the Navyrians as planned – but every time their magic touched the Drakens black, it guttered and died.
Draken ships engulfed the bay. Their shadow magic bled mist-like and insidious across the sea, swallowing the Navyrian ships.
Silence fell, but moments later came the sound of wood breaking apart.
Then screams. Hundreds of them. When the mist cleared, the Navyrian ships were all but gone, their sailors pitched into the sea. With no shield to protect them.