CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
C HAPTER F IFTY- F IVE
Two swings of her ax. Three. Four. Hold and breathe.
Swing again.
The pattern returns to her like a loyal friend, moving familiar muscles in familiar ways. She swings the ax into the unstripped timber posts, buried hastily into the ground. The fence is no match for those born on the Ledge.
Two posts are felled quickly, and it is all they need. They split with a weak-sounding crack. Hector catches them before they can clatter to the earth.
Within, Ruby waits, a crowd of her guards on either side of her, whispering fiercely among the crowd.
Dawsyn slides her arm through the gap and gestures for Ruby to hurry, hurry.
The children are passed through first, whether by Ruby’s order or not, Dawsyn cannot be sure. She grabs their arms and pulls them through one by one, handing them off to Hector, who hurries them back into the tree line.
He looks back at Dawsyn from there in the underbrush, his eyes wide and anguished. She gives him a strained smile, nods once, and he disappears from sight, taking with him Abertha’s youth, Esra’s irreplaceable light, Salem’s warmth, and the hope of children who will grow away from the fucking mountain that looms beyond.
“Dawsyn,” Ruby calls to her, familiar brown eyes beseeching her from within the enclosure.
“Hello, captain,” Dawsyn says, stepping through the breach and into the holding.
Ruby smiles. “I expected an ax to the throat.”
Dawsyn shakes her head. “I found it difficult to accept that you’d turned on us.” She grasps Ruby’s plated shoulder. “I’m happy to find that you are on our side.”
Ruby pierces Dawsyn with an intense stare. “I never left it.”
Dawsyn looks out to the flock of people, filthy and bleeding. Some remain on the ground, too injured or sick to rise. But there are many so filled with rage that they stand tall, facing Dawsyn with bunched fists. She addresses them now.
“This night gives you your last chance of freedom,” she tells them, her voice low and careful. “The Queen of this land says we must go back to where we came. Back to the Ledge. But that is not the land we were made for. Our lungs were made for valley air. Our skin sewn for its sun. The hands of our parents and grandparents toiled this land, and our hands were meant to feel how it yields.” The last time Dawsyn spoke to her people in such a way, it was in the snow, on the precipice of their descent into the Chasm. She asked them to wager their lives on a chance for freedom then, and it was met with wariness, with fear.
But there is no Chasm here in the valley, nothing that threatens to tip them off the side of a cliff. The frost does not creep in, cracking their lips and burning their fingers. The cold is not a threat here, where the warmth of the sun sticks to the earth even after it sets. When Dawsyn looks to her people now, she sees not wariness, but eagerness. Not fear, but the kind of courage bred in those who have survived many storms and are yet to be thwarted.
“We are outnumbered,” she continues. “But we have the mixed-blooded Glacians on our side and fifty years of vengeance. And we will have to let it be enough.”
“Then it will be enough,” comes a familiar voice.
Nevrak steps forward, his eyes illuminated by nothing more than a deep, deep hunger. And Dawsyn wonders if he might be right. What match are those in Terrsaw, against those who fought the cold and won?
“Our allies wait in the trees,” Dawsyn says. “They will lend you weapons. Move quickly and stay hidden. Wait for my call to reveal yourselves.”
Ruby smiles viciously. “Do not keep us waiting long,” she says and leads the way through the fence.
Dawsyn walks alone out into the open now and it is not to the opponent she has long since come to expect. It is to a woman who cowers back into the ranks of her guard. It is to a Glacian King who breathes heavily beneath the oppressive heat of the fertile season.
Despite the overwhelming number of Terrsaw guards who choke the hills of the valley, Dawsyn approaches unafraid. She swings her ax to her shoulder and rests it there. She watches civilians of Terrsaw stutter in their attempt to welcome the Ledge survivors with welcome arms, only to find the Fallen Village primed for battle. She can feel their confusion, their fear.
She wonders how Queen Alvira can possibly continue to rule them, after this night bleeds to morning.
She wonders if maybe this battle can be won before it begins.
“Alvira!” she calls, letting her voice ring out. She sees the heads of the Terrsaw men and women turn to the sound of it. She sees them jostle one another, point toward her in the bowl of the hills, sauntering out of the Fallen Village. “Do not go so soon.”
Alvira whips around, eyes bulging at the sight of her. “Sabar,” she mouths.
“Do not delay on my account,” Dawsyn continues, gaining ground. “The Glacians are naturally weakened by the heat and your numbers far outweigh theirs. Command your soldiers to kill the Glacians.”
There is a silence and in it she sees Ryon stare at her in wonder, she sees Rivdan smile. She hears Adrik curse her and take out his sword and she raises her ax in response.
But Alvira does nothing.
And all of Terrsaw watches on.
“You’ve an entire army at your back, Your Majesty!” Dawsyn shouts. “Do you mean to have them kill the Glacians or your own people?”
She hears the hushed murmurs, the first rumblings of dissent. The same dissent that has been simmering since she first found herself in a Terrsaw dungeon. She remembers their chants, there was suspicion arising even then.
Surely the Queen will not wage this war before them.
But there is no calculation in Alvira’s eyes. No careful manipulation shaping her lips. From the way she breathes through her teeth, Dawsyn suspects that sense and logic no longer drive her.
“I am the Queen of this kingdom,” she heaves. “I have served it, devoted my life to it, and it will serve me in return for what I have given, what I have sacrificed! I will not allow a child to take it from me.”
The Terrsaw guards nearest to her break from their steadfast positions. They look amongst one another, their understanding of this battle now changed. Who are they fighting for? For what cause?
“It is over,” Dawsyn says loudly. “And we need not heed to the whims of this pathetic King and his contingent.”
“Ah,” Adrik calls to her. “But you are wrong there, girl. We Glacians must drink after all. I insist on it. We may retreat today if the need arises. But know that we will return in larger numbers every week, every day if we must , and we will take any human in reach.” Adrik turns to the people of Terrsaw, his voice ripping across the distance. “WE TAKE THE LEDGE PEOPLE NOW,” he roars. “OR WE RETURN TO TAKE YOU ALL!”
Rivdan laughs, a low rumble that does not fail to reach Adrik’s ears. “You were always far-reaching, Adrik,” he says. “I used to think it optimism. Now I know it is only stupidity. How exactly do you propose to take them all?”
“I am the King of Glacia,” Adrik says righteously, his chin lifted. “And the mixed-blooded that I liberated from the Colony will do whatever I ask of them!”
Rivdan grins then. It is only just visible beneath his unruly beard. He raises his fingers to his lips and whistles once. It is loud and piercing, and at its sounding the reverberations of wings rent the air.
The sky fills with them, hundreds, rising from the trees, and flying toward them. They circle the sky above and Dawsyn watches with her heart in her throat as the archers on the hills change the trajectory of their arrows, tracking the mixed-blooded in flight.
“They do obey their liberator, Adrik,” Ryon says, his expression blank and indifferent. “Though it was never you. Was it?”
Adrik’s mouth gapes as he watches the mixed come to land behind Dawsyn, stretching in a line on either side of her, unsheathing their weapons threateningly, their steel flashing.
And the first lines of Terrsaw guards begin to back away, unsure now, unwilling.
Alvira stumbles forward, madness seemingly having claimed her. “The Ledge-dwellers are beasts!” she screeches, and she hardly resembles the regal Queen her people recognise. “They belong on the mountain, with the rest of the Mother’s base creatures! I will not allow them on this land! I will not allow an ax-wielding savage to take the throne!”
Dawsyn only smiles. She takes the ax from her shoulder and turns it over in her hand. She does not miss the way it makes Alvira recoil. “If I wanted your crown, I’d have passed this ax through your neck and relieved you of it upon our first meeting,” Dawsyn says. “It is what we savages do.”
She raises her ax over her head then, holding it there, and she does not turn to watch as the survivors of the Ledge, the ancestors of the Fallen, move from the trees to join her. But she feels them. She sees it in the eyes of the army before her, in the eyes of Alvira and Adrik. She hears it in the cheers of the Terrsaw civilians. They cry and chant at the approach of the Ledge-dwellers, battered and bruised but returned to the valley. Returned to their own kind.
“I will relieve you of your head now, Your Majesty,” Dawsyn says loudly, cutting through the cheers renting the air. “Unless you surrender.”
“Enough of this!” Adrik calls, summoning his wings. “Give the order!” he commands Alvira.
And Alvira, with lips that shudder with the force of her rage, bares her teeth, then shouts. “ARCHERS! FIRE!”
And the arrows rain down.
They are impossible to see against the night sky. There is only the repeated sound of strings released, and then the pending silence before they land.
“Take cover!” Ryon shouts, but there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to take shelter out here in the open. And though the guards nearest to them have become reluctant, frightened even, the archers atop those hills have not heard the declarations of a maddened Queen. They fire upon her order.
Dawsyn does not duck as the arrows fall. She does not turn her back and run, nor lift her hands to shield her face. Instead, she feels all the blistering heat in her mind combine with the burning cold of her core, and she lets it all out. She allows it to obliterate.
She sends her power into the air, picturing every one of those arrows splintering down to their shafts, and she roars as it escapes her. She wills her body not to splinter with them.
The smell of burning wood fills the air as the arrows explode. All at once, they shatter mid-flight, dropping shards of wood and metal arrowheads harmlessly down to the ground.
Silence follows.
Alvira gapes at the sky, then looks at Dawsyn, shock marring the hatred she is made of.
Dawsyn feels her limbs become lead and her lungs struggle for breath, acutely aware of how empty she is of any remaining power.
Ryon, too. He moves backwards toward her, his swords raised. “You have one last chance to end this now, Alvira,” Ryon says only to her. “You cannot win this fight.”
“That is where you misunderstand me, half-breed,” Alvira says, her maddened eyes set on Dawsyn. “I do not intend to survive another day, if I must surrender this crown.”
And Dawsyn sees it then, that there will be nothing said or done that could dissuade her, nothing could ever satiate the need for power.
“KILL THEM!” she roars to her army, her voice echoing along the hills.
But the army does not heed the call. It rustles with confusion, the men on the frontline unwilling to move forward.
“We need not heed the commands of a mad woman!” comes Ruby’s voice instead. She steps forward among the mixed, her armour marking her as one of the army’s own.
“KILL THEM!” Alvira shouts again. “CHARGE. NOW!”
Again, the army barely stirs. The witnesses continue their chanting and cheering, and the mixed Glacians stand behind a human, unwilling to attack until she summons them to.
But Adrik waits no longer.
With a curse, he lifts his sword. “ENOUGH! If there is to be a fight, then let it begin.” And he charges forward, meeting Rivdan halfway and bringing his sword down upon the male’s own, the two coming together with a thunderous clash.
Now the other white-winged Glacians rush forward, their weapons drawn, and Dawsyn and Ryon are already swinging, already leading their battalion forward into this inevitable fray.
Dawsyn’s ax meets the sword of a Glacian, and she parries it, drawing a blade in her free hand. She ducks low as he swings again, sinking the knife into his side and pulling it free. She fells another before he can truly reach her, throwing her ax into his chest as he runs, sword raised. She retrieves it before he falls and moves onward.
It is Alvira she seeks. Alvira pushing her men into the battle, ordering them to join the fight. Some dive into the ravel, but most refuse, ignoring her commands.
Dawsyn approaches and Alvira stills, her face going slack with fear.
Dawsyn does not fear. She stands before the Queen of Terrsaw, the maelstrom of battle continuing behind her, and lets her ax fall to the ground.
“This will be your last chance to kill me,” Dawsyn says, hands out and empty. “Be sure you do it properly.”
Alvira turns and grabs the collar chest plate of the nearest soldier, thrusting him forward. “Execute her!” she demands, vessels popping in her eyes. “NOW! Execute her!” But the soldier refuses. He takes off his helm and throws it to the ground along with his sword.
Dawsyn tilts her head at Alvira. “The time for delegating murder is over. It will need to be you, Alvira.”
Roaring her ire to the sky, Alvira stumbles forward. She takes the discarded sword from the dirt and, without skill, raises it with two hands above her head. She hurtles to where Dawsyn stands, bellowing to the stars.
And Dawsyn smiles. That old, inherited wrath that was bred into her from her mother, her grandmother, awaits this moment, and it is enough to replenish whatever strength had been sapped.
She knocks the sword aside easily as Alvira brings it down. She lets the momentum of the woman’s clumsy footing guide her body toward Dawsyn’s waiting arms. She hears the clatter as the sword falls to the ground and pushes her forearm tightly against Alvira’s throat.
The Queen struggles, her back to Dawsyn’s front, each movement finding her windpipe constricted beneath the hold of Dawsyn’s arm.
There is nowhere for her to go, not against a Sabar. Not against a girl from the Ledge.
Dawsyn’s other hand rests against the back of Alvira’s head.
Her lips move beside Alvira’s ear.
“For Valmanere Austrina Sabar,” Dawsyn tells her, “And every soul lost to the cold, to the Ledge.”
Dawsyn pulls her hand to the right and listens for the sharp snap of the Queen’s neck.
The sound elicits not a single ounce of remorse.