CHAPTER 41 #3
“Wake,” we repeated, and miles away in a hidden cave, a pair of slitted, peridot-green eyes opened.
ELDRETH
Late Autumn, Talmon 1036
I watched her, there on my knees in failing light.
My heart ached at the grief in her eyes.
Gerta was an innocent, and her loss was a needless waste of goodness and life.
But this fight wasn’t over. I had no desire or intention to die today, and I would do whatever I had to for her to live.
I let that scrawny bastard put his blade to my throat. I felt no fear.
I still had a promise to keep.
The air shifted, and something like lightning crackled. My eyes locked on her, stunning, even in blood-drenched clothes with more streaked through her hair. She was fucking beautiful, inside and out. She gripped her brother’s hand, and I braced for whatever was to come.
She began to glow. I smiled.
Gasps from the soldiers around me echoed down the lines.
Their useless, fat lord was shouting commands, but I could smell the fear.
They pulled away from Serae as her eyes glowed green and her skin shone with starlight.
Her flame-red hair danced with firelight as great wings of light erupted from her shoulders.
They were different this time. The light was more golden and flickering than the first time I’d seen them, but they were still radiant with the purest white light imaginable.
“Wake.”
The earth beneath me shifted. The blade at my neck fell away as the three-fingered wonder lost his footing.
“Wake.”
I was never one to hesitate.
Rolling forward, I kicked the lordling in his side and yanked the sword from his hand. The blade was trash, but the point was good enough. I plunged it through his shoulder, pinning him to the beach.
He screamed and flung his injured hand over his head, but he wasn’t my true target. Not today. It was time to keep my promise.
I whirled and charged straight for the margrave’s horse.
The animal spooked and reared up. I dodged its front legs, avoiding the hooves that kicked out, and grabbed the margrave by his tunic.
One strong jerk was all it took to relieve him of his seat and send him crashing to the ground.
The horse bolted forward, creating the exact diversion I needed.
This man, who should have been Serae’s protector and instead was her torturer, was finally at my mercy.
Except, when it came to mercy, mine had run cold. They were fools to accept an enemy into their midst fully armed. Even worse to accept me.
The margrave squirmed under my grip and reached for a dagger at his belt. A dagger. He didn’t even carry a sword. I retrieved it for him and plunged it through his hand and into his protruding belly. He howled in pain, and I relished every blubbering cry.
“Please,” he spluttered. “I’ll give you anything you want. Take her and go. The alliance will stand. I’ll see to it myself.”
I grinned as I looked down at him, and he shied away from the sight. “Tell me, Margrave, what incentive do I have to let you live, when your death would give me a true ally in your heir, and vengeance over the man who nearly killed my future wife?”
His eyes widened in horror. I dragged the moment out, letting him feel every ounce of fear as I pulled a short sword from my side.
I should have taken my time, slicing him to bits as he did to her.
Covering him in gashes until there was nothing left but a bloodied heap of flesh.
But Serae was still on that beach at risk, and it was now my job to keep her safe.
With one swift thrust, I sank my blade straight through the margrave’s throat.
I leaned down as he choked up blood, spluttering out the last seconds of his life.
“Serae is worth ten thousand of you,” I spat.
He clawed at the sword, slicing the fingers of his free hand apart, but I held it until he stilled.
Serae’s father was dead. I’d made her brother an early heir, and just a few hours ago, I’d nearly killed him, too.
Not a good track record for my first time meeting her family.
I didn’t have time to feel the doubt or guilt that hit me. I looked up and saw…trees.
The fucking trees were moving. Not just swaying with the wind but clambering across the beach. Branches and roots lashed out everywhere, strangling, crushing, and flinging soldiers in all directions. A branch whipped over my head, and I ducked.
The soldiers turned to fight this new enemy—some of them, at least. Others fled toward the beach. Some dove into the water—fucking idiots, they’d all sink—while the rest turned and ran down the coast.
Then, a blinding light exploded from Serae in a radiating arc.
It slammed into everyone around her, throwing back Inraen soldiers while absorbing into the Riht.
One by one, their heads rose. Some got to their feet.
By the time the light hit me, I already knew what to expect.
A wave of fire surged into my skull, healing the blow I’d taken to my temple.
It poured from her in heaving pulses until every Riht who hadn’t already been claimed by death rose to stand with weapons aloft.
“Protect her at all costs,” Sellan shouted, breaking me from my trance.
I turned and ran back down the beach. Screams sounded from every direction, but one more piercing than the rest.
“Raif!” It was Lispen—alive. “No, no, NO! RAIF!” Her voice descended into harrowing wails. For a moment, my heart fucking shattered for her.
“Lispen,” his voice rasped, “I’m here.” I turned to see Raif, surrounded by the bodies of soldiers Serae’s trees had slain, yanking bolts from his gut.
They made nothing but shallow cuts as he ripped them free instead of the deep gashes they’d been moments before.
Serae’s magic was astounding. The bolts had been pushed toward the surface, and though he bled when he pulled the bolts free, I had no doubts that the life-claiming damage had been reversed.
I didn’t have time to stop for their reunion as their bodies crashed together in the way I was desperate to grip Serae. She was providing us with a distraction, and I had to take it.
“Get everyone to the galley!” I shouted to Sellan as I ran straight for Serae. I could barely hear my voice over the ground rumbling and the violent wind in my ears.
Serae and Bale stood hand in hand at the edge of the shore.
Bale’s black hair whipped around him, but he was otherwise still.
Serae, on the other hand, was vibrating power.
It stopped me in my tracks. I watched in awe as she reached one arm to the sky.
Roots shot up from the ground and wrapped around limbs, torsos, and necks.
With a sweep of her arm, trees crashed down, crushing soldiers who hadn’t already fled.
All the while, the wings at her back moved in tandem with her arms, and a goddess-like light shone from her every pore.
Off to my side, Sellan was corralling our remaining warriors and shouting, “Get to the ship!” What was left of our troop turned and ran in pairs, hauling the bodies they could back to the longships. They needed proper death rites, which the Inraen would never give.
My focus remained clear—get Serae out. The three words chanted in a loop through my mind.
I scooped her up in my arms without stopping as I ran.
Her arm wrenched away from her brother, and he turned to me with wrath in his glowing eyes.
“Run!” I shouted, hoping he had the sense to listen.
I didn’t look back as I made for the ship.
Trudging through the waist-high water with Serae in my arms was no picnic, but once Ivank pulled her on board, I was able to grip the side and climb in myself. We were the last two in.
Our work wasn’t done yet. I moved to an oar.
With nearly half our numbers diminished, it would be harder to crew the ship with the speed I wanted, but not impossible.
Lispen sat at the stem and called out our strokes through a face streaked with blood and tears, but there was a smile on her lips.
We just needed to get far enough out for the wind to take over.
“Fire!” Branye called out, pointing back to shore.
I whipped around. Fire was an understatement.
A column of flame as high as the sky itself raged on the shoreline.
When it reached the clouds, it fanned out in a burning plume.
Flames rained down over the forest, igniting leaves and branches.
The column swirled the clouds above until a figure like the head of a great dragon with a gaping maw formed.
Whether it was breathing the fire in or out, I couldn’t tell.
I squinted into the epicenter of the white-hot magma. It was barely a speck on the ground, but the dark center almost looked like…
My eyes sought out Yaego, who immediately snapped her gaze to me. Judging by the shock on her face, she had spotted the same thing. Only once before had I beheld such a fire—on the worst day of my life. The day I got my scars.
“Where’s Bale?” Lispen called out.
I scanned our boat, but he wasn’t among our crew.
Yaego stood and scanned the length of the hull. Her lips pressed into a grim line. She grabbed the mast and climbed with a speed none could mirror. Yaego’s eyes scoured to the shoreline, then flicked down to me. One nod of her head, and I knew.
I drew in my oar and moved to the sternpost, leaning out as far as I could. Looking into the fire burned my eyes, but I deserved the pain. The column was diminishing. The figure in the middle collapsed to the pebbled beach, and the fire went out altogether, but I could still make out his likeness.
Fuck. Serae would never forgive me.