“I’m not sure, Princess. Maybe ransom you. Maybe use you as bait to draw out that traitor who gave up the Keep. Maybe I’ll just let you wonder for a bit.”
“Could you at least give me some space to breathe? Take your sword away from my throat. I promise not to run.”
“Oh, please. You think I should trust you after what you’ve done? How foolish would that be?”
She could hear the disgust in his voice. It made her smile. “Would you at least stop calling me Princess? My given name is Ajin. Call me that.”
“Fine. I’ll call you Ajin. But I still don’t trust you.”
“You know the Skaar won’t ransom me, don’t you? Even my father, were he here, wouldn’t ransom me. In spite of who I am, it isn’t the way we do things.”
“Then maybe I should just kill you, since you’re so useless otherwise.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You would never do that. Why don’t you try telling me what I can do to put things right? Maybe we can reach an accord.”
She heard his soft laugh. “An accord? Oh, well, that’s different. I didn’t realize you could bring the dead back to life. Or return the Keep from wherever it’s been sent.” The Blade shoved her up against a tree trunk. His sword shifted so that the edge was pressed against her throat. “Where are you from and why are you here?”
In the deep stillness of their forest concealment, she told him the details of the story behind the Skaar invasion—how their own land grew barren with an increase in severe cold and the coming of an endless winter, how their crops died and food and water grew scarce, how everything changed so quickly, how life became intolerable.
“The damage to our people is unimaginable. We are dying, our numbers reduced from millions to thousands. Our most vulnerable—our children, our old and sick, those weakened already from thirst or hunger—die every day. I have watched people I have known all my life perish. I watched my nurse and my favorite childhood playmates die. My dogs. My soldiers…”
Her words were bitter, her voice harsh. “It is the same everywhere—all throughout Eurodia, and in all of the other countries on the continent. Picture, if you will, whole populations who hunker down against the bitter winter and wait only to die. Without food and water, without warmth against the cold, what else is there to do? The weather changes are irreversible. The cold is deepening; even the southernmost lands of Eurodia are beginning to feel its bite.”
She paused. “I had a younger sister. She’s gone now, too. I tried to save her. I did everything I could think to do. When I wasn’t in the field, I was sitting right beside her. I bathed and fed her and saw her through what I thought was the worst of it. But she had always been fragile. The sickness returned quickly enough. She developed a pox that covered her face and hands. She pleaded with me, begging for relief. When I saw there was no hope and she was gasping for each breath and straining against the pain, I placed a pillow over her face and let her slip away.”
She paused, her eyes fixing on him. “When there is nowhere left to go and nowhere to stay, what do you do? I went to my father and begged him to send ships to search out distant lands in which we could make a new home. He did so, and our scouts found yours. We stole your airships and used their designs to build our own. Aquaswifts, we call them. Waters drawn from the oceans of our homeland and treated with chemicals power them. Aquaswifts are bigger and faster than your vessels. Our spies studied you for two entire years, here in your midst, and you never knew. Kol’Dre did most of the work. He is my Penetrator—my personal advance scout. He compiled information and sent it back for my father and his councilors. We knew everything about you before my father ordered me to come here with our advance force to prepare the way for the larger invasion. We knew you could be conquered. We know all your weaknesses.”
“Or you think you do, anyway.” Her captor’s response was laced with scorn.
She shrugged. “We know enough to take advantage—as you have just seen. You are a nation of many different Races and peoples and governments, and you lack a central ruling power. You are fragmented, and thus you are vulnerable. All you really have is your magic, and most of that was concentrated in the Druids. Without them, you cannot vanish at will, as we can. You cannot create images to fool your enemies into attacking empty air.”
“So you decided to eliminate them. You found a way into the Keep.”
“With the aid of one of your own. A Druid betrayed you.”
She saw recognition in his eyes. “Clizia Porse?” he asked quickly.
“Does it matter now?”
“It might, because she is still alive. I saw her afterward, when the Guardian was set loose. She was the one who sent Paranor into limbo. She’s dangerous, Ajin. You might live to regret leaving her alive.”
Ajin shrugged. “The end result is what matters. The demise of the Druids allows us to stop worrying about anyone using magic to oppose us. Now you must rely on your Federation’s rudimentary sciences and inefficient weapons to resist us. And we will destroy you.”
To her surprise, he smiled. “It sounds like you think this might be easy. Just walk right over us, cast us aside, settle in, and claim your new home. How long do you think it will take? A week or two?”
“I don’t fool myself into believing it will be that easy. I am a seasoned commander, and I have fought and won many battles. I know what it takes to subdue a population. I know the time required and the costs that must be paid. I am prepared for all of it.”
He gave a tired sigh. “You seem awfully young for someone so bloodthirsty.”
Her chin came up, and her gaze found his and held it. “I have not been young since I was twelve years old and watched my father banish my mother, and her replacement begin to plot against me. Do not make the mistake of underestimating me.”
“I would never do that,” he replied. “Though I am sorry for your past.”
“Do not be. I need no one’s pity. I have made my own way in the world for this long, and I will continue to do so. You should worry for yourself. Why not talk to me about an agreement that will allow you to stay alive?”
“I’m not the one with a sword at my throat.”
“But you were once, weren’t you? And not so long ago?”
He stared at her, his face a mix of emotions. She had touched a nerve, reminding him of how she had held him pinned on a cliffside and then let him live. She might have been better off killing him, although she didn’t think so. It had not felt right to kill one so brave and so loyal to his friends. It had not felt right to kill him when he was so helpless.
She saw that he remembered. Could she use it against him now?